"On my signal," Derek Mayhew's voice whispered in his ear.

Johnny crouched down by the fence. It felt weird having another man's voice in his head, but he had to admit it was handy.

"Three, two, one...."

A spark flared in the distance. A couple of lights went out along the fence. In the distance a dog barked. Warg dogs. Brilliant.

"Move," Mayhew directed. "You’ve got a minute window before I flick the electrics back on and you need to be inside that fence."

He and Arik were going in first to clear the way. Behind him, Lincoln hovered over Eden. Both of them were dressed in Confederacy green. He didn't know where Mayhew had gotten the uniforms, but at a glance they might pass for Confederacy soldiers. Mayhew waited with them, using a datapad to take down Ragnarök’s electricity.

They crouched low and ran. Arik used wire cutters to snip the lowest strand of the fence, then they were both rolling under the fence and moving to take up position. So far, so good. Adrenaline pumped through him, until the night seemed to come alive.

Johnny looked back, gesturing with his fingers for Eden, Mayhew, and Lincoln to make their move. He scanned the darkness, covering them. Nothing moved, and then they were through the fence, and the faint electric whine began again as Mayhew flicked the security systems back on.

Arik gestured toward the end. Johnny nodded, holding his shotgun low.

The laboratories were on the opposite side to the barracks, thank God. The last thing they needed was Confederacy wargs scenting them.

Johnny rubbed a hand over Eden’s spine, sharing a questioning look with her. You okay?

She rolled her eyes. I’m fine.

He was pretty sure there was more to it in her head, but he merely moved on. She wouldn’t appreciate him hovering. Time to hit the labs.

A warg suddenly melted out of the shadows. One second there was no one there, and the next Johnny could smell him.

It was one of those moments where both of them were downwind and hadn’t expected the other.

Johnny recovered quicker, perhaps because he’d been anticipating enforcers around every corner. He leaped forward, jamming the butt of his shotgun against the soldier’s head.

The bastard staggered, but didn’t go down. A hand chopped toward his throat, and the gun was knocked from his hands. Johnny moved inside his next strike, delivering a punch to the warg’s ribs. One, two, then a hard uppercut that snapped the warg’s head back.

Johnny stepped behind him, dragging the warg back against his chest. Slamming a hand around his throat, and another over his mouth, he took him down, kicking his feet out from under him.

"Stay down," he hissed, holding the warg against his chest.

The warg struggled, his heels kicking in the gravel as Johnny stared into his eyes and fused him with scent.

"That’s it," he murmured, as each kick became a little weaker. "Stop moving."

The soldier slumped in his arms.

"Nice work," Arik muttered, and there was a somewhat wild look in his eyes. Arik would be getting a lungful of those omega pheromones too.

Johnny knocked the soldier out, then flipped him over and hastily hog-tied him, ripping the warg’s tunic and stuffing some of the material in his mouth. No point killing him. The blood would only draw attention, and if they needed to rely on Bligh, then a trail of dead wargs would do nobody any good.

"Any more?" Arik muttered.

"Not that I can see or hear." His heart raced.

"Let’s go get our cure then."

* * *

Breaking into the lab was Eden’s first experience in breaking the law.

She hadn’t been there when Johnny popped the lock on an upper window of the house. But this was different. She kept jumping at shadows, expecting wargs to leap out at every corner.

The four guys moved like a well-oiled machine. Johnny and Arik rode point, with Lincoln guarding them from behind. She and Mayhew were in the middle, tasked with keeping out of the way until required.

Fine by her.

Mayhew slipped a cord into his datapad, and then slid the other end of it into some sort of plug on the keypad to the door. She didn’t fully understand what he was doing, but it worked like magic. The keypad lit up, and then the door was hissing open. Mayhew collected his cord, and they were in.

"You’re very good," she noted, as Johnny and Arik slipped ahead of them to clear the way.

"Child’s play."

"Oh, everyone in the Confederacy can do it, can they?"

He smiled at her. "Computers always made sense to me, Miss McClain. Spent a lot of time locked up in juvenile detention, and there was a guy in there who knew code. Taught me a little. He was pure genius, and when we got out…. Well, the Confederacy likes to say all its citizens are equal, but they’re really not. I wanted to feed myself and didn’t want to end up back in juvie, so I had to learn how to get credit." He waggled his fingers. "I can steal everything that’s not nailed down with a touch of my datapad."

