The boy peeked one eye out and observed Timothy’s face for a few seconds before he jammed his face back into the safety of Holly’s arms.

“Leave him be,” she whispered, running her hand through his hair again.

“Maybe he knows a way to evade them. Maybe he knows a way to escape,” Timothy insisted.

Holly’s mouth opened, but she paused as Alexia’s voice sounded over the com.

“Movement detected in the offices outside the Biosphere facility. Detecting several heat signatures in the briefing room. Switching to Camera 6. Stand by for video footage.”

Timothy jumped up and raced to the monitor hanging on the wall over Saafi’s cryo chamber. It flickered to life, revealing the NTC briefing room. The lighting was dim, with only a faint blue glow present in the corner of the room.

“Enhance image,” he requested.

The camera zoomed in and the blue light amplified. He compressed his eyebrows and squinted, desperately trying to make out the shape of the intruder. But all he saw was darkness.

“I don’t see anything, Alexia!” he said frantically.

“Scanning.”

The sound of Saafi’s chirping monitors filled the room once more before the com blared back to life. “Signatures appear to be heading into the ductwork.”

“Zoom in,” Timothy said, moving aside so Holly could see the screen.

“There,” she said pointing. “Angle the camera toward the back corner near the podium.”

They watched the view slowly rotate. The blue glow increased as the camera moved into position.

Holly felt a tug on her pants from behind, and she turned to see Owen staring up at her. “Can I see?”

In the second it took for her to consider his request, she watched Timothy’s face go pale. His eye stopped twitching, and the tablet he was holding dropped to the floor. The sound of the device’s screen cracking reached her ears an instant before Owen’s screams. She didn’t need to see the video footage to know what they both had seen, but she forced herself to look anyways.

Climbing through a hole in the tile ceiling was a luminous creature—a monster with six thin legs, a round, stocky torso, and a small head with mandibles full of jagged teeth. As the spiderlike thing pulled itself into the ceiling, it glanced at the camera. For a moment it looked like it was staring right at them with its eight malformed eyes, right before it opened its jaws and emitted a high-frequency scream. Then it was gone, vanishing into the duct.

Holly forced herself away from the screen. She grabbed Owen and led him to the bench as calmly as possible. Crouching down to his eye level, she rested her palms on his narrow shoulders. “Owen, you have to be strong. You have to tell us how you hid from those things, okay? Can you do that for us?”