We all turned toward the sound of Becks’s voice. She was standing in the doorway, smelling of gunpowder, with a grim set to her expression. I raised my eyebrows in silent question. Becks held up a bagged blood testing kit, lights flashing green, and tossed it to the floor next to the biohazard bin. That was an answer in and of itself: She wouldn’t have ignored proper biological waste disposal protocols if she thought there was any chance we’d be staying.

“Three guards and two civilians who had no good reason to be there, all infected. None of them made it within ten feet of me. The rest of the garage is clear, and our transport’s prepped and ready.”

“Excellent.” I glanced around the apartment one last time, looking for things we might have missed. Our outbreak kits have always been well-maintained and ready for something to go wrong. That doesn’t stop the feeling that something major has been forgotten. “Everyone, grab your masks and goggles. We’re out of here.”

Suiting up for a run through a tunnel that might or might not fill with bleach while we were inside it took only a few minutes—God bless panic, the best motivator mankind has ever discovered. Kelly looked oddly calmer once she had her goggles on and a gas mask bumping against her collarbone, waiting to be secured over her nose and mouth. Maybe it reminded her of being back at the CDC, where all the “outbreaks” were carefully staged and even more carefully controlled. She’d need to get over that eventually. Now wasn’t the time. If pretending this was all a drill would keep her calm, I was all for it.

We left the apartment in a tight diamond formation. I was on point and Becks was at the rear, with Dave and Alaric flanking Kelly in the center. If there were any other people in the building, they didn’t show themselves as we descended. That’s the right thing to do when you’re caught in an outbreak and don’t have an evacuation route: stay put, stay quiet, and wait for the nice men with guns to come and save you. Sometimes they’ll even show up in time.

We were halfway down the last flight of stairs when the sirens changed, going from a continuous shriek to a rising series of piercing air-horn blasts, like a car alarm with rabies. Alaric stumbled, knocking Kelly into Becks and nearly sending all three of them sprawling. I took two more stepsof get out of the way, and then turned, looking back toward the others.

That’s not a good sound.

“I know,” I muttered, before saying, more loudly, “Dave? What’s going on?”