I WAS FRANTIC.

  The audio had been coming in loud and clear from the transmitter in Yuki’s wristwatch, but now we’d lost her! We’d gone out of range! I grabbed Conklin’s arm, stopped him in the path that had petered out onto a small clearing before snaking out in three directions.

  “I’ve lost the transmission!”

  “Hold it,” Conklin said into his mic to the SWAT team that was moving through the woods in a grid formation.

  And then the static cleared. I couldn’t hear Yuki, but Twilly’s voice was tinny and clear.

  “See, when I was thinking about this earlier,” Twilly was saying, “I thought I could get you to spread your wings and fly off this cliff. But now I’m thinking, you’re going to shoot yourself, Yuki.”

  Yuki’s scream was high-pitched. Wordless.

  Twilly was threatening to kill her! Why didn’t Yuki use her gun?

  “Up there. T............