"Mayhew," Arik called. "Another locked door. You’re up."

The labs were all locked down for the night, with bulletproof doors at certain intervals. Mayhew cracked them, one after the other, until they were in Wing C. A sign on the wall said Infectious Diseases.

Mayhew examined the map he’d pulled up on his screen. "Gold mine." He pointed to a door. "This one."

The door gave with a hiss, leading into a sterile laboratory. Rows of fridges with glass fronts lined the walls. She could see hundreds of vials within them, labeled neatly and barcoded. And a certain sort of breathlessness went through her. A giddy you did it. Victory. Relief. She could save Lily. She could save Ian and all the others of Absolution who were inflicted with the salt plague. A thousand furious emotions pressing in on her from the inside out, and—

"What the hell?"

Eden slammed to a halt as a man's voice broke through the room.

It went through her, thin as a sharpened stiletto.

A cut. A slice.

Miles Wentworth.

He looked up sharply from where he'd been reading some sort of document a second man had slid in front of him. She hadn't seen either of them from the outside, tucked as they were in the corner, and as Johnny sucked in a sharp breath, she realized she wasn't the only one.

Their eyes locked together, and Eden felt trapped in a vortex where Miles's mouth dropped open in shock as recognition flared in his dark eyes, and she knew the same expression was painted across her own face.

"You," she whispered, her heart starting to thunder through her veins.

He took a step back as if she'd spat the word at him. As if it carried a weight that could dissect him. His gaze tracked sideways, a furtive move that compounded his guilt.

The truth was etched on every inch of his body and face.

"You know these people?" the man at his side asked, and Eden saw in the thick dark slashing frown of his brows a similarity between them.

Miles turned and bolted for the bench in the middle of the room.

"Stop them!" Mayhew yelled. "If they hit the panic button—"

"Don't move," Johnny snarled, pointing his handgun directly at Miles. It had been provided by Mayhew, and a thin green dot bloomed right in the middle of Miles' forehead.

He skidded to a halt.

A shotgun pumped as Lincoln turned his weapon on the other man, who'd been in the process of reaching for the datapad attached to the wall.

"Miles and Nigel Wentworth," Mayhew mocked. "What are the odds? Here we are looking for whoever was behind a certain plague ravaging the Wastelands, and who should we find but the Wentworth's themselves. Daddy Wentworth's going to be quite unamused when he discovers the pair of you dabbling in things you shouldn't be."

"Miss McClain," Miles managed to gape. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What the hell am I—?" Her fury burned to the surface, turning her incandescent with fury. This man had tried to murder hundreds, possibly thousands for a fucking mine.

Eden didn't even realize she was moving toward him until he threw up his hands with a yelp. Her fist was moving independently of her and slammed right through his ineffective guard.

Miles's head snapped back as her punch landed, sending him staggering into a tray of tools. They smashed to the ground, the violent echo of their landing ringing in her ears.

"You murderous bastard!" She hit him again, driving the blow through her knuckles and not her fingers, the way Adam had taught her. "You fucking prick! You unleashed a gods damned plague on us as though we weren't even human. You thought you'd wipe out my settlement just so you didn't have to pay more to get your greedy hands on the Copperplate mine. Admit it!"

"I didn't!" Miles bleated. "I had nothing to do with it!"

Rage consumed her. She turned to find Johnny right behind her and snatched the spare pistol from his belt. Eden drove the muzzle right into Miles's forehead until it left a white ring of pressure on his skin. "Then tell me how a Confederacy-manipulated plague suddenly managed to afflict Wastelanders? Tell me how a bacteria that could only be found in this fucking lab made its way hundreds of miles west, where it started killing my people." Her hand shook. "Explain why your men were vaccinated against it before they even arrived!"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Tears and snot ran down his face as he cowered.

"Henry Chin told me everything!" Eden clicked the safety off, her vision narrowing down the line of the pistol as she stared into his pathetic eyes. "You deliberately infected Wastelanders, so you could move on the Copperplate mine without paying the price we wanted."

He finally broke, nodding furiously. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I did it! I needed the deal. You don't understand—"

For a second she actually considered pulling the trigger. The violent urge to end this man filled her like a poison.

"Don't do it, angel," Johnny said softly. "You know you'll always regret it."

I want to. I want to so badly....

"Miles?" Nigel croaked. "Is this true?"

