“I know.” I also knew that it took a very trusting man to turn his back on the kind of job I was about to pull and believe that everything would be okay just because I said it would. I touched his cheek, letting the stubble scratch my palm, desperately hoping this job wouldn’t make a liar of me. I needed to survive the night, even if I might one day die at his hand. At least we’d have the years between, and I had to believe that a few short years with him were better than a lifetime without him.

“I don’t want to do this without you…” I began, but he shook his head.

“Don’t say anything else. I can’t know what this is,” he said, and I nodded. “But I don’t want you to do it without me, either.”

If all went well, what we were about to do would rescue Hadley and free me from Cavazos. But Kori and Cam would be screwed. Hell, they probably already were. Cam and I would have to run. Forever. But I could handle that, as long as we were together.

“Be careful,” he said, and I nodded, then I pueR headphones back over his ears. I kissed him, letting the moment linger, in case it was our last, while the ache in my chest swelled and threatened to devour me. Then I backed into the hall without breaking eye contact until Cavazos closed the door and stepped in front of it to capture my attention.

“I need your word that you won’t kill Tower,” I said. Ruben shook his head slowly, and I crossed my arms over my chest. “We’re not leaving until I have your word.”

Cavazos nodded firmly. “Fine. We don’t need you to get into Tower’s house.”

“But you need me for backup, and you sure as hell need me to find Hadley. What do you think the chances are that he’s keeping her anywhere near one of the darkrooms?” When he didn’t answer, I turned to Michaela. “How close is Isabel’s room to any of the exits?”

She didn’t reply, but I could see the answer in her face. Isa was more closely guarded than the president. It would be no different for Tower’s kids, and we had every reason to suspect Hadley was being kept very near them. Maybe even with them.

“Hadley won’t come with you,” Anne added, sounding very much like that mother lion again. “She doesn’t know you. She’s never even seen you. And she knows to scream if a stranger ever tries to take her.”

“You don’t want to traumatize your own daughter, do you?” I asked, and Meika glared at me, clearly pissed over the reminder of her husband’s infidelity. But she didn’t try to stab anyone. Maybe my little talk had gotten through to her.

“Beyond that,” Anne added, “if you want her to trust you—ever—you’re going to need my help.”

I was so proud of her I almost smiled, in spite of the circumstances.

“Fine,” Cavazos said at last, and I could see that eagerness was eating at him, too. “You have my word.”

But without his blood to seal the deal, his word was worth no more than the unrealized ideals tattooed across my own back. Fortunately, as soon as I’d united him with his daughter—however temporary—the mark on my thigh would die and I would no longer have to obey his orders. Which meant I’d be free to stop him from killing Tower. Or to die trying.

“Okay…” I turned back to Meika. “Take me first, then Anne, then Ruben.” That way she couldn’t just disappear with her husband and leave us behind. “Once we’re there, I’ll take point.” Because I’d be tracking. Or trying to, just in case the Jammer moved far enough from Hadley for me to get a read on her. “Ready?”

The others nodded. Cavazos looked distinctly uncomfortable with following someone else’s lead, but he didn’t openly object.

All four of us piled into the bathroom and Meika stood in the middle of the floor. “It’ll take me a minute to find his darkrooms,” she said, and I pictured her closing her eyes in concentration, though I couldn’t see a single detail of her face in the darkness. “Okay…” she said finally. “I can feel two of them. Two cool, dark spots in a raging inferno of light.”

Th#8217;ras an elaborate description coming from the woman who usually referred to me as “la puta blanca.” I decided that meant it was accurate.

Meika fumbled for my hand in the dark and I gave it to her reluctantly. “Take a couple of steps forward, when I squeeze your hand,” she said, and for once I felt no urge to argue. “Stop when I squeeze again.”

Before I could acknowledge the directions, she squeezed my hand hard enough to grind my knuckles together, then jerked me forward into the darkness.

I stumbled into obscurity, then righted myself in the artificial night of a cold room I’d never been in before. I was sure of that, even though I couldn’t see my own fingers in front of my face.

Meika dropped my hand as if it was made of fire, and in the next instant, I felt her absence like a safety net dropped from beneath me, leaving me flailing. I reached into the dark, and in the cold, still silence, panic gave rise to the thought that I’d given her too much credit. She’d probably dropped me in a bank vault, or a museum, or something like that.

But if she had, the joke was on her, because I still had Kori’s key card. They weren’t getting into Tower’s house without me.

Fortunately, two steps later my outstretched hand landed on a cold, smooth, featureless wall, and I decided I was where I was supposed to be. And that if I wasn’t, panicking would do no good.