26
“I have to get them out of there.” Lukas paced Cephas’s tiny apartment, hands clasped behind his back as he glared at the floor. “They’ll be dead soon if this goes on any longer.” He couldn’t fully comprehend the depth of his anger, whether it stemmed more from the Unclean’s possession of the quantum orb or from the shame and guilt overwhelming him. He’d left his cousins in the hands of those monsters twice now—first when he’d escaped the Main Laboratory of Sector One before the compound fell, and again when he’d had no choice but to flee the Unclean headquarters facility. On both occasions, he’d acted to save his own life, but he couldn’t stand idly by when he knew Deborah and Ben—the family he’d lived and learned and worked with since they were all children—had now become the objects