She saw it in his eyes and wanted to end him. "You don't deserve to live," she managed to say, pushing harder with the pistol, until the scent of urine stung her nostrils. Miles slowly sunk to his knees, shaking, quivering, cowering before her like the pathetic bully he was.

"Please," he gasped. "Please don't hurt me, Miss McClain! Please. I'll do whatever you want. I promise."

"His death is not worth your guilt." A hand rested on the small of her back. "Easy, darlin'. Let's leave some of him behind to pay for what he's done."

Eden tore the pistol down, clapping a hand over her mouth as she gasped. She shook. Violently. She'd almost shot him. Almost murdered a man. He didn't deserve to live—not after what he'd done—but she wasn't a killer.

She refused to let Miles Wentworth twist her into something she wasn't.

Eden let Johnny take the pistol from her, and collapsed into his arms. He caressed a hand down her spine.

"Beautiful," Mayhew breathed behind them, a red light blinking as he held the datapad up. "Got it all on tape—confession and all. You're going down, Wentworth. Both of you."

Nigel's head snapped up. "I had nothing to do with this. I didn't know he'd taken some of my plague samples!"

"Your plague samples," Mayhew spat. "There's going to be a lot of people who start asking questions about what you've been up to, Nigel."

"Are you okay?" Johnny asked, as Nigel bleated something at Mayhew.

She looked up. Nodded. There was a hollow mess in her heart as if her anger had suddenly flamed out. All she felt was exhausted. "Yeah. Better now I hit him."

A smile bloomed over his dangerous mouth. "It was the perfect punch. Adam taught you well." His smile died. "But now it's time to get to work, angel," Johnny murmured, holding his gun on Miles. "This is your part of the action."

Arik set up by the doors, gun held ready as he stared into the darkened corridors.

"What are we looking for?" she asked Mayhew shakily. Every fridge was neatly labeled, with a strange barcode on the front.

He shrugged. "There's nothing in the database. It's like this thing doesn't exist, except in rumors of what brought down Radisson."

Lincoln grabbed Nigel by the scruff of the neck and hauled him toward the fridges. "Where's the cure for the plague?"

"I don't—"

Mayhew put a gun to Miles's temples. "Get the fucking cure, Nigel, or I'll spray your brother's brains all over the floor. If that doesn't inspire any action, then you're next. We're a little short on time."

"The nanoparticle solution’s called Ener-V," Nigel bleated. "That’s what you’re after to cure the plague. The vaccine should be in the same fridge."

Eden scanned label after label. Despite the chill in the room, her hair was damp with sweat.

Phase two was about to kick her in the teeth.

"Here it is!" she called, finally finding the right label.

Mayhew scanned the strange code on the front of the fridge. "Give me a moment to check if these are the right vials." He looked at Nigel. "It's coming up as password protected. I could break it, but it would take a while. What's the password?"

"I can't—"

Mayhew put the gun to Nigel's head. "I actually don't need you any more, though I'd prefer to double-check."

"NKW773X," Nigel yelped.

Mayhew's fingers danced over the keypad. The datapad pinged. "Got it. This is definitely it. There's an entire section on Ener-V in the database. The vaccine’s on the bottom shelf."

Eden eased open the fridge. Each syringe was preprepared, and they lay in neat racks. Hundreds of them.

"Get a refrigerated transport box," Mayhew called. "You’ll need to keep them cool."

He showed her what he meant. There were small silver briefcases in the corner with a cooling pack attached, and foam inside them. Hundreds of cutouts lined the foam; the perfect size for the vials. She didn’t understand half the terms he used, but when he adjusted the temperature dial on the side of the box, she could feel the foam pads begin to chill.

"Start packing them in," he instructed.

"Inject yourselves first," Johnny cut in, looking away from the door for the first time. Their eyes met. "Just in case we lose those cases."

Eden swallowed. He’d been tense ever since she told him she was infected.

Mayhew showed her the instructions on the datapad.

"How are you getting all of this?" she asked breathlessly as she prepared the small syringe and his arm.

"Magic." His smile came quick, and she quite suspected he was getting some sort of thrill from the night. "They don’t even know I’m in their system."

He hissed out between his teeth as she injected him with the full contents of the vial. Then it was her turn. A little whisper of relief went through her as she swiped the alcohol swab over her upper arm. She hadn’t wanted to think too much about the disease, but it’d been on the back of her mind, gnawing away like termites.

