Vin leads the way through the back halls, down the stairs and straight to the very familiar, very troubled shower room. It’s seen a lot lately, but somehow I know I’ll never see it again. I’ll never come back here, no matter who is running the show. This place is tainted. It’s dead to me, and when Vin throws open one of the cupboards and yanks out what I recognize as homemade explosives, I feel cotton candy light and sweet at the sight of it.

“What are you planning to do with that?” Ryan asks, scowling at the bundle in Vin’s hand.

“Blow the exit behind us.”

“You’ll kill us.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Obviously not. That much clay will level half the building.”

Vin is on the floor by the drain, circling it with brown lumps of explosives linked by a wiry black fuse. Most of his men are gone down the hole, running for their lives. If we’re smart, we’ll be right behind them, but it looks like the guys want to cat fight for a minute first.

“We don’t have time for this,” I warn them.

“Then get moving,” Vin tells me.

Ryan shakes his head angrily. “The tunnels will collapse on us. We can’t outrun what you’re about to do.”

“Get her out of here, Hyperion!”

“Don’t kill her, Vincent!” Ryan shouts back.

Vin stops to glare up at Ryan, a rare moment when the curtain is clearly raised on his emotions. He’s livid. “I told you, I know wha—”

“That’s too much clay,” Andy says calmly, appearing in the doorway. “You’ll kill us all.”

Vin drops the explosives on the ground, making Ryan flinch. “Fine! You do it then. I’m getting out of here. Lower her down to me.”

Vin smoothly drops himself down the hole before the guys can respond. I turn to look at them, to tell them to forget the explosives, but I hesitate when I see Andy.

“What’s in your hand?”

“A heart.”

“No.”

“Marlow’s?” Ryan asks, eyeing Andy warily.

“Yes.”

“Why?” I demand.

“For the ceremony.”

“What ceremony?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“No,” I groan, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Kitten!” Vin cries from the darkness at our feet. “Now or never!”

He’s not kidding. The building is filled with the sounds of footsteps and shouts. They don’t know exactly where we are, but it won’t be long until they find us. If we’re leaving, we need to go now.

I look at Ryan. “You’ll come down right behind me, right?”

“On your heels.”

“Kitten!”

“Ryan.”

“Go, Joss,” he tells me firmly. “Go to Crenshaw. I’ll meet you there.”

I lower my legs down into the hole. I do my best to not panic the second Vin grabs them. My first instinct is to kick the hell out of him until he lets go, maybe because he’s kind of pissing me off lately, but also because I don’t like being touched by someone I can’t see. That’s how zombies get you: in the dark when your guard is down.

Ryan takes hold of my right hand, my good one, and helps to lower me down into Vin’s arms. It feels weird. It feels wrong. When he lets go of my hand, his face disappearing from the circle of light above me, it feels like goodbye.

“Come on.”

Vin doesn’t hesitate to grab my hand and yank me forward. Once we’re running at a sprint he lets go so we can both run our hands along the walls of the tunnel for guidance. I want to yell at him that we need to wait for Ryan, but I know it’s better to get out of the way. Back there I’m a liability. With me gone he can concentrate on the dangerous, stupid, necessary thing he’s about to do.

“Do these tunnels branch out?” Vin asks me.

I nod even though he can’t see it in the pitch black we’ve dropped into. “Yeah, they do. A lot.”

“Do you remember how to get out?”

“Not really.”

“Great. So somewhere down here your buddy Trent led all two hundred of my people into a maze he doesn’t know how to get out of?”

“Trent can get out,” I assure him, grunting as I stumble on something in the dark.

I can feel Vin backtrack, coming into my space. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“This is pointless,” he says bitterly. “We’ll never find our way out of here in the dark.”

“Do you think we’re far enough away from the blast they’re about to set off?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Vin curses under his breath. I hear his feet shuffle through the water as he feels around the tunnel, looking for God knows what. The cannibals keep torches in the tunnels they use but they said they’d never been this far north before, and if they left one from their visit, we passed it back at the drain. No way I’m going back looking for that.

“We should keep moving,” Vin says, taking my hand again.

I pull it back. “And go where? Deeper into the tunnels with no clue where we’re going? We could accidentally circle back and end up right under the MOHAI again.”

“We’re still under it now,” he says impatiently. “We haven’t run very far.”

“We need to wait for Ryan and Andy.”

“He told us to go. Besides, does your boy know how to get out of here? Can he see in the dark?”

“No, but Andy can. He’s a cannibal. He knows the tunnels.”

Vin chuckles darkly. “That son of a bitch. Don’t think I’m taking him out the second I get the chance.”

“Take him out how?”

“Not on a date, that’s for sure.”

“You’re going to kill him?” I ask in amazement. “Why? He killed Marlow for you!”

“He didn’t do it for me.”

“It’s still done.”

“Not the way I planned.”

“Oh no!” I cry sarcastically. “Vin didn’t get his way. Poor baby.”

“It makes a big difference how he did it. The difference between me taking over The Hive and The Hive chasing me into the sewers like a friggin’ rat.”

“How would you ever have taken hold of The Hive?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he replies with his signature composed calm. Whatever he’s mad about, he’s stowing it. For now. “It’s done. It’s all jacked, and now every member of my Pod is lost somewhere under the city.”

“I told you, Trent can find his way out. You’ll get your precious followers back. Which reminds me.”

I take a swing at him. I’m not aiming for his face, but I’m not worried if I hit it. When my fist connects with something solid and slightly meaty, I’m pretty sure I’ve hit him in the chest.

“Ow!” he cries. “You punched me in the boob!”

“You were going to let Marlow have me, you ass!”

“Oh come on. No matter what, he wasn’t making it out of that building alive.”

“Ass.”

“Whatever. Be mad, but while we’re talking about betrayal, how did you know Andy was a cannibal?”

“He ate Marlow, genius.”

“Drop it. You knew before then, didn’t you?”

I take a slow, silent step back from him. “Yes.”

“How?”

“How do you think? I came here with the cannibals. I met him in the underground where they live and I’d seen him in The Hive when I went to Marlow with your ring. I put two and two together.”

I take another step back.

“Where are you going?”

I freeze. “Away from you. I don’t want to get punched in the boob.”

His laugh fills the darkness with warmth that makes me realize I’m shivering. It’s cold in here. My feet are wet and chilling my entire body, but more than anything I’m nervous. I’m worried about Ryan and part of me is just waiting for an explosion to rip through these tunnels until the sky collapses on us, smothering everyone.

“They’re taking a long time.”

Vin quiets, and just like that the warmth is gone. “I know.”

“Should I be worried?”

“You should always be worried.”

“Should I be scared?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and when he does I wish he’d kept his mouth shut.

“Yeah.”

“What if Marlow’s guys got them?”

“Then they’re dead.”

It’s amazing how fast my throat closes up. How with those words, with the simple, ugly thought of it, my body wants to fold in two until I’m choking on the sobs rising in my chest.