"Think they've gotten the sister?" That last bullet had come awfully close, and Brennan was sure that the next hair cut he got would raise some eyebrows. Ben was right; those soldiers of Arrigo had damn good aim. He hunkered down below the height of the bushes, raising up only to zap one of the soldiers in the fanny. The man yelped and hit the dirt. And fired again, this time with more zeal. Brennan ducked hurriedly.

"Have they called to say they have?" Lexa returned waspishly, zinging off a blast of photons to remind the other side to keep their distance. The landscape whitened, then returned to darkness with only the moon and a few brave stars to lighten the view once vision had returned from seeing spots.

"Something might have happened. Maybe they couldn't find her."

"Maybe the place is bigger than it seems, and they're still searching, room by room. A little help over here? Before they overrun our position?" Another blast, another body flying. Brennan hastily fired up his own power source and sent lightning careening after Lexa's laser bolt.

"How many of these guys do they have?" Lexa complained. "It feels like we've been here for hours."

"Only twenty minutes." Brennan chanced a look at his watch, the luminescent hands glowing in the dark. It was an inexpensive mechanical model; the high quality quartz variety tended to sputter and die when exposed to high levels of electricity. Annoying, really.

"You better?"

"You mean, am I tapped out yet?" Brennan snapped his fingers. "Yes, the extra juice is gone. No, I am not tapped out, although I will be if they don't get back here soon. You want to call them?"

"And have the radio crackle when silence is called for? Not yet." Lexa blasted another guard who made the mistake of craning his head out from behind a tree to take aim. "We wait. Besides, aren't you having fun? Isn't this what you live for?"

Brennan only grunted. "Hope Shalimar's okay."

"They went without me."

Okay, so sitting up without falling over was about the only thing Shalimar Fox could accomplish at the moment. That didn't mean that she didn't very much want to be with her pack, doling out punches and blows, rescuing fair maidens—it was the rescuing part she liked, not the fair maidens—and generally being active. Beatrice Sutter smiled sympathetically and pulled the stethoscope out of her ears.

"Yes, they did, dear. There wasn't very much you could do. Your job is get well. You cut it very close, you know."

Shalimar sighed, and lay back against the pillow. "I hate being sick."

"Not much longer. As a feral, you'll heal very quickly. In fact," and Dr. Sutter pulled away at the dressing she'd applied some twelve hours ago, "yes, you're healing very fast. This already looks like a three day old incision. Another twenty four hours and it should be all but healed. You can wait twenty four hours," Dr. Sutter admonished her.

"No, I can't." Did Dr. Sutter have to sound so much like Adam? Shalimar felt a sharp pang that had nothing to do with the incision. We'll find you, Adam.

"Yes, you can," Dr. Sutter chuckled, handing over a glass of something cool. "Here, drink this. It will help to replenish your body, help you to heal even faster than you already are."

"It's too sweet," Shalimar complained.

"It's got medicine in it, to help you sleep," Dr. Sutter said. "When you wake up, they'll be back."

"I should be with them," Shalimar muttered petulantly. She closed her eyes. "I should be there."

It wasn't true, what was said: trees didn't all look alike. Jesse very quickly realized that they were headed in the wrong direction to meet Brennan and Lexa, and said so.

"It's okay," Treo said. "We've got some people over here. They'll help get Mandi home."

"What about Lexa and Brennan? We should call them, let them know that the mission is accomplished," Jesse said. "They need to get out of there. They'll be running low on juice." He raised his hand, the one with the radio in it.

Treo stopped him. "Not yet. Wait."

"Why?"

The answer came out of the trees: more of Windom's men, all dressed in dark camouflage gear. Jesse could see several small trucks beyond the trees, trucks that he had no doubt were filled with firepower of the more conventional kind. Dr. Windom himself came with them.

"Daddy!" Mandi flung herself at her father, sobbing. "Daddy, he was awful!"

"I know, pumpkin, I know," Windom soothed, caressing her hair. "But it's all over now. We've got you back. It's all going to be all right."

"Sir, we need to move," Ben reminded the older man, looking around nervously. "Arrigo's menwon't be far behind. And Brennan and Lexa are waiting."

Windom nodded. "Go. We'll handle the rest."

Ben turned to Jesse. "Jesse, I'm really sorry about this, but I have no choice."

"What?" Something didn't make sense.

But it was Treo who did the dirty work. Jesse's attention was fixed on Ben, alarm bells going off. Treo slipped up behind Ben, popped out and turned aerosol into Jesse's face.

First it stung, then it choked. Whatever it was, whatever Treo was doing, it was awful. Jesse clawed at his face, trying to inhale, trying to breathe, only to pull in more of the chemical toxin that clogged his airway. Blackness wavered around the edges of his vision and finally jumped him altogether. Jesse collapsed into Ben's grasp, folding over without a fight.

Ben handed the unconscious body over to Windom's men. "Take good care of him. We need him." He glanced guiltily over at Mandi, already drying her tears. "You ready, Mandi? You can do your part?"

She nodded, still mascara-stained, looking once again to her father for reassurance and direction. The dark helped her to blend into her surroundings. "I'm ready. Daddy explained everything."

"We need to make this look real," Ben said. "I'll do it."

"Me," Treo interrupted, having re-materialized once he'd cold-cocked his fellow molecular. "It's only fair."

Ben shook his head. "They'll never believe it. You're a molecular; you can gas out and let a bullet slip through. It has to be Mandi or I, and we both know who is going to do it. I'm not going to let Mandi be an option."

"He's right, Justin," Windom said. "Ben, come to me as soon as you get back. I'll take care of you. We won't worry your mother with this part."

"Thank you, sir. I'll do that." Ben gathered the remnants of his little band: Treo and Amanda Windom but eyes followed the rest of Windom's men as they dumped Jesse into the back end of one of the trucks. The corners of his mouth turned down. "Let's go."