"Pinch here," she instructed.

Mayhew blanched. "You’re kidding, right?" He held up his hands and backed away. "Sorry, Miss McClain, but I don’t do blood."

She almost looked at Nigel Wentworth, but there was no way she was letting him put his hands on her.

"Here." Johnny handed his gun to Lincoln, and strode toward her. "Want me to do it?"

She nodded. Johnny pinched her skin together between thumb and forefinger, and stabbed the syringe needle deep into the muscle. Eden winced as a flood of pure cold pumped right into her arm.

He rubbed her arm and dragged her against his chest. "Thank God."

"I’m okay."

A shuddering breath tore through him. "Just let me hold you for a second. You weren’t okay, and it’s been driving me crazy. I’m not afraid to die, Eden, but I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you."

"Right back at you, big guy."

He drew back and looked at her, his eyes filled with emotion. Then he hauled her in close, and Eden let him hold her.

One hand slid up the back of her neck, sinking into her hair. Eden closed her eyes and took a moment to just breathe. She was starting to get dangerously addicted to these hugs. For a man who’d spent years riding by himself, he was more affectionate than she’d expected.

Or maybe just hungry for affection?

She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed tight. "We did it," she whispered. She had her cure. She could save Lily, and the rest of her patients. "I couldn’t have done this without you."

"Never doubted you for a second, angel." Johnny stole a kiss, tension easing through his shoulders. "Got in, got the cure, now we just need to get out. Then you and I are celebrating."

Eden rested a hand against his chest. "You got something planned?"

Johnny gave her his crooked smile. "You. Me. Dinner and a little privacy."

"Can we focus?" Arik growled under his breath.

"Right." Johnny straightened, his relieved cheerfulness fading off him as if he forced himself to lock down his emotions. "Let’s get the hell out of here."

He helped her pack two of the refrigerated cases. Eden wanted to take as much of the vaccine and Ener-V cure as she could. She hated not knowing what was going on back home. Who knew how many people were affected? With this, she had enough of the cure for three hundred people. It would have to do to start with.

"What do we do about these two?" Lincoln asked, gesturing toward Nigel and Miles.

The sound of Arik removing the safety on his gun echoed loudly through the room.

"No," she said sharply, pressing a hand to her temples. "It's too easy. They should suffer. I want them to suffer." She looked at Mayhew. "What are you going to do with that footage?"

He gave her a lethal smile. "I think the good citizens of the Confederacy deserve to know what's going on behind the closed doors of Ragnarök."

Complete ruin. The Wentworths would lose everything. Possibly even end up on the wrong side of General Bligh, if this erupted in his face.

"I need Bligh."

Just in case there were more than three hundred plague victims.

"Then I'll hold it over Bligh's head. I don't think he'll be very happy with the Wentworth's."

"Perfect," she said, with a brisk nod, though her gaze lingered on Nigel and the uneasy way he shifted. Instinct made her tense. His smile seemed out of place.

"What's that smell?" Johnny asked, rubbing his nose. "Smells like—"

The second he said it, her gaze shot to Nigel.

Nigel snatched at a small tap on the bench, and gas began hissing into the room. Further along the bench, another tap shimmered in the air as gas trickled silently from its nozzle. He must have slipped it on when they were distracted.

"Don't shoot!" she screamed as Nigel suddenly bolted for the panic button.

Arik hauled his pistol into the air, just as Johnny leapt for Nigel. He slammed into the scientist, but it was too late.

An alarm began blaring, and the lights suddenly cut off, plunging them into a sudden darkness. All she could see was the red glow flashing from the alarm in the corner, and the flash of shadow moving as Johnny lifted his weapon and pistol-whipped Nigel with it.

"You fucking piece of snot," he snarled, and Nigel whimpered and hit the floor.

"Oh, shit," Mayhew said, looking around frantically. "We need to get out of here."

"What about them?" she demanded, gesturing to where Miles cowered next to his brother's fallen body.

"Justice will just have to wait. Move!"

* * *

"They know we’re here!" Johnny yelled, as they sprinted along the hallway. "How many are we expecting?"

"Full squad of twenty," Arik yelled back. "They won’t know exactly where we are at first. They’ll be waiting for commands from central, and central will be sending drones out."

"On it," Mayhew called.

The lights in the hallway had been cut, and the only illumination came from the red alarms, pulsing in and out.

