We both turned in to her steady stare.

“Carried one in my purse. City life, y’know?”

“Good.” Daniel chose quickly from his secret arsenal, passing Jenn a small pistol and extra magazine. “You and Jandi are on boat guard. Check the load.”

She didn’t need to ask how. “Ready to go.”

As usual, everyone around me was moving faster than I was. I buckled on the knife. It lay flat along one hip. “I’m coming with you.”

“Really?” Daniel turned back to his drawer. I waited for some exotic mystery of a weapon, like Hannah’s crossbow. Instead, he found the match to Jenn’s pistol, shoved it casually in his waistband, then bent again for a pair of bolt cutters and kneed the drawer shut. He hooked the cutters over one shoulder. “Then come on, if you’re coming. Got no time to argue.”

Daniel at his coldest. Good thing I’d seen it before, so I could roll with it.

Breakers was already on the fire escape, a coil of rope in one hand, rifle slung across her back. We clambered up beside her, Daniel signaling her toward the roof, three stories above. She climbed, agile as a monkey, until just hidden by the parapet. Even before we got to the top, she’d nosed over the edge and started firing. Now we were the surprise ambush.

Three shots. I guessed three new bodies.

She waved an all-clear and hunkered down, then turned to mouth at us. “Adders.”

“Ah, shit. Guess there’s no way I could’ve got them all.” Daniel kicked out the remaining panes in the fire-escape access window and dropped inside.

Stomach clenched like a fist, I followed him into a maze of gaping doorways and dark, ruined rooms. “Where did Adders come from?”

“Does it matter?” He paused, orienting himself. Then he nodded, eased the pistol from his waistband, and moved ahead, out a central door, down a hall, toward the source of light and noise. The first room we passed was empty, the plaster shredded from the studs and strewn across the floor, puffed up from rain blown in the open window. The second was also empty, but Daniel breathed a quiet cheer and slipped in. Here, a divider between a pair of wrecked windows supported one end of a rope bridge. Cable, actually, when I looked closer, and vibrating. Someone out there on it. Daniel waved me to cover along one wall, stowed his pistol, and flexed the bolt cutters. Snap, snap, and it was done. The cut ends snaked to either side of the divider and the bridge collapsed. Daniel peered around the window frame, then held up two fingers, then three, then four.

“Next . . . ?” he mouthed, grimly alight.

What do guys find to love in all this? Then I thought: no, Hannah would be loving it, too.