His chin came up. "Damn straight."

The cold night breeze carried Dare's raised voice toward us. Icarus's quieter responses were swallowed, but soon enough they both came to join us again. Icarus looked resigned and Dare looked defeated.

"All right, Rabbit, you're going to shimmy through the pipe. It'll lead you to a grate inside the compound. You'll have to sneak out of the pipe and get into that building." He took a few moments to show the kid how to engage the bomb. "Set the timer to two minutes from the time you engage it. That will give you a little lead time to get as far from the building as possible before it blows."

Rabbit practically pranced with excitement as he listened to the instructions. Dare hung back, staring off toward the river in the distance. Further downstream, the lights of Nachstadt created a surreal glow on the horizon. "You okay?" I asked, moving closer.

She shook herself and dragged her eyes from the lights. "I smell death on the air."

"Hopefully Troika deaths."

She just looked at me without speaking.

"Dare, Six?" Icarus called back. "He's ready."

Dare sighed and dragged herself out of whatever headspace she'd retreated to. "The master calls."

I looked up at the dim stars that were determined to be seen despite the city's lights and the Factory's fires. "Please." I wasn't sure to whom I was pleading or even what exactly I was asking for. I just knew that if anyone in the entire world needed help at that moment it was us.

#

Rabbit hung outside the tunnel long enough for us to take positions on a nearby rise. We needed to have a bird's eye view of the compound so we could warn him if any guards were close. Icarus held a small remote in his hand. A punch of the button would set off a small shock on a sensor around Rabbit's wrist. It wasn't the best warning system, but it was all we had. Besides, even if we'd had a more sophisticated verbal warning system, we couldn't have risked interference getting picked up by the guards' walkie-talkies.

Once we were in position, Icarus sent a quick double-zap to the kid to let him know it was time to go. We were far enough away that Rabbit looked incredibly small and very young beside the dark river and the pipe's wide mouth. An instant after Icarus hit the button, the kid looked down at his wrist and then waved to signal he'd received the message.

Dare let out a long, nervous breath. I shot her a look that I hoped was reassuring despite my own nerves. Were we really sending that kid into a heavily fortified compound alone? The list of things that could go wrong was so long, it was laughable.

"There he goes," Icarus whispered. We all tensed as Rabbit's wingtips disappeared into the hole.

Dare raised her binoculars. "The guards do a lap around the building every two minutes. If he can time it right, he'll be able to enter the outbuilding through the window in the back between rounds."

"The trick will be getting out of range before the explosion goes," Icarus said in a grave tone.

When she responded, Dare didn't lower the binoculars. "If he dies, I'm holding you responsible."

"If he dies, we all will," Icarus shot back. "Either from the bomb or when the guards find us."

We all fell silent then. The minutes ticked by like years. The orange light from the furnaces lit up the compound like the fires of hell. Figures in black Troika uniforms swarmed the perimeter and the buildings. And my heart thumped in my ears like war drums.

"There he is," Dare whispered, pointing. I grabbed the binoculars from her. Sure enough, a small head was peeking out from a grate not twenty feet from the outbuilding. I held my breath as the mop of hair rose a little higher and his eyes appeared to scan the area.

But before he could gather his courage and climb out of his hiding place, a commotion near the compound grabbed our attention. The wind whipped up and landing lights flashed to announce the arrival of a transport rover bearing the Troika's official seal.

"Damn it." Icarus raised his voice over the high-pitched whine of the rover's engine. He punched the button to indicate Rabbit should stay put. The rover landed in the center of the compound and was quickly surrounded by every guard in the vicinity.

"Hold on," Dare said. "Look." She pointed to the outbuilding, where two of the guards ran from their post to join those surrounding the rover. That left only one guard at the front and the back completely unguarded.

Icarus checked to be sure no guards were approaching the area around Rabbit's grate. When the coast was clear, he punched the button twice. A couple of seconds later, Rabbit burst out of his hidey hole and ran as fast as his skinny legs would carry him toward the window at the back of the building. My heart pounded in time with his footsteps. "Come on, kid."

Rabbit reached the back wall of the building and paused. From my vantage point, I could see his bird-thin chest heaving from the exertion. His head swiveled from side to side, looking for any ambushes. I looked toward the rover and froze. Astyanax had already exited the craft and Castor was climbing out after him. The General was tall as a tree and built like a tank. Where the guards carried assault weapons, Astyanax carried no weapons other than his massive fangs, which protruded from his mouth like a saber tooth tiger’s.

