For the second time in as many days, Warner found himself in the medical wing. There were still the orchids and the soothing advertorials on the screens, but with that much security personnel going back and forth, it didn’t quite feel the same.

  He’d been to see Quinn, whom Lyssa put up in one of the recovery rooms. Apart from a few broken ribs and (once again) a dislocated shoulder, the biggest damage seemed to be to his pride. Ramirez turned out to be a little worse for wear, but he’d already regained consciousness and wouldn’t suffer any permanent damage save for a bump on his broken nose. Warner himself refused to submit to an examination by one of VogelCorp’s resident medical technicians, summoned here in extremis after being made to sign a tower of NDAs. He could tell he was fine, he told Lyssa. His sternum wasn’t fractured, only bruised.

  Now he sat next to Lyssa on the too-low couch in the waiting room, repurposed as a conference room, and watched the surveillance footage on a screen for the millionth time.

  “She just walked out of here.” Lyssa shook her head. She was fuming. He wasn’t sure why. They did let their subject escape, foolishly at that, but at least everyone was alive. “Do you see this, Warner? Stop smirking, for god’s sake. You won’t be smirking when we have to face the Defense Ministry, believe me. They’ll have our heads.”

  Warner saw it. And he had no doubt the Defense Ministry would have their heads. The more he watched that video, the less doubt he had. If he could only remember bits and pieces, snapshots of what happened, the video filled in the rest. He had to slow it down to see properly, but that only made it more impressive. The moment the door opened, she cut through the ranks of special ops like they were toy soldiers. She made it out of the secured zone, then, as far as they could tell, up an elevator shaft, where she finally escaped from the roof.

  “And she did it like I’d go to a bodega for a six-pack,” Quinn said, shaking his head. His voice still sounded rough, and he’d needed a neck brace that made him look resentful, like a golden retriever in a cone of shame. “How many of these does the Alliance have? And why haven’t they conquered us yet?”

  Lyssa gave him a look that could have melted the plastic brace right off his neck. “Is somebody here looking for a treason charge?”

  Quinn sulked.

  “This is a breach of security protocols,” Lyssa said. “An unforgivable breach, and it’ll have dire consequences for all of us.”

  Quinn sulked more, and in addition, his bruised face turned an interesting shade of pink.

  “We’re lucky she didn’t kill you, Quinn,” Lyssa said. “Or you.”

  That last one was meant for him, Warner understood without needing to meet her angry glare. “Me, or anyone else,” he observed casually, which only seemed to stoke the flames of her fury. “I wonder why.”

  “She could have,” Quinn rasped.

  Warner rubbed his chest for the umpteenth time. The bruise was truly going to be massive, he thought with the same strange, giddy satisfaction he’d felt in the moment before she hit him. He pressed down on it, as if he’d needed that pain to remind him that it had all happened and he was still here, alive and mostly well. He felt good. Too good. Lightheaded, and just—light, period. His mind was clear and energized. He felt like he’d just gotten laid.

  “Do any of you realize what all this means?” Lyssa hissed.

  “Which part?” Warner inquired.

  “Just because she didn’t kill any of you morons,” Lyssa said slowly, “doesn’t mean she won’t. She’s now out there, presumably angry. We’ve had to lock down the entire building. This is unprecedented. And then it’ll get into the news cycle—”

  “Can’t you handle it? Don’t we have people for this exact sort of thing?”

  She shot him a dirty look. “Yes, we do, and believe me, I’m throwing all our resources at this to keep it out of the public eye. But I can’t do magic, and neither can the PR department. Especially if this bitch is planning to go on a murderous rampage through enemy territory.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “She won’t,” Warner said.

  “You seem awfully certain. And even if she doesn’t—so what? It doesn’t change anything for us. Thanks to you, Warner, we’re all in grave danger. So settle in, make yourselves comfortable, because we might be here for a while.”

  Warner checked the time. They’d already been here for close to ten hours. He felt mild shock—it had seemed like thirty minutes.

  “What makes you think she’ll come back to kill us?” he asked.

  “She’s a berserker, Warner,” Lyssa said like she was talking to a child. “Surely you’ve observed her closely enough to have noticed.”

