We’d reached the end of the hotel’s construction. Beyond the door, half walls and rotting wooden frames created a labyrinth of metal and iron. Carefully, we eased inside, brushing aside ragged plastic sheets that hung everywhere, fluttering in the hot wind. I glanced up, and saw that the roof was open to the sky, though it was impossible to see the stars through the haze of the city. I could breathe easier, though, just being this close without the stink of human filth and craziness clogging my nose. If I were two runaway hatchlings, this was where I would go.

“What are we looking for?” St. George asked as we maneuvered our way across the floor. The wood groaned under our feet, and I stepped lightly over beams and rusty metal screws. Hopefully nothing would give way beneath us; the floor looked pretty rotten.

“Two kids,” I told him. “Hatchlings. Probably no older than either of you.” I brushed aside a sheet and ducked under a low-hanging beam, poking the light into dark corners. “If you find either of them, let me handle it. They’re going to be terrified of strangers, of anyone who could be from Talon. I don’t want them running off before I—”

Something lunged from around the corner, swinging a metal pipe at my face.

I jerked back. The pipe missed crushing my skull by about an inch but hit my arm instead, knocking the flashlight from my grasp. It went spinning across the floor in dizzying circles, as the attacker raised the weapon and came at me again.

“Wait!” I dodged and backed swiftly away, ducking around a beam. The pipe smacked into the wood a microsecond later, raising a hollow thud and a billow of dust. “Wait just a second,” I said as my attacker followed me around the beam, holding the pipe like a baseball bat. It swung at me again, and I dodged out of the way. “Will you relax? I’m not here to hurt you. Just listen to me.”

The others started forward, and I gave them a sharp look. “Don’t move!” I snapped, and thankfully, they froze. “Stay right there, both of you,” I insisted, holding out an arm, the universal gesture of let’s all calm the fuck down. “Everyone relax.”

The person with the pipe hesitated, shooting fearful looks between the three of us. A girl, I realized. Lithe and graceful, even as dirty as she was, with big blue eyes and silver-blond hair to the middle of her back. She wore a ratty T-shirt and baggy cargo jeans, and looked like she had slept in them for a while.

And she was definitely a hatchling, a teenager in human form. A little older than the ones I normally saw, wide-eyed and fresh out of training, but a hatchling nonetheless. The tightness in my chest eased a little, and I let out a furtive breath of relief. We’d found her before the Order did. That was all that mattered.