He dropped his gun and ran up the stairwell, the suit allowing him to take the steps three at a time. Mitzi pulled the grenade off the belt and tossed it as high and as far as possible, then she rolled over, shielding her head with both arms as the parasites rushed over her and began picking at the gaps between her suit’s plates.

She’d been told the grenades were strong enough to blow a hole through a stone wall. That wasn’t a lie; if anything, the manufacturers had underestimated their creation’s power. It blew through two walls—and the ceiling, to boot. The explosion was close to deafening, and the rumble of collapsing infrastructure jarred through the padding of her suit and rattled at her bones. Mitzi felt weight press onto her as the ceiling crumbled, but she didn’t dare wait until the shudders subsided. The heat from the grenade would have killed many of the Cymics, but not all of them. She wriggled, fighting to get free from the rubble, and felt a spike of panic when she wasn’t able to escape from a section of the wall that had fallen on top of her.

Keep calm. You can get out of this.

She squirmed, and her heart jumped as one of the Cymics trapped under the rubble with her began writhing, pulling itself up her body.

Then the weight was suddenly removed. The wall was being lifted up—not enough to be thrown free, but enough to reduce the pressure and let Mitzi pull herself out. In a quick motion, she pressed her hand to the hideous creature that was clinging to her and jabbed at the button on her neck. Mitzi squinted against the scream and explosion of oozing black flesh as the electricity tore through the Cymic.

“Hurry,” Franc gasped. “I can’t hold this for long.”

Mitzi kicked herself free of the Cymic’s corpse and scrambled backwards until she was out from under the broken wall. Franc dropped it, letting it land on the dead creature with a horrible sticking, squishing noise.

Mitzi grimaced as a black substance oozed out from under the crumbling edges of the stonework. “I thought I told you to run.”

“Sorry,” Franc muttered, sounding a little sheepish.

“I’m kind of glad you didn’t.” Mitzi clambered to her feet and glanced at the section of the stairwell she’d destroyed. There didn’t seem to be any movement in the weak light of Franc’s simmering flamethrower. The walls and roof had been demolished, exposing sections of the rooms beyond them, and the stairs had been completely blocked with rubble. That meant there was no getting to the lower floor. “Damn it.”

“What do we do?”

“Catch up with the others and regroup.” Mitzi turned, clapping Franc on the back, and began jogging up the stairs. Her muscles were shaking from stress, and her coordination was poor, but she didn’t slow down. “Skye and co, how are you doing?”

“Sort of okay?” Skye’s voice sounded faint and reedy, and her words were mingled with a hacking, hysterical laugh from Ellen. “Two Cymics were waiting at the top of the stairs, but we killed them.”