A few hours later, we stared at a ruined metal tower on the far side of Capitan. It had been ripped apart from its base to its tip; the twisted metal looked like it had literally been torn by hand. The sheer strength implied at least B-Rank; while Jeff and I could bend barbell bars, we couldn't handle literal tons of portal metal.

The collapsed dishes and arrays crushed beneath its weight were of more concern.

"That's a radio tower, isn't it?" Ellen asked.

"Yep," Deborah said. She glared at it. She'd been in an even worse mood than usual since getting de-radiation treatment for the second time in two days, and she still stank of chemicals. "We've got problems. Big fucking problems."

"Yes, we do." Angelo waited until the trucks closed in, then called everyone in close. He didn't raise his voice, but I heard everything anyway.

"Delvers, we face three problems.

"First, we are off-course. This is the second alternative route around the White Sands break, but the enemy we face is unknown. We do not know what type of portal world broke, we do not know where the portal is, and we do not know its strength—only that it is likely responsible for the White Sands break closing. That puts it at A or S-Rank.

"Second, the boss of that portal world is intelligent in a way that I have only seen a few times. It understands how we communicate, and it has succeeded in cutting Carlsbad's communications without exposing itself. This foe will likely outmaneuver us.

"And third, we lack the strength to protect the convoy the way we have been."

"So, we're screwed?" one of the B-Rank delvers asked, fury and raw grief in his voice. "Jimmy didn't die so we could give up a few hours later."

"No, he did not. I propose the following strategy. The strike team and B-Rank teams take over protecting the convoy. I operate independently and attempt to screen from a distance. And one C-Rank team patrols ahead.

"That team has one mission for today. Enter Roswell, New Mexico, determine whether the town is safe—and whether the radio tower is intact—and report back. C-Rank or lower monsters and portals may be cleared to finish this mission, but B and higher enemies should be engaged only when necessary."

Deborah looked at me, and a small smile crept across her face.

It was obviously a trap. Whichever C-Rank team volunteered, they'd be exposed, with limited back-up. So I shook my head slowly.

Then Jeff cleared his throat. I looked at him, and his face was dark, full of frustration, and determined. He glared at me.

I stopped shaking my head. "Can we have some time to think about it?" I asked.

"Yes, Delver Noelstra," the Light of Dawn said. "You have fifteen minutes."

Jeff was redlining. The fight's adrenaline was melting off, replaced with a deep, relentless dread.

He'd sacrificed so much to get here.

His mother and father. He hadn't seen them in almost a year. He'd been too busy to do more than call—and too unwilling to compromise his mission. They understood why he only talked to them a couple of times a month, and never for very long. He'd told them how he felt, and they'd supported him. But even so, a year was a long time, and it was time he'd never get back.

His apartment. Every friendship he'd had except the one with Kade. His high-school sweetheart. The truck he'd gotten when he turned sixteen.

And the potential to build past C-Rank.

He'd thrown it all away, and he'd never regretted it. He still didn't. Those sacrifices had been the right choice—and more importantly, they'd been his choices. The best ones he could make. The only ones he could make. Jeff knew he'd done the right things. He'd made no mistakes, and while it was possible to lose when even when the game was played perfectly, he wasn't ready to admit defeat.

Capitan wasn't going to be the end. Not while he could do something about it.

But Sophia was beyond shell-shocked. She'd poured everything she had into healing during the battle outside of the White Sands Missile Range. Yasmin wasn't tapped out, but she wouldn't stop leaning on him. Normally, he didn't mind one bit—she was a looker—but right now, he needed to focus. Ellen was ready to go, but Raul was completely out of the fight.

That was fine. The real problem was Kade.

"I don't know, Jeff. There's no way a mission like this is survivable, right? Let's look at other options." Kade had a road atlas of New Mexico spread on the flatbed trailer's bed. He wouldn't stop pointing at the maze of roads, trying to trace a different path.

"Kade, stop." Jeff put a hand on the map. "There is no other path. We have three choices from here. I won't let us choose to retreat."

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"And what are you going to do about it, fight the Light of Dawn?" Yasmin asked.

It took Jeff a second to realize that she wasn't being sarcastic. "Yes, if I have to. Shit, guys! You know what I've given up for this! I'm not going to…I can't…"

His sword was in his hand—and Kade's was in his. How had things escalated that much that fast? Jeff didn't know. And he didn't care. If he was willing to fight Angelo Freaking Lawrence, Kade Noelstra wasn't anything but a speed bump.

For a second, he glared at Kade, and Kade stared back, sword up in a one-handed grip, his other hand tucked behind his back. Then Jeff saw something in Kade's eye.

A smile.

A moment later, Kade's smile spread from his eyes to his mouth. The tip of the lightning sword lowered just a fraction. And then it vanished. So did the armor Jeff's best friend had summoned. "Jeff, remember how we met?"

"Yes. You punched me in the face."

Silence. One second. Two. Three.

Jeff's scowl broke.

My fight with Jeff had been the only time I'd chosen a fight poorly as a kid.

He'd been fighting one of the smaller kids in my class on the playground. I hadn't known anything about either of the two; Jeff had just gotten here a day or so ago, and the other kid was a transfer from another school. But it seemed pretty clear-cut to me what was happening. The bigger kid was picking on the little one.

