did that every passing second might mean fewer shadowkind freed—might mean our plan failed altogether. Last time we’d only managed to get him out before we’d had to run for our lives.
“There!” the computer guy said with obvious relief. “Okay, I’m going to start the virus uploading while I read out the numbers. The code for cage 3-5 is 6-9-0-2.”
I braced myself as I typed in the code. Omen had already moved to the next cell, dragging the guard with him. He bent close, flinching just at being close to the toxic metals, and read off the number on the keypad there. The metals in the keys would have burned him—or any of our other shadowkind companions—too badly for him to use them, but at least we could free the captives twice as fast if the guard was punching in codes too.
As the lock thudded and the cell door in front of me swung open, Ruse stepped up to peer inside with one of his warmest smiles but wary eyes. Shadowkind didn’t tend to be in a friendly state when they’d been locked away for who knew how long.
Even starker light filled the inner space from a panel up above. A streak of darkness quivered in the center of that light where the captive being had drawn its least substantial form in on itself. I couldn’t make out any of its features, but somehow just looking at it, I knew we hadn’t found Snap—not yet, anyway.
“Please, my friend, make your escape,” Ruse said, extending his hand. “We’re getting all of you out of here. And feel free to enact a little revenge on your captors as you flee.”
The patch of shadow hesitated and then sprang from its confines with a shudder of knobby haunches and a clicking of scales. I didn’t wait to see how it would react to its newfound freedom—I was already rushing to the next cell.
Omen and I volleyed numbers back and forth with the tech guy, and one by one the cell doors gaped open. After the first, I leapt to the next the moment the lock clicked over, not waiting to see who might be inside, as much as I might have wanted to.
A couple of the freed beings lingered in the room, watching our progress: an emaciated fae man hunched by the stack of boxes, shivering, and a shifter woman with cat-like irises prowled back and forth with darted looks toward the staircase as if she wasn’t convinced it was actually any safer up there than down here. The others vanished straight into the shadows.
“Don’t hang around here too long,” Ruse called to them. “Take a few jabs on your way out if you like, but don’t give these bastards a chance to snare you again.”
We were down to the last few cells when voices crackled from the charmed guard’s radio loud enough for me to hear. “The east basement! All units head there now!”
Shit. They’d realized we’d made it this far. “The rest of the numbers, fast!” I shouted, darting to another cell.
As the computer guy rattled the digits off, my fingers flew over the keypad. There were only two cells left. The guard hesitated as Omen urged him to open the cell they were at, and the hellhound shifter snarled.
“Type in the fucking code!”
Panic flashed across the guard’s face. Ruse dashed over, seeing his magical influence fracturing.
I waved the computer guy on. “I can do the rest. Hurry!”
Despite the cool air, sweat trickled down my back as I jabbed in the last two codes, not even waiting to make sure they worked first. “That’s it!” the computer guy shouted to me after the final one, and mashed at the keyboard a little more. “I’ve downloaded all the other data I can, and the virus is in the network. Should I activate it?”
“Yes, yes, get on with it!” Omen said. “We’re going to burn this whole place down… in every possible way.”
He shot a meaningful glance at me. At least this part I could do by regular means, no worries about uncertain powers or witnesses.
“Everyone out, now!” I hollered, just as the first figures in the new wave of guards barreled down the stairs.
Thorn, Laz, and other shadowkind I couldn’t recognize from a glimpse shot in and out of the shadows between them, mashing a skull into the wall here, cracking a spine in half there. The less combat-inclined beings hurtled past them. I caught sight of smoke streaming from open wounds on