There were times when Phoebe hated her father. And then he’d go and do something that made her all warm and squishy with the nearest thing she could feel to love.

Maybe it was love. She wasn’t sure. The closest she’d been to the emotion was a few years ago, when she’d slept with an Itor agent named Jacques, and during the month they’d been together, she’d lost interest in all other bed partners. But then he’d gone and screwed some waitress.

Phoebe had killed the waitress instantly, but had let Jacques linger in agony in a hospital burn unit for three weeks before he died.

Hell hath no fury like a woman who can scorch.

And thanks to Alek injecting her with the antidote they’d developed to counteract the suppressant, Phoebe was now out and ready to do some of that scorching on Dev.

Strangely, though, she could feel Mel in the background, almost as if her sister was knocking on a door. Phoebe couldn’t hear the knocks, but she could feel their vibration. Annoying, but Phoebe had another sibling to deal with, so Mel would have to wait.

“Oh, brother,” she said sweetly, as Alek released her from her bonds, “you are going to die very, very painfully.” She stood, rubbing her wrists. “After we watch every living thing in London reduced to a smoking pile of radiated ash, of course.”

“You sick bastards,” Dev growled. Such a broken record.

Alek shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? I don’t want to kill those people. I have to.” He poured himself a glass of whiskey, neat. “Now, your sister … she enjoys killing. A little too much. I think a few of her recreational activities have caused some damage.” He tapped his temple. “Here.”

Phoebe schooled her expression to hide the twinge of hurt. “Everything I’ve learned has been from you—” Her words were cut off as his backhanded strike slammed into her mouth.

“I never taught you to kill indiscriminately.”

She almost laughed. Almost. Instead, she dabbed blood from her lips and glared at Dev. Surely it was his presence that was making their father so testy. It was definitely making Phoebe testy. That, and the fact that Melanie had stepped up her protest at being locked out, and was now a constant thud against the inside of Phoebe’s skull. Figured that she’d choose this moment to grow some balls.

Alek sipped his drink. “Like I said, it’s not that I want to kill the Londoners. I’m not a monster, despite what you may think, Devlin. But I have to perform a test run on my machine, and when I took aim at the world map, London got the dart in its stiff upper lip.” He assessed Dev with eyes that matched his son’s, and Phoebe had to bite back a snarl of jealousy that her asshole brother had gotten more of their father’s features than she had. “Look at it this way: Scientists perform horribly cruel tests on animals, but they create medicines and medical procedures that help mankind. This is the same thing. Ultimately, I’ll be saving lives with this test. I’ll work out any glitches we find, so that when 2012 comes, I can be sure that my machine will absorb the gamma rays that would otherwise destroy all life on earth. I’ll then be able to concentrate the power, end wars, genocide—”

“For a price,” Dev snapped. “You’ll sell death to the highest bidder. This has nothing to do with wanting to save mankind.”

“Of course it does.” Alek swirled the amber liquor in his glass, and why the hell didn’t he hit Dev for mouthing off, the way he had Phoebe? “If mankind dies, where does that leave me?”

Snarling silently, Phoebe wheeled around to flip on the outside monitors, wanting to know how the battle was going. As she reached for the switches, a blow came out of nowhere, striking her in the kidney, and suddenly, Dev was up and crashing into Alek, and she was fighting with someone she couldn’t see.

Gritting her teeth against the pain from the sucker punch, she struck out, heard a grunt, and felt her fist slam against a wall of muscle. Quickly, she released a stream of fire. Didn’t hit Mr. Invisible, but she set Alek’s couch on fire. A fist sank into her gut, a fucking low blow, sending her stumbling backward. As she caught herself on the edge of the bar, she let loose another blast of flame, and this time was rewarded by a yelp of pain and the hiss of fire burning clothing and skin.

And still, Melanie was fighting for control, a distraction Phoebe didn’t need. Especially because it seemed that the bitch had grown stronger.

People were pounding on the door outside—ACRO, had to be. Another blow, this time to the temple, knocked her off her feet. In the space between the coffee table and the leather recliner, she could make out her father and brother battling. Both were bleeding, battered, and though she knew Alek was in top form and a damned good fighter, Dev was younger, in great shape, and no doubt as expertly combat-trained as Alek.

