I didn't take a steel rod to the chest.

It did take five minutes for the mage to confirm that I was, in fact, not a portal monster. Questions and answers—all about trivia that anyone living in Phoenix would be at least slightly aware of—shot back and forth before he finally nodded. When he did, the tower opened, and three B-Rank delvers emerged, the mage included. "Right. You said you're from Phoenix?"

"That's what I've been proving," I said, trying not to be frustrated.

"The convoy's here, then?" the mage asked.

"Yes."

"And you're with it?"

"Yes. The five of us came with the convoy. We had to do the last fifty miles as a running fight. Whatever's going on here, it's bad," Jeff said before I could lose my cool. "Do you know if there's an Amanda somewhere in here? Kent? Lamar? I need to find them. It's important. I'm from Carlsbad originally, and I'm here to make sure they're okay."

The mage stared at Jeff. Then he shook his head slowly. "We haven't had a chance to get a head count. My half-team's supposed to be holding this road while the other half reports to the headquarters team."

I nodded seriously. "We need to meet up with your headquarters team, then. Do you have A and S-Rankers around? Or are they fighting?"

For a moment, the mage looked at me like I was stupid. "You haven't gotten any of our messages, have you?"

"No."

"Okay. Right now, there are four B-Rank teams and a handful of C-Rankers in Carlsbad Fortress—plus one washed-up A-Ranker. The high-rankers went to the Carlsbad Portal Break, and we haven't heard from them in…a while. Come with me. Lieutenant Carrol will fill you in on our plan."

Carlsbad Fortress headquarters was a bunker. Portal metal—feet of it—lined every wall, and behind it, almost two yards of concrete covered the sides. We entered, then climbed down a half-dozen flights of stairs, past ticking devices and a collection of Bindings that were downright terrifying to even look at.

Then we pushed through a pair of portal metal doors that formed an airlock, and beyond that—

"Is this a second city?" Yasmin asked.

It wasn't exactly a city. There weren't houses; instead, wooden barriers blocked off sections of the massive cave into cubicles, each ten feet by fifteen. Cots, folding chairs, and blankets covered the floors. It felt like a hybrid between a refugee camp and a cheap motel. And it sounded and smelled like people. There had to be a few hundred—maybe up to a thousand. They were all jammed into the cave, with 150 square feet per family.

And there were kids.

I stared at the arrangement, but the B-Ranked mage just pointed to the far side, where a table with a map and a half-dozen computers sat. A few delvers stood around it or operated the computers. "Go check in with Carrol. He's the only A-Ranker left, and he's officially retired." Then he turned around and started climbing the stairs with what was left of his team.

He hadn't even told me his name.

I shrugged. It didn't matter. What did matter was Jeff. His eyes weren't on the command post. They roved back and forth across the rows of pseudo-apartments. I put a hand on his shoulder. "Ellen and I can handle the briefing. You want to take Sophia and Yasmin, see if you can find any of your people, and meet back here in fifteen?"

"Yeah." Jeff's throat sounded tight. His head bobbed as he nodded stiffly. "Yeah. Thanks, Kade. I owe you for this."

"No problem. That's what friends are for, right?" I started walking, and Ellen fell in next to me. We wove through the crowd, trying not to bump too many shoulders, but the bunker was packed. There just wasn't anywhere to go without running into someone, and it took a good five minutes to get from our side to the command post. And there, we got a good look at the man in charge.

Warren Carrol: A-Rank

Carrol—he seemed like a last-name-only kind of guy—was a solid six-foot-eight, probably two hundred eighty. Solid muscle, gray hair cut close to his head, and a three-day stubble. A patch on his shoulder with a cartoon coyote in the middle of it. By the armor, he was a tank or fighter, and he didn't waste any time. "Don't recognize you two. Report in."

"Kade Noelstra and Ellen Traynor," I said. Carrol's eyes opened slightly at Ellen's last name, but he stilled his face instantly, and I pushed on. "C-Rankers. We're here with the requested convoy from Phoenix. It doesn't look like you need our supplies as much as our fighters right now, though."

"You're right. Where are the others? And the supplies?" Carrol asked.

I shrugged. "The last time I saw them, your wall was collapsing between the rest of the convoy and our team."

