I was extremely nervous as I looked out the helicopter window and watched the ground move past us. I couldn’t help but thinking about the last time I’d ridden in one of these helicopters and just how disastrous that had been. Without conscious thought, I tightened my grip on the seat.

Lisa was sitting beside me and was nervous as well, though for an entirely different reason. She was trying to hide it, though she kept adjusting her glasses, something that I’d noticed was a nervous habit of hers.

The two of us were wearing Angel Squad uniforms, though I wasn’t sure that this was a good idea considering the order to quarantine all angels. Lisa hadn’t worn the uniform in several years and seemed to be happy to have it on again, though she also shared my concerns. However, Colonel Roberts wanted us in these uniforms to show that we were proud to be angels. I might have suspected that he was planning on turning us over for quarantine if it hadn’t been for Lisa’s presents to him.

Colonel Roberts and Hannah were riding with us as well, which I found quite odd. Neither of them ever deployed with the unit to hunt down demons so this was definitely a new experience for them, or at least for Hannah. She was obviously excited by being able to travel by helicopter, though she was trying hard to avoid showing it.

I watched Hannah for a moment, then glanced to Lisa, smiling faintly as I did so. I couldn’t help but thinking about our surprise meeting with the colonel yesterday, or more specifically, about what had happened after the meeting was over.

When we’d come out of our meeting with Colonel Roberts, I’d been surprised to find Gene waiting for me, and he wasn’t alone. Mike, Pete, Mason, and a couple other guys had been gathered around to offer me their support. However, they were all caught by surprise too when Lisa came out behind me.

“This is my sister Lisa,” I’d introduced her to Gene and the others.

A moment later, I had been surprised to discover that both Pete and Mike already knew Lisa, having served with her before she’d left. Of course, they were both completely shocked that she was actually still alive, even more so than they’d been at the discover that I was.

Pete had even blurted out, “But we found your arm…”

“And it took me a month to grow it back,” Lisa had responded, earning some gasps of disbelief.

Unfortunately, there had been too much preparation to do for us to spend much time socializing and catching up on lost time. Still, it had been nice to know that we had friends who were willing to support us, regardless of the orders that had been passed down by General Lawrence.

I shook my head of the memories from yesterday and thought instead about what was happening now, and about what was going to happen. Even Colonel Roberts looked a little nervous, though he was hiding it quite well. Still, there were indications.

“We’re running late,” Colonel Roberts said, giving Lisa a meaningful look. “I hope your pit stop was worth it.”

“It’s worth it, Carl,” Lisa told him. “It may or may not be useful for today, but the stop was definitely worth it.”

Hannah gave me a curious look, probably over the way Lisa kept calling the colonel by his first name. I just shrugged, not really sure what their relationship was, only that Lisa had worked with the colonel for six years before she’d left. I did know that none of my other sisters called him by first name, which suggested their relationship may have been more than just professional.

“We should be arriving at our destination soon,” Hannah said.

I nodded at that, wishing that I was wearing my body armor right then. However, we weren’t going to be fighting demons at the moment. We were going to be fighting something much more dangerous.

A few minutes later, I could see our destination from the window. It was a small military base in the middle of the Nevada desert. As I’d recently learned, Fort Clancy, or as it was more commonly known…the Pit, was the place where people who were infected with the demon strain were taken for quarantine.

Ever since I’d joined Angel Squad, I’d wondered what happened to those poor people who’d been infected with the demon strain and had been taken into quarantine. Yesterday, I was given the answer, though it was not one that sat well with me. The infected were brought to the Pit for quarantine and given the choice of euthanasia before they changed. If they turned it down or the change was too far along, once they turned demon they would be eliminated and their bodies destroyed in a controlled fashion. Or at least that was what was supposed to happen.

According to Lisa and Colonel Roberts, this was also where my sisters were being held. When Senator Dolenz and General Lawrence had decided to reopen research on the harkon virus, they’d decided that this was the perfect place to do it. The base had already been set up to handle those who were infected with the harkon virus and there were numerous samples of the demon strain readily available.

Hannah stared at the large concrete building below and whispered, “They have the demon queen in there too…”

I scowled at that, desperately wishing we’d ignored orders and had finished her off when we’d had the chance. I’d known at the time that leaving her alive had been a bad idea and I’d only grown even more so since then. However, we didn’t come to the Pit for the demon queen. We came for the angels.