She reached out, prepared to send a fireball into Dev, but Alek wheeled into the path of her weapon, and she cursed, rolled to her feet just as an invisible foot connected with her chin. Again, she tumbled backward, but this time, she swept her legs out as she went down, catching the invisible motherfucker hard enough to knock him into the wall. A picture crashed down and splintered, and suddenly, there was an unconscious, bleeding man on the carpet.

“Asshole,” she spat.

Dev had Alek pinned to the floor and was pounding on him, his fists dripping with blood that sprayed in an arc with every blow to her father’s face. Rage lit her up so hotly that her veins might as well run with lava.

“Die!” She threw out her hand to blast him with a stream of fire that would make a flamethrower seem like a child’s toy.

Nothing happened.

No! She couldn’t be empty. Panicked, she reached deep, feeling for her power. Relief washed over her when she felt the nearly full well … but she couldn’t access it. It was as if there was a shield over the opening.

Melanie! That bitch! Somehow, she was blocking Phoebe, and damn her, she would pay dearly for this. If it was the last thing she did, Phoebe would hurt Mel so badly that she would never recover.

Cursing, she darted to the two men and leaped, landing a spin-kick right in Dev’s mouth. He fell backward, and she took instant advantage, slamming her boot into his ribs. She went for a second kick, but he rolled, and then was knocked flat by Alek, who had recovered enough to put a serious hurting on Dev.

A sudden scratching on the inside of Phoebe’s skull was like nails on a chalkboard, except searing, agonizing pain came with it. Melanie wanted out … fuck … no …

Something niggled at her, and she cranked her head around to see Stryker looking through the window in the door as his ACRO buddies worked to get the sucker open. And then it started. The low rumble of an earthquake that put a knot of dread in her belly. Terror was a monster inside her, and as she felt herself being sucked into unconsciousness, her one consolation was that Alek had a knife, and he was about to plunge it into Dev’s heart.

Melanie came to in a screaming rush. Before she even fully understood what was happening, she saw Alek straddling Dev on the floor, a knife poised in the air and murder in her father’s eyes.

He brought the knife down.

With a scream of terror and fury, Melanie sent a blast of concentrated cold at Alek. It struck him like a blow, knocking him off Dev and shredding the skin on the right side of his upper body. Dev rolled, captured the knife, but he was injured badly and—

“Mel! Let us in!”

“Stryker!” She darted to the door and spun the lock, releasing the mechanism and swinging the door open.

Men rushed in, and she heard yelps, thumps, and Stryker tugged her into his arms and held her as the sounds died down.

She didn’t need to look to know her father was dead.

Stryker tightened his arms around Mel. “You did it, Mel … you controlled your powers. You helped Dev, probably saved his life.”

“I owed him that much.” The tears welled in her eyes and he stroked her hair. “Alek got what he deserved.”

“It’s over, baby—he’s gone. That bastard can never hurt you again.”

That bastard was currently being hauled away by Ender and Trance—his body would be taken back to the ACRO compound for safekeeping. And, probably, experimentation.

Stryker didn’t give a damn, as long as the man was gone from their lives. Itor was nearly destroyed—its agents would no doubt scatter and try to regroup, but to gain the same strength Itor once had would be impossible.

“One down, two to go,” Mel said as she watched Alek being carried away, referencing both Phoebe and the machine, although the latter was the far more pressing problem at the moment. “We don’t know the location of the weapon.”

“I do.” Dev groaned from where he’d rolled over on the ground. Gabriel was at his side, dazed, and with blood running down his face. “I read the bastard while we fought. That’s why I got my ribs kicked in. I was distracted.” He spit blood onto what was probably a damned expensive carpet. “Machine’s set to go off within minutes. We gotta go. Vehicle. Now.”

Stryker fished his phone from his pocket as Gabe helped Devlin to his feet. “Ryan will have a Jeep waiting outside.” He sent Ryan a text, knew the guy would be ready by the time they all got topside.

Gabe practically carried Devlin out of the underground compound himself as Stryker scooped Mel up. She was still shaky and there was no time to waste.

“I’ve got you,” he told her. “This is almost over.” Almost, but not close enough. Outside in the sun made hazy by remnants of Remy’s storm, the all-too-familiar stench of battle struck him in the face—blood, bowels, smoke, dirt. The fight was still going on, the sounds of bodies colliding, gunfire, and electric blasts thick in the air, but it was clear that ACRO now had the upper hand, and it was only a matter of time before Itor fell completely.

