Imani opened fire, catching him with a stun gun blast. He froze, shock registering in his expression before he dropped to his hands and knees, still struggling to get up. Imani hit him again and he collapsed. Our eyes met, wild and frightened. Even on the stun gun’s lowest setting, it shouldn’t have taken two shots to drop someone like that.

“We have to find an escape,” Rune gasped.

Cage was already moving, wrenching a grate loose. I shook my head at him wildly. “What if the creatures are in there?”

“We don’t have much choice,” he pointed out. “You three go. I’ll follow.”

“I have the gun!” Imani replied.

“And I can run faster!”

She leaned around the box and fired a shot at someone advancing. “There’s nowhere to run, Cage. Go!”

Cage hesitated a second longer, swore, and dove into the vent. “Come on!” he urged Rune, taking her hand and dragging her after him.

I followed, squeezing my shoulders through the narrow opening. This was a much smaller shaft than the one we’d used before. As soon as my feet cleared the grate, I twisted to shout to Imani, “Okay, we’re in. Hurry!”

She scrambled along the floor, firing over her shoulder. At the same moment, the bald man with the British accent—Finn, I remembered—burst onto the scene, rolling beneath her stun gun blast. He stretched his hand in her direction, brushing her ankle, and she froze.

Our eyes met, and I read her fear, her confusion, her desperation. But she clearly couldn’t move a muscle. Somehow, Finn had manifested yet another power. He could freeze people in place.

Priya appeared in a burst of wind, much like Cage (and now, I guessed, me) when we moved at top speed. “Imani!” I shouted, shoving myself backward. I could reach her, I knew I could. My fingers caught in the metal and then Cage’s hand closed over my wrist.

“We can’t help her!” He dragged me forward. In the same instant, Finn lunged at the vent. His fingers grazed my shoe, but Cage yanked me out of his grip just in time.

Finn and I faced each other, me staring over my shoulder, him half hunched in the grate, his lips twisted in a sneer. His brow lowered as he calculated, no doubt debating whether he’d fit into the vent.

Cage’s grip on my wrist became painful as he wrenched me along. “Imani,” I repeated, almost in a whisper, but I was scrambling after him already. I didn’t have more time to think before Cage dragged us forward with phenomenal speed, bashing our elbows and shins as he accelerated in bursts, putting distance between us and the hunters.

At last, after what felt like an hour of twisting and turning, we stopped, collapsing against a dead end. Our breath echoed in the tiny space. I couldn’t see anything in the shadows. My joints ached where Cage had slammed me against the walls in our hurried flight, and his body trembled with the effort of carrying us.