There's guards on all sides of me packed so thickly, they're having to brush the walls even in the wide walkways. They didn't bring any kind of handcuffs or anything, so I'm being watched with a few guns at the ready. A few of these ones, the ones closest to me, aren't human.

I assume they're Hunters, since we're more trained for fighting. If their Protectors are around here somewhere, it'll be an issue. But if they're alone, I can still take out quite a few before I'm knocked unconscious or killed.

We near an elevator and the horde shuffles to a stop in front of it. Two people step forward to seize my arms.

I know I was probably imagining being able to see Tarak, but on the off chance it's some kind of power of Augustus's, I have to imagine it was real. Which means the largest concentration of heat signatures is on the second floor. Many of them had been lying down, or sometimes even strapped down, so I assume that's where our friends are. If I bring most of the first-floor guards with me, that already clears a path for the girls. Now, the only thing I can hope is I'm being dragged to the second floor, not the third.

The elevator dings and the pack squeezes in with me at the center. Briefly, the elevator starts to play music and I almost laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"Man, I love this song," I tell the guard to my right, looking into her brown eyes.

Her eyes widen and her head jerks back a touch, like I've cursed at her. "Huh?"

"Don't tell me you don't like-."

The elevator dings again and her grip tightens on my arm. If I weren't a Hunter, she'd have snapped my bone. They haul me onto the white linoleum floors and present me to a woman at a reception desk in the middle of a four-way intersection.

She looks up over her glasses. "Another one? Why does he need an armed escort?"

The Hunter on my right takes a step forward. "Ma'am, this is Mason Crane. Singh wants to monitor him directly. He's not allowed out of our sight until she gets here."

"She's not already here?" I ask.

The Hunter glances at me, but says nothing.

The receptionist looks me up and down, trying to understand why Singh gives a damn about little old me.

I grin at her, which makes her brows furrow even closer together.

"Very well. We've got an open room at the end of C wing."

"Move," someone snaps, shoving me to the right, almost into the Hunter there.

I glance at the man and absolve to punch him first. I turn and walk, watching the Hunter's brown ponytail sway back and forth until we start passing doors. This place doesn't have the glass, zoo-like walls of the facility. Instead, the doors have tiny windows, barely large enough to see a face through.

I smell metal all around me and can only assume they've reinforced the walls. I keep my head swiveling back and forth, trying to catch glimpses through each window until the man behind me smacks my head and barks at me to stop. Gritting my teeth, I close my eyes instead, forcing my ears to focus on every tiny sound made in the rooms around me.

The first second of cacophony nearly drives me to my knees. It's like the time I got my head stuck in a tuba at the orphanage and someone tried to blow to unstick me.

I have to force myself to filter through the noise and focus until I hear footsteps pacing back and forth. Back and forth.

Everyone else on this floor is letting out groans, or sharp breaths, or crying. But whoever is pacing is swinging their fists at the air, growling into their teeth.

I don't know which of my friends it is, only that it is one of them.

Only problem is, they're in the hall straight across from the elevator, not this one.

I stop dead in my tracks.

The man behind me shoves me, but he's human, so he can't. "Hey! What kind of game do you think you're playing?"

Time feels like it slows as the Hunter in front of me starts to turn, her ponytail lifting in a wide arch as she spins.

I turn with her, but even my body feels like it's only going an inch a minute. I get my fist balled and lifted as I go, and time snaps back to normal as soon as my fist connects with the man's face.

"OOF!" he exhales as the guards behind him attempt to catch him. They all skid a few inches. Blood begins to pour out of the man's nose and a tooth clatters on the linoleum.

"Grab him!" the Hunter shouts from behind me.

I slam backwards, into her, knocking my head into her nose.

"Ack!" She tries to shove me forward, but I keep plowing into her until we've paved a path through the guards behind us. At that point, she drops to the ground and I attempt to stomp on her.

Before I can, someone jumps on my back and gets their arm around my throat. "G'off," I shout, muffled by their arms. I tip forward, dumping them onto the Hunter, who yelps as they fall on her ribs.

Another Hunter comes at me, swinging.

