Then her hand went up. A claw, four fingers and a thumb extended. A hand pointed in one direction.

Five of ours for some of yours.

“Who are you keeping, out of our groups? Tattletale?”

There was no response. Instead, fingers typed.

I expected another audio message.

Instead… wailing. Panicked sounds.

A hollow sound, magnified times ten by the fact it seemed to resonate out from everything from wires to engine block.

A young girl’s voice, caught up in sobs that made the words impossible to make out.

For an instant, I forgot how to breathe. My heart forgot how to beat. I wouldn’t have been sure I knew how to stand if I couldn’t fly to keep myself upright.

Candy reacted, I saw, hands at her mouth. Chastity visibly flinched.

Rain… he looked angry and harrowed at the same time.

“Take your people. Tell us where ours are,” I said.

Nobody on our team disagreed with me. Nobody looked like they doubted the call. Not while the sounds continued.

Love Lost tapped her wrist and she pointed at me.

I looked at my own wrist. The disc was still mounted there, slightly ajar after the fighting.

I tapped it, activating it. It brought up the red team, Kenzie and Ashley with hands bound, back to back. The other Heartbroken kid a distance away, looking like she was digging.

A tap brought up the yellow team.

Noise, no directional indicator.

Love Lost gestured, and that was apparently the key for some tech to kick in.

The noise remained, but there was an indicator.

In an instant, the others were hopping up onto the dogs for a ride, Rachel giving a hand to the more battered members of our team. Love Lost stepped to the side.

I turned her way. My foot was still on Colt’s chest.

“That was a kid,” I told Love Lost. “I thought you had some principles.”

She didn’t move an inch.

“What the hell did Cradle do to you? Or… what compromise did you make in yourself, that this is okay?”

Not a bat of an eyelash. The mouth of her mask was a perpetual roar, and her eyes matched it in intensity and simmering anger.

“You brought her into this?” I asked, my voice choked, as I pointed down at Colt.

“I brought myself into this,” Colt said. I could read her expression now. I could see a look of regret pass over her face.

I didn’t care in the slightest, either, because regret wasn’t worth a speck of shit if it didn’t change anything.

I let Colt go, and stepped closer. Love Lost moved her claws, and the image at my disc broke up, the location data fading.

When I backed away a step, she returned it. That information was her insurance.

There was a whistle, shrill and loud. Rachel, at the very far end of the street.

They needed guidance.