“Okay.”

“Give them the code.”

She did.

The point man went down first. The others fell in line. She couldn’t see him entering the code, but she barely heard the soft beep as he keyed in each number. Blood was pounding in her ears, and her breath was coming short and fast.

The vault door opened.

The men rushed inside, weapons hot.

She heard them shout orders to drop to the ground. She heard people’s screams and gasps and knew she had found the farm—knew there were carriers down there. Roland kept a fierce grip on her arm as she heard a crash against the floor. She thought she heard doors slamming open and doors being kicked open, but she didn’t hear any gunshots.

It got very quiet. She thought, maybe even imagined, she heard someone crying, a young girl, maybe. The sound was lost behind heavy footsteps. The point man appeared below and, looking only at Roland, said, “All clear.”

Ellie didn’t know what she had expected to find buried in the earth underneath the church—a prison, maybe. Some sort of dungeon or holding pen with very little light. What she found reminded her of the play areas she’d seen those giant tech companies use to lure bright minds to come work for them: a wide-open space containing comfortable sofas and beanbags and a full kitchen and classic arcade games and games like foosball and Ping-Pong. A place where you could come and relax and unwind.

This brightly lit playroom—she didn’t know what else to call it—had high ceilings and was longer and wider than a basketball court. It did, in fact, have a half court at the far, far end. She found pinball machines, and a built-in fish tank that took up a good length of wall. She found shelves holding books and games, and the flat screens hanging on the walls—there were so many of them—soundlessly played movies and TV shows and were connected to Xbox and PlayStation game systems. The couches, sectional sofas, armchairs, and recliners scattered across the room were empty of people, littered with wireless headsets and game controllers. The people who had been sitting in them were all lying facedown in the center of the carpeted room, their hands clasped behind their heads, and struggling not to look at the weapons aimed at them.

“Stand down,” she told the men.

They ignored her.

She looked for Roland, saw him coming out from a door that led into a neatly furnished bedroom. “Tell these guys to take it out of overdrive, will you?”

Roland didn’t have a chance to answer. The point man said to him, “We checked the bedrooms, the exercise rooms and bathrooms and closets, the place they use to draw the blood. This is all of ’em.”

Ellie moved to the carriers. There were eighteen of them—some as young as teenagers, others her age if not older. Five of them were males who seemed to be roughly her age, and of those, two had the same brown hair as her brother. They all looked well-fed.