“No!” Sophie screamed, turning to stop him. But he was already running down the path. The humming of the craft roared back to life as it shot after him. It was on him in seconds, the beam consuming his body before he had a chance to run more than fifty feet. Emanuel and Sophie sat frozen as the light lifted their friend off the ground.

“We have to do something,” Emanuel said, gripping the rifle and opening the passenger door.

“No! You don’t know what that thing is capable of,” Sophie yelled, twisting the key desperately.

“Saafi, get out of there!” Emanuel barked into the com, ignoring her.

But he didn’t respond. He couldn’t. The light had paralyzed him, and he could feel his skin constricting as it gripped him tighter. He tried to move his lips, but the more he resisted, the more the beam squeezed him.

“I’m going after him,” Emanuel said, jumping onto the gravel.

Sophie watched him run fearlessly toward the craft with his rifle drawn. “Shit,” she said, unlocking her door. “If I didn’t love him, I’d—”

A deafening roar tore through the night. It was the same high frequency she had heard in her dream when she’d been captured just like Saafi. She dropped to her knees, pulling her helmet off and gripping her ears in pain.

Another beam blasted out of an opening in the craft and took Emanuel before he had a chance to fire off a shot.

“No!” Sophie screamed, falling on her stomach and crawling toward her two teammates. It couldn’t end like this. She wasn’t going to let it. If there was a way to free her friends, she was going to find it.

She dug deeper, pulling herself through the gravel. With every heart beat the pounding in her head got worse. She swore she could feel her blood pulsing through the vessels in her head. But she didn’t let the pain slow her down. “I’m coming!” she yelled.

The frequency of the sound intensified, and she screamed in pain, rolling to her back and gripping her ears again. Tears welled up in her eyes. She had to go on—she couldn’t lose him.

She flopped back to her stomach and forced herself toward the noise.

One hand at a time.

The blue beam holding Saafi brightened, and drops of liquid began to race toward the craft. It was just like in her dream. The craft was sucking the water right out of him.

She pulled herself another foot and collapsed back onto her stomach, panting. The noise was getting louder, and the pounding in her head worse. She knew she had only a few minutes before the pain would be unbearable. An image of an autopsy she had seen in graduate school popped into her mind. The deceased was a soldier who had been hit with a sonic bullet. It was only meant to stun him, but his eardrums had ruptured under the frequency.

Sophie shook the thoughts out of her head. She could see the beam that had Emanuel was getting brighter too, beginning to rob him of his precious life source. Time was running out. She had to find a way to get them out of the light.