The first shot shattered the silence and a steel cage, the bullet ricocheting off the bars with a shriek of tortured metal. Caleb threw himself to the floor, dragging the nearest subject down with him. Veyra moved in the opposite direction, her blade already in hand, her body a blur of controlled violence as she closed the distance between herself and the nearest guard.
The room erupted into a storm of gunfire and screaming.
Caleb rolled behind a support pillar, his knife out, his heart hammering. The subjects—the newly freed men and women who had been caged like animals—scrambled for cover, their trembling hands pressed over their heads. Some of them were crying. Some were silent, their eyes wide with the shock of sudden violence. None of them were equipped to fight. They had been broke
