Hunter never came back out of the Heka building. Eventually, some Smith with a sharp, blonde crew cut came outside and told us, "You need to head back to Veles hall."

I balled my fists. "What about Hunter?" I said. "Isn't he coming, too?"

The Smith opened his jacket and showed off a canister of eirineftis, a spray the Smiths used that could neutralize magic and knock out wizards, that he had tucked away inside. A warning. Blake grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. Watching the sunlight glint on the metal can, I had no doubts the Smith would spray me, so when Alison and Blake started back to Veles hall, I gave the Smith a dirty look before following them.

Once we were back in Veles Hall, we gathered in my room. "They're not going to let Hunter out of there," I said, walking up to the window and staring into the quad.

Alison sat on my bed and kicked her legs. "So, what do we do?" I turned and looked at Blake with her.

Leaning against the wall near the door, Blake split a glance between us. "What're you two looking at me for?"

          Alison extended her neck toward him. "Okay, Legacy boy. Are you really going to act like you can't do something?"

Blake tossed up his hands. "What do you think I can do?"

          "You got us out of the Institute," I said.

          "I have clearance to leave the Institute, not clearance to get you under the Heka building."

I furrowed my brows. "You're just going to leave Hunter in there?"

          Blake wrinkled his forehead at me. "What're you going to do, Ryan? Even if you manage to save him, and you try to escape, the grims or the Smiths will hunt you down. You already missed your chance to flee with the Defectors."

          He was right. I didn't have a plan for what I'd do after I got to Hunter. To me, getting back to him was the most important thing. Everything else came secondary. When I didn't say anything, Blake said, "Look, Ryan, just have some patience. We'll figure something out, okay?"

Blake waited a minute to see if I'd say anything back, but I didn't, so he approached Alison, and she stood up off the bed and hugged him. After Blake pulled away, Alison said, "I'm going to stay with him, Blake." Giving me one last painful glance, Blake headed for the door then left for Thorn hall.

I stayed at the window, a million thoughts coursing through my mind like minnows traveling upstream. Alison sat back down on my bed and kept her worried eyes on me. "You're being weirdly quiet," she said.

          "No, I'm not."

          "Yes, you are."

          "No, I'm not!"

          "Ry! Don't do anything stupid, okay? I know we just got Hunter back, but don't go trying to get in there and save him or anything."

          Angrily, I spun around and shot her full of holes with my eyes. "So, you're taking Blake's side? The guy who's with the Legacies?"

          "The guy who's saved your ass, like, a bunch already?"

          I got quiet. She was right. Blake was our friend. No matter how mad I was, I couldn't deny he was probably in Thorn hall at that moment, trying to figure how to help Hunter. But nothing short of escaping the Institute would do. The spell we'd cast to bring him back had left the scientists curious. Why they hadn't dragged us under the Heka building with Hunter had me a little puzzled, but Melchior was patient, and no doubt he was waiting for us to try something else. Just like when we led him right to Gaspar.

"I won't do anything, Ali," I said.

"Good." Alison stood up and headed for my door. "If you need, you know where I am." After she was gone, I lay on my bed with my arms folded under my head, waiting and waiting, until the sky went black and everything grew quiet as a tomb, until the only sound was the wind rustling through the trees just beyond the walls. I left my room, crept downstairs, and stole away into the quad.

          I didn't care how stupid I was being. Hunter needed me, and I wasn't going to wait for Blake to figure it out. If I could find one of the Smiths, maybe I could get their keycard off them and use it to get under the Heka building. Then I could find Hunter.

Moonlight couldn't even pierce the thick black clouds filling the night sky, which was both good and bad. Because there weren't any lamp posts on the great lawn behind Veles hall, late at night, darkness drowned the grasses, and on this particular evening, it was like someone had knocked over an ink well on the world. Using the dim light from my phone, I headed out there, not really sure how I was going to get a keycard off a Smith. Halfway through my trek, I stumbled and almost fell over a rock, then a bright idea struck: I'd knock out a Smith with the rock and steal their keycard.

          Admittedly, it was a pretty dumb plan, but I spotted the light from a phone hovering around in the gloom like a firefly and felt like the fates had gathered and whispered, "Ryan, go knock out that Smith and save your boyfriend," so I kept low to the ground and snuck toward the glow. Apparently, some Smith had ventured out into the great lawn on patrol. I moved like the wind close behind, barely even crushing the short grass underfoot, following him until his phone light died. "Shit," he said, "my batteries dying."

          Serendipity. I was convinced the fates wanted me to save Hunter, and this was my chance. I hurried up behind him while he fumbled in his jacket, maybe for another flashlight, then I smacked him upside the head with the rock.

Whack!

He didn't go down like I'd imagined, though. He just turned around as the light on his phone sparked back on, and he gave me the wildest look I'd ever gotten from anyone. "Kid, are you fucking crazy?"

          Shit. One of us was going down. And it wasn't going to be me. I raised the rock for a second strike, but he grabbed my wrist and twisted it like a monkey wrench, so I groaned and dropped the rock, but when I spotted the metal canister of eirineftis pocketed inside his blazer, I snatched it out and sprayed him before he even realized what was happening. He toppled over, and a few snores escaped his lips a minute later. That had been much easier than I was expecting.

          I tucked the canister into the back of my jeans and raided his pockets until I unearthed his keycard, then I darted for the Heka building like an Olympic sprinter. When I got there, I crept up to the entrance and slid the keycard through a reader on one of the doors. A little red light on the reader went green and beeped, then the door clicked open, so I pushed it and snuck inside.

          Without the sound of fingers skittering over keyboards coming from the cubicles, the office area on the top floor of the Heka building was weirdly quiet. Except for the burble of a lone bubble floating up the the top of a water cooler, everything was silent. After I found the same elevator I had come through when I first came here, I slid the keycard on a reader near the door, and when it opened up, I hurried inside and studied the lift's number pad, trying to determine where Hunter might be. I had no way of knowing which number would lead where, or how deep underground the facility stretched, so without much foresight, I closed my eyes and searched for Hunter's aura.

B1 . . . B2 . . . B3 . . . B4 . . . B5 . . . Fuck. Nothing. I kept searching. B6 . . . B7 . . . B8 . . .B9. I paused. There, I felt his aura there, all football games and horses running around inside a paddock and warm Sunday dinners. But his aura wasn't alone. A confluence of auras gathered there like magma ready to burst.

          Where the hell had they put him? What were they doing to him?

          I entered B9 on the keypad. Soundlessly, the elevator doors slid closed before the lift descended. Then, I waited and waited as the red numbers on the display slowly dropped.

1.

B1.

B2.

B3.

All I could think about was Hunt, down there all alone and scared. I just wanted to see his dark little eyes again, like endless galaxies, full of stars, waiting for me to dive into them.

          Maybe I'd never see him again. But I had to try.

          When the doors opened, I found Melchior standing behind three other Smiths. Of course, I should've known the cameras would've spotted me. I pulled out the canister tucked in my jeans, ready to spray, but when I did, Melchior narrowed his eyes, and the tube bent and warped and exploded in my hands, hitting me in the eyes and mouth with the green fluid inside. I spit and spit, but my eyes and mouth started burning and burning.

          As the Smiths dragged me to the ground, I kicked and begged and screamed, then everything went dark.

Stupid, Ryan.

How could

you be

so

stupid.