Harris, Jackson, and Ani were already in formation by the main doors.

“Alpha team.”

They saluted him, Harris grinning as if they were on their way to a party. Harris was always happy about a fight. Ani looked grim but determined. Jackson looked like he’d been caught in the middle of a shower, his wet hair plastered back.

A line of jeeps idled on the strip, their high beams up. The grid was only three blocks away, but with the power being diverted to the main facilities, it would be three blocks of solid black.

“Let’s go.”

Kate took the stairs two at a time, trying to scrub the last of the dried blood from her face as she reached Sublevel 1.

The armory was an exercise in organized chaos. In the low light, soldiers bustled, suiting up while team leaders issued orders and subordinates talked around and under each other.

“—an attack on the central grid—”

“Transformers one through four are down—”

So they’d gone after the power. Darkness was a dangerous thing in a place like Verity, which made power the most important resource, the only thing that kept the monsters at bay. Sloan was upping the stakes. Bringing the fight to them.

“The first wave is en route—”

“—some kind of explosive—”

Was that what she’d felt?

“—reports of Malchai on the scene—”

Kate’s mind reeled as she fell in with the current of soldiers.

She was still dressed like an FTF, and the half-light of the emergency generators cast the same muted glow over everyone, erasing details and reducing the soldiers to shadows in FTF suits.

The corridor was lined with armored vests and—not helmets, exactly, more like modified sparring gear with visors that shielded the eyes and left the bottom half of the face exposed. They made her think of the Wardens, of Liam’s attempts to design a proper suit, something that would protect her.

She was reaching for a vest when she realized—this was her chance. She could take advantage of the chaos, suit up, and slip out.

They knew about the sickness now, and when this was over, they’d probably throw her right back in that cell. She should run. But she thought of Ilsa, helping her at every turn. Of August, almost certainly on his way to the grid.

She could go.

Or she could stay and fight.

Show them she wasn’t a monster.

Someone pushed a gun into her hands, and her blood sang, vision narrowing as her thumb slid over the safety. Her finger drifted toward the trigger.

Kate ejected the clip and holstered the weapon and ammo separately.

She longed for her spikes, but settled for a baton coated in iron, a pair of knives, and an HUV beam, and followed the stream of FTFs up to the lobby, pulling her helmet on as she went. She knocked the visor down over her eyes and trailed the soldiers out, past the doors and onto the dim stretch that had, hours before, been a vivid line of light.

Jeeps were peeling away toward the site of the attack—marked against the dark skyline by gray smoke and the flicker of fire. Her father’s tower loomed in the opposite direction, a beacon of shadow.

Sloan, whispered the darkness in her head.

He had the Chaos Eater, and the urge to go after them both sang through her like madness. But that’s just what it was. Madness. Because she knew she couldn’t kill them both, not alone.

Kate took off toward the last of the jeeps.

The convoy tore a strip of light through the dark streets as it made its way to the transformer grid, Jackson at the wheel.

August didn’t have his violin—not when there were so many soldiers involved—and the absence felt wrong. He took a baton from the utility kit, just to have something to hold, even though its surface made his skin prickle and his stomach turn.

Jackson swore when they rounded the corner and the FTF’s central power structure came into sight.

It was on fire.

A blast had taken out a chunk of the transformers, the remnants hissing and sparking in the dark. The FTFs set to guard the station lay scattered at the base of the nearest support building, their bodies—what was left of them—twisted, broken, Corsai already swarming the remains. August leaped out of the jeep before it stopped, and Soro jumped down from the next with inhuman grace, flute-knife out and ready.

“Get the lights up!” ordered August.

The vehicles circled, spinning their high beams toward the wreckage, and the Corsai scattered as technicians hurried to isolate and resequence the remaining power.

Severed lines hissed and skated across the ground, and one of the support buildings looked like it was about to collapse.

And then it did.

It took out another transformer as it crumbled, and a block away, a line of buildings went dark.

Kate leaped down from the jeep and found a world on fire, the air electric and the whole block plunged into chaos. The FTFs were clearly used to fighting small battles—and so was she—but whatever was happening at the power station, it wasn’t a fight. It was a set of dominoes being knocked down.

But Kate’s first thought wasn’t about the power—it was about the number of FTFs standing in the road.

We’re exposed, she thought. She craned her neck, scanning the rooftops, and caught sight of a pair of burning red eyes right before a blast went off, not on the transformers, but on the street.

The ground shook violently, and nearby the pavement cracked and gave way, plunging a cluster of soldiers down into the dark. Shouts went up as another blast went off.