Whatever Cress had expected Iko to do, it wasn't that.

Gone were the android's monotonous questions and statements she'd experienced in the underground warehouse. Iko had clearly learned speech and a whole bunch of other things—including Kai's identity? Cress was so turned around that she didn't even protest when Thorne jumped up from his seat and hovered next to her.

"What the…?" His jaw went as slack as hers as the android pulled away from Kai, clapped her hands excitedly, then embraced him again.

Kai, still stunned, held his hands out away from her body and simply let himself be hugged again.

Levana was having none of it. "Excuse me?" she huffed. "Who the hell is this?"

"Um…" Kai stammered. "I-I've never met her before."

Iko, who looked like she was stroking his thick, black hair with one hand—and nuzzling her face into his neck—withdrew slowly. She left her arms around his neck, though, and gazed longingly into his eyes.

Thorne reached over Cress and pressed on the intercom. "Kai, do something! Levana's going to think you're having an affair!"

But Kai couldn't respond, of course, without giving away that he was wearing an earpiece. He put his hands gently on Iko's forearms and tried to extricate himself.

"But Kai Huang," said Iko, "I've been dying to meet you. You won't give me a few minutes of your time?" She booped his nose. "Give me a few minutes, Kai."

"Get your hands off my boyfriend," Levana commanded.

Kai and Iko stayed locked in their embrace.

Levana shoved Iko.

But Iko didn't budge. Why would she, when she was made of some sort of titanium?

Levana let out a string of curses and yanked at Iko's blue braids.

Cress's mind buzzed with a million details that didn't make sense. She moved Thorne's hand away and spoke into the intercom herself. "Kai, I think you need to get out of there. Cinder's group has had possession of Iko since Thorne and I escaped. Who knows what they've planned? Nothing good if the first thing she does is come for you."

She wasn't articulating herself well enough, though, because Kai did nothing. He just smiled at Iko like she was made of pure sunshine, his girlfriend completely forgotten.

Thorne grabbed the mic. "Kai, Cress is right. This is a trap. Cinder hates you. Get out of there now."

Iko finally scowled and let go of Kai. She slapped Levana's hand away. There was a static sound of something like a crack. Iko jutted out her hip as Levana cradled her injured hand.

Kai beamed at Iko.

"Enough," Levana said. "I know who you are. I know exactly what you are."

"Kai!" Thorne yelled into the mic. "If you can hear us, give us a sign! Cough! Scratch your ear! Clear your throat!"

Kai only stood there, a dopey smile on his face.

Cress switched connections. "Scarlet! Kai's compromised. Brainwashed, most likely. Levana knows who Iko is. Possibly," she added. What if she was messing up the whole mission? Stars, what was the mission again? "Just go to them!" she yelled, her mind still whirring.

"On it," Scarlet said, but Cress wasn't even watching her quadrant.

Levana had pulled a gun from somewhere in her slinky cocktail dress.

"Safe to say Kai's girlfriend is a bad guy," Thorne stated.

"So someone got you working," Levana said. "Good. I've been waiting for this day so long." She trained her gun on Kai, tucking her arm through his elbow and jabbing it into his back. "Sleeping with this loser for almost a year just to get close to his connections, his work. Whatever you've done to make him shut up, keep it up. Thank the stars we're finally here and I can dump his sorry ass."

Iko cocked her head to the side. "Your heels are ugly. Anyone ever tell you that?"

A hand came on Cress's shoulder and she jumped. Thorne didn't let go and rubbed a circle into her skin with his thumb. "Breathe, Cress. You're hyperventilating."

"But Kai. He's—Levana is—where's Scarlet?"

Levana sneered. "This is what we're going to do. You're going to tell whatever person is controlling you to come out in the open. They're going to bring your control panel with them. If they want Kai to live, that is."

Iko put her hands on her hips. "What makes you think I want him alive?"

Levana faltered. Thorne's hand on Cress's shoulder tightened.

"Why would you come for him otherwise?" Levana spluttered. "Why seek him out? Clearly whoever owns you wants something with him. I'll hand him over once they come out."

Kai was still smiling starry-eyed at Iko.

"Interesting theory," Iko said. "But you've always had a little brain, so of course you'd assume something like that. But I'm not here for Kai. He's just a puppet." She turned to Kai. "Tell them what you want, Kai."

"I want you," Kai said, monotone. "I've wanted you for so long. Instead I have this ugly, plastically-altered bitch standing beside me."

Thorne swore.

"Kai and I are going to have so much fun together." Iko snickered as Kai nodded.

Levana barely batted an eye, merely pulled Kai closer to her. "Enough with the games, android."

Iko beamed. "I love games!"

"Stop it."

"Okay." She smiled at Levana. "I'll stop."

