“I’m going, Val. Stay here or come with me and do your best to keep me safe.” I held up a flat palm in his direction. “So help me, if you stand in my way, I will char your ass.” As Val dithered, I went in for the kill. “I would do it for you, too. I wouldn’t leave you behind if they had taken you.”

In the glow of my LED flashlight, Val’s eyebrow arched. “I wouldn’t ask you to save me.”

“I’d do it anyway.”

Val’s lips thinned, and his nostrils flared. He folded his arms over his chest and glared at me. When I didn’t back down, he finally nodded. “Okay. But at the first sign of trouble, I’m grabbing you up and throwing you over my shoulder. You can burn me to ashes if you want, but your life comes first.”

Security lights illuminated several guards on patrol inside an industrial compound made up of seven or eight large corrugated-metal warehouses. The sentries—all toting mean black rifles—walked the inside perimeter of a huge chain-link fence topped by three strands of barbed wire. Crouched in the darkness behind a convenient patch of prickly desert vegetation, Val and I watched the guards stroll back and forth along the fence.

I pulled my hood up and balled my hands together in my hoodie’s kangaroo pocket. The desert was surprisingly cold at night, and it smelled of dust, horse manure, engine exhaust, and wood smoke.

“Did you learn anything useful about this place before you came back to get me?” I whispered to Val.

He motioned farther down the fence line. “I don’t know where they’re being kept. The place is full of guards, so whatever we’re going to do, we gotta do it fast.”

“How did Baldur and Thorin get past this fence and all those guards?”

Val peered at me from the corner of his eye. “They have their ways. Ways not available to you, unfortunately.”

“Can you get through the fence? Without being caught?”

Val put a hand over his heart and huffed. “You offend me.”

“We need a distraction,” I said, ignoring his theatrics. “You got a holocaust cloak on you?”

“A what?”

“Never mind. Something big-go-boom would be good. Something to draw the guards’ attention away from the fence long enough for me to get inside.”

“There’s a propane tank next to the rear building. See it?” Val gripped my shoulders and turned me in the direction he wanted me to look. Next to an outlying building, illuminated by the security light’s yellow glow, sat a familiar white tank.

“Yeah, I see it,” I said.

Val turned toward the warehouses and studied the patrol’s movements. “You can handle the flame part. Once that thing blows, I’ll slip around and try to help Thorin and Baldur.”

I heaved a groan. “I don’t know, Val. I’m pretty pooped. I haven’t eaten, and I’ve slept like crap.” Actually, I trusted my fire, but I wanted to save it for a dire situation, not use it up on a special effects show. Besides, Val had deserted Thorin and Baldur once already. I didn’t want to give him the chance to do it again.

Val huffed. “What other ideas do you have?”

“I don’t know. If we had a lighter at least.” An idea struck me. “Will a flare do it?”

Val shrugged. “Possibly.”

“There were roadside flares in the kit in the truck.”

Val squared his shoulders and looked off in the direction of the Yukon, parked almost a mile’s hike away. “Give me the keys and stay here. I’ll be back.”

I handed them over. “Even if you distract the guards, how am I going to get over the fence?”

Val rubbed his chin as he pondered the question. His brows rose, and he smiled. “Gotcha covered.”

“Val, what are you—”

He stepped forward into the darkness, and poof, he vanished. I shone my flashlight in his direction, but the beam illuminated nothing. A moment later, Val reappeared in my light. He jogged forward and presented his treasures: a roadside flare and a rolled-up floor mat that must have come from the Yukon’s rear cargo section.

“How do you do that?” I asked, aghast.

Val waggled his eyebrows. “I’m a god, Solina. You keep forgetting. There have to be some perks to this job.”

I pointed at the flare. “Do you think you can do something with that thing?”

“Your doubt is insulting.”

“Sorry.”

Val waved off my apology. “When that thing blows, I don’t know how long I can keep their attention. Be quick, Solina.” He passed the floor mat to me. “Can you get this mat over the top of that fence? It’s heavy.”

“Your doubt is insulting.”

Val rolled his eyes. “Don’t take any stupid risks.”

“Too late.”

Val muttered something and squeezed my shoulder. “Cross your fingers,” he said and disappeared again.

I edged closer to the fence, toting the rolled-up mat under my arm, and hunkered low in the shadows.

Two guards strolled past, both apparently oblivious to my presence. One of them was saying, “…taking a chopper, I heard.”

“She won’t believe us about the capture,” the other guard said. “That crazy bitch has to come rushing out in the middle of the night to confirm it.”

“Don’t let her hear you call her that. She’s brutal. No sense of humor.”

“I hear she’s…”

The two moved out of earshot before the second guard revealed what he had heard about Helen. What other “she” could he be talking about?

“Come on, Val,” I muttered. “What’s the problem?”

As if in reply, the sky tore apart. Val had said, “Let there be light,” and there was. The explosion lit the night in a temporary, false day—a miniature sun that lasted an instant. Someone let out a whoop, and footfalls scurried, en masse, to the scene of the explosion. I edged closer to the fence and waited several moments to allow for stragglers and latecomers.

Like a heavy steam engine, my heart chugged in my chest. My lungs worked double overtime, a pair of concertinas playing the world’s fastest polka. It’s now or never, girlfriend.

I scurried to the fence, shoved my foot in, laced my fingers around the links and climbed, one handed, trying not to drop the mat. Near the top, I said a little prayer and leaned back, unfurled the mat, and slung it over the barbed wire. It landed off-center and slid to the ground at my feet.

“Damn,” I whispered and jumped down to collect the fallen mat. How long would I have before the guards returned? Not long if they realized the explosion was something other than an equipment malfunction.

I climbed a second time and chucked the rug again. Val had been right: the rubber-backed carpeting weighed a lot, especially for attempting a one-armed toss. I heaved, and the mat sailed upward, reached the apex of its trajectory, and came down to straddle the barbed wire almost equally on both sides. What are the chances of doing that again?