When there were nods all around, we broke apart. The other group took off ahead of us and disappeared into the night, just as planned. Griffin, Jett, Tyler, and I waited a beat or two longer, giving the other team, Ben Agnew and two of Griffin’s best Blackwater soldiers, a ten-second head start. Then we took off too, slipping silently through grass that reached my knees and overgrown bushes that tangled menacingly along what had once been a driveway.
In operations like these, darkness could be your ally, the shadows swallowing you whole and giving you the element of surprise. But it could just as easily work against you, creating unseen obstacles and making it next to impossible to discern friend from enemy.
I’d been on those missions. Seen allies fall simply because we were shooting blind.
I never wanted to live through that kind of clusterfuck again. If I shot someone, I wanted it to be intentional. I wanted to see their faces when they died.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, I’d heard that somewhere, maybe in school back when things like school mattered.
With each step, I waited for a reaction, equal or otherwise. A warning shout, an alarm, a bullet chiseling through the night. But nothing happened as we got closer to the building. Silence and darkness seemed to seep out from it equally, and I started to believe Tyler had screwed us. Wasted our time.
No one was here. No one had been here in a very, very, very long time.
Griffin and I took opposite sides of the massive entrance doors. They were solid, making them impossible to see beyond, but we stayed to the sides anyway—no point taking a face full of bullet spray if it wasn’t necessary, right?
Griffin and I eased forward, while Jett and Tyler stayed back. Time slowed and I was aware of everything—the stars overhead; the still, almost oppressive heaviness of the air; the sound of every breath I took. I balanced on the balls of my feet, settling my weight as I crossed my left hand over my body to reach for the door’s handle while my right shoulder slid over the heavy wooden door. The assault rifle stayed at the ready in my right hand.
I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find the door locked.
I nodded once at Griffin. We’d been here before, in situations like this, back when we’d both been recruiters under Franco. The job had landed us in some sticky situations. More than once we’d had to bust into private residences, medical clinics, even a police station or two to rescue a newly Returned. Like me, Griffin knew the drill.
Silently, we watched each other, counting in unison. Neither Jett nor Tyler was even aware. It was so ingrained; we didn’t do it out loud.
When I reached three, I stepped out of the way and Griffin smashed her boot near the handle, heel first. The frame splintered as the door gave, and I rammed my shoulder against it, shoving my way through first.
Griffin and I cleared the entry within seconds, with Tyler and Jett coming in right behind us. We were all armed, although the rifles Griffin and I carried made the others look like water pistols.
“Stay close!” Griffin whispered.
The inside of this place was an even bigger mess than the outside. The guts of the asylum were everywhere; long-dead electrical wires dangling from walls and ceilings, wreckage spewing out of doorways, and a rotted stench that combined everything from human waste to musty decay to something . . . fresher . . .
“Gunpowder,” I mouthed to Griffin. It was a scent I’d have recognized anywhere, even mingled in this shithole of sensory overload. But Griffin had already noticed it, and now she was leading the way, making quick work of picking her way through the rubble.
The first body we came across was facedown. Relief that it was a boy wasn’t a strong enough word. The fact it wasn’t Kyra almost renewed my faith in God. Almost.
The kid was wearing khakis and a T-shirt—normal crap. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, old-fashioned hospital scrubs? Maybe a killer clown or two? Somehow his ordinary street clothes were even creepier in this place.
If he was Returned his body never had the chance to heal. The point-blank bullet through his forehead had sealed his fate the second it had shredded his brain.
Dropping his face back into the debris, Griffin gave the Let’s go signal.
Body #2 was another boy, just a few feet from the first. This kid had a gun, but apparently it had done him little good. Same precise bullet hole, same destroyed brain.
From behind me, I heard the two-way crackle to life.
I turned to Jett, who held it to his ear, listening with intense focus.
“They got a body,” he whispered. “Near the rear exit.”
I closed my eyes, wishing I could ask if it was her—Kyra—but knowing we needed to stay off the channel as much as possible. We had no idea who might be listening.
I nodded. We’d get there. At least I hoped we’d get there.
Before we did though, we reached a strange inner chamber. That’s where we discovered another body—a blond girl who matched the image Griffin had found online. It looked like Tyler’s dream had been right after all.