Once he was tuned to the molecular structure of the wall, he felt his own body stretching toward it. The effect was wrenching and uncomfortable, almost as if he was being pulled apart. He still stood in the exact same spot, but his skin and insides felt as if they were being lifted from his own body and being dragged inside the cement.

He took a breath. There was always that moment where he wasn’t certain he would actually go through with such an unnatural act. His bones ached. His head felt as if it might explode. He never brought weapons with him or he stashed them outside the wall of whatever building he was entering. They wouldn’t go through with him.

Clothing had been a major problem at first, but he’d spent a great deal of time in his lab, coming up with a material that could cling to his skin and break apart in the same way as his body and then reassemble on the other side.

He stepped close and pressed into the green slime, embracing the rock and allowing it to consume him. That was exactly how it felt, as if a giant had wrenched him apart and taken him into its very mouth. There was no light, no sense of being for one terrible moment and he could hear the familiar screaming in his head. Even his intellect couldn’t overcome that human response of being ripped apart and absorbed.

There was no way to breathe, to get air. He was never certain if he actually had lungs in that moment, or if they’d been ripped from his body. He counted in his head. He knew exactly how long each pass through various materials took, depending on the denseness of what he was going through, but he’d never attempted a wall so solid or so thick.

He found himself on the other side, shuddering, gasping for breath, his heart pounding, his skull too tight for his brain, and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. At the same time, he was aware of the two soldiers, whose backs were to him. He was close enough to reach out and touch them. They both were absorbed with tormenting the babies, who were in separate cells.

Both girls, looking identical to Ginger, cringed in the back of their cells. Clearly the three girls were triplets, not from individual eggs but a single egg split. One had tears running down her face but there was no sound. The men had a long metal prod they were using to poke through the bars. On the end of one was a curved open hook they were using to try to snag the neck of the crying child, clearly to drag the baby in close to them. The other had a glass with a cloth stretched over it.

There was no doubt in Trap’s mind they were attempting to “milk” the venom from the child. Trap wasn’t like Wyatt. He didn’t feel anger often. In fact, he rarely felt emotion, he was always far too occupied with finding answers to the problems running around in his head. Seeing two grown men, grinning like apes, poking at babies set his blood to a slow boil.

Both children saw him instantly, but neither indicated his presence to the soldiers. He reached out and caught the nearest man’s head, snapping the neck forcibly, using both enhanced speed and enhanced strength. He was on the second man before the soldier could pick up his weapon, a semiautomatic he’d propped near the door. Instead, the soldier went for his knife.

Trap clamped his hand down hard around the soldier’s, trapping the man’s fingers around the weapon. “Don’t be scared,” he said aloud to the babies. “Pepper’s coming. Your mother’s coming. She sent me to help you.”

He didn’t know how much they understood, but Ginger understood a lot. Clearly she was a brilliant child. Whitney had deliberately used the egg and sperm of two geniuses with the hope of producing intelligent children. If Ginger was any indication, the man had succeeded in that regard.

Trap drove the soldier back away from the children toward the opposite side of the enclosed space. There wasn’t a lot of room. The man’s back hit the elevator doors, the sound loud. Pepper had told him the prison was soundproof, and he hoped she was right. The soldier punched him with his free hand, three rapid shots to the face. Trap stepped close, crowding the man, slamming his head into the soldier’s head and then bringing up his fist to punch through the Adam’s apple.

He let the body drop to the floor. I’m in. I’m armed. Both children are here in separate cells. If I can get them to trust me, I’ll open the cells. Pepper, get moving. It’s definitely a trap, Wyatt. They had two soldiers waiting. Soldiers, not civilian guards.

You’re on, Pepper, Wyatt said. Trap, don’ take any chances. Pepper will get there fast. She already knows the way. Wait for her.

One is crying, Wyatt, and the other is about to.

Damn it, Trap, you follow orders. Don’ you go near them until Pepper’s there. Wyatt rarely displayed emotion during a mission, but his alarm definitely came through.

Trap turned his attention to the children, keeping a distance from the cell doors. He signed to them that Pepper had sent him and she was on her way. He wanted to open the cell doors but didn’t want them to be afraid.

Neither moved for a moment, but he was certain they were communicating. One of them signed fast. He frowned, trying to read the tiny moving hands. He’d learned signing, of course, from the books he’d read. It hadn’t been that difficult, and his mind instantly remembered, but seeing the movements made with such little fingers was an altogether different thing.

“You’ll have to slow down,” he said aloud. “I’m not the best at reading sign.”

He added the words, using his sign language as well. One of the girls came close to the bars of her cell and raised her arms in the air, repeating the signs she’d made before, this time much slower.