Kira took a step toward her, raising her rifle in preparation. “Partials?” Hardy snapped out of her shock and nodded, still out of breath, and Kira stepped forward again. “Where are they taking them?”

“They’re not taking them anywhere,” said Hardy. She staggered out into the lobby, and Kira could see now that she was bleeding from her arm. “They’re going room to room, killing them.” She clutched her arm and tried to breathe. “They’re taking their blood.”

Kira looked at Green and snarled. “The Blood Man.”

“It’s about damn time,” said Green, raising his rifle and stalking toward the staircase. “I’ve been anxious for a little chat with him.”

Kira followed him up the stairs, with Marcus close behind, not stopping on each floor like they had in the mall, but climbing relentlessly. They heard a scream high above them, silenced almost instantly by a gunshot and a slamming door. “Sounded like the eighth floor,” said Kira.

“Morgan’s army confiscated most of the solar panels when they first arrived,” said Marcus. “They moved the patients up here because it made the few panels left just a little more efficient; all the power in the lower levels is cut off completely.”

“Can you link them yet?” Kira asked Green.

“No. As soon as I do, though, they’ll know we’re here.”

“They won’t know who, though,” said Kira. “You could be any Partial; they won’t know you’re an enemy.”

“They’ll know I’m not an Ivie,” said Green, “which seems to be the only distinction that matters to them.” He clenched his teeth and snarled, then stopped suddenly on the landing between floors five and six. “You go first.”

“Whoa,” said Marcus. “Who sends the lady into combat first?”

“A smart combatant,” said Kira, not even slowing as she brushed past Green. “I can read the Ivies on the link a bit, and they can’t read me. It’ll give us maybe an extra ten seconds before they know we’re there, but that’s better than nothing.”

As they neared the seventh floor she started to sense them—just a few, maybe three or four at the most. She remembered the victims she’d found so far, the Partial on the dock and the ice-cold Tovar, and she felt her blood rising. She remembered the dying girl Kerri, crying as her life slipped away. We’re trying to save you, she’d said, and Kira still couldn’t get it out of her mind. Save us from what? From who? She shook her head, clearing her doubts like cobwebs. The Ivies, and the Blood Man they served, were evil. She would put them down.