I wanted revenge, here, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. For her, for the others. For Kenzie who had lost her hands and who hadn’t been able to smile enough to compensate for the pain and sadness, whose cheeks had been wet with tears. For Ashley, for Darlene, for Tristan…

Fuck.

Infiltrating, finding our stride. Getting a sense of where strange teammates were, so I could identify the big guy who looked like he might take a little more effort to take down, someone I didn’t necessarily want to pulverize, and I could hit him so he stumbled in the direction of the group coming down the stairs.

Chastity caught him, and I saw the stunned surprise at the pretty girl before him.

She backhand-slapped him, and he hit the ground like a wet towel.

No smile, no triumph at the act. Even with Lord of Loss and Nursery’s people, there had been that.

Rachel’s dogs came down the stairs three astride, with Cassie on the hound’s back and Rachel following behind. Each dog had multiple people in their mouths. Two for the chihuahua, three for the wolf, and three and a half for the hound.

No—not a half. Someone’s jacket had come off.

They were deposited on the floor and the people writhed, unwilling to get up.

“Let’s get through and scramble. We have everyone?”

A quick head count confirmed we did.

Past a small army, a little bloody, a little too unkind, in a way that would be remembered, but we were as intact as when we’d arrived.

Blue lights appeared down the center of the room. Water appeared, and that water was like the inverse of the parting of the red sea. A crest of water appeared in the center of the long platform, and as it sloshed down, it swept the unconscious, injured, and dazed bodies on the platform to either side of the platform floor.

We fell into formation as we stepped across and through the portal, some of us limping or giving evidence to injuries minor and moderate. I chose to float rather than limp. Sveta slipped through, found a rack of books, and clung to it, hiding on the far side and peering over at us as we made our way into the platform, Earth-N side. The dogs sniffed and snorted at the ground.

“They were here. And there’s blood,” Rachel said.

Rain twisted around. “The dogs told you—”

“On the ground,” she said, pointing.

“Ah. Fuck.”

Fuck indeed, I thought. Rain. There was no good place to stow Rain. No place that an assassin like Operator Red wouldn’t be able to find him or kill him.

Not that Operator Red was with us anymore. Juliette had taken credit, which was chilling to think about. More chilling that she and her brother competed over kills.