  Lyssa had no idea just how closely he’d already observed her, and that was just as well. “She could have killed us all several times over,” he pointed out. “If she didn’t, it means it wasn’t in her plans. And I agree with you, the Alliance coming after us because we’ve stolen their military asset was a possibility… key word being was. The asset is now no longer in our possession. In fact, she’s probably back in Alliance territory by now, and we’re never seeing her again.”

  “Oh? And have you thought about what will happen once she gives her superiors her full report about what happened here? What they’ll do then?”

  “I don’t think we need to worry. She won’t do it.”

  “You seem awfully sure,” Quinn piped up, still struggling with getting his voice to work.

  “I am. She won’t do it because she knows it’s not in her best interest.”

  Quinn looked unconvinced.

  “Her best interest?” Lyssa asked. “What makes you think she even knows what it is, or that she cares? She’s not a normal human like us. I keep telling you, and you keep not listening to me, and it’ll end badly.”

  Warner managed to tune her out.

  “We must all stay here under lockdown,” Lyssa was saying. “Under the strictest security. Until this is resolved.”

  “Oh? How do you think this is going to get resolved? And most importantly, when? Are we in here for the foreseeable future?”

  “I can’t tell you because I have no fucking idea. But nobody’s leaving.”

  “We know one thing: our security won’t stop her should she decide to come back and finish us off.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  He stood up. The feeling of lightness inexorably drained out of him, fading with every passing moment, and the typical fatigue of an adrenaline crash began to take its place. His chest hurt, less than before but still.

  “Yeah, I do, actually. My idea is that this is ridiculous, and I’m going home.”

  Lyssa got up in turn. “Warner.”

  He ignored her. Instead, he looked right over her head at Quinn. “You can go too, if you want. In fact, anyone who wants to can go home.”

  A murmur of doubt rippled through the room. People exchanged glances. Warner could see the shift long before the first one dared to awkwardly get up and head towards the exit.

  Lyssa’s glare shot lightnings, but she said nothing to stop anyone as they filed out, guiltily avoiding meeting her eye. “Warner, think about this.”

  He decided it was time to follow suit.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lyssa.”

  * * *

  The outside had never felt more like a different world. Part of it, he knew, was his lingering awe at the fact that he was still there to see it. It was one thing to survive an encounter with a berserker—poor Quinn from Psyops, for one, looked like he might be messed up for quite a while. But to survive your second encounter—that had to be exceptional. Especially since this time, he managed to keep all his extremities and both eyes, Warner thought cynically as he made his way past the doors of the VogelCorp-owned resident building he called home.

  That, of course, could still change, and change quickly.

  Inside the loft, he was greeted by soft semidarkness. Familiar outlines and shapes all looked different in some intangible way. No sign of the cat. Oh shit—Bug. Bug hadn’t signed up for any of this. And Warner hadn’t thought about him at all.

  He shrugged out of his jacket, went to hang it up, then changed his mind and left it crumpled on the floor by the entrance. He gave half a thought to turning those sensors Lyssa always nagged him about back on. Dismissed the idea. He figured it was probably too late anyway.

  He advanced carefully into the loft, buoyed by a strange feeling of calm. He had no need to turn the lights on since he knew the layout by heart. He wondered how far he’d make it. It turned out to be farther than he’d guessed.

  “Don’t move.”

  Her voice was calm, but it carried.

  “I thought you might be waiting for me here,” he said. “Sorry I took so long.”

  Freya sat in the angular leather armchair on the farther end of the room, next to the window. He saw only her outline as his good eye got used to the darkness. He guessed she could see him perfectly well.

  “Don’t try to open your phone,” she said. “I’ll rip your arm off.” Her tone was almost conversational.

  It was like being in a room with a hurricane. The air smelled like ozone. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Even if you try, no one will get here quickly enough to save you. No one.”

  “Where’s my cat, Freya?”

  She didn’t answer, but he could swear he heard her chuckle under her breath.

  “I said where’s my fucking cat?”

  Before he finished speaking, the blur of darkness in her lap opened its yellow eyes and blinked at him, slowly—he could swear it was with spite. Bug chose this moment to start purring like a demented car engine. You little traitor, Warner thought. I fed you.

  “Now,” Freya said. Her head swiveled towards him, the rest of her perfectly immobile, yet, without a doubt, ready to spring into murderous action. Her eyes caught the weak light. “We can speak as equals.”