He nodded painfully. “Just a cut,” he said, lowering his arm as I reached him. “It’s not serious.” Wincing, he looked down at his hand, clenching and unclenching a fist. “Think I burned myself when I punched the last soldier, though.”

“Let me see,” I said, reaching for his arm. He stiffened, and I froze when I saw my scaly foreleg, curved black talons hovering close to his skin. Claws that could easily rend and tear and rip right through him. His eyes rose to mine, and I saw my reflection in his steely pupils: a huge horned lizard with claws and wings outstretched, looming over him. For half a heartbeat, we stared at each other, dragon and soldier, surrounded by the bodies of his former brethren.

Garret moved first. In the moment before I would’ve pulled back, he raised his arm and held it out to me, placing the back of his hand gently in mine. Heart lurching, I very cautiously curled my talons around his wrist. He didn’t move, didn’t flinch or tense up, though a patch of his skin was red with the telltale shininess of a burn. I swallowed hard.

“Sorry about that.”

“I’ve had worse.” He held my gaze, gray eyes intense. “Besides, it’s hard to be angry at something that saved your life.”

“Garret? Ember?”

Faith edged into view. She held a length of rebar in both hands, and it shook as she gazed around at the fallen soldiers. “The shooting…stopped,” she whispered, her body poised for flight, as if the bodies might leap up and attack again. “I didn’t know if you were still alive, or if they had…had…” Her voice trembled, and she trailed off. I huffed a cloud of smoke at her.

“So you decided to come look for us? You’re supposed to be hiding—”

One of the soldiers from earlier, the first one I’d taken down, suddenly lunged out of the shadows, gun held before him. Faith shrieked, swinging the rebar wildly as he appeared, catching him right in the face. He crashed to the floor again and lay still, while Faith scuttled behind Garret, breathing hard.

“Is he dead?” she squeaked, as I forced myself to exhale and relax my muscles, releasing the air that I’d sucked in slowly, and not in a violent explosion of fire. Garret walked to the fallen soldier, knelt and rolled him onto his back. His head flopped, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, and I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

“The others will be on their way,” Garret muttered, not looking up from the body. He started rummaging through the soldier’s stuff, checking for guns and ammo, most likely, anything to help us get out of here. “We need to hurry. Ember…” He glanced at me, narrowing his eyes. “Can you Shift back before we leave the hotel?”

I cringed. Not without my clothes. “Gimme two seconds,” I said, and hurried to where I’d left my belongings, then changed back and slipped into them as quickly as I could. When I returned, Garret stood waiting for me, gun in hand, the soldier’s belt now looped around his waist. Faith hovered beside him, watching his every move with starry eyes. All her fear of the former St. George soldier seemed to have vanished, and I bit down a snort of disgust.

Garret tossed me a pistol as I came up, and I caught it grimly. “Let’s go,” he ordered, and we fled the room, knowing the rest of the force was still out there, swarming the building. I suspected we weren’t safe yet, and I was right.

As we turned down one last corridor, two soldiers looked up from where they guarded the stairwell at the end of the hall. The carbines blared, and we ducked back around the corner as bullets peppered the walls and floor. One of the soldiers called for backup, alerting the rest of them, and I snarled in frustration. So close; if we could just get past these guards, we were home free.

Raising the gun, I tensed to dart out of cover and fire, when Garret grabbed my arm.

“Wait.” Drawing me back, he crept to the edge of the hallway and pulled something from the stolen belt at his waist. A small metal cylinder with a ring at the top. Glancing at me and Faith, he narrowed his eyes. “Look away,” he ordered. “Close your eyes and cover your ears. Both of you.” And he hurled what was in his hand around the corner, toward the soldiers.

The boom rocked the corridor, and even through my closed lids, I saw the brilliant flash of light, as if a star had exploded in the hall. The gunfire ceased, and Garret took my hand, pulling me to my feet with a brisk “Let’s go!” We sprinted past the stunned, gaping soldiers, hit the stairwell at top speed and didn’t stop running until we reached the very last door and burst through it into the hot Vegas night.

Riley

We finally reached the end of the elevator shaft.

I heard Ava hit the bottom, the quiet thump of her feet on solid ground echoing faintly up the tube. Relieved, anxious to be done with tight spaces and lethal falls in utter darkness, I descended the last few rungs and hopped off the ladder, before realizing we weren’t home free just yet.

The floor under my boots swayed slightly, as if hovering a few inches off the ground. Clicking on my flashlight, I saw we’d hit the metal roof of the elevator box, thick cables coming out of the center and rising up the tube. A small square hatch sat in one corner, and Ava crouched next to it, her hair a ghostly silver in the pale light.

“It’s stuck,” she whispered.

Putting the flashlight on the floor, I knelt across from her and grasped the handle at the top. “On three,” I muttered, as her fingers wrapped around mine, slender and cool, and I tightened my grip. “One…two…three!”