Ellen cleared her throat. "What's your situation? We're running on assumptions, and as Daddy says, assumptions make an ass—"

"Out of you and me," Carrol finished. He laughed bitterly. "The situation is as follows. A month ago, Carlsbad Fortress repelled an assault by A and B-Ranked monsters. The attack was ineffectual and amateurish, and we lost no delvers killed and three injured. The assumption was that a group of portal monsters had honed in on us and that it was over, especially when no further attacks came in."

"I take it that's not the case?" I asked dryly.

"Ha. No, it was not. We got a signal from the Carlsbad Portal Break's sensors that something was happening there. The high-rankers deployed to deal with it, following protocol. Shortly after that, we lost communications with Phoenix—and basically everywhere outside of Carlsbad. We've been trying to get something through, but nothing. Please tell me you have some high-ranking delvers with you."

"We do. The Spark of Life, the Portal Tyrant, and the Light of Dawn," Ellen said.

Carrol winced at the last one. "He's not going all-out, is he?"

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Not yet. He probably will soon, though. He's—"

"Not a patient man. I know."

I looked around. "How many people do you have here?"

"We're up to four hundred. It looks more crowded than it is. The whole population of Carlsbad Fortress is less than seven hundred, and thirty of those are in the caverns right now. They've got a sub-fortress at the neck of the main cave. We'd send runners, but the storms came in a day after they left, and the area outside of the fortress is crawling with monsters. And, of course, comms got cut between us and them, too."

"And what's your best play?" I asked.

Ellen interrupted before he could respond. "You need to figure out how to get people out of here. There are at least two named A-Rank monsters out there, and who knows how many A and B-Ranks. If they find this place…"

"We'll hold. We just need to hold out until the A and S-Rankers finish up at the caverns. Once they've culled the break monsters, they'll come back and wipe out whatever this is." Carrol sounded confident, but a few of the C-Rankers fiddling with the map stared at him for a moment. Their eyes looked shell-shocked. I wondered how mine looked; we'd been fighting for two days, more or less non-stop. These people had been under siege for a week or longer. What would I look like in their situation?

I knew I wouldn't break, but…

"And if they don't?"

Ellen's words hung in the air. Then Carrol waved us back toward a small room in the back of the concrete-lined tunnel. He stepped in, held the door for us, and let it thud closed behind him. "Traynor, Noelstra, my people are hanging by a thread. It's never taken our control teams this long to clamp down on the Carlsbad break. My personal assumption is that they're either dead or too occupied by something in those caves to send anyone to help us. Either way, the fortress is as good as fallen."

"So you're saying…?" I asked.

"I'm saying that I'm stuck. I can't let the civilians know there's a problem—"

"Why are there civilians here, anyway?" Ellen asked.

Carrol ignored her. "I can't let them know there's a problem. I can't evacuate with the delvers I have. We're not strong enough. And this bunker is a short-term solution. I can't even take the offensive. Leaving my B-Rank teams here is the only way to keep folks safe. If I had a team to support me, I could try breaking out—especially if I knew where the convoy was. The Light of Dawn is a madman and a danger to everyone around him, but he'd be better than being trapped like a rat."

I closed my eyes. He was right. Without firepower, this bunker wouldn't do much more than buy time. Without the B-Rankers, that wouldn't be much time at all. And without the A and S-Rankers—either the strike force with the convoy or the Iron Falcons and Coyotes—there was no guarantee of victory against even the A-Rank portal break outside.

But…we were a team—or most of it. "Carrol, are you a fighter?" I asked.

"I am."

"Can we take a good look at the map out there? I may be able to figure out where the convoy went. I'll need you to point out all the entrances and exits to the fortress, where the storms are coming from, and any other details."

Ellen cleared her throat. "Kade, are you suggesting—"

"I'm not suggesting anything yet. I want to look at the board, see what pieces are still in play, and see if we're playing for a win, trying to force a draw, or hoping our opponent makes a blunder—or three—and lets us back in the game."

Ellen was annoyed. Mostly at Carrol—he still hadn't answered her question about just why there were civilians all over the place in Carlsbad Fortress. But a little bit at Kade, too.

She was sure that he was about to suggest something stupid. But she couldn't tell him that—not with Carrol listening in, and with a dozen scared-looking C-Rankers around to hear it.

So instead, Ellen stared at the map, trying to see what Kade was seeing. It didn't look anything like a chessboard to her, but he'd focused in on three points on the map immediately.

