YOU’VE JUST REACHED the hallway door when the lights go out. Rafe opens it a crack and looks into the corridor. Everything is dark. There’s silence, and then the lights come back on, but they’re dimmed.
“Something short-circuited,” a voice down the hall yells. “Get in touch with Rob, see if he knows what happened.”
“Generator’s working,” someone calls. “Thank god. Is it just our floor?”
You hear quick, uneven footsteps as people emerge from their offices. Doors open and close. A figure in a white coat hurries past, then disappears down the hall opposite you.
“This isn’t random,” Rafe says. “The code triggered something. They shut off the power to create chaos. The hunters are here.”
“If the generators are working, the elevators are working. We can try getting out that way. People won’t want to use them.”
You step into the hall, looking toward the stairwell where Ben and Salto were hiding, watching through the door. The window is empty. They’re not there.
You check the phone in the front pocket of your sweatshirt, but there are no missed calls, no texts to say where they went. They wouldn’t have left without word. . . .
“We need to get Ben and Salto,” you say. “Something’s not right.”
“Maybe he freaked out,” Rafe suggests.
“He wouldn’t do that,” you say, already heading toward the stairwell.
Rafe shakes his head. “We have to get out of here, Lena. They’ll meet us back at the camp.”
“Please, just one minute.”
“Lena . . .”
You throw him the disposable phone. “Just in case.”
You go to the stairwell, opening the door slowly to minimize the sound. The steps are only half lit, every other floor in shadow. Salto and Ben aren’t on the landing. You go up one flight to check if they changed positions, or tried to exit a different way. You hear Salto yell somewhere below, then the sound of a scuffle.
Peering over the railing, you see Salto struggling with a man three flights down. He wears a simple navy coat and jeans, a baseball cap shielding his face. She has a handful of the man’s coat and pulls him backward. He stumbles and hits the wall, making a low gasping sound. Salto tries to swipe at him, but he regains his balance and pushes her away.
You race down the stairs, launching yourself onto the hunter’s back. You wrap your arms around his neck and squeeze, trying to cut off his air supply. He thrashes under your weight, spinning around, trying to get free. He thrusts himself backward—ramming you into the hard concrete wall, over and over. You squeeze harder, but the last blow hits the base of your skull. Pain explodes in your head and you lose your grip on his neck.
You fall off and hit the ground, hard. You roll over onto your side, trying to stand, as Salto launches herself at the hunter once more. He gets a hand free, pulls a gun from the back of his jeans, and shoots. The bullet rips through her shoulder and enters the wall, sending up a small cloud of plaster and dust.
You take the knife from your belt and hurl yourself at him, landing one clean slice across his side. He flinches and takes a step back. Your next cut is at his wrist, your hand darting out so quickly he doesn’t pull his arm away in time. He drops the gun.
You have him now. You hold the knife up, coming at him. He takes one step backward, toward the wall.
The sound of footsteps thundering up the stairs distracts you and you turn, bracing yourself for another hunter, another attack. But it’s just Ben, breathless, hurtling himself around the stairs and up onto the landing. In the moment it takes you to register his arrival, the hunter races up one flight of stairs and leaves the stairwell through a door above.
You don’t bother to chase him—you’re more concerned with Salto. You kneel down beside her. The bullet hit her in her right shoulder, just above her bicep, before burying itself in the wall. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Ben already has her cradled in his arms. One hand is over the wound, pressing down, his fingers red with blood.
“I went to go find Aggy and Devon,” he says. “I only left for five minutes.”
“We have to move.” You text Rafe to meet you outside the hospital, in the alleyway.
Salto winces, holding her arm in pain.
“More of them might be coming. . . .” Ben helps Salto stand and she leans against his chest.
You glance up the stairwell, nervous that the man will come back this way. You pull off your baggy sweatshirt and help it over her head, easing her hands into the sleeves.
“You have to walk out of here like everything is normal,” you tell her, your voice even. “You have to do that for us, just until we get outside.”
You comb her hair away from her face, wiping a smear of blood from her cheek. She’s losing color. You don’t know how much time you have.
The ninth floor is only half lit. Someone down the hall is calling for emergency procedures, urging a few visitors to head back to the lobby. A group of nurses is clustered at the end of the hall. You don’t look at them as you turn right, then take another right toward the elevators. Ben is walking with Salto, their heads down. You hit the elevator button, over and over again, as you wait for them to catch up.
“We have to get her back to base,” you say. “Where were Aggy and Devon?”
“They were outside, on the other end of the hospital—I told them to go. They’re probably already back there,” Ben says.
Inside the elevator, Salto leans against the wall, clutching the metal bar behind her. She holds her arm to her side at an awkward angle. “He came out of nowhere,” she says.
“Opening those files triggered an alarm. We didn’t know until it was too late.”
The elevator descends another floor, then another. The buttons above the door light up as they count down. Six . . . five . . . four . . .
“I’m done. It’s over for me.” Salto shakes her head. “How am I going to get away from them when I can’t even move my arm? How am I going to fight back?”
“We’ll take care of you,” Ben says. “We’ll keep you hidden.”
Salto covers her face with her hand. “You’re hurt, too, Ben. What happens when they find us? What then?”
“They won’t get to us—not before we get to them,” you say. “Ben, take her to base and Rafe and I will track down the lead Reynolds gave us. He told us about a drop-off point where the hunters met for pickups or treatment.”
“That could be a trap,” Ben says.
“We don’t have anything else to go on,” you say. “So we don’t have a choice.”