So, I'd walked up, tapped Jeff on the shoulder, and wound up.

He'd turned right into it, and I'd put him on the ground. Easy peasy. Except he hadn't stayed down, and he was so damn big. Later, when we'd sat across from each other in the office, glaring through black eyes and nursing split lips, he'd explained everything.

I'd made sure that I fought Ian every day for a week after that—until the principal got sick of it and suspended me for ten days.

As Jeff's fury cracked, I relaxed. This whole mess had gotten way too tense for me. I had no illusions about my ability to beat Jeff now. It wouldn't even be a fight; I was too fast and too strong. But it was better if we didn't have to have that fight.

So, instead of telling him that, I snorted. "It'd probably end pretty differently if we fought now, huh?"

He nodded.

"So, you're one hundred percent sure the only way forward is for one of the C-Rank teams to check out Roswell?" I asked.

He nodded a second time. Then he pointed at the map. "We can't go south. And going north to loop around to the east would take too long. There's no way Angelo's going to go for that if Carlsbad is in danger. Roswell's the best way forward—just east enough to line us up for a straight shot to Carlsbad Fortress. That rush might be rough, but it'd be better than crashing through to Alamogordo, then doing the same thing a second time. And the presence of the Carlsbad break might keep this one away from that area."

"And you're sure you want to be the scout team?" I asked. "There are three other C-Rank teams that could do it. Or we could try to team up with one of them, go together for safety."

I wasn't worried about whether I could handle it. The B-Rank monster I'd been fighting had put pressure on me, but in a normal situation, where I wouldn't be overwhelmed and the team would be on a semi-prepared footing, I thought I'd be able to duel it to a standstill—or even win, if I could use Cheddar. The winged serpent's illegal status was still a thorn in our sides.

Ellen was ready for this, too. Or at least, as ready as anyone could be.

I was more worried about Jeff, and about Yasmin and Sophia. Jeff and Sophia had both rushed their builds to C-Rank—Jeff for this exact moment and Sophia because of the promise of hospital work—and that put them at a disadvantage. Yasmin's build could probably hit high-B or low-A-Rank. She was less of an issue. But if the team broke, it'd be because Jeff couldn't hold, or because Sophia couldn't keep up.

If either of those things happened, I didn't know how the team would respond.

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure. This is exactly what I've been building for," Jeff said quietly.

I closed my eyes. This plan was going to get people killed. But so was doing nothing. And this wasn't just anyone I was talking to. This was Jeff. He'd had my back since before we walked into the principal's office that day. He was my best friend—even if Ellen and I had been closer as delvers.

So I swallowed once and nodded. "Okay, I'm in. But Deborah's going to try something. I know it. The way she smiled made it pretty clear."

Ellen rolled her eyes and put a hand on my shoulder. "No, she's not. She won't have to. This is a suicide mission, and they're only doing it because there's no other option. But, since there's no other option, I'm in, too."

One by one, the five of us agreed. And with every person, a weight lifted from Jeff's shoulders. By the time Sophia reluctantly nodded, not saying anything, he looked lighter, and the worry had melted off his face.

I tried not to show it, but that same worry now weighed me down.

A half-hour later, a single semi truck—uncoupled from its trailer, which had been swarmed under and destroyed during the fight—roared east.

Jeff was at the wheel. Ellen had insisted she could drive, but Jeff had pointed out that he'd driven a manual before, while Ellen's cars had all been automatic in every sense of the word. Now, she was pouting in the back of the cab while the other four of us had jammed into the front seat. It was tight, especially with Jeff up there in full armor, but we were making it work.

"Okay, Roswell. What do you know about it?" Jeff asked as we bumped down the road.

I tried to shrug, then shook my head instead. "Nothing."

"Then get ready. This is going to be exceptionally weird. When the Carlsbad break happened, we evacuated through Roswell. It used to be a tourist trap—the kind of place that was weird, where they had a quirky local thing and that attracted…a certain kind of person. That certain kind of person was actually three types, though."

"Oh?" Yasmin asked. She was jammed next to him, between him and Sophia, and she seemed the least annoyed about it of the four of us. "What kinds?"

"First, weirdos. Roswell's thing was aliens and UFOs, and the weirdos wanted to believe there were weirder things than them out there. Second, alien enthusiasts. Obviously. And third, anti-government conspiracy theorists who were convinced the United States was hiding something in the desert but who couldn't find Area Fifty-One on a map."

"What's Area Fifty-One?" Sophia asked.

"An old myth in a different state." Jeff paused to maneuver around a rusted hulk of metal that had once been a car. "So, Roswell. It's packed full of decaying old alien stuff, from metal statues to rotten inflatables all the way to full-body costumes. We're going to need to be careful. Hold your fire until you're sure what you're looking at is a monster and not just a pile of decayed plastic. And stick to the objective. We're not looking to clear out the town—"

"I know," I said. "We're just trying to scout it out and see what's here."

The truck bounced as something went under its oversized wheels, and Jeff focused on the road. It went quiet; at our best speed, it'd take us a couple of hours to get to Roswell's outskirts, and every one of us needed to recover our resources for when we got there.

After all, who knew what awaited us in an alien town?

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