The guard tries to run for help, but his legs wobble. He sways and staggers toward the windowless back of the building.
My pulse lurches with sudden recognition. He’s trying to throw himself against the wall so he can make a loud enough sound to alert the other guard—or whoever’s inside—that way.
The threat of being discovered propels me into action without another thought. I hurl myself forward, racing across the short span of grass and yanking the man away from the building just as his legs give completely.
Zian catches the guard with me as the man slumps down unconscious, not that I need the help supporting a single ordinary person’s weight. We lay him down on the grass carefully, and Zian fixes the cords in place. Then we carry the man into the shelter of the trees.
Jacob watches us return, his expression unreadable. His gaze lingers on me for a second. He dips his head, just for an instant, and stalks on around the clearing toward the other guard.
Well, I guess that’s better than him spitting venom at me as if I sabotaged him rather than saving his ass.
With the other guard, Jacob nudges him toward the edge of the forest while he cuts off the guy’s air, so we have no repeat of the last potential disaster. We leave that man hidden among the trees and walk over to the building’s front door.
Zian peers at it with a momentary distant expression. “There’s no one right on the other side,” he says quietly.
“Be ready just in case.” Jacob twists his hand by the door handle, and the lock disengages.
We brace ourselves. We discussed during the long drive out here that we wanted to question the people working here, which means we need them alive. But I know all of us are prepared to kill if it comes down to us or them.
An image of twisted bodies and splatters of blood flashes through my mind, and my stomach clenches.
Jacob eases the door open. The hall beyond with its light gray walls is empty, as Zian said, no one rushing out to confront us. A faint clicking sound carries from farther within, like someone tapping on a computer mouse.
We creep inside: Jacob and Zian in the lead, me in the middle, Andreas and Dominic behind me. The guys never leavemeunobserved even when we’ve got much bigger fish to fry.
Zian stares at each of the doors we pass before giving an all-clear motion. The first rooms we peek into aren’t even locked. They open to what look like studio apartments with a twin bed, a love seat facing a TV, and a kitchenette with a tiny table, all close to identical except for a few personal belongings and decorations scattered around.
“The employees must live here at least part of the time,” Dominic says under his breath.
The work rooms appear to be at the windowless back of the building. We pass a storage room full of boxes of test tubes and latex gloves and reach the doorway the clicks are emanating from.
Zian scans the wall and holds up his hand with two fingers raised. “Scientists,” he murmurs, so low the word is barely more than a breath.
Probably not also fighters, then.
Jacob glances at all of us as if to check that we’re ready. He hovers his hand over the door handle, but it must be unlocked too, because I don’t hear any sound before he’s shoving it open.
We barge into a lab room with sleek black countertops set up with microscopes and other scientific equipment I don’t recognize. Two figures in lab coats and protective goggles freeze at their workstations—and then an instant later, both whip their hands toward their pockets.
The gesture sets off an alarm inside me before I even see the shape of pistols emerging. Zian springs at the man who’s a little farther away, and I leap right over the protruding counter to pounce on the woman who’s closer.
She hits the floor with a soft grunt and a wince when I smack the pistol away. Andreas is already there, snatching the weapon up as well as the one Zian freed from his scientist. He hands one gun to Dominic and then peers down at our captives.
The woman beneath me is giving off whiffs of fear. “Who the hell are you—what are you doing here?”
She sounds young. I jerk up her goggles to properly see her face beneath her short brown hair and find myself staring at woman who couldn’t be more than a few years older than most of the college students we’ve been hiding among.
Andreas grimaces. “She isn’t going to know much about anyone who worked here two decades ago.” He stalks closer to the man Zian has pinned and shakes his head. “Neither of them would have been around at the right time.”
“Check them anyway,” Jacob says.
“Check us for what?” the guy demands. “We’re just following orders here—we don’t—”
Zian clamps his hand over his captive’s mouth. When the woman starts to sputter, I do the same to her. Zian and I exchange a look, a hint of exasperation crossing his face, and a weird but welcome sense of comradery stirs in my chest.
This is how it’s meant to be—all of us working together toward the same goals.
Andreas kneels down next to the woman. His eyes flare with a ruddy sheen, and I know he’s searching her memories for any interactions with Ursula Engel.