The movement was too fast on the screen that Cress didn't catch it. All she knew was that bullets exploded in the van's audio. She let out a scream as though someone were shooting at her directly. Static took over a second later, the sound gone. Cress was in Thorne's arms. She stared at the screen, shaking.

Levana Blackburn lay dead on the floor, her cocktail dress covered in blood.

The crowd was scattering, and though it was silent, everyone was clearly screaming and running. Iko was rushing across the exhibition hall floor, yanking Kai with her by the tie. His limbs moved, but it was a strange, unsteady sort of running.

Thorne was breathing just as hard as Cress. "What the hell just happened?"

Cress lunged at her controllers. She tried to get the audio back, but the GPS on Kai's audio was gone, which meant it had likely been smashed. She switched to Scarlet's line. "L-L-Levana Blackburn is dead. I'm—I'm trying to replay the feed to see how it happened but—I think the android has taken Kai hostage. Scarlet? Scarlet?"

"Affirmative," came Scarlet's voice. "I'm almost in the exhibition room."

Cress located Scarlet in Quadrant A3, running straight to Quadrant A4.

"They're trying to leave the hall," Thorne told Scarlet. "Cress will give you the location."

"I'm calling in the rest of Kai's team," she confirmed.

Cress's fingers flew over the keypad. She deleted her quadrant view and zoomed in on Iko with Kai on one large panel and then called up the imaging of whatever shooting had occurred. "Keep an eye on Iko and Kai," she told Thorne, immediately thankful he was next to her. She was good, but she didn't have two sets of eyes.

She froze the replay of Iko, Kai, and Levana, then played it back at the slowest intervals, zooming in from different angles. There. Something in Iko's hand. No, something coming out of Iko's hand. But it wasn't a gun. "Are those bullets?" she asked Thorne.

"Huh?"

"Look." She zoomed some more. "What's coming out of her hand?"

While Thorne scrutinized the image, Cress watched Kai and Iko. They had exited the exhibition hall. "Going towards the escape stairs," Cress told Scarlet. "East wing, fourth floor. No cameras in there so I'll watch all exits." She pulled up new screens, replacing the one with Levana dead.

"I'm not sure what it is," Thorne said. "Bullets or shrapnel, but it definitely came out of her hand."

"Hello?" Scarlet yelled into the mic. "Two dead. I repeat, two dead. I'm going after them."

"Two dead?" Cress asked.

Thorne ran a hand over his face. "From their team." He pointed to where Scarlet was running and ran his finger to the edge of the screen. "They were disguised as staff."

"Oh no, oh no, oh no! What do we do? Thorne, everyone is dying and—and—I'm not ready for this."

"You are," Thorne said simply. "You have to be."

"Do I release Kai's files?"

He let out a breath. "If he is brainwashed, that seems a little cruel."

"Right…right. But…"

Another commotion of bullets made her jump. Scarlet shot a security guard who wouldn't let her pass, her red hair flying behind her as she ducked and rolled away from a second guard who tried to catch her. "Headed to the stairs," she panted. "Are they still there?"

"They haven't come out yet," Cress said.

Thorne's hand was back on her shoulder. "You're doing great."

"I don't understand," she said. "Cinder has to be here. We know she did terrible things. We witnessed how her team treated us at the warehouse—both of us. We know she kidnapped you and me, even if we overlook your role in this. Cinder, Aimery, Luisa, Jerrico, and the blond one—Jacin. Why don't we just send Scarlet after Cinder's team? Kai and Scarlet have a team for exactly—"

"Had a team," Thorne said quietly.

"There are more! We still have four more on our side. Or we call the authorities right now, explain the situation, and have them come to the Dalian International Conference before Iko—and Cinder's team—can do any more damage."

Thorne rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, I won't pretend to be versed in exactly how all shady organizations operate. But from what I've gathered, people like to wait until there's actually something happening."

"Something did happen! People are dying!"

"Where there's one bad guy, there's usually another. And our goal is to stop Iko and whatever her purpose is. So if we run in now with cops, guns blazing, what will happen first is there will be a lot of unnecessary death. And second, you'll never figure out what they're actually up to."

"But they'd be behind bars."

"Maybe. Or maybe they have tons of connections in the police and have moles and they'll be out in a day and we'll all be dead."

"But I can release their information—"

He grimaced. "That threat only works for a little while. If you're clever enough to escape the authorities doing all the shit these guys have already done, why would leaking more of their data scare them?"

"Because then when they do get caught, we'll be able to put them away forever."

"Or you put away the little guys who aren't consequential."

Cress wanted to scream. "Aren't consequential? I was kidnapped. You were shot. Levana is dead. Kai is possibly brainwashed. A brain-washing android with bullets in her hand is terrorizing China!"

Thorne dragged his thumb over his lower lip. "There's always a Big Bad. Someone pulling the strings. To take down this operation, we need to get that person. Hopefully Iko being here will draw them out."

