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Rhys follows after and gathers up the satchel Jed dropped, before kicking the remains of his arm and shoulder beneath the gap, where the collective growls signal the mutations’ appreciation for the food. “Everybody get to the surface!” he commands. “I don’t trust those pricks not to lock us all down here.”

Atticus pulls himself along beneath the cage, and once he’s on this other side I turn to see him and Brandon make their ascent up the ladder to the hatch, with Titus on their heels.

Valdys whistles for the dog, but the animal remains on guard, staring off toward the opposite side of the tunnel. “C’mon!”

“Valdys!” I call out, feeling too impatient with him and Cadmus still on the wrong side of the bars. Every nerve ending is like a livewire that won’t settle until they’re safely on this side.

He turns toward Cadmus and jerks his head. “Go!”

Shaking his head, Cadmus wraps the rope around his hand and braces his legs. “I got this, old man. You go first.”

Perhaps not wanting to waste time arguing, Valdys nods. “I’ll hold the lever for you on the other side.”

Still straining to hold up the gate, Cadmus clenches his teeth, his arms visibly shaking. “Just go!”

Screeching from down the hall sends waves of dread through me. “Both of you! Hurry up!”

Valdys slides beneath, and once cleared, Cadmus releases the rope, slamming the gate shut once again. He shakes out his arm, winding it around and flinching with the movement, as if he’s in immense pain.

The dog growls behind him, keeping my nerves on edge, as Valdys scrambles to his feet and pulls the lever once more.

The cage doesn’t budge.

“’The fuck?” Valdys pulls it down a second time, holding it, just as Cadmus had done before.

It doesn’t lift.

“It must’ve busted the crank when he released it, and it slammed closed again.” The voice is Gregor’s through the camera Rhys removed from his mask and clipped to some kind of harness at his chest. He twists one of the buttons on the camera that seems to adjust the volume.

“How do we open it again?” Rhys asks, his brows knitting to a frown.

There’s a long pause and an exasperated exhale. “I don’t think you can.”

Rubbing his skull, Cadmus paces on the other side. “Ah, fuck. Fuck!”

Panic explodes inside my chest, and I leap toward the bars, tugging them upward like I have the power to lift it. “No! We have to get him out!”

Beside me, Valdys squats down and takes hold of the bars, muscles flexing, straining, as he tries to lift it. Titus, who must’ve climbed back down the ladder, attempts to lift it on the other side of me. Rhys joins in, too, but the cage doesn’t move, at all. Not even with the power and strength of all three Alphas behind it. The kind of power I imagine could lift a tank.

“There’s a locking mechanism. You can’t open it.” Gregor’s voice is like the harbinger of death, and I wish I could set fire to the air and burn his words that linger as a discouraging reality.

“No. No!” I slam at the gate, anger and frustration tensing my muscles so tight, it’s as if they might snap.

Screeching from behind Cadmus is louder, and the dog lurches forward, his growls turning to a warning bark.

“Get him out. Get him out. Please!”

Valdys rattles the bars, as though looking for a weak spot, but there isn’t one. This cage was designed to keep the most violent creations from escaping.

Cadmus glances over his shoulder, and when he turns around, gaze lowered from mine, there’s a gleaming sadness in his eyes. He stands thoughtful, quiet, in spite of the growling and the constant hum from the mutations behind me. Glancing back over his shoulder again, he scratches the wounds on his forearm. “I could save her this time, you know.”

“No. Don’t do this. Not now. I need you to think. Think of what we can do. How we can get you out. You know these tunnels better than anyone.”

The dog’s barking is fervent, excited, and I’m certain whatever approaches is close now. As he lurches in that direction, I grab Cadmus’s arm through the bars. “Wait! What are you doing? You can’t save her. She was never there, Cadmus! It’s in your head.”

“She was never just in my head, Cali.”

“She was. A hallucination the doctors made up to play with your mind.”