"Time for that diversion, Mayhew," he called, grabbing Eden by the arm and hauling her close against his side, just in case.

She pounded down the hallway with him, but he could hear her breath rasping. While the injection was hopefully starting to work, her system was still ravaged, and she wouldn’t have the strength to keep this up for long.

"With pleasure," Mayhew said, fingers racing over his datapad. "Let’s confuse them."

Outside, a series of explosions rocked the air.

The ground shook, and Johnny could just make out screams and confused yelling in the distance. "Do I want to know what you just did?"

"Comms are down." Mayhew gave a sinister smile. "It seems someone’s taken over their drones. They’re attacking the barracks, keeping the wargs within pinned down."

"Shame." Johnny allowed himself a tight smile.

"I live for this shit."

They skidded around a corner.

"Remember the exit plan," Johnny snarled at Eden. "As soon as we’re out, we’re heading for the storm water tunnels. No time to waste. Mayhew’s going to cover us from the inside."

She nodded, her eyes wide.

"Incoming!" Arik yelled, slamming the pair of them into the wall as gunfire suddenly barked.

"Fuck." He cupped his arms around Eden’s head, as hell opened up around them. There was a doorway there. Just enough cover, if he and Arik pressed tight.

Mayhew found himself in the middle of the line of fire. He spun the other way, using the steel case to shield himself. Bullets punched into the case, and one hit him in the side. He went down, the case hissing pressurized gas.

"Mayhew?" Eden screamed.

"Got him." Lincoln had been last. He grabbed Mayhew by the arm and hauled him back into the corridor they’d come from, leaving a smear of blood on the tiled floors.

Mayhew groaned, cupping his side. "My datapad."

It lay on the floor in the middle of the hallway.

"Go, go, go," called a tinny voice near the exit.

Heavy booted feet drummed on the floor, coming closer. At least one squad had managed to clear the barracks.

He hoped they were only human.

And that it was just one squad.

"Without that datapad," Mayhew gasped, "none of us are getting out of here alive."

Johnny poked his head out of the doorway. Over a dozen black-clad figures in full riot suits clomped toward them. One of them yelled when they saw him and pointed. Light flared as a gun retorted. Ping. Ping. Ping. Bullets bit into the back wall.

Pinned down. Shit.

"We’ve got to get moving," Arik warned.

"Count of three." He grabbed Eden by the arm. "Get the datapad."

"One… two…." Arik counted.

"The cure!" Eden held her hand out imploringly toward the shattered case.

"Down to one case," he yelled, shoving her back down the corridor they’d come from on the count of three. "We’ve got enough for over a hundred people. It will have to do."

Arik slid across the floor behind him, as bullet fire barked in the hallway. He had the datapad and shoved it toward Mayhew as he gained his feet.

Lincoln was tucked under Mayhew’s shoulder.

"Let’s get moving!" Arik remained at the back to cover them in Lincoln’s place.

Down the hallway, past Infectious Diseases.

They hit a T-intersection, and Johnny paused. A set of steel bars was slowly descending from the ceiling. Shit. "They’re locking down the facility and trying to herd us."

"This way," Mayhew gasped, limping past them, bloody fingers holding his datapad. "There’s an exit at the back."

At each intersection, the steel bars were descending. Arik cursed behind them as he tried to spit enough bullets back toward the squad to keep them at bay, but conserve their ammunition.

"Stay with Lincoln," Johnny said to Eden, giving her a little push. "I’ll help Arik keep them off us."

Mayhew plugged into a fuse box. "If I can get us through here, we have a clear run to that exit."

They were dangerously in the open here. Johnny saw the enforcers’ red dot bloom right in the center of Arik's chest as he swung his rifle off his back.

"Get down!" he screamed, slamming into Arik.

They hit the floor, Arik sliding across the polished concrete with Johnny atop him just as gunfire turned the air above them into a hailstorm of death. Bullets slammed into the wall ahead of them, pitting the brick, and Johnny buried his face in Arik's shoulder before someone called out sharply behind him.

It stopped.

Eden.

Lincoln crouched behind a steel box, his hand holding Eden's head down. "The cure!" he yelled, pointing at the briefcase on the floor behind them. He’d clearly shoved her out of the way, and she'd dropped it.

No way was Johnny losing that briefcase.

Without it, Eden’s people would die.

