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“You’re covered,” Jonas told her.

“Any reports?” she asked, because it was possible he might have heard something on a private channel.

“Negative,” he said.

And he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think about the explosion, or what might have happened at that warehouse. This was what they trained for. The ability to do their jobs no matter what.

No matter who they lost.

Bethan threw the lever, then pulled open the heavy door. Jonas was unsurprised that behind her, on the other side of the door, there was a high-tech medical facility. Unsurprised, but suddenly a lot more alert.

Bethan moved inside, looking around, taking in the lab. It was a large place, stretching out much farther than the foundations of the house. Everything looked sterile.

And more, empty.

They went in farther, looking around as if they expected the Sowandes to appear out from under a lab table. But there was nothing. Only medical supplies and cameras everywhere, telling Jonas that this place was under surveillance. Live surveillance, if the red lights were any indication. He didn’t bother pointing them out to Bethan, sure that she’dseen them, but decided to go and see if he could disable one.

Until behind them, the door swung shut. And the air-conditioning switched on with a hum.

“Well,” Bethan said after a moment. “That’s not good.”

And they both turned when a large screen on the wall nearest them crackled to life.

A moment later, there was Dominic Carter. A smug, disembodied head.

“Oh, hey, Judson,” Bethan said casually. Jonas had the deeply uncharacteristic urge to hug her, but didn’t. “Weird that you keep turning up in the strangest places. Like a basement in the middle of nowhere.”

The other man bared his teeth, looking nothing like the smiling fool he’d played in California.

“Congratulations,” he sneered, and laughed. A creepy sound Jonas did not want to hear again. “You’ve just been infected with SuperThrax. I hope you enjoy the rest of your life. The current estimate is forty-eight hours before you start getting sick, and then a brutal, painful race to the finish. I can’t think of any two people who deserve to suffer more.”

And then, with another laugh, the screen went blank.

Twenty-one

After the screen went dark, neither Bethan nor Jonas moved.

Bethan could feel her heart in her chest, and her pulse hard in places like her wrists. Her neck. Her temples.

And all she could see was Jonas.

He looked the way he always did, stern and austere and stark—except for his eyes. They were far too dark. Ravaged. Filled with a ferocity she’d never seen before.

She didn’t know whether that should scare her. When what she really felt was something like guilty and grateful at the same time that if this thing were really happening to her, he was here to share it.

“What’s happening down there?” Blue asked.

“Not like he’s a trustworthy source,” Bethan said. She didn’t speak into her comm unit, but even as she said the words out loud she knew she was hedging. Trying not to say something for fear the act of saying it would make it real.

Suddenly, that seemed foolish.

“We’re going to need to contain this,” Jonas replied, his voice gravelly, and also not broadcast to the rest of the team. “Whatever the situation is.”

But neither one of them moved.

Bethan could feel the very air around them pressing in on her, like a big hand tight around her throat. She tried to breathe, deep. She tried to push that hard grip off, gain an inch or two of space, because she couldn’t allow herself to break down. Not now. Not if all she had left was forty-eight hours and a grim finish.

That’s more than Isaac had—