Instinct makes me raise my hands. “Can we talk about this?” I ask in a low voice. “Please.”

“You’ve already said all I needed to hear.” Her gaze leaps to mine, pointed and piercing. As if she’s trying to shoot a message straight through me. She slinks sideways into the middle of the alley, trapping me between her and Doug.

His face slackens with surprise and his eye rakes over me. “You have the eye? Let me see it.”

“Show me your back, Winter,” Kai says quietly.

I blink against the rain, searching the alley for a way out. There’s a wall behind me, a building in front of me. Kai to my right. Doug to my left. I consider taking my chances and running. Better to go down fighting, right?

But something in Kai’s words . . . and in her eyes when she said them . . . makes me hesitate.

She’s staring at me with that same determined laser focus she had while we were in the cavern, right before she doused the torch and we ran.

No more jokes about keeping my arrows where you can see them. . . . When are you going to start trusting me?

Rain beads down her face. She doesn’t blink. Her nostrils flare. Is this some kind of a test?

Show me your back . . . Winter.

I look down at my hands, certain I’m imagining the way they shimmer in the icy rain. They’re not even shivering.

I raise them, slowly turning my back to Kai. She comes up behind me and frisks my wet jeans. Her free hand dips into my pocket. She holds the crystal up where Doug can see it. She’s standing close enough for an elbow to the ribs.

Her gaze flicks up to mine. A warning.

Doug’s palm is blistered with frostbite, the cracks red and seeping, as he reaches out expectantly. “Toss it to me.”

Kai shakes her head. She slips the eye in her pocket, retreating a few steps behind me, putting me smack between them. “Don’t move,” she says. A chill skates through me and I brace for an arrow. I’m not sure which one of us she’s speaking to.

Doug’s eye twitches. “Give me the crystal, Kai.”

Headlights slash across the mouth of the alley behind him. Tires squeal as the van skids to a stop.

Fleur throws open the passenger door, hurling herself out the van, her bare feet tripping on a pair of borrowed sweatpants that could only be Auggie’s. Her pink hair sticks to her face, darkened by the rain. My breath stills at the sight of her.

“Doug, stop this!” she shouts.

Julio, Chill, and Amber rush into the alley behind her. I look between them, silently begging them not to interfere. The plan we made in the catacombs is moot. There’s only one way this ends. They should run while they can.