Sprinting low toward the case, Johnny heard a loud groan echo in the ceiling. A wall of bars began to descend, and red lights flashed at intervals along the ceiling. Shit. No wonder they weren't shooting.

"Code black," one of the enforcers yelled into his radio. "We have a code black in the Wing C. All units. I repeat, all units."

Skating to a halt, Johnny bent to grab the case and tore back toward Eden. The bars ahead of him cranked down inexorably, separating him from the others. He wasn't going to make it. He wasn't going to—

Johnny threw himself into a slide, one foot flung out before him.

At the last second he thrust the case ahead of him, and it flew beneath the bars just as they crashed into the floor. Johnny slammed against them, his knees bending with the force and his body colliding against the silver-coated steel. He jerked back with a hiss as the silver burned him.

Too late.

He was trapped on the other side.

"Johnny!" Eden screamed, throwing herself at the bars.

Behind him the enforcers advanced, lifting their rifles. Red dots glowed to life across Eden's chest.

"Down!" he yelled.

Arik wrestled her back, tossing the polished steel case to his brother. "Damn it, Eden. We've got to go."

Arik looked at him helplessly, and Johnny understood. He wasn't getting out of here. They had no time. Barely any ammunition left. And the enforcers were right behind him.

There was a tight clenching in his chest as if the cage of his ribs fought to contain his heart. His ears were ringing, and all he could see was the shock and fear on Eden's face.

He loved her.

He'd found more of himself in the past week than he'd ever dared to hope for, thanks to her.

Someone needed to make the decision.

"Go," he whispered, dread sliding through his veins as he crawled to his feet, putting his body between the enforcers and Eden. "Get her out of here. Get her safely home."

"No!" Eden struggled, driving her elbow into Arik's ribs, her expression frantic. "No!"

She got free. Hit the bars again, rattling them with her tiny fists. "Mayhew!"

"Eden, stop it," he demanded, curling his hands over hers. A shiver of nerves ran through him as he cast a look over his shoulder—their window of opportunity was narrowing, and the longer they delayed, the stronger the chances of them getting caught.

Enforcers hammered down the corridor toward him. Two of them knelt at the sides, bringing their rifles to bear on him. He could almost feel the red lasers of their sights burning right between his shoulder blades. A helpless sort of anticipation stole his breath. If they pulled those triggers, there would be nothing he could do about it.

"We've got to get these fucking bars up," Eden snarled, looking for some sort of electronic fuse box.

"Eden," he snapped.

She looked at him helplessly, and he saw his fear reflected there.

"Whatever it takes," he said desperately, reaching through the bars and stroking a hand through her hair. "That's what you promised, angel. You've got your cure, you've got—"

"Not you!" she cried, her heart bleeding through the words. "I can't lose you, no."

He met Arik's eyes over her shoulder and nodded grimly. "I'm not getting out of here." And they wouldn't either, if they didn't hurry. "You have this one chance, Eden. Don't waste it. Go and save Lily. Save your people. They won't kill me if I don't force their hand. The Confederacy takes wargs alive."

"Throw your weapons on the ground," called a tinny voice behind him, as if to punctuate his words. "This is over."

Not for Eden and the others.

"Go," he insisted.

"Johnny," she begged.

He'd been holding the words close, biding his time, hesitant to say them when he wasn't sure if she returned the sentiment, but now there was no point. "I love you," he told her hoarsely as Arik dragged her back. "You made me believe I didn't have to be alone anymore. And I'll come for you, Eden. No matter how long it takes me. No matter how much it costs me, I will survive. I promise. Now go and save your people, before it’s too late."

"Love you," she mouthed, and he wasn't sure if she was simply repeating the words in shock, or trying to tell him she felt it too.

Arik muscled her away from the bars, and Johnny's ribs constricted. He had this horrible feeling he'd never see her again. Time seemed to slow down. The ringing in his ears enveloped him.

Then she was gone, Arik literally carrying her through the door Mayhew had just jacked open.

The shitty feeling in his chest felt somewhat akin to panic.

"Turn around slowly."

Arik would get her out, and she could complete her mission.

He had to believe that.

Slowly Johnny cupped his hands behind the back of his head, and forced all of the fear out in one nervous exhale. Enforcers surrounded him, their stunners held low as he slowly turned.

All he could do was try and survive.

If Arik could escape Camp Ragnarök, then so could he.