First, the walls around Carlsbad Fortress included three exits. They'd destroyed the northwestern on their way in, leaving two possibilities. Kade had looked at the route to the east for only a handful of seconds before throwing it out. "That's not it. They won't be there," he muttered to himself.

"The convoy?" Ellen asked. "That's the safest second entrance, right?"

"Right. But Angelo's not a patient man, Ellen. He wants to finish his mission. He's going to be looking at ending the portal break and getting the supplies in. That means finding the highest concentration of enemies and going there. And where he goes, the strike team will go. The convoy will follow the scorched, glassed sand. It's safer than going their own way, and the Spark of Life will fix the radiation poisoning afterward."

Kade dove back into the map. This time, he looked south, then southeast. "If I were trying to hide a portal break…where would I hide it?"

Carrol cleared his throat. "Carlsbad Caverns."

Kade shook my head. "Yeah, that's the first thought, but that place is crawling with A and S-Rank monsters, right? This new break took out the White Sands break—"

"They did?" Carrol asked.

Ellen nodded.

"—so they're strong, but they're not strong enough to fight an S-Rank break. That means they're somewhere else." Kade paused. Then his finger tapped the map. "Carrol, what's Loving?"

"Small wreck of a town. It wasn't anything before the Portal Blitz. Fifteen hundred people or so, desert-bleached buildings and a handful of convenience stores."

Kade nodded. "The break is there. That's why the storms have been coming from that direction."

"You're sure?" Carrol asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Whoever's running the portal break, they're playing chess. But they're not covering their movements at all, and they're not trying to be sneaky. They've got so many pieces on the board that they don't think they can lose.

"Unfortunately for them, three more queens just arrived. We'll be hearing from them soon. That's where the convoy's heading. To Loving."

Ellen rolled her eyes. There was no way Kade could possibly know where the portal break was just from staring at the map. He was a maniac. And he was right more often than he was wrong. But even so, this kind of guess was…well.

It was unbelievable.

But at the same time…it was Kade. He was unbelievable. He'd gotten out of worse situations in the past. So, instead of calling him out on his obvious bullshit, she cleared her throat. "Carrol, we've got a team with a handful of half-healed injuries. We're low on resources, and there's a named A-Rank monster stalking us. None of us is over C-Rank. But we've got a good composition, and Kade…Kade hits like a B-Ranker. We've fought together a lot."

"And?" Carrol said.

"And if you give us an hour, and you're willing to take the risk, we'll be your team."

Carrol laughed. Then he stared at the map for a minute. And then he locked eyes with Kade. The two men sized each other up, posturing.

Ellen waited for one of them to break off their gaze. And when someone did, it was Carrol. He smiled. "We won't be going after the portal. All we'll do is try to link up with your strike team and get them to clear it. But I think we have a good chance at success."

"Great," Kade said. "An hour, then? We need to meet up with the rest of our team and get prepped."

"An hour."

Carter knew what he wanted.

He knew how to make it happen.

Jessica Gerald was the key. The Governing Council rep would get him his confrontation with Kade Noelstra. And Carter had to have that confrontation. He didn't want to kill Kade. And he didn't want to be killed by him, either. Neither of those outcomes was acceptable.

But Carter had been pretending to be Caleb Richter for over a month now. The role felt smooth. He could be the California delver without trying, and he was solidly C-Rank now. He felt like he was accomplishing more for Phoenix as Caleb than he ever had as Carter. It was almost—almost—more natural to be Caleb.

But not quite. He didn't think like Caleb when he was alone. He thought like Carter. And Carter wanted more. He wanted power. He wanted strength. He wanted to keep his teammates safe. He wanted to have his teammates back. And no matter how he sliced at the problem, the one part he couldn't get rid of was Deborah Callahan.

Kade might be able to, though.

The delver was, for some reason, the best way Carter could see of becoming who he'd been instead of pretending to be someone he wasn't.

So Carter needed some sort of leverage to move the swordsman. It would be ugly. It might get him killed. And, even if it didn't, he'd never be able to be friends with Kade Noelstra. At best, they'd be enemies—and that was only if Carter was lucky. It was a risk he'd have to take, though.

Because if Kade ever fucked with any of Carter's people the way he was about to fuck with Jessie Gerald, Carter would stop at nothing to kill him.

And turnabout was fair play.

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