By comparison, Castor was smaller and more elegantly turned out. He wore a sleek black business suit and a blood red tie. His blond hair was slicked back and his too-red lips stood out lushly against his milk-white skin. Despite his refined appearance, I knew for a fact he had the eyes and the personality of a venomous snake. You never knew when he'd strike, but he always did. Once his feet hit terra firma, Castor spun around to admire his latest victory in his quest to become the top engineer of nightmares for humans. He spread his arms wide and laughed. His breath hit the chilly air and rose like smoke.

"Quickly," I urged. "If we can get the explosion to go off while they're taking their tour--"

"He's moving toward the window now."

Rabbit fumbled to remove the package from his shirt. Icarus was watching the guards while the kid worked. "Shit," he said. "The guards are going back to their posts now that Castor and Astyanax are going inside for their tour."

Sure enough one of the returning guards broke off and started his way around the building. "Get him out of there!" Dare shouted.

"He's almost done," Icarus argued. "A few more seconds."

"There's no time." She lunged for him and grabbed the remote. Taken by surprise, Icarus lost control of the device easily. She punched the button hard. Down in the compound, Rabbit jerked and looked around quickly. Seeing no one, he shook his head and returned to fumbling with the buttons on the device. Dare cursed and hit the button again. "C'mon, kid, run!"

In just a few more steps, the guard would reach the corner. Once he rounded it, he'd see Rabbit and all hell would break loose. Dare hit the button three times in quick succession. The kid must have finally gotten the message. He jumped away from the window and darted back in the direction of this grate and freedom.

The three of us jumped up from our crouches. "Run! Go, Rabbit!"

The kid was ten feet from freedom when the guard came around the corner.

He was only five feet away when the bullet hit him in the back.

Nine.

Even if I lived to be a hundred, which was frankly looking less and less likely every second, I would never forget the moment when Rabbit fell. Time slowed like we were watching through water. We were so far away we couldn't hear the gun go off, but we saw the bloom of red an instant before the kid stumbled to his knees. I don't remember exactly what happened next, except that once time caught back up with the three of us, we were screaming. Dare had fallen to her knees and covered her ears with her hands. Icarus shouted "Rabbit!" and then fell ominously silent. I'm not exactly sure what I said, but I knew that my throat hurt and tears fell cold on my cheeks.

All of this happened in less than a minute. Then, down far below, a swarm of black surrounded the kid and blocked our view. My eyes searched the area, looking for something, any sign of hope. Somehow my gaze landed back on that window and the small black device still attached to the glass. I hit Icarus on the arm. "The bomb!"

He dragged his eyes from the vampires surrounding the kid and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. "What?"

"They didn't find the bomb."

He shook himself, like a man waking up from a deep sleep and grabbed the binoculars from me. "Fuck me." He looked down at his watch. "It should have gone off by now."

Dare stood on the edge of the rise, staring at the mass of black figures. "He's alive," she whispered. She reached back and grabbed my sleeve. "He's alive!"

I stumbled forward and looked where she was pointing. The black uniforms had parted. One of the vampires pulled Rabbit up from the ground. At first, it appeared he wasn't responding, but, then, he got his feet under him and his head rolled back. I grabbed Icarus's binoculars. "Holy shit! She's right." The kid's eyes were open and his mouth was moving. I couldn't tell if he was screaming from pain or merely begging for his life. Regardless, he was alive. I rounded on Icarus. "We have to save him."

He stared hard at the unfolding drama far below. The guards were dragging Rabbit toward the center of the compound. No doubt they planned on taking him to Castor for instructions. If we could make the bomb go off before they decided on a course of action, we might have a chance for getting Rabbit away from the guards.

Finally, Icarus looked at Dare with sorrow. "It's too late for him."

She launched at him, punching at his chest and face with wild hands. "Fuck you! We're not leaving him!"

"Stop, Dare. Stop!" He struggled to get her flailing limbs under control. His scars were pale against his flushed skin. "Listen! Our only chance to save him is to set off the bomb. Stop!" He grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her. "If the bomb goes off he's dead anyway."