The artic snow fell sideways through the heat as fire consumed the two building in front of them. Not even the cold of the extreme north could put out the fires currently burning.

Ash intermingled with the soft snowflakes as they floated on the wind. The combination turned the flakes gray before they hit the ground. The yard glowed orange from the two burning buildings, windows coughing fire, roofs sagging in slow, painful breaths.

Steel moaned and groaned somewhere inside the building on the left and then stopped quickly, leaving a deafening silence. The sky above them went the color of a bad bruise, and heat rolled over the concrete in waves.

And still, the small group of five walked through the destruction like it was nothing at all.

Zubair went first. He had his sleeves shoved to his elbows and his hands open at his sides. The fire bowed away from him as if it recognized its master.

Wherever he looked, flames pulled back, obeying his silent commands. Wherever he pointed, they climbed higher and ate faster, eager to prove their worth.

He didn’t look at the fire long. He looked at Sera and then past her to the doors of the last service wing like he could still find a reason to go back inside and finish something twice.

Sera moved in the center. Luci pressed his hip to her thigh, his head low, his ears up, and his breath steady.

Blood had dried hard on her forearms and flaked when she flexed her fingers. The thin garment she wore clung to her ribs and caught firelight in dark streaks. She didn’t look at the buildings.

Instead, she looked at the gate and the road beyond it. The wind lifted strands of her hair and salted them with ash.

Elias took the right. His rifle hung across his chest, barrel low, the sling snug the way he liked it when he wanted his hands free in the next second.

He scanned the yard, the roofs, the guard towers, the shadow under the hangar door. No alarms. No power. No silhouettes. Only the sound of things dying behind walls.

Lachlan stalked their left, the machete hooked over his shoulder, and a tired grin could be seen on his face.

He had a long healed cut along his jaw, the blood obvious that it was there, and a smear of soot across his nose. His boots left dark crescents where they stamped through melted snow on the concrete. He looked at the flames and looked pleased in a simple, honest way.

Alexei came last, his hands down, and his palms cooling a slip of air along their path.

The cold slid in a thin ribbon from him to their boots. It kept smoke from crawling up their legs. It kept heat from biting their lungs. Frost whispered on the edges of pools of water and then broke again when the next wave of warm air rolled in.

A roof truss failed in the south building with a bass crack, then the roof slumped and went down inside itself. A pillar of sparks blew up and drifted in slow arcs. Shadows ran and collapsed in the light like old film burning.

Lachlan tilted his head toward it. "Isn’t it pretty."

"It’s done," Sera said, her voice just as emotionless as the rest of her.

This was not the same Sera that had fallen asleep in Zubair’s arms just a few hours ago, and for a moment, he was worried.

He looked over at Alexei to see if he could get a read on her, but Alexei simply shook his head.

Pushing down his worries, Zubair lifted his hand and the flames at the nearest door sank, then lay flat like a dog told to stay. Ash spun around his wrist and fell away. He watched the fire obey. He breathed out slow. "It is done."

Silence pressed in around the word. There were no more screams. No more boots on the stairs. No more men trying to kick down a door that would never open.

Elias flicked a glance at Sera. "Where to next?"

The wind pushed smoke east. He tasted metal on his tongue and blood at the back of his throat.

Sera either didn’t hear him, too lost in her own thoughts or didn’t know the answer to his question.

Instead, she stood still and let the quiet tell her what mattered. Luci lifted his muzzle and scented the air. He made a small, deep sound that meant nothing prowled in their blind side.

Zubair watched her. If she said, stay, he would feed the fire again. If she said, go, he would pry the yard gates out of their tracks and throw them into the snow.

Lachlan rolled his shoulders like he had things to burn off and nowhere to put them. "So," he drawled, and the word hung easy and wrong in the heat. "Now that the big bad is gone... where to now? Back to the penthouse?"

It was the same question that Elias had asked, but in a different tone... one that offered options in case Sera couldn’t make the decision.

After all, they weren’t the only ones tortured in that place. Lachlan was pretty sure that anyone would have been in shock after something like that.

Sera shook her head as she lifted a hand and rubbed Luci’s skull with grimy fingers. The wolf leaned into it; his eyes half closed with pleasure.

She spoke without looking at anyone. "You can go back if you want," she offered, still looking off in the distance. You could hear the sound of ice crashing against the shore, pushed up higher and higher by the still liquid ocean beneath. "I’m going to go to Country M."

Lachlan arched a brow, more than a little surprised by that answer. "Are we talking to live or like a holiday? I am really going to need to know where... do I pack my swim trunks or a plaid shirt? A man has to know these things."

A ghost of a smile appeared on Sera’s face, but it was gone before anyone could remark on it. "Not a holiday," she said, looking at Lachlan with narrowed eyes. "More like unfinished business."

Zubair’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like the sound of that. It was almost like she was trying to create distance between them.