When I finally ran out of things to throw up, I stood up, turning to see that Sam and Serina were back with their own agent. Unlike the other two, though, they’d managed to not only find their agent, but also to catch the Butterfly. I watched with a numb detachment as the Butterfly was wrestled off the platform and through the same door the techs had taken the women I’d captured.

I was still staring at the doorway when there was a loud pop behind me, and I turned to see Regan appear, the arm of a white-faced and bloody Agent Chris thrown over her shoulders.

“Help,” Regan called. “We need help over here! She’s hurt.” I rushed back onto the platform just as Agent Chris’s legs buckled, and together Regan and I lowered her onto the platform. The mountain’s medics hurried to check her pulse and shine lights into her eyes. We stood there side by side and watched as Agent Chris opened her eyes, coughing hoarsely into the oxygen mask someone had put over her face. I knew how she felt; my own lungs felt like someone had stuffed them full of cotton. I turned to Regan, waiting for her to rip into me about leaving her behind, but to my surprise, she didn’t. She just stood there watching them work on Agent Chris.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She bit her lip, not looking at me, and shook her head.

“Me either,” I admitted. “I just hurled.” I jerked my head toward the trash can when she looked at me in surprise. “I highly recommend it, actually,” I said.

“I almost threw up within the first thirty seconds of being there,” she said. “It was awful. More awful than I thought possible.”

I nodded.

“I never got it before,” she said. “But I do now.”

“Got what?” I asked.

“Why someone would become a Butterfly,” she said. “Why you’d want to go back in time to change something. All those people,” she said, shutting her eyes as though she could unsee it all that way.