No wall of flames rushed toward us. Or guards, for that matter, but from the frantic crescendo of screams in my thoughts, people were dying somewhere. It took some doing to sort through the mental chaos enough to figure out what happened, and when I did, I was stunned.

“You used your power to sabotage their incineration machine before it could torch this floor, and it blew up where it was located.”

Talk about fighting fire with fire. Or with telekinesis, in this case. When had Bones gotten to be that powerful? A better question, how could he still be, in his condition?

He nodded. “And . . . opened . . . doors.”

Speech was clearly difficult for him, but his abilities were at astounding levels, judging from what he’d done.

“Which doors?” The ones leading to the surface, hopefully.

“All . . . of them.”

So saying, the doors in front of us unlocked and slid open. When a surge of new screams invaded my mind, I understood the significance of what he’d said.

He hadn’t only opened these doors. He’d opened all the doors in the facility, including the ones that kept undead captives in their cells.

This time, when I listened to the mental screams, I smiled.

From the sounds, Tate, Juan, Dave, and Cooper had their situation well in hand, but more guards could be on their way to them.

“Stay here, I’ll get the guys,” I told Bones.

He might be missing over half the flesh on his face, but he still had no trouble conveying “Are you bloody joking?” with his expression.

“There might be fighting, and you look like a hard stare could break a limb off,” I said in exasperation.

Something beamed me in the back. I whirled, already shooting, but I’d been struck with a detached head—gross, yet not dangerous. Then another head came rushing toward me as if it were a bowling ball, and my legs were pins. I dodged out of the way only to have it turn in midair and smack me in the ass.

“Stop it, you made your point!”

Guess I should have realized who killed all those guards to begin with, although with how rotted Bones looked, the only threat someone would assume him capable of was to their appetite . . .

It hit me then. All of it. Maybe it should have been obvious from the moment he broke down the panic-room door, but shock had prevented me from putting the pieces together. Now I knew how he was still alive although I’d seen him die, and why he looked the way he did.

And if it wouldn’t have knocked a hunk of his flesh off, I would’ve punched him right in the face.

“You heartless bastard,” I choked out.

His gaze was unblinking. Lacking eyelids will do that to a person.

“Later,” he replied in that rasping voice.

Oh, he could bet on that.

“Cat!”