“Hurry, Stryker—just hurry,” Mel whispered, and he did, easing her into the Jeep’s backseat and scrambling in next to her. Gabriel came in on her other side, having put Devlin into the front seat next to Ryan.

“Hang on,” Ryan advised them all, as the Jeep had only a bikini top and the doors were long gone. Mel bounced around with men on either side of her, holding on to the roll bar as best she could.

The wind roared in their ears as Ryan drove the Jeep like a madman, Devlin directing him along the crude ranch roads that jarred them back and forth.

“Dev.” Mel tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry about earlier. At the office. I wasn’t switching sides. I was hoping Alek would release me so I could help you—”

“I know.” Though Dev was obviously in pain, he reached up, took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. “I know now. I should have trusted you. And I should have told you I was your brother.”

Ryan did a whiplash thing to stare at Dev for a second, and then he shook his head and went back to watching where he was going.

“It’s okay,” Mel said, but Stryker knew she and Dev were going to have a lot of talking to do when this was over.

The Jeep slowed as they entered a patch of brush-covered ground. “This isn’t it, Ryan,” Devlin said, spacing his words between pained breaths. “Keep going.”

“There’s nothing here,” Ryan said, but he did as Dev asked and stepped on the gas. Stryker squinted against the sand and wind, his body practically quaking with anticipation.

Mel was leaning into the front seat, staring out the front window for better visibility. “We’re close. I’ve seen this before.” Stryker wondered how she and Dev recognized anything—it was all dirt, rock, and nothingness.

But then, in the middle of nowhere, sharp, unnatural angles caught Stryker’s eye. Reaching between the seats, he grabbed Ryan’s shoulder and pointed as a sand-colored set of giant doors rose out of the side of a hill. A hangar. The damned facility blended so well with the surroundings they could’ve easily crashed into the thing.

If there had been a sandstorm, they would have.

“This is the main entrance,” Dev said. “I saw some sort of feeding shack that Alek used, but this is for moving large equipment. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the code out of Alek’s head.” He glanced at his watch and cranked his neck to face Ryan. “I hope to hell you can deal with this. We have five minutes until eight million Londoners die.”

Stryker slapped Ryan on the shoulder. “No pressure or anything.”

“Fuuuuck,” Ryan breathed. “Let’s go.”

They piled out of the vehicle, and Stryker, Gabe, and Dev provided cover as Ryan, with Melanie beside him, did his weird electronic magic on the mechanism that worked the doors.

“This thing is built like a fortress,” Gabe muttered, as he kept a sharp eye on the horizon.

“So how do we stop the machine?” Stryker asked, swinging his pistol toward a puff of dust in the distance, but he relaxed at the sight of some sort of rodent skittering out of the brush.

“A drop of blood.” Dev’s voice was mushy through his swollen lips, but there was the typical Dev determination there. “It’s set for Alek’s and Phoebe’s blood.”

There was a funny feeling in Stryker’s gut, though, that all of this was a little too easy.

A massive clanking noise rang out, followed by a whir as the huge hangar doors slid open. Stryker slipped through the crack first. Inside, a single male in a white jumpsuit raised his hands into the air. Clearly, the people here were scientists, not soldiers.

He gestured to the others, and everyone followed, Mel in the middle, kept safe sandwiched between Ryan and Dev. Ryan used flex-cuffs to restrain the guy, and then they moved quickly to the rear of the hangar, ran into another white suit, and Ryan repeated the procedure. Stryker hoped to hell the guy had a pocketful of the plastic cuffs.

Fortunately, they encountered no resistance as they moved through the halls, and when they reached the door at the end, they found out why. A man in a white coat ran into them as he hoofed it toward the exit.

“Go! The machine is about to engage.”

Dev grabbed the man by the arm. “Why are you leaving?”

“The radiation.” The white-haired dude blinked. “Didn’t Alek tell you? We’ve got to be outside the facility when it fires.”

“Shit.” Dev nodded to Ryan, who did the flex-cuff thing. “You’re coming with us.”

The guy’s eyes bugged out of his head. “But—”

“Get us into that room.” Dev nodded at the control panel to the right of the door. “Now, or we all get cooked.”

The dude’s finger shook as he punched in a code and then stood still for a retina scan. The door whooshed open, and Stryker drew a sharp breath at the sight before him.

