Liam sniffed. “The zemdyut don’t injure. They assimilate, and they destroy.”

Cage and Liam carried weapons, so they took positions on either side of the door while Rune and I hovered in the background. It made sense for Cage to have the cutlass. It was my idea, after all. And I could hardly demand that Liam hand over his gun. I still wasn’t sure I wanted a gun. The relief of knowing I hadn’t killed Matt didn’t change the fact that my shot had gone astray. I should have killed him. I thought now I could probably pick up a lethal weapon if I had to, as long as I didn’t fire it anywhere with a chance to hit a person. But that didn’t make me feel any better about the possibility.

Of course, I wasn’t sure I was thrilled with Liam having the gun, either. He’d already admitted he’d throw us into space to save himself, and I suspected there was more to his story, more he wasn’t telling us. But taking the gun by force would create a problem, so there we were.

Still, I wasn’t quite willing to play the damsel in distress, so I located two scalpels in a nearby supply locker and passed one to Rune. She nodded her thanks. The scalpels probably didn’t serve much purpose, but anything made me feel a bit better.

Cage beckoned, and we crept into the deserted corridors: Cage, Rune, and me, Liam bringing up the rear. “Where is everyone?” I whispered. “I thought they evacuated here.”

Rune shook her head. “Do you want me to initiate a scan for life signs?”

“No,” said Cage. “We don’t have time, and we can’t risk alerting anyone monitoring the system. We’re almost at Grigori’s apartment. Let’s just go there, take those bastards by surprise, and hopefully get our friends.”

By surprise . . . “Hang on a second,” I said. I closed my eyes, focusing on that moment back on the hunter ship when my arm had shimmered into view and I’d reached out to Mia. I expended all of my mental energy, imagining us vanishing, disappearing.

A moment passed. “Um, Kenz,” said Cage gently, “what are you doing?”

I gasped and opened my eyes, reeling with the effort. “Trying to make us invisible. Did it work?”

“Not even a little bit,” said Liam dryly.

Did that mean I couldn’t use powers if the people who possessed them weren’t nearby? But wait, that didn’t make sense. I frowned. The first two times I’d used the portal-opening ability had been on the hunter ship. And Liam should have been squirreled away in his hole. Unless he’d been closer? I opened my mouth to ask.

At that second, a horrifying scream split the air.

Not a human scream.

One we’d heard before.