dark hair behind her ear. “My god, Blackeagle, you look terrible.”
For a baffling second, he couldn’t place her, then caught her scent: Dr. Alvarez, who, only days ago, had tricked him with a sedative while precious hours were passing, hours in which he might have had a chance to find Mitsu before it was too late. She was one of the last people he wanted to see now.
His nose twitched as he realized how small she was. He’d already forgotten how much more frail in every way humans were compared to hrinn. He caught a whiff of something in the station’s conditioned air, familiar, yet out of place. His hackles rose. “What the—?” He darted past her into the lock. With an air of grim disapproval, Kei and Nisk followed.
“Hey,” she protested as the pair pushed past her, “they can’t come in here!”
Inside, Heyoka smelled the telltale odor more clearly. Nostrils flaring, he identified the acrid signature of at least three different kinds of explosives. He turned back to Alvarez. “What’s your situation?”
Giving his companions a wide berth, she caught up with him. Her long hair straggled around her face and there were smears of dirt on her cheeks. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. “We’ve had a series of explosions.” Her brown eyes were bleak. “Security thinks they were set. There have been eight deaths so far, and more are missing.”
Two blue-uniformed men sprinted around the corner and s