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of my concern was for Claudia. She was breathing hard but seemed uninjured. For a moment, we just stood there, catching our breath, then it was back to reality.
    Our rational brains quickly took over. I nodded to Claudia, then began checking her for any wounds or blood spray. She did the same to me. She gave me the all clear a moment before I did the same for her.
    Then I turned and saw Cheyenne. Or, rather, Tess and Mal looking at Cheyenne. “What?” I asked.
    â€œShe has blood on her gloves,” Tess said.
    â€œOne got too close,” Cheyenne said. “I had to hit it to get it to back off.”
    â€œAre the gloves intact?” I asked.
    Cheyenne held her gloves out, and I could see the dark stain on them.
    â€œGet them off!” I said.
    She peeled one back with one glove, then gingerly pulled off the other one with a handkerchief she pulled from her pocket, letting it drop on the ground as if it burned her.
    I moved closer, examining her hands. She held them out, flipped them over. I didn’t see any blood.
    But I didn’t touch her.
    That was always the hardest part—I might have checked her hands, checked for broken skin, cracked nailbeds, anywhere the Bug might have snuck its way in. Just because I didn’t see blood didn’t mean a microscopic drop didn’t get through. But, getting close, running my hands, gloved as they were, over her, might just bring me one step closer to Fading myself.
    It was safer to just keep an eye on her. Prep to put a bullet in her at the first sign of strange behavior.
    But right then there might have been a bomb in our midst, just waiting to go off.
    â€œI’m clean,” Cheyenne said, almost as if convincing herself. “I’m clean.”
    I looked at Claudia, who just raised her eyebrows. I knew what she was thinking. This was getting better all the time.
    â€œLet’s move,” she said at last. She led us around the corpses of the Ferals, then on to the building ahead of us.
    Claudia noticed the look on my face and touched my shoulder. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “We’ll be in and out before anyone has a chance to Fade.”
    I nodded. That’s what I was trying to focus on—get into the facility, grab the gear, get back to the Cherub , and put down Cheyenne (on the ground, I mean) as soon as possible. Otherwise, we’d be putting her down in another way.
    Of course thinking about Fading reminded me about the last person who Faded in front of me—my father. It also reminded me of my cowardice. How it took me by surprise, and all I could do was grab for him, my fingers tangled in his Star of David necklace. Then, as reality hit me, what had been drilled into me my whole life kicked in and I turned and ran. Left him, or what was left of him, swirling into an abyss of mindlessness.
    But that’s not the sin at hand.
    Mal had the heaviest load. We mostly carried empty bags for the loot, but he had his lock-picking tools in his large bag, and so we stayed close to him.
    â€œWhat are you really doing here?” I asked him.
    â€œWhatever do you mean, Benjamin?”
    â€œYou don’t need this score,” I said. “You hit installations like this all the time. I know you’re well-stocked on weapons and ammunition.”
    He stopped for a moment and looked at me. “There’s no such thing, Benjamin. One day it’s going to be up to us to form a new civilization. Not this scattered series of jobs and searches. Not the day-to-day survival that we all do. We’re going to need to build something, and that something is going to need defending. So, yes, I do need this score.” He started moving again, then said back over his shoulder. “We all do.”
    I was still digesting this when I heard howls off in the distance, a sharp cry of . . . something? Hunger? Rage? Lust? I don’t understand Ferals that much. Ahead of us, the building that Cheyenne