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My magic sputtered under my sudden fear. He grabbed my wrist. Hard. “Shit,” I gasped.

Tarek lunged, but the first guard slammed him into the wall. The second guard dragged me toward him, gun rising. I panicked like a girl who had never won a fight in her life, and I kicked him in the shin.

He shouted.

I headbutted his chest because I aimed for his face and missed, which felt on brand. Pain burst through my forehead. He staggered, mostly from surprise, and I yanked my wrist free.

The first guard shoved Tarek down and turned his gun toward me. A vase smashed over his head. For one wild second, my brain refused to understand why there was a vase in the prison hall. Mandi stood behind him with flower stems in one hand and broken glass in the other, breathing hard, eyes black with chaos magic.

“Rumor has it,” she said, voice shaking with rage and adrenaline, “men who point guns at my friends end up with head trauma.”

The guard dropped.

Sam stumbled in behind her, both hands glowing orange-white, hair lifting around her face as magic moved under every strand.

“I told you service corridors connect,” Mandi said.

“You guessed,” Sam snapped.

“Well, I was right.”

Kalon appeared at the corner behind them, one hand bleeding, the other holding a stolen baton. “We have maybe three minutes before they realize the training intake is on fire.”

Kalon stepped over the unconscious guard. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head.

Sam glanced back down the hall. “We need to move.”

The comm crackled again. “Lower holding, respond.”

Mandi crouched beside the guard and grabbed his comm. She pressed the button, looked at Sam, then at me. Her smile turned dangerous.

Chaos demon.

“Lower holding secure,” she said into the comm, mimicking the guard’s voice well enough that my soul left my body for a second. “False alarm. Prisoner’s mate cleared by Scarn.”

I stared at her.

Sam stared at her.

Kalon closed his eyes slowly like a cat.

The comm stayed silent. Then the voice answered, “Copy. Keep visual.”

Mandi tossed the comm onto the guard’s chest. “What? I’m part mimic. It comes in handy.”

“I’m never trusting any phone call I get ever again.”

By the time we reached the last stretch of hall, my body had started to shake in waves. Hunger licking up every place someone had touched me. I was not in control. I was barely in charge. Every step worked because someone else tripped, lied, burned something, or believed exactly the wrong thing at the exact right time.

Luck.

Power.

Panic.

Friendship, maybe.