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I solidified my hand, passed her the flashlight, and waited until she'd aimed it at me. Then I vanished into void form. She gasped. Because of course she did. A woman disappearing into thin air tended to have that effect.

Then I shifted back into my translucent ghost form and the flashlight's beam passed through me. “Try to touch me.”

She reached out, and her hand passed straight through my body.

“I am here to get you out. I’ve devoted my life to killing these men and rescuing women like us. And now that we’ve established what I can do, will you please come with me?”

Her mouth fell open. At that exact moment, a guard burst through the door.

“Time to go.” I grabbed her and pulled us both into the void form.

She squealed.

But the guard stopped short, bewildered.

“Shut up, please,” I said through gritted teeth. The “please” was a last-minute attempt to soften it. Semi-successful, though, because she did actually shut the fuck up. “Now this is going to be weird, but we are going to walk through that wall, and then we’re not going to say another word because silence is our friend. Understand?”

Her eyes widened, but she nodded.

“Great.”

I helped lift her up and threw her arm over my shoulder. I supported her, and we clumsily tried to walk out of the room. She tried to carry some of her own weight, but she was extremely hurt. So the process was incredibly awkward.

But eventually we managed to phase through the wall.

“It’s not much further—” An explosion cut me off, and concrete cracked around us.

Instinctively, we shielded our faces and let go of each other. Pointless, of course, because nothing could touch us in void form. But knowing that and trusting it were two different things.

The girl screamed, drawing the guards' attention. With our contact broken, she'd become visible again. The lights were still out, but daylight filtered through the barred windows.

So she was visible.

I materialized to punch the guard in the face who was about to grab her. The punch was my first instinct, but as he fell to the floor, I unholstered my gun and shot him in the head. Then I clutched the girl’s wrist and pulled us back into my void form.

Only seconds had passed, but now they knew we were here—and that we could disappear.

And that had been six shifts between forms.

Great. I was going to pass out during this, wasn’t I?

Because they were already taking a toll on my energy.

But at least I hadn't stayed long in any one form. That counted for something.

My energy depended on the duration of each transformation and how much of my body changed. Solidifying one hand, for example, cost less than becoming fully human.

But six shifts were already a lot.

I had maybe three full-body shifts and eight partial ones, if I was lucky. After that, I'd collapse.

Another explosion sounded, and more concrete fell, but I held onto the girl’s hand tightly, learning my lesson from the first time, and we managed to stay invisible.

But a wave of exhaustion tore through me, and I did everything in my power to hold onto the girl and my ghost form. But we flickered, briefly visible before fading again.

Explosions blew through the doors. Smoke and tear gas flooded the corridor, and a fresh surge of exhaustion drove me to my knees. Fuck. I was weakening faster than normal. In the chaos, the girl screamed and tore free of my grip.

Men shouted in thick Russian accents and stormed through the breached doors. One of them seized the girl’s wrist and dragged her into the firefight.