The bed and breakfast looked pretty dingy from the outside—walls of dirty off-white bricks and a crumbling roof. Nevertheless, the inside was surprisingly homey. It was in Lauren and Angie’s room, all of us flopped on their bed’s multicolored quilt comforter, that we formulated our plan. With the help of a pad of paper Lauren had brought, we laid out what we were going to do.

“We have only two invisibility suits,” Ronad said. “So the safest option would be that only two of us go into the camp, keeping in contact with the others, who will be nearby, with the comm devices.”

We all agreed on that one. Even Bashrik gave a begrudging nod. “The real question of the hour is who those two will be,” he said. “Considering Ronad and I have the most experience dealing with coldbloods, we’d be the best bet. Not to mention that I’m easily the strongest of you all.”

“That may be so,” Galo remarked drily. “But you aren’t the most reliable.”

“What do you mean?” Bashrik said, his eyes flashing.

“What I mean is—what’s stopping you from making a deal with the rebel coldbloods if it means your brother gets free? How do we know you wouldn’t betray us to save him?” Galo said. “Anyway, I’m the one who best knows how to use the Fed weapons and suits, and I’ll die before I trust a coldblood.”

“Oh really?” Bashrik said, glowering at him.

From the way his chest had started to heave, I sensed Bashrik might be about to do or say something he’d regret. He was so stressed out by Navan’s situation that I feared any provocation might cause him to snap. I stood up and positioned myself between the two men.

“Guys—please. We’re on the same team,” I said.

Both men pursed their lips, but remained glaring at each other.

“Riley’s right,” Ronad said. “This is only wasting valuable time we could be using to work on saving Navan.”

This seemed to calm Bashrik down somewhat. When Angie softly added, “Please,” he nodded, leaning back in his chair.

“I apologize, lycan,” he said gruffly. “Sometimes my concern for my family makes me a bit… difficult to deal with.”

“I understand,” Galo said, though he didn’t take his eyes off the coldblood.

“Okay, so, we need to make a decision,” I reminded them as I sat back down.

“You’re right,” Angie said. “But I should be the one to go with Galo. You’ve been through enough as it is, and Lauren, well….”

“I’d probably collapse with terror at the sight of the camp,” she admitted, looking terrified at even the thought.

Angie and I gave her a reassuring squeeze as Galo stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Yes, yes. That will do. Riley and I will be the ones to go.”

The whole room erupted into angry noise.

Angie was the angriest of all. “What? That’s not what I said—!”

Galo waved his hand. “Yes, I’m aware. And while your concerns do take into account the wellbeing of Riley, which is important, they do not take into account the success of the mission. Riley has the most experience with the invisibility suit; not to mention, I have received word that she has an uncanny skill for knife-throwing. What can you offer us that she can’t?”

Angie’s hazel eyes were set into an expression of exasperated surprise. “I’m in better shape, so I can run faster,” she said, mouthing a “sorry” at me, “and I once took out this big guy who was trying to mug me.”

“Hm,” Galo said. “Good points, but sadly still not quite enough. I think we can all agree that Riley is more suited to the task. After all, she’s infiltrated the base once before—she might have failed in her mission, but she knows the area now better than any of you.”

All eyes went to me. They looked as uncertain as I felt. After all, the mission would be a dangerous one. Not to mention an incredibly important one, and I’d already failed at saving Navan once before. And yet, once again, Galo was right. I’d been there in the coldblood camp—I knew where Navan was; I knew the layout of the bunker. And more than from a merely logical standpoint, there was the whole heavy sense of responsibility I felt about Navan’s capture. I’d left him there, with those brutal monsters, and I wanted to be the one to rescue him from them. I wanted to be the first one he saw when he was freed. I wanted to see his lit-up grateful face—and kiss it.

I exhaled and rose. “I have to be the one to do this. I’m the only one who was there at all. More than that, I won’t be able to rest unless it’s me in there saving him.”

Lauren took my hand. “Are you absolutely sure, Riley?”