Holy shit, the machinery that filled the cavern on the other side of the door could have come straight out of a Terminator movie. Stuff was beeping, shiny metal parts were shifting, and at the front, under a glass cap, was a clock.

2:46 and counting down.

“Now, Mel,” Dev breathed.

Mel rushed forward, lifted the glass, and stared at the white pad just beneath the countdown clock. “I need something sharp.”

2:38

Stryker unsnapped the sheath on his belt and palmed his Ka-Bar. Mel’s gaze met his as she held out her hand to him. “I’d do this if I could,” he said, and she offered him a shaky smile.

“I know.”

As gently as he could, he pricked Mel’s finger with the tip of the knife, held her hand steady, and squeezed the drop of blood onto the pad.

2:22

They all held their breath. Waited for the clock to stop.

2:15

“It’s not working,” Devlin stated the obvious. “Try another drop.”

Mel did. Several more—and it became obvious, with T minus two minutes until mass fucking destruction, that this wasn’t going to work.

1:59

“Once the timer hit three minutes, only Alek’s blood could have stopped it,” the scientist said, and Stryker wanted to fucking kill him.

“You couldn’t have said that before we fucking wasted time and Mel’s blood?”

The guy shrugged, and Ryan cursed. “We don’t have time to go back and get Alek’s body.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Stryker said. He studied the reinforced structure, the heavy beams and lead-lined walls and ceiling. It was a capsule built to withstand natural and man-made disasters. Polar shifts, meteor strikes, earthquakes.

But Stryker’s earthquakes weren’t your average dirt-shakers.

He stared at the ceiling and the floor and he closed his eyes. Fisted his hands. Felt the familiar energy race through him with a hard tingle that went from pleasant to burning in seconds.

This would be a big one—and it was going to hurt. Would drain him badly.

There was no choice.

He vaguely heard Devlin tell the others to get the hell out. It would be a race against time, because Stryker needed to stay inside the building until the cracks began to show.

And no one was moving.

“All for one.” Mel remained there, her body trembling as the earth did under their feet.

Stryker opened his eyes. “Run,” he growled, and when everyone, including Mel, hesitated, he shouted, “Run! Now!”

This time, they took off, though Mel lagged behind, matching his slower pace, unwilling to leave him. He took up the rear, still utilizing his powers to bring down the building hard enough to smash that fucking machine.

“Go … go!” Stryker yelled as they zigzagged between the steel girders that began to crumple, and ducked to avoid falling machinery.

Once they reached the hangar, things got critical as the structure aboveground began to collapse, the light fixtures becoming bombs. One of the giant mountings slammed into Ryan’s shoulder, knocking him flat, and only Dev and Gabe’s help got him to his feet before a steel beam punched down hard enough to sink a couple of feet into the concrete where Ryan’s head had been.

The hangar doors ahead were open, but a crack split the earth in front of them and was racing toward Stryker and the others as they sprinted for the exit.

“Stryker …” Mel squeezed his hand, trying to dodge the fissure, but he realized doing so would get them crushed. He tugged her toward the gaping crack, and at the last minute, he swung her over his shoulder and leaped.

The bright sun greeted them as they came down outside the hangar doors and ran like hell for the Jeep. As Dev, Ryan, and Gabe scrambled inside, Stryker spun around with Mel at his side and drilled every last ounce of his power into the earth beneath the facility. Pain streaked through him—at this level, the sexual side effects were negated by the agony of wielding so much energy. It was as if shards of glass were flowing through his veins.

At some point, he hit his knees, and Mel was right beside him, holding him as the ground shook and his body heaved.

When it was over, there was nothing but a giant crater in the land. His watch beeped, and though he scarcely had the energy to look at it, he did, and smiled. Because time was up. The machine, which should have just sent out a death ray, was scrap metal.

“We did it.” Dev was standing on Stryker’s other side, looking out over the acres of sunken ground. “The machine is dead and Itor is all but destroyed. We couldn’t have done it without you.” He smiled at Mel. “Without either of you.”

“We’re all a bunch of goddamned heroes,” Stryker muttered, and then he actually felt like a hero when Mel cupped his chin, brought his face around, and kissed him like he was her world.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s put the past where it belongs and go home.”

Yeah, ACRO had always been home to him, and now he couldn’t wait to share it.