When we landed, Colonel Roberts and Hannah climbed out of the helicopter first, followed by Pete and Mason who were acting as escorts. Then Lisa and I stepped off and followed behind them as the colonel walked towards General Lawrence, who stood just beyond the helicopter pad with a few soldiers of his own.

“What the hell is so important that you had to fly here yourself?” General Lawrence started, then noticed Lisa and myself. He gestured to his soldiers, “Take those angels into custody.”

The soldiers started towards us but Colonel Roberts exclaimed, “I think not.” Both Pete and Mason reached for the 9mm pistols that hung on their hips.

“What is the meaning of this?” General Lawrence demanded angrily.

“Sir,” Colonel Roberts said, somehow making that word of respect sound like one of contempt instead. He held up a stack of paperwork and announced, “General Lawrence, by the order of the Secretary of Defense, you have been removed from command pending an investigation into your part in the Harkon incident.”

General Lawrence and the soldiers all turned to stare at Colonel Roberts in surprise and confusion. “Listen here Roberts,” the general started.

However, Colonel Roberts calmly interrupted him and explained, “Video evidence has recently been recovered, showing you and Senator Dolenz ordering Doctor Yavhich and the Harkon Project researchers to ignore safety protocols and make the virus more powerful by any means necessary.”

“Impossible,” General Lawrence snapped.

“I am aware that the security footage of the Harkon facility was found mysteriously deleted after the incident,” Colonel Roberts continued wryly. “However, an enterprising woman has managed to recover those security files from the backup server, and in addition, she also found that Doctor Yavhich had been recording all of those conversations and was able to record his footage as well.”

“And don’t forget,” Lisa added with a smirk, “There is also a witness to some of these same conversations who will be willing to testify under oath.”

General Lawrence’s expression shifted from shock to rage. Then he demanded, “What the hell is this Roberts?”

The colonel merely looked his commanding officer in the eyes and answered, “Leverage. You took people under my command to use for your experiments, so I thought the higher ups needed a reminder of what happened the last time you tried these experiments. You are to be taken into custody and Senator Dolenz has a warrant out for his arrest as well.”

I bit back a smirk as I watched General Lawrence, then looked to Lisa who wasn’t bothering to hide the smug look on her face. After all, she was the one who collected all the evidence against Lawrence and Dolenz, then made sure it got to the right people.

“Since I couldn’t go after those assholes directly,” Lisa whispered to me, “I made sure that I could hit them where it hurt the worst. Their careers. The hardest part was holding onto this until the right time…”

I nodded at that, knowing that the senator and general were both in deep trouble now that everything was coming to light. They…and some of their friends, were not only facing the consequences for their parts in the Harkon disaster, but also for covering up their involvement afterwards. Lisa and Colonel Roberts had given the higher ups all this information and Lisa had made sure it was also going to be released to several news outlets. Their careers were over.

“I’ve also come to take back my angels,” Colonel Roberts stated firmly.

Suddenly, a new voice called out, “What is going on out here?”

I looked to the source and saw Senator Dolenz was here, which caught me by surprise. I’d been told that he was spending a lot of time overseeing the experiments while they were being set up, but I didn’t know he was at the Pit right now. Right beside him was a slender man with hard features. This was Colonel Hastings, the third DSU’s commander. I didn’t know much about him, though I had heard Colonel Roberts say he was good at what he did.

“Insubordination and attempted mutiny,” General Lawrence responded, snatching the paperwork right out of Colonel Roberts’ hands. “Lock them up,” he ordered his soldiers with, “And take the angels to the labs.”

The third DSU soldiers had their weapons aimed at all of us and they looked ready to shoot. Colonel Roberts looked to Colonel Hastings and said, “General Lawrence has been removed from command and was ordered to be taken into custody by the Secretary of Defense for crimes relating to the Harkon disaster. Senator Dolenz has a warrant for his arrest for his part in the same crimes.”

Colonel Hastings grimaced, then told his men, “Do as the general ordered.”

Pete and Mason looked like they were willing to fight in order to guard us, but we were vastly outgunned. Colonel Roberts gestured for them to stand down so they removed their hands from their weapons.

“General Lawrence no longer has authority to give that order,” Colonel Roberts told Colonel Hastings with a calm but grim expression. “If you do this, the third will be a rouge unit.”

“This is obviously nonsense,” Senator Dolenz said in an arrogant tone. “Take these traitors away. If they resist, feel free to shoot them.”