I catch their arm, but it's not as easy to toss them back as it is a human. We push against each other, eye to eye, sweat dripping down their forehead. "You're going to lose," I hiss into their face.

They push back, baring their teeth. "What makes you so sure?"

"Because I'm not afraid to play dirty." I spit directly into the Hunter's eye.

They bellow and stumble back, tripping over the guards' feet and going down like a bowling pin.

"Ha."

I get punched in the face.

Whoever did it lets out a soft whimper, drawing their fist into their chest.

I lick the blood from my split lip and give the guy a pitying look. "You human?"

She nods.

I grab him by the front of their shirt and drag her off their feet. "At least you won't feel the broken hand anymore," I assure him. I swing them at a wall and they hit it with enough force to make dust rain down on all of us. "Like a pinata," I tell the Hunter lady, who's getting to her feet. "Try again?" I pull the guy back.

"Stop!" she shouts. She tackles me around the waist and we go down together.

My right shoulder hits the floor and she slams into my left one to really make my spine want to eject itself.

She gets me on my back and pins my arms on either side of my head. "Singh will be here any minute! What do you think you're accomplishing!?"

I stop squirming and for a minute, we both listen to the gurgling and groaning of her fellow soldiers. I meet her eyes and fire bounces from blood cell to blood cell until all of me burns with hatred. "Accomplishing?" I growl. "I assume your scientists were locked away for security when I showed up. So, every second I'm here, I accomplish one second of peace for the people you all are torturing here!"

"Torturing!?" She tightens her grip on my wrists, sitting forward over me. "We're not torturing anyone! We're looking for a cure!"

"Oh," I sigh, with every ounce of disappointment I can muster. Which is a lot. "Is that what lie she's spun to get you to do this? Didn't the Academy teach us better?"

"What? You think you know everything because you're Mason Crane?" she snarls. "Because your mommy and daddy were Singh's enemy, you think you have to be too? Is it so hard to look around you and realize she's not the bad guy!? All of us lose someone to the Infection, Crane! Some of us are willing to go to any length to end it!"

I slide my hand onto her thigh and squeeze. "I understand."

"NO!" she shouts, face blotchy and saliva gathering at the corners of her mouth. "You don't know what we're doing here!"

"I know it's not looking for a cure. I'm not the one who needs to take a look around me. I understand sacrifice and loss. I understand the greater good and-and the needs of the many over the needs of the few. But this isn't that. Singh doesn't want to end the Infection. She wants to make it worse. If she wanted to cure it, she'd be bringing Infected people here to test on. She's bringing healthy people. People that no one will look for. Tell me you haven't been blind to that."

Her hands loosen on my wrists. "I-."

A gun cocks.

Both of us look up and although I'm looking upside down, I recognize the receptionist.

Her face is stony as she meets the Hunter's gaze. "Don't be doing that now, girly," she says. "Mistress Singh pays me good enough money to do what needs to be done if her people start to turn on her. There is too much at stake here for us to be questioning."

The Hunter drags me to my feet. "I'm not questioning." She releases me and takes a step back. "I'm decided."

I grab the receptionist's wrist before she can fire and twist the gun free of her hand. "I hope the money's worth it," I tell her and slam my fist into her nose.

She crumples to the floor.

I turn to the Hunter and stash the gun in my waistband. "Glad you're smart," I tell her. My ears prick at the sounds of car doors opening and slamming. "We've gotta move. Follow me."

She does, leaping over the injured or unconscious guards around us.

I guide her back to the receptionist's desk and to the right, down hall B. I find the source of the pacing and stop in front of the door, my head casting a shadow over the thin light coming in from the small, square window.

The pacing stops and Sasha's head snaps up. Her chest expands and she hurries for the door, slamming her hands on either side of the window. "Mason!"

I can tell she shouts it, but I barely hear it through the solid metal door. "You wouldn't happen to have a key?" I ask the Hunter.

She holds her hands out helplessly. "I'm just security."

I glance down the hallway at the elevator. We're directly across from it, so it's not like I'll be able to get the Hunter to fool Singh about what's happened. And once she's up here, even my friends will be my enemies if she says anything to them.

"Stay here. If Singh comes out of that elevator, come attack me."

"What? But I don't wanna help her anymore. Not if you're telling the truth."

