Another falling.
Someone screaming in German.
Bisch was in the doorway, firing with mechanical precision. All shots found targets. One by one, they dropped.
“Move!” he shouted. “Now!”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
Will was already lifting the Baroness, cradling her against his chest as though she weighed nothing. Her head lolled against his shoulder, conscious or not, I couldn’t tell. In that moment, it didn’t matter. We were leaving.
I fired blindly into the darkness—two shots, three—covering Will as he pushed past me toward the door.
A shape lunged from the shadows, and I put a bullet in it without thinking.
The shape fell.
More gunfire. Not ours.
Something tugged at my sleeve.
I felt heat, then nothing.
I couldn’t afford to look.
“Thomas!” Will’s voice, sharp with fear. “Come on!”
We ran.
The corridor was a nightmare of strobing light and screaming men. Emergency lights had kicked on somewhere—red and pulsing, turning everything the color of blood.
Guards poured from side passages.
Bisch cut them down.
I stayed close to Will, weapon up, firing at anything that moved.
A guard appeared on our left—I dropped him.
Another on our right—Bisch got that one.
We moved like a machine, three parts working in terrible harmony.
Four parts. Otto.
I looked back and saw him still lying in the cell doorway, motionless.
“Otto—”
“Leave him!” Bisch’s voice was ragged. “He is dead weight. We cannot—”
“He’s not dead!”
“He will be if we go back!”
Will had stopped, the Baroness in his arms, his face twisted with the same anguish I felt. Otto had come for her alone. He’d been beaten, broken, and left as bait. We couldn’t just—
A bullet sparked off the wall inches from my head.
