"In here!" I shouted, voice bouncing off the walls. "Everyone. Now."

Sherry moved first, quick pivot, shoulder brushing the frame as she slipped through. The rest followed in a tight, wordless flow: bodies low, elbows tucked, no questions, just the pure mechanical efficiency of people running on instinct and trust. Sinn peeled away last from his firing position, rifle swinging down as he backed through.

I grabbed the door’s edge, muscles straining, and hauled it shut. The thick slab met the frame with a deep, resonant boom. I slammed the heavy bolts home, one, two, three, each lock clanging into place like final punctuation.

The outside roar of moans dropped instantly. Not gone, but muffled into a low, constant vibration that traveled through the floor and up into the bones of our legs. We knew they were still there. We just no longer heard the wet details.

The room was stark. Empty. Four intact walls rising clean and bare. No ceiling, just open sky above, moonlight pouring straight down in a wide silver column that lit every face, every bead of sweat, every smear of ash and blood with brutal clarity. Shadows pooled sharp at the base of the walls where the light couldn’t reach.

Everyone was breathing hard. Bodies folding. Most dropped straight to the floor, backs against concrete, legs splayed, heads tipped back. I bent forward, hands braced on my knees, feeling the burn in my thighs and the rapid flutter of my pulse against my ribs.

"Door’s solid," Sinn said, leaning his shoulder against the wall. His rifle barrel tapped once against his thigh. "They won’t break through that."

I straightened, neck cracking as I tilted my head. My gaze climbed the walls, tall, sheer, but not impossible, then lifted to the open rectangle of sky. Stars pricked cold and distant overhead. Moonlight painted the tops of our heads and shoulders in pale blue-white.

"We can’t stay," I said. The words came out flat and hard. "They’ll find a way eventually. We need a plan now while the door is holding."

Six faces turned upward in unison, eyes reflecting the open sky above us like scattered coins.

One car already gone, Owen’s taillights long vanished across the plain, specimen with him. Another specimen still locked in the trunk of the remaining vehicle somewhere outside the city perimeter.

Seven people trapped on a third-floor open box, surrounded by hundreds of infected, with nothing but a metal door and moonlight between them and the teeth below.

Think. The command burned behind my eyes. You grew up outside. You know how this works.

My boots shifted on the gritty floor as I paced a tight circle, moonlight sliding across my shoulders with every step. The low vibration of the horde pulsed up through the soles. Time was already leaking away.

Sinn stood up first. His boots scraped concrete as he pushed off the wall, shoulders rolling forward like a piston. He came straight at me, eyes locked, jaw muscles flexing under stubble.

"This is your fault," he said, voice low and raw.

"General—"

"Your fault. I had that bald bastard handled. You intervened." He closed the distance in three long strides.

"This isn’t the time—"

His hands shot up, fingers hooking hard into the neck of my shirt, fabric twisting tight against my throat. The pull jerked me forward an inch.

I planted my feet and shoved him back, not hard enough to drop him, but enough to break the grip, palms slamming into his chest with a dull thud. His boots slid backward half a step, soles grinding grit.

Code was already rising behind him. Blades snapped out from his fists with a metallic click, edges flashing cold under the direct moonlight. His face wore the flat, hungry calm of someone who had finally found a reason to cut.

The whole room came alive at once.

Harmione surged to her feet, orange fire blooming instantly across her open palms, flames licking upward in restless tongues, casting dancing shadows across her cheekbones. Her eyes burned straight at Code.

Sherry’s hands crackled beside her, blue-white arcs of stolen electricity snapping between her fingers as she tracked Code’s every micro-shift in weight. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

May rose smooth and silent, head tilted, eyes darting between faces, running probabilities in real time. Mercury had found a broken metal rod somewhere in the debris, her knuckles white around it, grip low and brutal, the kind that said she had already chosen her first swing.

"Put one finger on him," Harmione said to Code. Her voice cut clean and steady through the tension, flames flaring brighter for a heartbeat. "I dare you."

Code didn’t move. Only his eyes traveled, slow, calculating, reading the fire in Harmione’s hands, the electricity dancing on Sherry’s skin, the way Mercury’s shoulders had already committed. The moonlight painted every bead of sweat on his forehead silver.

Sinn stood rigid, rifle still in his grip, chest rising and falling hard.

"I dare you," Harmione repeated into the thick silence, flames curling higher.

"This isn’t helping," I said, stepping between them. "We have infected outside that door and we’re fighting in here."

"Yeah," Sinn exhaled. The fight leaked out of him in one long breath. His shoulders dropped.

"You’re blaming Bram," Harmione pressed, fire still alive in her palms, "which of you two is actually the leader? The one who ran and left his people behind in a building? Or the one who came back down through infected to make sure everyone got out?"

"Harmione," I tried.

"She’s right," Sherry said, electricity still flickering across her knuckles. "We don’t need someone performing leadership. We need someone actually doing it."

Sinn’s jaw tightened until the muscles stood out like cords. He looked at the wall, then up at the open roof where moonlight poured down like judgment. Then the shout tore out of him, short, explosive, every ounce of rage he’d been carrying since the Guardian truck ripping free in one raw burst. It echoed off the bare walls and died fast.

"You’re all ability users except me and Mercury," he snarled. "What was I supposed to do when that bald idiot fired a gun in the middle of hundreds of infected with my people scattered through them?"

"Anything," Harmione shot back, flames snapping. "Anything except leaving your people behind."

"Guys." I said it low. Then louder, sharper: "Guys."

The room settled. Hard breathing. Boots shifting. The low, endless vibration of the horde pulsing up through the floor like a second heartbeat.

"We find a way out," I said. "Right now. That’s all that matters."

Everyone lowered. Bodies dropping back to the dirty concrete, legs folding, backs against walls, faces tilted toward the open sky. Moonlight carved clean lines across exhausted features, highlighting streaks of ash and sweat.

Sherry settled beside me. One knee came up, the other leg stretched long. Her shoulder pressed warm and solid against mine, the faint crackle of residual electricity brushing my skin like static.

Code stood alone. He walked slowly to the nearest wall, head tilted, eyes tracing upward with predatory focus. His fingers brushed the surface, pausing at regular intervals. Holes. Old climbing holds, metal loops and chipped sockets, embedded in the concrete, spaced like deliberate handholds leading all the way to the lip of the open roof.

He turned back toward the group, blades still out, moonlight glinting along the edges. His gaze found mine.