Venna crossed toward the door without losing a step. Mercury went after her, dodging one man and then another—bodies already flooding the centre of the road.
I was moving and I couldn't stop. Stopping in that meant going down, and going down was the worst outcome available on that street. The asphalt under my boots was ordinary for three more strides. Then it wasn't.
The men swallowed her. I lost her completely in the bodies and never saw whether she made it.
Then, a few seconds later, I caught the door swinging shut.
Good enough. That has to be good enough.
The infected were on us.
And the sky opened.
Balls of fire and something burning blue came down off the roof of that building, raining onto the men at the back of our line, dropping into the middle of them. The light was wrong—too clean, too deliberate. Men screamed.
Then we collided.
