Drake glanced over to the balcony where Saria should have been. The French doors were wide open with smoke pouring through them, and Saria was nowhere to be seen. He cursed aloud, knowing she’d gone inside despite his orders to stay out. He hesitated between going to the next team member, or going after Saria. As he turned toward the right, stepping up onto the railing in preparation for a leap to the roof, she appeared in the doorway, dragging Jeremiah behind her.

Drake didn’t wait. He went up onto the roof, but ran to his left, to the next room where, once again, he found the door barred. Anger was slowly building, now that he was fully awake and the drug was wearing off in the clean air. He ripped open the door. Elijah crawled toward him, dragging a chair behind him. The smoke was particularly thick in the room, thick and black, as if he were much closer to the source than Drake’s room had been. Drake could see that Elijah had been violently ill in the room, which had probably allowed him to rid himself of the drug in his system and wake up enough to know they were in trouble.

The moment Drake flung open the doors, Elijah clawed his way onto the balcony, coughing and gasping, and mad as hell. “Someone tried to kill us, Drake. This was no fucking accident.”

Drake nodded his head. He’d already come to that conclusion. “You all right? I have to get to Joshua.”

Joshua was in the last room at the end of the hall, nearest the circular library at the top of the stairs. If the smoke was coming from there, that would make Joshua closest to the source and most likely to be in trouble. Drake remembered that he’d been particularly tired.

Elijah nodded and waved him away, even as he tried desperately to drag fresh air into his lungs.

Drake glanced to his right, looking for Saria. Evan and Saria were helping Jerico from his room. Jerico was on his feet, staggering between the two, but he was alive and well. Drake once more took to the roof. He was exhausted, but feeling better now that he could breathe and the drug was mostly gone from his system. He could feel the aftereffects—a pounding headache and his stomach still churning, but his strength was coming back and with it—rage. Pure rage.