Lisa glared at Senator Dolenz an expression of hate, and I half expected her to attack him, though she made no move to actually do so. Colonel Roberts gave Colonel Hastings a look of disappointment, though he didn’t seem too surprised.

Of course, Hastings was going to obey the orders of a general and senator. He was professional military man and wasn’t going to ignore his commanding officer unless he got a lot more than this. If he actually read the orders that Colonel Roberts brought, that might be enough, but the general certainly wasn’t going to allow that.

“You can’t do this,” Hannah protested, though it did no good.

Colonel Roberts, Hannah, Pete, and Mason were all taken into custody and led away in one direction while the soldiers took Lisa and myself in another. The two of us shared glances with each other as we went towards the large concrete building, though we held off talking until we were well away from the general and senator.

“I had a feeling that wasn’t going to work,” Lisa told me.

“Shut up,” one of the soldiers snapped.

I merely nodded agreement with Lisa, remembering the long planning session we’d had with Colonel Roberts. She’d wanted to unleash all that information to the media and then sneak in to rescue our sisters while the general and senator were distracted. However, Colonel Roberts felt that he had a responsibility to do things the proper way, which meant going up the chain of command. We ended up compromising a bit, which was actually what Lisa had expected.

“Carl is a good man,” Lisa told me with a faint smile. “But if he thought Lawrence was going to cooperate just because…”

“I said no talking,” the soldier snapped, shoving the gun into Lisa’s back.

I grimaced at that, growing increasingly angry. We worked with the Army, fighting demons for a living and saving countless lives. Yet these soldiers from the third DSU were treating us like criminals just because the general ordered it. They’d even been there to hear what Colonel Roberts had said. Didn’t these guys have any intelligence? I’ve worked with the guys in the first DSU long enough to know that most of those guys were pretty bright, so how come the ones in the third seemed to be idiots?

We went into the concrete building and past several guards. “We have a couple more of these so called angels,” one of the soldiers escorting us told a guard inside.

The other guard nodded, giving me and Lisa curious looks before saying, “The other angels were taken out of their cells and brought to the lab. Doctor Merrit is doing some kind of experiments on them.”

“Then I guess we’ll see where the doctor wants them,” the angry soldier responded.

Lisa and I were led through a sealed door and into a room that sent chills through my spine. There were several tables set up in the middle of the room that looked like operating tables, but they had bindings on them to strap someone into place so that they couldn’t escape. A table was set up just a few feet away, covered with surgical instruments and things that looked like they could have been torture devices. And then, I saw the other side of the lab.

Rebecca, Dani, Nicole, and Julie were each standing in a separate cage, each of them with their hands and feet chained to the floor. I stared at each of them in shock, horror, and anger. Of course, Julie didn’t look anything like she had since she was now an angel, but I could easily tell her apart from the others since she had the same hair style that I had after I’d first changed. In spite of these horrible circumstances, I was suddenly thankful that I’d taken the time to get my hair trimmed and frosted again last night.

“Monica,” Rebecca blurted out. “You’re alive.” Then she stared at Lisa, her eyes going wide in disbelief.

“You do know that my sister and I are both contagious?” Lisa suddenly asked the guards beside us, right before she spat in face of the one who’d been obnoxious. Of course, our daily shots meant that we couldn’t infect someone like that, but he didn’t know.

The soldier screamed like a little girl and jumped back, but Lisa and I were already in motion. She disarmed that soldier and hit him several times before he’d even realized it while I did the same thing to the other soldier who’d brought us here. In moments, both of our escorts were on the ground.

“Hey guys,” Lisa said self-consciously as she looked to our chained sisters. She gave a nervous smile and said, “I’m baaaack.”

Rebecca, Dani, and Nicole were all staring at Lisa with their mouths open, too stunned to speak. Julie looked back and forth between them and Lisa, obviously confused.

“Who…who is that?” Julie blurted out.

Suddenly, a new voice answered from the doorway. “Angel subject number one.”

I snapped around, seeing Dr. Merrit standing in the doorway with a gun in his hand. I gulped, “Damn…”

Dr. Merrit fired two shots from his gun…at the soldiers Lisa and I had just taken down. It took me a moment to notice the darts that were now sticking out of their shoulders.

“It’s good to see you again, Lisa,” Dr. Merrit said to my sister, actually sounding friendly. “But I was expecting you two hours ago.”

“Sorry, I got delayed,” Lisa responded, shocking me by giving Dr. Merrit a hug. Then she turned around and announced, “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to my Uncle Gavin.”