“Here,” I said, handing him one of the guns that I had with me. “You’ll need it.”

He took the gun from me and inclined his head. I wondered how everyone would react to the fact that James was going with us, but I thought that after what happened with Brent, everyone was at least a little bit suspicious of everyone around them, so James wouldn’t disconcert them that much. We’d all trusted Brent with our lives, and his betrayal had been a huge blow for everyone. I still sometimes heard them mention his name with disgust on their faces, and I tried not to think about him at all.

When the car came to a stop, I opened the door wide and hopped out, my gun ready. My men were still supposed to be in front of me and be the first ones to attack, but I wasn’t going to allow anyone to sideline me in order to protect me. If I wasn’t good enough at this and something happened to me, well, then it might be better that way.

The shouts and gunshots filled the air as we moved through the darkness toward an old factory whose space the Desaltis had turned into storage. We were here to take their product too if we found any, but the main goal was to kill as many of Desaltis’ men as we could or at least enough to cripple their forces so they wouldn’t come at us too soon. I wished I could put an end to all this quickly, but that wasn’t possible, at least not until we gained some intel that allowed us to get directly to their boss or until we formed an army strong enough to defeat them.

I pressed myself against the wall, and James was right next to me. We waited as my men made their way into the building. One of the Desaltis’ guards came from the other side, and I aimed at him and pulled the trigger. He went down.

Meg had also prepared a special device for us that could disrupt communication systems so that the Desaltis couldn’t call for reinforcements, but the device only affected the factory and a bit outside it—everyone would know something was up if the communication went down in the whole area. One of the Desaltis’ men managed to run out of the building, and as I raised my gun toward him, I let out a frustrated groan because he was too far away for me to hit him. He was running in the direction of a building across the street.