"You also don't want to be thrown into one of these rooms if she realizes you've betrayed her. I'm gonna search that desk. Stay here." I jog to the desk. It's a half circle, so the back is open to me. There's nothing on top of it that immediately looks like a key. Just a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse, and a picture of the receptionist and a man in front of a waterfall.

The elevator dings and the down arrow glows golden.

I try the computer next, opening all the pages the woman had open, including a game of solitaire. Eventually, a view of the security cameras come up, but it's grayed out with a password box. "Password?" I hiss at the Hunter.

She gives a shrug and a wild "I don't know" gesture until her eyes land on the picture of the man. "Try Emanuel."

The elevator doors slide open while I'm still typing.

I hit enter as Singh is stepping out with more guards.

Her shoulders relax when she sees me and she smiles. "Mason Crane. How lovely to see you here."

"Oh, gag, I thought we'd get right to the fighting."

"Soon," she promises, walking closer. Her eyes flicker to the right, down the hall of her unconscious employees. Briefly, her eyes narrow and her lips tighten, making the frown lines around them seem to glow. "I see you've made yourself at home."

"What can I say?" I mumble, eyes scanning the security cameras. There's nothing out of the ordinary, which is out of the ordinary for me, considering I should be seeing Miss Night, Tae, and Bast somewhere. They can't have been caught, right?

"Whatever you're trying to do isn't going to work, my boy."

My eyes flicker to Singh. She's not approaching and neither are her guards. We're all just standing here like I'm checking her in for an appointment. "Look, I get it. You don't like to lose. Especially to an upstart like me. The son of your most bitter enemies managing to tear your empire apart by trying to protect people he cares about. It's embarrassing for you, really. But maybe if you weren't psychotic-."

She lifts her hand and drops it onto the desk in front of me. Brown skin on white marble. A gold bracelet sits limply on the smooth desktop.

I recognize it from photos Tarak's shown me. It used to be his grandfather's. The gold links used to connect to a watch face with something old and wise inscribed on the back. His grandmother had snapped the watch face off and given the chain to Ishani the first time she left home.

"Is that what you think is happening?" Perfectly manicured nails, painted red, tap the marble. "I'm glad your parents aren't here to see you behave like this, Mason. They'd be so worried about you."

My eyes scan the computer monitor. "Uh huh."

"You should really listen to me when I speak to you," she snarls, "you might learn something."

"Thanks, but I've had my fill of prejudice and tyranny for this lifetime."

She reaches over the desk and grabs my wrist.

I grab the mouse with my other hand, in case I need to throw it at her.

But she doesn't attack, yet. She squeezes my wrist and gives me a pointed look. "Don't you understand? I'm trying to help people."

"Is this as good as your persuasive skills get? Like, I get it, you've relied on your power all this time, so you've never really had to try, but this is pathetic."

"Stop fighting me," she orders, with that special tone she uses when she's using her power. Like she's drank a bottle of wine and wants to take you home.

I roll my eyes. "Gonna have to try harder than that." My heart is thrumming in my throat. With Augustus buried to protect themself, there was this brief second of panic that her persuasion would take hold. But they must still protect me, even while hybernating.

She lifts her lip and digs her manicured nails into my flesh. "You are a child and I will not let you destroy everything I've built because you're too stubborn to let your parents ideas go! Have you ever considered they were wrong!?"

I find what I'm looking for on the computer and straighten my spine, meeting her gaze. "Yeah, Singh. My parents were wrong. About a lot of shit, okay? They hurt people I cared about and if they were standing in front of me, I would hate them as much as I hate you." I twist my arm and she tightens her grip like she thinks I'm trying to free myself. Instead, I grab her arm too and yank her forward.

She slams into the desk and her guards reach for their guns, but she holds up a hand, gripping me just as tightly back.

"They did bad things for good reasons. You do bad things for power. Control. Money. I don't know. But they're not good reasons. As wrong as my parents were, you're worse and they're already dead. So, if you think, for one second, that I'm letting you get away with everything you've done... you're stupider than I thought." Before she can respond, I swivel the mouse up so it hovers over the button that should open every door in the compound.

I click the button.