"Stay with me," I mutter against his hair. "Almost there. Stay with me."
He doesn't respond.
The fence comes into view. The hole Jagger mentioned is there, just wide enough for us to squeeze through. On the other side, headlights cut through the darkness. The van. Safety. Escape.
Fifty meters.
Forty.
Thirty.
"Go!" I shout at Marlee. "Get Thiago through!"
She doesn't argue. Just shoves through the gap, dragging Thiago with her, the razor wire catching on their clothes and drawing thin lines of blood. The van door slides open. Jonah's face appears in the gap, pale and terrified, hands reaching out to pull them in.
Twenty meters.
A shout behind me. Guards, closing fast. Muzzle flashes in the darkness. Bullets whining past my head, chewing up the ground at my feet.
I run faster. My lungs scream. My legs burn. Jinx's weight drags at my arms, but I don't slow down. Can't slow down.
The fence. The gap.
My turn.
The hole is too small for me to carry Jinx through. I'll have to set him down, push him through first, then follow.
"Jinx." My voice comes out ragged. "I'm going to—"
"I know." His hand fists in my shirt, weakly. "Don't let go."
"Never."
I lower him to the ground as gently as I can. His face contorts with pain, but he doesn't make a sound. Just grits his teeth and starts crawling through the gap, his wounded side scraping against concrete and metal. Blood smears across the ground. A trail of red marking his passage.
Gunfire intensifies. A bullet clips my shoulder, a hot line of pain that I barely register. The guards are close now, twenty meters and closing.
"Move!" Jagger's voice in my ear. "Move now!"
Jinx is through. Hands grab him, drag him toward the van. Jace's face appears in the gap, his gray eyes cold and lethal, a rifle in his hands. He opens fire over my head, laying down cover as I drop to my stomach and crawl after Jinx.
The razor wire tears at my back, my arms, my scalp. Blood runs into my eyes. Pain screams through every nerve. But I keep moving, dragging myself forward inch by inch, until hands grab my vest and haul me through.
The van door slides shut. Tires squeal against pavement.
And we're gone.
The facility shrinks in the rearview mirror. Behind us, guards cluster at the fence, their shouts fading into the distance. We made it. We're alive.
Some of us.
I look down at Jinx, cradled in my lap, his blood soaking into my pants. His eyes are closed, his breathing shallow, his heartbeat a faint flutter against my palm where I press it to his chest.
"Don't you dare," I whisper. "Don't you fucking dare leave me."
He doesn't respond.
Jace is driving, pushing the van hard, taking corners at speeds that make the tires scream. Jonah is in the passenger seat, speaking rapidly into a phone, coordinating something. Marlee has Thiago's head in her lap, her hands pressing a fresh bandage to his shoulder wound.
