I aim. Shoot. My shot wings one of the Drau, but doesn’t take it down. Lien’s right beside me, but it’s Kendra who fires, killing it before I can take a second shot. There’s barely time to nod my thanks before I have to take down the next one and the next.

“Fall back,” I order, staying in front while my team backs up, covering them. Luka’s right behind me, covering me. I want to give him hell. He isn’t exactly following orders, but I’ll save it for a moment that isn’t quite so . . . hectic.

We back around a corner.

“Stay with Lien,” I snarl at Luka. I’m surprised that he listens. He falls back a couple of steps so he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with her, and I catch a glimpse of Tyrone and Kendra a few steps behind them.

I do a quick assessment of our surroundings, trying to pick a direction. My con’s no help. It’s showing five green triangles clumped together, but no hint of the best route to take.

The Drau surge forward, almost on us.

My blood races, my heart jackhammering in my chest. I have to choose. Right now.

“That way.” I pick a corridor at random. “Go!”

They go.

Taking down as many of the enemy as I can, I back away as I shoot and shoot, my kendo sword held at the ready.

There’s a cry behind me. I don’t dare look back.

“Luka?” I call.

“Lien took a hit to the thigh.”

Damn. “How bad?”

“I’m still standing.” And still sounding bitched out, which at this moment makes me very happy.

The Drau advance as we retreat.

We’re all firing—us, them. Despite their speed, we hold them back, mostly because we’ve moved to a narrowed corridor that isn’t wide enough for them to all come at us at once. But how long can we hold them off? What the hell was the Committee thinking, sending us in here alone?

They push toward us, a wedge driving us apart, me and Luka and Lien into one branching corridor, Tyrone and Kendra into another. We were a unit of five, and now we’re a fractured five.

We don’t stand a chance.

I stomp on that thought like the crawling slug it is. I can’t think like that, not even for a second.

A Drau comes at me, so close I can see the jagged edges of its teeth. Its form is basically humanoid—arms, legs, head, face—but that’s where any similarity to a human ends. It’s a pure, eye-numbing white, the surface of its body polished and smooth, like opaque glass that flows and glides.

It’s beautiful.

And deadly.

A predator that wants to make me its prey.

I almost make the mistake of looking in its eyes, drowning in them, dying in them. At the last second, I jerk my gaze away and hack with my sword at the same time as I fire.

I take it down, but not without a price. Pinpricks of pain erupt across my shoulders and upper chest. With a cry, I stumble back, shoot, retreat. I try to catch site of Luka and Lien. But they’re gone.

I’m alone, cut off from my team by the sheer number of Drau that fill the space as they surge into the gaps created by their downed comrades. I feel like they’re herding me in the direction of their choice, and each time I try to veer aside, they force me back the opposite way.

There’s no chance to assess or plan. All I can do is keep moving, keep killing, because the option is to stand still and die here.

I stay close to the wall so they can’t get behind me. My weapon cylinder hums, black sludge eating my enemies whole. I hack at sunlight-bright bodies with my sword, not even pretending to maintain proper stance or form. There’s no honor in this. Only ugly, raw death.

My arms burn in all the places that their light droplets hit me, leaving scorched holes in the sleeves of my shirt and open wounds in my skin. Blood trickles down my arms, drips off my fingertips to the floor.

There’s one of me and maybe ten of them. They could take me down anytime. They don’t. They’re toying with me. Playing with their prey.

Fear is like an avalanche, a heavy, crushing weight, tumbling and roaring until there’s nothing but blinding, white terror.

A burst of pain explodes above my eye. My vision blurs as I fire again and again, aiming at nothing, reckless and desperate.

I won’t die here. I can’t.

Instinct takes over, honed by eight years of kendo training. Sofu’s voice echoes in my thoughts. Your opponent strikes and you do not merely defend. You counterattack. Oji waza. But better that you do not wait. You initiate. You attack. Shikake waza.

With a kiai shout, I run directly at them instead of away, adrenaline pushing me to a place I never would have imagined. Pinpricks of light rain down on me, pain so bright it blurs my thoughts. It isn’t like in the movies. I don’t run up the wall or leap ten feet in the air and do aerial cartwheels. My soles slam against the floor; my heart slams against my ribs.

I fire, up close and personal, the lightning-fast black ooze eating my opponents while their screams flay ribbons from my psyche and the light from their weapons flays my skin. I don’t look into their shimmering eyes—mercury gray, indescribably lovely, terrifying, and deadly. I don’t give them the chance to suck out the electrical action potentials that power my nerves, my muscles, my brain. My life.

From the corner of my eye I catch a flash of movement. I spin, feeling like the whole world’s slowed down and there’s just me and the Drau standing an arm’s length away, lowering its weapon to firing position. This close, the blast will blow me away.

I lift my sword so it’s pointing back and up at a forty-five-degree angle; then I step forward and swing at the Drau’s forehead. Men-uchi—the move is as familiar to me as breathing. The black blade sinks deep in the Drau’s skull. With a cry I tighten my hold on the silk-wrapped handle, yanking the weapon free as I shoot lightning-black ooze to my left, annihilating yet another enemy.