Movement drew her attention back to the screen. "They're headed to the roof!" she yelled into the mic. "They're taking the exit to the roof!"

"I can hear you just fine," Scarlet said. Her breathing was labored, and though they couldn't see her, she was likely taking the stairs two at a time.

Cress hacked into Dalian's rooftop security, angry at her sloppy work. She should have had that camera ready beforehand, anticipating everything. But her fingers were fast, though not fast enough to keep up with her brain. She accessed the rooftop surveillance in 45 seconds. Thorne whistled.

On the rooftop, Iko and Kai were no longer alone.

Someone Cress didn't recognize stood there, waiting, with a gun.

She didn't miss the way Iko blasted her with her hand bullets this time, even though there was no sound. The man fell immediately, but more gunman emerged from elsewhere on the roof. Cress couldn't widen her view and cursed the bad footage from Dalian's security. Iko left Kai standing by the door and raised both her hands, shooting now out of both of them.

Bullets flew in a dizzying array of sparks. Iko shot a woman and wounded another. A man emerged from behind Iko and shot her in the back. Iko buckled forward, a hole in her wiring jutting out.

Thorne jabbed a finger on the mic. "Scarlet! Where are you? We need to take Iko before this other team does! Where's the rest of Kai's team?"

"Contact them! I'm a little busy going up twenty flights of stairs, you ass!"

Cress moved a finger to contact them, but more bullets riddled the audio. Except—

It wasn't the audio.

Thorne threw himself on top of Cress, sending her flying from her chair to the floor of the van. His body flattened itself over her and he yelled as loudly as her right into her ear. Cress couldn't see, couldn't think. She couldn't breathe with Thorne squashing her, with the way his body weight forced her chin up and into his collarbone. Her jaw was going to separate from her neck and—

The bullets stopped.

Something blasted the van door open. Thorne scrunched himself even more on top of her and if he was hit by whatever debris she didn't know because she still couldn't see.

"Thorne, Thorne, Thorne," tsked a voice that sent chills down Cress's spine. "I thought we talked about this the last time we met. I'm in no mood to chase you around the world." A gun cocked. "How is that I keep finding you on top of Miss Darnel?"

Thorne's entire body tensed.

"I love you," he whispered.

Everything happened in a blur: Thorne's bodyweight leaving her, Thorne twisting in front of her to draw a gun himself, bullets shooting across the van, someone shooting back, a painful scream.

Thorne's painful scream.

Blood.

Blood everywhere.

Thorne crumpled back against her. Her own scream caught in her throat as she tried to right herself while holding him up, and realized with horror that with his body in front of her, he had made himself a shield. But he was still breathing. She checked him for bullet wounds, but there wasn't blood on his shirt. Not from his chest at least. The blood was from his hand. The one that held his gun. And—oh stars, she was going to vomit—he was missing fingers.

"Hello again, Miss Darnel."

Cress tried to ignore Jerrico, who had taken a step into the van and held his gun threateningly at the two of them. Her entire body shook at his presence, remembering how he'd barged into Thorne's San Diego apartment and plunged a syringe in her arm. She unbuttoned Thorne's shirt anyway and tried to slide it off him to use as a bandage. His gun caught her eye. It was scattered behind her. It would make a good weapon, but if Thorne couldn't beat Jerrico, she had no chance.

She had to focus on stopping Thorne's bleeding. A few fingers he could live without—if she saved the rest of his hand in time. If someone helped him.

He swore as she applied pressure.

"Yes, wrap it up good," Jerrico said. "I need you two alive, for now."

Cress finally managed to look Jerrico in the eye. He was a towering, broad man, with orange-red hair. "I—I don't know what you mean."

"Thorne I expected to be a pain in my ass," Jerrico said casually. "You, on the other hand, were not supposed to give us problems. Should've figured if you fell in love with a pain in the ass, you'd become one yourself." He let out an annoyed breath. "But no matter. I've got you now, and this time I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"You don't even have to move. I'm driving you personally." He grinned.

"I said I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Yes, you are. I'll even let you keep your boyfriend. We wouldn't want him bleeding out, now would we?"

Cress hugged Thorne tighter as he let out a strained breath. "Don't listen to him, Cress. I'm not going to bleed out. It's just a—a flesh wound."

"Shh. Save your energy."

"I'd listen to her, Thorne," Jerrico said. "Everyone knows your own ideas are shit. Now, are you going to come willingly, Miss Darnel, or do I need to force you?"

"You—you just said you needed us alive. I have no reason to do anything for you."

"Honey, it's my job to find reasons." He snapped his fingers. "Boys?"

Two masked figures appeared at the door behind him, dragging a third person.

Cress gasped in horror as they threw Julian, bound and gagged, into the van.