After a couple more seconds in absolute darkness, doubts simmering on my mental back burner, the feel of the air around me changed and something collided with my back, shoving me forward.

Anne gasped, and I exhaled with relief so deep I almost cried. They’d nearly materialized right over me.

“Move over, puta!” Meika snapped in a harsh whisper. Then she was gone again, and I pulled Anne closer and backed up until my spine hit the wall. I had no idea how big the darkroom was, but it felt small enough to be claustrophobic, if I could have seen my surroundings.

Less than a minute later, the air felt different again—a change in pressure?—and I recognized the sound of Cavazos breathing less than a foot in front of me.

“Everyone ready?” I whispered, and got three hushed replies in the affirmative. “Okay, here goes…” I felt my way along the wall, then around the room until I felt the door, flush with the wall itself. Heart pounding in my ears, I dug my phone out of my pocket and flipped it open for the bare minimum of light. But after several minutes in absolute darkness, the dim glow of my cell display was blinding. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, then I glanced around briefly—trying not to see the ominous-looking air vent built into the ceiling—before sliding Kori’s key card into the scanner next to the door.

A small LED light flashed green, then metal whispered against metal as the dead bolt—obviously huge—slid back. And that was it. No hiss of released air pressure. No alarm announcing our home invasion. No computerized voice welcoming me into the future.

It was kind of anticlimactic, really.

I verified that my phone was on Silent, then slid it back into my pocket and pressed down on the lever-style door handle. I pushed the door open. Te rubber weather seal squealed softly against the floor and I froze, holding my breath, certain someone had heard, and the entire Tower arsenal was now being sent to intercept us. To eliminate us.

But the slice of hallway I could see was dark and quiet. And still. If we’d been detected, the squad coming to kill us was really good.

Carefully, I pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the hall. The others followed, and Cavazos let the door close slowly behind us—lit only by the flashing glow from a television somewhere down the hall.

We were upstairs—I could see the corner of a rail overlooking the first floor at one end of the hall—and there were at least a dozen doors opening on either side of the hallway ahead. Before choosing a direction, I closed my eyes and said Hadley’s full name in my head, vaguely aware that for the moment at least, I was the only one in the world who knew the entire thing. I felt for the pull of her energy signature—I searched for it—but came up with nothing. She was still too close to the Jammer to be detected. We’d have to find her the old-fashioned way.

I glanced at the railing one more time, then took off in the opposite direction, walking carefully, glad my boots were too well-worn to squeak on the tile. The others followed me, and we paused in front of every door to make sure no one inside would see us pass.

The third room on the left held the flashing television, but no sound. Leaning against the wall next to the open door, I pulled Cam’s silencer from my pocket and screwed it onto the end of the gun I’d borrowed from him. I peeked into the room slowly and carefully, gun aimed at the floor several feet ahead, safety off. Then I exhaled silently and slid the safety back into place.

The room was a bedroom with an attached bathroom, set up a bit like a motel suite. The occupant—a slightly thickening man in his mid-fifties—was sound asleep in his recliner, head flopped forward, chin dragging his chest.

I led the others past the open door quietly, and when we were clear, Cavazos stepped close to whisper into my ear. “Ray Bailey,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the room we’d just passed. “Tower’s best Blinder.”

Unwilling to speak, I gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged. “I do my homework. Tower probably knows who you and Meika are, too.”

Which meant we’d be shot on sight. Of the four of us, Anne was the only one who might survive discovery, because if Tower had done his own homework, he’d know she’d raised Hadley and had no affiliation with the Cavazos syndicate. And that she was no threat to him.

“Olivia, we can’t leave him,” Ruben whispered, and Anne and Meika turned back to watch us, Anne visibly antsy. “If this goes wrong, he’ll be used against us. We’ll be blinded and vulnerable.” Ruben pulled his gun and started to step into the bedroom, but I put one arm out to stop him.

“You can’t shoot him—he hasn’t done anything.”

“Everyone’s guilty of something.” He pushed my arm out of the way and stepped silently into Bailey’s room, over my whispered protest.

“Wait!” I grabbed his arm Cavazos shoved me back and pulled the trigger without hesitation. His gun thwupped, and the far side of Bailey’s head exploded in a shower of red droplets.

I blinked through my own shock and Ruben hauled me out of the room by my good arm, whispering fiercely in my ear. “It was us or him. If you don’t have the balls to do what needs to be done, then stay the hell out of my way.”

In the hall again, scrambling for composure, I realized that the Bailey’s own television had covered the sound of his murder. Anne hadn’t seen or heard, thank goodness.

“What happened?” she asked, but I only shook my head and led us farther down the hall, hating Ruben a little more with each step.