“And it’s done,” the bearded man said. He turned to walk back into the woods. Erin looked bewildered, but he motioned for her to stay.

“Stay put!” Gilpatrick called out.

The bearded man froze in his tracks, his back to us.

“I’m okay with dying, motherfuckers,” the bearded man said, but he stayed put. “She’s telling me that one of our powered just got your Rain… and Rain wasn’t where you told him to be. He was coming up on us from behind. Secondhand caught him and now your girl in the armor is cornered. Four against her.”

I drew in a breath.

“Erin here has outlived her usefulness.”

Erin bolted and I flew. Nothing to lose. I flew to where Erin had been, and raised my forcefield. I felt it drop as a bullet hit it, and dropped to the ground.

It was because I was at a weird angle and because my peripheral vision was untouched that I saw it. Two streaks from above, straight down.

I heard the metal crash, and saw circuitry and metal housing scatter.

The gunman behind Erin had lost his rifle and he held his hand in an awkward way as he used the other one to reach down for the rifle. Gilpatrick shot him before he could claim his weapon.

The metal—pieces from Looksee’s camera.

One dropped from the sky to hit the gunman’s hand. The other—

Children and other unarmed individuals emerged from the trees. A wall of bodies. The woman behind them was supported by two Fallen.

The woman was bloody, a scrape down one edge of her forehead and a messy patch of skin and blood toward the top end, hair already matted into it. Blood streamed down her face.

The blood meant I hadn’t immediately recognized it as Mama Mathers. The moment meant I hadn’t even realized the hallucinations had stopped.

Kenzie had dropped one of her flying cameras on her.

And the Fallen—there had been a good number in the woods. Possibly the bulk of Mama Mathers’s faction.

They were charging forth, a wall of hostages goaded to stay in front of them, and they brimmed with all the fury and menace of the legions of hell.

Gilpatrick used the remote to flash. Two red flashes, bright enough that the people looking down at the ground would see the color change. I knew the code from my training with the Patrol block.

Get the hell out.

Pitch 6.4

With the rain we’d had, there was a degree of slipperiness to the dirt and grass. Twenty-five, maybe thirty people were coming at us—it was hard to count when the allegiance of some of the hostages was so unclear, and some had guns. All had a loose arrangement of hostages in front of them. Some of the hostages slipped as they ran, and they were trampled by those behind.