Nyx decided to just point and shoot. She shoved her scattergun around the corner and fired blindly. Heard a smattering of voices. Some squelching on the floor. Damn this place and its fucking acoustics. She could judge nothing by sound.

“Let them take me,” Raine said.

“Fuck you,” Nyx said.

“They won’t kill me. Just turn me over to them and run. Come another time.”

“You think this shit was easy the first time?”

“It will be more difficult the next time if you’re dead.”

“Fuck,” Nyx said. She fired again into the hall. Heard the steady squelch-squelch of approaching bad guys. Could she take them all by herself while keeping Raine intact? She decided to risk a peek. She fired again into the hall, then ducked her head out after it. One quick glance.

She pulled back behind the corner as six more guns went off. She heard the bullets sink into the soft walls. She had counted eight figures, with more behind them. Maybe a dozen total. She couldn’t fight a dozen, not even when she was twenty.

“Nyx,” Raine said softly.

“Shut the fuck up. I need to think.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had been shot many times. It hurt. If she could just pass Raine off to one of her crew, she could take a few bullets—

“I’m here!”

Nyx opened her eyes.

Raine was on his feet and around the corner before she could grab him. She reached for his ankle, but he kicked away, surprisingly spry for a sick man.

He had his arms raised high over his head, little pot belly sticking out over his dhoti. He looked ridiculous. He would look more ridiculous riddled in bullets. But the shots didn’t come.

The people yelled something at him. He spoke back to them in whatever language they used.

Nyx wondered if she was being turned over.

Fuck this.

She chanced one last glance at Safiyah, decided the plucky magician could take care of herself, and then bolted down the corridor where they had come from. The place was a fucking labyrinth. She ran left, always left, hoping to loop back around to something familiar, preferably the corridor right behind where the men had caught them. That was the way the hornets were traveling.

Down a short flight of steps, up a steep ramp. And then she was well and truly lost. There were no windows. No sky. No open air. She turned down another corridor only to hit a dead end. What the fuck was the purpose of all these rooms? She turned back around and tried to retrace her steps. Her breath was coming hard and fast now. The halls were getting narrower. Where were the people? Was she lost in the guts of this great beast now? Another dead end.