I nodded, giving her a sad smile. “Absolutely sure.”

Silence fell between us.

“I suppose Riley is right. She does have the know-how,” Bashrik said. He glanced at Angie, who, frowning, nodded her agreement. “And as for Galo accompanying her instead of me… I’ll admit I’m not of the most stable mindset right now, so perhaps it is for the best.”

Galo nodded in appreciation, and it seemed we’d finally come to an agreement. Now that we’d established who was going into the camp, we laid out the rest of the plan: together we’d fly into the Siberian wilderness, landing the ship a safe distance from the coldblood camp. It was in this ship that the others would wait while Galo and I snuck into the coldblood base. We were to keep in contact whenever we could using the comm devices, and to turn back at the first sign of trouble.

“And I mean the first, slightest, tiniest, eeny weeniest sign of trouble,” Angie said, looking me sternly in the eye.

“Yes, yes,” Bashrik replied impatiently, although I could tell he was thinking, Yes, turn back at the first sign of trouble—as long as you have Navan, that is.

“Agreed,” I told Angie, managing a wan smile.

The more we talked about the mission, the more nervous I was getting. It was just me, a weak human, and Galo, an elderly lycan, going into a base filled with thousands of merciless killers—coldbloods and shifters alike. Sure, we had our invisibility suits, but I’d barely made it through the camp undiscovered last time. And what if Galo got himself caught? Was I really willing to leave him behind if the mission called for it?

“You okay, Riley?” Lauren asked, looking at me with concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, the strain audible in my voice. “I’m just going to drop off these mugs downstairs.”

Hurriedly, I gathered up the tea mugs we’d been drinking from and rushed out of the room. On the top of the staircase, I took a deep breath. Some air—that’s what I needed. If I kept running through the mission and all that could go wrong in my head, I was going to explode.

After I’d dropped off the mugs on the kitchen counter and returned to the room, everyone was on their feet.

“There’s no time to waste,” Bashrik said, as he heaved every article of clothing his hands came into contact with into a beefy duffel bag.

“Yeah, except when you’re packing my bra,” Angie pointed out with a grimace. She lifted a slinky red lace balconette out of his bag. “What did you think it was?”

“My apologies,” Bashrik said, eyeing it with a wary sort of curiosity. “I thought it was a fancy doily.”

At this, Lauren, Angie, and I burst out laughing. Bashrik’s face went red as he upped his pack-heaving pace.

“Really, we do have to get going!”

“He’s right,” Ronad said, with a rueful smile of his own.

I zipped about the room, helping them finish packing their bags, and then we all but ran down the stairs and out of the bed and breakfast, saying a quick goodbye to the owner on our way out.

When we reached the ship, we rushed to clamber inside, and as soon as we were all piled in, Galo lifted off.

Angie was the one who broke the silence. “So it’s awesome that we got out of our bed and breakfast super duper fast, but for how long are we going to be squished together like this?”

I glanced back to see her, Bashrik, Ronad, and Lauren all side by side behind us, looking uncomfortably squeezed. Clearly, these ships had been designed to comfortably fit two lycans— and not one person more.

I smirked. “It’s not very far.”

“And seeing as Riley and I are the ones risking our lives, undergoing a cramped-but-brief trip is a minor price to pay,” Galo said, not looking up from the ship’s steering wheel.

“Yeah, maybe, but you’re not stuck beside some glaring monosyllabic jerk,” Angie said, making a face at Bashrik, whom she’d ended up beside in the melee.

“I could rip apart your stuffed rabbit again,” Bashrik offered.

“And I could solidify your eyes shut with Lauren’s coconut face mask again, but we agreed to get along better,” Angie shot back.

I resisted the urge to laugh. Clearly, Angie hadn’t been kidding when she’d said that Bashrik was driving her crazy. And I knew all too well how swift Angie’s justice was when it came to her enemies. I remembered how she’d slipped several spoonfuls of the spiciest chili sauce into the soup of an unsuspecting Andrea, a girl who’d bullied me in junior high. I could still remember her little cheeks puffed out like a squirrel’s as she held her mouth and raced to the bathroom.

