Gilpatrick gave me a worried look over his shoulder. He was using the remote—three green flashes. I was left to back up, letting Erin go ahead of me. I crouched by the front tire of one bus. Erin climbed up onto the bar at the side, so her feet wouldn’t be sticking out below the bottom of the painted bus.

The color coding of Fallen came to mind—two were in white, with Mama Mathers being one, held up by two people at the treeline. Another wore white and hung even further back, peering through the woods while wearing a pale leather animal mask.

There were two options there, if I went by what Rain had told me, and both were messy. Animal master, likely, and the changer geyser.

One in black—a Fallen that was holding Mama Mathers up. From the way they were handling her, she was still alive. They were trying to take her to safety.

One pointed at me, lifting his gun as he turned to his buddy, who had slipped in mud and fallen a few paces behind. I pulled my head back behind cover.

People opened fire, but they were our people. Gilpatrick stood on the wheel of a bus, and fired over the hood. I peeked at the result with my defenses up—the Fallen who wasn’t in black that was supporting Mama Mathers had created a wall of white-blue material with faces embossed on it. The material cracked as the bullets hit it, and the cracks closed up almost as fast as they appeared.

I’d peeked too long, and one shot me. It pinged off of the Wretch, and I ducked back behind the front of the bus, where the wheel at least partially protected me.

I knew the Mathers were notorious for their involvement in kidnappings and their connections to other families. It was what defined them as a sect of the Fallen. Now I was seeing the long term results of that kind of operation. Rain had already spelled some of it out.

Mama Mathers was a nightmare to deal with, and she’d traded for multiple capes who could protect her. Layers of defenses, and Looksee had slipped past those layers to take her out of action.

Rain dripped off of the front of my hood as I hunched over. My arm was limp at my side, and it hurt all the more because of my position. Even crouching, somehow, made my arm hurt more, because the angle was different, or because the blood flow had changed.

“Captain Gilpatrick!” I heard the voice.

Ashley.

“What is it?” Gilpatrick replied. He had his back to a truck much like I did. Many of his students were crouched in the ditch, the road, another ditch, and a bit of mud and grass between them and the Fallen.

“I want your—”

A series of gunshots from a handful of the oldest Patrol block members interrupted her.