The others started forward, and I gave them a sharp look. “Don’t move!” I snapped, and thankfully, they froze. “Stay right there, both of you,” I insisted, holding out an arm, the universal gesture of let’s all calm the fuck down. “Everyone relax.”

The person with the pipe hesitated, shooting fearful looks between the three of us. A girl, I realized. Lithe and graceful, even as dirty as she was, with big blue eyes and silver-blond hair to the middle of her back. She wore a ratty T-shirt and baggy cargo jeans, and looked like she had slept in them for a while.

And she was definitely a hatchling, a teenager in human form. A little older than the ones I normally saw, wide-eyed and fresh out of training, but a hatchling nonetheless. The tightness in my chest eased a little, and I let out a furtive breath of relief. We’d found her before the Order did. That was all that mattered.

Panting, the girl backed up, still holding the pipe out in front of her. “Who are you?” she asked in a trembling voice. “What do you want?” Her voice, though it shook with fear, was low and cool, her words clear. Raising the pipe again, she gave us a fierce look. “I swear, I am not going back.”

“Easy.” I edged forward with one hand still outstretched, keeping my movements slow and unthreatening. “Take it easy,” I said again. “You’re safe. We’re not from Talon.”

She eyed me warily but visibly relaxed. The weapon hovered between us, dropping a few inches, but didn’t lower completely. “If you’re not from Talon, who are you?” the girl demanded. “How did you know about this place?”

“My name is Cobalt.” I offered my real name without hesitation. More people knew Cobalt, who he was and what he’d done. And even if this girl didn’t, Cobalt was a dragon name, subtly reminding her that we were alike. “And I’m sort of in the business of finding people like you. People who want out. I can help,” I went on, easing forward again. “I can take you somewhere safe, someplace Talon won’t be able to find you. But you have to trust me.”

This time, the weapon dropped swiftly, and the girl stared at me with wide, stunned eyes. “You’re Cobalt,” she whispered, and all the tension left her, replaced with relief. The pipe fell from her fingers with a clank and rolled across the floor, but she didn’t give it a second glance. “You’re really here,” she whispered, grabbing a beam as if to steady herself. “We heard you might be in the city, but we had no way to contact you.”

I stared at her in surprise. “You were looking for me?”

She nodded. Taking a deep breath, she seemed to regain her composure. “Sorry about before. I’m Ava. A friend and I escaped the organization maybe two weeks ago. There were rumors that you were in Las Vegas, and we heard that you could help those who got out of Talon, so we came here to find you. But we had to hide as soon as we arrived in the city. St. George…”

I nodded. “You mentioned a friend,” I said, hoping the worst had not happened, that St. George had not already found them. “Are they still alive?”

Ava nodded. “Yes, she’s here. One moment.” She walked a few steps to peer around a wall. “It’s okay,” she called into the shadows. “You can come out. They’re not from Talon.” She gave a short, breathless laugh, as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “It’s actually Cobalt, of all the lucky breaks.”

“Cobalt?”

Another hatchling emerged around the corner, edging shyly into view. She was shorter than Ava by several inches and looked even younger than Ember. Her skin was pale, almost porcelain colored, and a mass of jet-black curls tumbled down her back and shoulders. Enormous dark eyes peered out at us with a mix of curiosity and fear.

“This is Faith,” Ava introduced, holding out her hand to the other girl. Faith blinked as she came forward, pressing close to the other hatchling. Ava put a protective arm around her, though she still spoke to me. “The day before she completed assimilation, she discovered that Talon was going to send her to ‘the facility,’ because she was unsuitable to be a Chameleon, which is what they had originally planned for her.”

I clenched my jaw, trying not to let the rage show. “The facility” was Talon’s term for the place they sent dragonells to become breeder females, whose only job was to produce eggs for the rest of their life. Talon liked to start their breeder females young, because, like everything else in a dragon’s life, producing offspring took a long time. Nearly two years to lay the egg after the dragonell had been mated, and another year for the egg to hatch. When I’d still been part of Talon, there had been dark rumors circling the organization that the number of fertile eggs was in sharp decline. An alarming one in three eggs simply never hatched, and no one could figure out why. What happened to the “dud” eggs was also a mystery; they disappeared, sent off to places unknown. I didn’t know what the real story was, or where the eggs vanished to, but one of my bigger goals was to find the facility, free all the dragonells there and burn the place to the ground.

Later, I told myself, as rage heated my lungs, making the air taste like smoke. Someday, you’ll be able to save them all, but not tonight. Don’t get distracted.

“How did you know about me?” I asked the hatchlings.

“Everyone in the organization knows about you,” Ava said. “The executives try to deny it, but we’ve all heard rumors of a rogue dragon who helps those wanting to leave Talon. You just have to find him—or hope that he finds you—