“In any case, for how long in this direction am I expected to fly?” Galo asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I lost the map Navan and I had while trying to escape. But, like I said, the camp’s not far; we weren’t flying for long before the ship broke down. I’ll recognize the area when we reach it.”

“Okay, so maybe… in another ten minutes or so, we’ll land,” Galo said. “Better to be a bit too far than a bit too close.”

The ten minutes dragged on like half an hour. Everyone was tense, quiet. But sure enough, I recognized the area when we reached it—it wasn't difficult, thanks to Navan’s and my broken-down ship still parked there in the snow—and it ended up being about eleven minutes away. When we landed, we wasted no time in hurrying out of the cramped quarters.

“Thank God,” Angie said, sucking in several breaths of fresh air.

“Oh please,” Bashrik replied, looking down his nose at her. “I’m sure you’ve had worse travel companions.”

“You’d be surprised,” Angie replied, deadpan.

“So,” Galo said, clearing his throat.

Everyone quieted down, turning to look at Galo and me.

“Be careful, okay?” Lauren said, approaching me with teary eyes.

As she and Angie wrapped their arms around me, I hugged them back tightly. “I will,” I promised.

When we separated, Bashrik gave me a tensely nodded “Good luck,” while Ronad shook my hand with a kindly “Stay safe.”

“We will,” Galo commented, with an odd little laugh.

When I glanced at him, his eyes looked even greener than usual, perhaps from nervousness.

As we walked away, I looked over my shoulder one last time. I took in the scene carefully, trying to memorize every detail I could—Angie’s blond head held erect as she tried to look tough for me, Lauren adjusting her glasses with a sad smile, Bashrik, with his muscled arms folded across his broad chest, Ronad, waving, his lips set into a worried line.

I waved my hand once more, then turned and continued walking.

“I didn’t indicate this to the others,” Galo said in a low voice, “but you should probably know that our chances of success are not good.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I glared at his still-calm face. “Was that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” he replied. “It was supposed to inform you of facts. I am simply doing this—helping you on this mission—because it is right. Not because it is likely to be successful.”

“Okay, well how about this,” I said a bit testily. “You can think that this is a long-shot, and I’ll go on thinking that we can do this.”

I was stressed enough about what we were about to do; I didn’t need Galo making his dire, loopy predictions.

“As you wish,” he said. “Although we should probably put on the invisibility suits soon.”

“You’re right,” I said, pausing. “But for putting on the suits…”

“Yes, yes,” Galo interrupted, getting my drift immediately. “I’ll go over here, and you’ll go over there, and we’ll change without looking at each other.”

“Okay,” I said, sighing and walking off a few paces, before turning my back to Galo.

Really, I’d just made a point about the changing thing because I was irritated with Galo for being so calmly pessimistic in the face of our upcoming mission. For whatever reason, I trusted the man—not only in not being an old pervert, but also in having my back during this mission. It was weird—and maybe it was because of what Galo had said back on the ship—but I was feeling more and more like Galo was a sort of wise grandfather, one who had my best interests at heart. And I’d need that. This mission wasn’t important, it was essential. I had to rescue Navan. I hadn’t admitted it to my friends, but I was more in agreement with Bashrik than I’d let on. I wasn’t sure I could leave the camp without Navan. Not again.

And he’d be there. I’d heard them talk about using Navan as a pawn—he had to be alive. Or maybe hurt. Maybe they’d even sent him away, and if that was the case, I’d find out where and I’d go there. Whatever it took, that’s what I’d do to save Navan. I’d seen the protective look in his eyes when we’d kissed. I knew he’d do the same for me.

“You ready?” Galo asked from a few paces away, breaking through my thoughts.

“Ready,” I said, clearing my throat.

“Good,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

I took a deep breath. It was time.