Doorways made convenient spots to bottleneck attackers and keep them from being able to approach any closer. Particularly if you hopped over to the next roof and took shelter behind the quarter-wall that was the minimum height that meant the building owner wasn’t liable if anybody took a tumble off, so the attackers had to come through the doorway to get to you.

Of course, TamLin mused as Second lifted herself just enough to remind their would-be attackers that she was able and willing to shoot them if they came out, doing so meant that you couldn’t flee, yourself, and that would give any group of attackers time and ability to split up and surround you.

He frowned at Misha, who was huddled by TamLin’s feet with his back against the frick of the wall. The fabricated brick had been printed from low-quality source material, so it wasn’t going to service as a shield for too much longer. Second had surely noticed, though she hadn’t said anything and he couldn’t identify any change in behavior that indicated an adjustment of the plan to escape rather than eliminate threats.

Misha needed to snap out of his disbelief and accept what was happening before he got them all killed.

“What are you doing, exactly?” he finally asked Second.

“Target,” she commented.

It took him a second to cycle through possible meanings to realize what she meant—and she was moving out from cover before he could react and stop her from playing bait to make herself their target.

He swallowed the urge to protest—she was Nameless, so she could be executed if the wrong person found record of her neglecting to risk herself for others’ sakes—and looked down at Misha, who needed hauled out of there before he suffered physical damage to go along with the psychological.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He hated playing pick-whom-to-help. One reason he worked solo, whenever he would wing it.

At least Second was a hell of a lot more competent than Janni, and she had the experience to recognize when fighting or fleeing would be better for her long-term survival.

Figurative claws pierced the back of his skull and squeezed. TamLin nearly face-planted on the rooftop beside Misha. He certainly bruised a knee on the frick from how hard he landed. That would warrant a regen patch, assuming the nearby breach of this somewhen wasn’t bringing anything fatal, itself.

His boot knife was in Janni’s foot before the threads of her entry and bio-identity were rewoven to fit the current somewhen—which was what alleviated the pain enough to enable him to ID her.

She yelped and kicked him in the face.

Adrenaline spiked, shunting the pain aside, and the taste of iron flooded his mouth. He spat out blood and yanked the knife out from her foot so she wouldn’t heal around it, but the wound stayed open. He frowned at it.

“I got a bullet in me earlier,” she snapped, dropping to the rooftop as she spotted the uglies and dropping her volume to add, “Emergency patch hasn’t recharged yet!”

Ouch.

She hopped into a crouch beside TamLin and the still-incapacitated Misha. “What’d you stab me for?!”

“I have assholes trying to shoot me,” he retorted. “You know I had no way of identifying you until after you merged.”

“I anchored on Kitten, not you!”

And an inability to scout out a destination prior to entry was one downside of being a merger rather than a navigator, so her entrance near him truly was an accident. “She’s busy.”

“Obviously.” Janni peeked over the frick quarter-wall and ducked immediately. “Get her. I need her.”

He gave her a flat look. “She’s needed where she is.”

Janni scowled at him. “A native’s life hangs in the balance.”

Seriously, her presumptuousness bewildered him, sometimes. He let his disbelief show and glanced pointedly at Misha.

Her scowl deepened. “I can’t keep holding this thread to jump back. If I lose it, we’re all fucked.”

The choice of verbiage told TamLin that things were worse than she would admit, even if he asked. He rubbed his head, careful to avoid the areas that still felt as if someone had taken a baton to his skull.

Sometimes, he really wished he could despise her.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he said, instead, “we’re already fucked. Those guys are black ops, native to this somewhen, which means someone with funds and political connections is out to get me.”

“What?” Janni asked caustically. “Someone’s actually holding you accountable for your actions, for once?”

…Sometimes, there were no words. He chose the better part of discretion and didn’t call her on her bullshit. “Standard SOP means my associates will also be targeted, which is why I’m a bit concerned that I haven’t seen Kasy. Have you?”

She gave him an incredulous look. “I’ve been in another universe altogether.”

He answered her expression with a flat one. Because of course he hadn’t noticed—their bond hadn’t sheered and left him on the floor in pain or anything.

Second had found him there, in his hallway amidst what remained of the dinner he’d been bringing her. She’d helped smoothen over the damage to the bond, to get him recovering sooner than he could manage otherwise without tapping into emergency reserves that he preferred keeping on standby.

She’d been the only person other than Janni who he knew could break the bond between them, so he’d asked, she’d accepted…and as an unfortunate side effect of Second being an alternate edition of Janni, they’d accidentally ended up with a ‘resonance bond’—one caused by an alternate person taking the place of the original, in a psychic bond. Resonance bonds were presumably unbreakable…and also presumably 100% theoretical, which was why nobody would believe their bonding had been an accident.

Horror was blossoming in Janni now. “You bonded with—”

“Resonance,” he interrupted. “And careful. She actually likes me.”

Consternation flashed through her face, with a glance towards where Second was demonstrating that she was used to dealing with things a lot more lethal than what this somewhen could throw at her, so Janni was afraid of Second.

At least she was smart about something.

A male scream cut short almost as soon as it had started. Misha jerked. TamLin and Janni both snapped their attention in that direction.

Janni scowled. “What is she doing? We need to go!”

“She’s making sure we can get Misha out of here,” TamLin pointed out directly, since she didn’t seem inclined to notice the obvious.

Janni shot Misha a glare…which morphed into a thoughtful frown.

Uh-oh.

He was already taking a step back and reaching for Misha’s wrist as Janni turned a calculating gaze on him, and he felt her toss the edge of the jump to catch the two of them as it looped back whence it had come.

“No,” he said clearly. “We do not consent.”

Janni, of course, ignored him.