The radio crackled. "Brennan? Lexa?"

Lexa thumbed hers on. "Here. You got her?"

"Yes. Prepare to bug out in sixty seconds."

"Finale," Lexa told Brennan. "You ready?"

Brennan cracked his knuckles. "Let's do it."

Fireworks time. Brennan took careful aim at the other transformer that he'd been saving for this moment. He was certain that the enemy guards were wondering why he hadn't blasted it yet so far, and they were about to learn his grand scheme. The transformer was a big one, with a lot of circuits that would light up the sky like the Fourth of July and the Aurora Borealis rolled into one. He grinned. Blasting things that exploded was one of his more pleasant tasks in life.

Boom! The transformer took off straight up, shooting flares in every color of the rainbow, showering everyone around with little sparks. Brennan smothered a laugh; the guards slapped at their clothing, trying to put out the meager flames, dancing through the bushes as if ants had crawled in and started biting.

Lexa was not to be outdone. One! Two! Three! Four! Four light poles went up like Roman candles, each setting another line of defense on fire and toppling more light poles over like a row of dominoes.

The guards knew when to back off. They retreated to the relative safety of the building, firing backward but without their collective heart in it. The shots went wide. Brennan didn't need the invisibility that Lexa cast upon them both for an escape from the target area but under the circumstances he wasn't about to object to the overkill.

"Which way?"

"C'mon." Brennan didn't let go of the chromatic's hand, drawing her to the pick up point where they'd left the SUV. The vehicle would be a bit tight with six, but Brennan had wanted the power as well as the space for equipment. Hadn't needed the equipment, he mused, but 'Murphy's Law'. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. If we hadn't brought equipment, we would have needed it.

They got there first, and Brennan fired up the engine, satisfied with the hum of the engine turning over. "Where are they?"

"Maybe they took a wrong turn?" From anyone else, it would be a joke. From Lexa, it was sarcasm. The woman was an expert at pessimism, Brennan scowled. Can't see what Jesse sees in her.

Which reminded him of Shalimar; never far from his thoughts. She had looked so tiny lying quietly in the bed, covers up under her chin like a little girl. Awake, she filled the room. Asleep was when he realized just how small she really was. First thing back, he'd check in on her. Windom's place seemed like a great spot to hang out, mutant-friendly and such, but Brennan had lived too long on the street and seen too much back-stabbing to be comfortable anywhere that he didn't know extremely well. However: mission accomplished. Some recuperation time for a certain feral would be coming up with some leftover time for play…

"I see movement." Lexa interrupted his pleasant train of thought, and Brennan focused again. Yes, it looked like several figures crashing through the forest, staggering and falling over each other. Brennan's gut tightened; the other half of the team had not had an easy time of it. He counted: one, two, three…where was four? Three plus one hostage equals four. There ought to be four people. Ben had said that they'd gotten the girl. Who had gotten left behind? Brennan jumped out of the SUV and started to run, Lexa on his tail. Electrons crackled at his fingertips, waiting to be launched at anyone foolish enough to follow. This wouldn't be for fun, this would be serious. This was hauling damaged asses out of danger.

Treo was first, staggering into the clearing in front of Brennan and Lexa, dropping to his knees and gasping for breath. Behind him was the girl they had gone after; Brennan recognized her instantly from her picture, even through the smeared mascara and the terrified expression. Her clothes were torn far beyond what was reasonable for a mad dash through a forest, and Brennan gritted his teeth. Arrigo clearly had much to answer for.

Lexa could count better and faster than Brennan. "Where's Jesse?" she demanded, the fear sharp in her voice. "Where is he?"

Ben had to hang onto a broad tree trunk to keep from toppling over. Blood oozed from a bullet wound in his arm; Brennan could still smell the gunpowder emanating from the bloody sleeve. "We lost him."

"What do you mean, you lost him?" Lexa was about to lose it herself.

"I mean, he's gone." Ben closed his eyes wearily. "They got him just as we came out of the building. He never saw it coming. Straight to the chest. Through the heart."

"No." It was a horrified whimper.

"I—" Ben couldn't go on. He swayed. Brennan grabbed him, eased the big man to the forest floor. "Dammit."

"That's not possible," Lexa insisted. "Jesse's a molecular! Bullets can't hurt him!"

"Not if he doesn't see it coming." Ben was going under.

Brennan shoved his hands under the man's shoulders. "Treo, give me a hand getting him into the SUV. If we don't do it now, he'll go out on us."

"And he's too big to manhandle," Treo agreed, grunting under the weight of the super-soldier. "Damn, Ben, go on a diet or something."

Lexa turned on the girl, tears still smudging the mascara across her adolescent cheeks. Lexa already felt beyond tears. You're a professional, girl. You don't cry. And you don't get attached to anyone, not like that. He's just a damn good member of my team. He's saved my butt, and I resent not being able to even the score. That's all. That's all. "You better be worth his life, girl." And Lexa stalked off after the men to the SUV, Amanda trailing in her wake. "Brennan, I'm going back." What the hell am I talking about?

Treo gazed at her with sympathy. "He's dead, Lexa. I'm sorry, but I saw him fall. There was blood all over. There's nothing you can do for him."

"I'm going."

Brennan didn't turn around. "Not yet."

"But—"

"I said, not yet, Lexa." He finished stowing Ben into the back seat. The super-soldier was all but unconscious, limp across the back seat. "If he's dead, he'll wait for us. If he's not, well, we've got this girl to get to the safety of her father first. Then we get Shal, and we rip this place apart brick by brick and stomp it into the ground. Got it?"

"Got it." The cold light of revenge began to burn inside her breast. Arrigo would pay. Jesse Kilmartin would be avenged.