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“As for the rest of you, welcome to the Sisters of Mercy. You’re safe here.” Twisting her pudgy form slightly, she gestures toward the women standing behind her.

When they step down, making their way toward us, the first crack of gunfire echoes, and all I see is red spattered across the front of their white neckerchiefs.

Mother Chilson’s eyes widen, mouth gaping for a scream.

Before the Legion officers can aim their guns, bullets explode across their faces, sending bits of skull and flesh into the air, before their bodies fall to the ground.

I turn toward Lilith, who lowers her gun, smiling up at Mother Chilson, and at her signal, three of the others in our group race after the nun, who attempts to hobble away. She’s tackled to the ground and dragged into the convent.

“The other guards will be here any second. I suggest the two of you hurry.” Cold steel hits my arm, where Lilith pushes one of her two guns toward me, urging me to take it. Beside me, Titus straps a gun, given to him by one of the other women, over his chest.

“I’ve not learned guns yet.”

“Today’s a good day to figure it out.”

With a firm grip on my arm, Titus yanks me after him, and the two of us scurry up the stairs and into the convent, where Mother Chilson screams and kicks, as the women haul her toward the chapel.

Footsteps approaching signals guards are coming, and as gunshots ring out behind us, we duck low and hustle toward the door at the back. The one we were told led to Purgatory below.

Titus places his ear to the door, and his jaw hardening, he pushes me out of the way and raises his gun. The moment Legion officers plow through the door, he fires.

Hands clapped to my ear, I duck behind one of the pews, peering around the corner to see him take out three officers, before he waves me to follow.

I scramble after him, and we descend a dark staircase that’s lit only by torches every few feet. Sounds reach my ear from below, and when I focus on them, I realize they’re the cries of torment and suffering. Moans of agony that remind me of the many women I watched in labor for hours on end. The stairwell seems to go on forever, until the gunfire above becomes a distant sound. Ice cold air steals my breath, while the scent of rot and death clings to the back of my throat, overpowering the surrounding aroma of decayed earth and rusted stone.

Flames flicker along the path, toward a door ahead, around which light beams through the cracks. Titus swings back the door, the fluorescent light overhead revealing boxes and equipment stacked about the room. I recognize the medical supplies and furniture, beakers and burners, test tubes, and empty petri dishes.

“I didn’t think this place had electricity.” I scan the open room, over the benches and shelves, which look to be in the thick of packing up, or unpacking. It’s hard to discern. “Looks like they’re storing medical supplies.”

“They’re preparing a new research facility.”

“Like Calico?”

“From the looks of it. C’mon.” Striding through the open space, Titus leads the way toward another door, this one made of hard steel and held closed by a latch that won’t open. The biohazard signs plastered to the front of it give my stomach an uneasy twist over what might be on the other side.

I scan the adjacent door, also with a biohazard sign, but no lock on the latch.

“Let’s try this one,” I say, making my way toward it, and feel a tight grip of my hand, tugging me back.

Titus tips his head as he stalks toward it, and the moment he places his hand on the latch, the door flies open. A man in a lab coat barrels out, aiming a gun, and he fires a shot that, from my angle, appears to hit Titus in the arm.

“No!” I lift my gun, but before I even manage to get my finger on the trigger, another shot rings out, and the man in the lab coat drops to the floor.

A second man, mostly bald, steps out from behind the door with his arms in the air. “Don’t shoot! Please!”

Instead of lowering the gun, Titus keeps it trained on the man’s skull. “I’m looking for someone. Said to be held in Purgatory. An Alpha.”

“There … um. There are no … Alphas … that I’m aware of.”

A shot fires from the gun, hitting the wall directly behind the man, who lets out a scream, trembling, as he glances back at the hole left behind.

“Okay. There’s one … Alpha.”

“Show me.” The unyielding tone in Titus’s voice carries the unspoken promise that he’ll blow the man’s head off, if he tries anything tricky.

The man flicks his fingers for us to follow and leads us down a long corridor of rooms encased in glass. Two other men in lab coats stand at benches with their arms in the air, one of whom ducks when we pass. The moment we’re beyond the room, I catch sight of him scrambling for the door through which we entered, and swinging the gun around, Titus fires a shot that hits the man’s back, sending him tumbling to the floor. Not a minute later, a blossom of red stains the back of his coat.

“You don’t … have to shoot them. They’re unarmed.” Lab Coat’s voice seems to get shakier by the second.