Julia had to squint at the grainy feed from the video link to see Darr and two of his men leaving the Command Base. Leven and red-haired Jakub walked away without a backward glance, their weapons slung over their shoulders, but Darr craned a final look, his angular face expressionless.

The remaining survivors of the Chittrix attack at Crossness station had chosen to remain at CB, including the two young girls, Megan and Katie.

Anna peered over Julia’s shoulder.

“Good riddance.” She clicked the visual link off with a firm thumb press.

Violet pushed back from the digital map she was scanning at a nearby computer station. “Are they gone?”

Anna pivoted on the desk. “Gone, although I doubt it’s the last we’ve seen of Mr. Darr.”

Violet grimaced. “He’s bad news.” She pointed at Julia with a chewed pen. “How’s the head?”

Julia raised a tentative hand to the thick dressing on her forehead. Edwards had taped the wound shut, reassuring her it appeared worse than it actually was. It throbbed like hell, but at least it had stopped bleeding. “I’ll live.”

“Have you spoken to Sawyer?” Violet asked, quirking her eyebrows into a nonchalant expression.

Julia ignored the implication in Violet’s voice, but she shot a glance at Anna. Had she mentioned anything to Violet? Anna gave the tiniest shake of her head.

“He went to see Garrick after he took me to the infirmary. I’ve not seen him since.” Julia twisted her fingers in her lap. The straightforward relationship she’d worked to establish with Sawyer was unraveling right before her eyes, and she was helpless to stop it.

“I don’t know what to say to him. I’ve never seen him like that. It freaked me out seeing him so worked up. He was agitated, like he had this itch, and the only way he was going to ease it was through hitting Darr.”

“From what you’ve said Jules, Darr provoked him,” Anna said.

“Yes, I know. He was upset about…Beth, the woman that died.” They were together, and he kept it from me. She straightened in her seat, running a hand through her hair. Her fingers caught in fuzzy knots. God, she wanted to slip into a hot bath and forget about the world.

“He knew her from before. He worked undercover for the Met, and his evidence led to her conviction. He’s messed up about it. He hasn’t forgiven himself for what happened. Now it’s too late, and it’s eating away at him.” Julia rubbed her stinging eyes and glanced over at Violet, but the other woman had returned to her computer screen and was absorbed in flicking through historical underground maps.

Julia softened her voice so only Anna could hear. “I’m hopeless. I don’t know what to say to him because I’m crap at relationships.”

Anna frowned, her eyebrows creasing under her blonde hair. “Is that what this is now? A relationship? Because before, you were adamant that was the last thing it was.”

Julia hesitated. “No. It’s just…I have feelings for him, of course. I worry about him.” She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable under Anna’s scrutiny. “We all do,” she justified.

Anna stared at her so long Julia squirmed. “Don’t look at me like that, Anna,” she muttered.

“I’m not,” Anna replied, deadpan.

“You are. I’m confused. I don’t know what I want. Realistically, we’re better off without each other if we can’t just keep it as friends, because we’re both hopeless. He’s messed up. He needs something else, something I can’t give him.” Her chest was tight as she wished the reality was as easy as the statement.

“I saw the expression on his face when he arrived to speak to Garrick,” Anna replied. “I don’t think he’s confused, more like terrified about what he feels for you.”

Julia looked away, a lump forming in the back of her throat. She didn’t want to hear this. “I just want to keep things simple. That’s the only way forward. I can control my research, it’s the one thing that’s going to make a difference around here.”

Anna touched Julia’s hand. “That’s a lonely way to live.”

Easy for you to say. Julia stood, sliding her hand away, desperate to move the subject off her emotional inadequacy. She walked over to Violet.

“Any luck?”

Violet shook her head. “I’ve been over and over these maps. The sewers. The river. Even conduit maps. Plenty are big enough for a Chittrix to travel through.” She blew a curl of auburn hair from her forehead. “To be honest, I’m amazed London hasn’t disappeared into a sinkhole, there are so many underground tunnels and sewers beneath it. Damn Chittrix could be anywhere.” She pushed back from her seat.

“May I?” Julia asked as she grabbed a stool.

Violet indicated the map in front of her. “Be my guest.”

Julia took the mouse and flicked through the screens one at a time. Her concentration narrowed and focused, blowing away the cobwebs of emotional indecision. Her heart rate eased as she slid back into her comfort zone: work.

She clicked through the screens Violet had accessed. Sewers. Ordnance Survey maps of the rivers. Conduit tunnels. Tube stations. Air-raid shelters. She overlaid them on top of each other and narrowed in on Crossness. There were two separate entrances to the station, and running parallel, the air raid shelters where the scavengers grew plants.

She leaned back and tapped her fingers on the wooden counter, her mind processing possibilities.

She scowled at Anna. “Doesn’t make any sense. They must be here.”

“Hmmm,” Anna muttered her agreement. ‘Are we looking too hard?”

“What does that mean?”

Anna jogged over to a whiteboard that stood on an easel in the corner of the room, a relic from when the base held an active military presence.

“Pen?”

Violet tossed over a thick marker from the desk drawer in front of her. Anna caught it deftly, then turned and faced the board, speaking out loud as she drew.

“So we have these swimming Chittrix which have attacked us here, and also the scavengers in their base. Both times the Chittrix came from the water. We’ve been searching for their nest based on a source of water we can identify on the maps. But in doing so, we might be missing something.”

“We are missing something, Anna. We can’t bloody find them.” Violet said in exasperation.

Anna snapped her fingers at Violet. “Exactly. The whole water thing and the sewers have derailed us. What if they’re using the sewers only to get around?”

Julia contemplated what Anna was saying. Even Violet had straightened from slouching over the desk.

“Chittrix build their hives above ground, but the primary hive also went deep below the surface?” Julia offered.

“Exactly.” Anna stepped back from her squiggly drawing on the white board with a disappointed frown. “I’m a bit rusty. Take my word for it, this is an ant nest. You can see there are rooms or chambers built in between tunnels. The whole thing continues down in a stepped manner. Tunnels to rooms on the horizontal, and more vertical channels going deeper. All hidden and safe.”

“You think they’ve been digging?” asked Julia.

Anna nodded, excited. “Yes. We know they’re in this area somewhere, but we’ve been focusing exclusively on historical information. That’s been our mistake. They’ve redrawn the maps.”

“Damn,” Violet said.

Anna continued scrawling on the board, connecting slashing lines of marker pen, enthusiasm lighting up her face. “What if they’ve dug new tunnels in the area around Crossness?” She stepped over to the screen on the wall and circled the area with an expansive gesture of her arms. “We have sonar technology we can use to locate new passageways or chambers not in our records.”

She smiled. “We can still find them.”