Will hurdled over the broken glass door and ran inside the Capitol building.

Bodies, debris, chaos. The four-story atrium was filled with light from the clerestory windows ringing the ceiling. Gunfire hailed down around him. Will hugged himself to the wall. The marble was cool against his back. The floor was riddled with bodies, mostly civilian. Six men in black hoods had been cut down at the foot of the stairs. That meant a dozen, maybe two dozen, had made it to the second floor. Or the third, where the legislators met in a large, oak-paneled room. Or the fourth floor, which had a viewing gallery.

Cleansing the country of the enablers and mongrels.

Will heard the crunch of a shoe behind him. He spun around.

Black man. Blue suit. Hands in the air.

Will pushed him toward the exit, then swung around. Three more men were cowering against a closed door. Politicians with American flags on their lapels. Their hands silently scratched at the wood, begging to be let in. One of them was stiffly holding his arm. Blood sponged out between his fingers.

Will waved them toward the exit. He listened, his ears straining for sound over their hurried footsteps.

There was a lull in the firing.

Will scanned the large room, which was the exact same dimensions as the fake building at the Camp. He looked up at the three levels of balconies, searching for signs of Dash. He ducked down when the sudden snap-snap-snap of gunfire echoed around the atrium. Team One had reached the House of Representatives. The Senate chambers were on the other side of the rotunda. The distant pop of gunfire told Will that both sides had been breached.

He jogged across the open floor at a crouch, stepping over broken glass and fallen bodies. The grand staircase split the middle of the room. Carved marble, red carpet, wood paneling. Papers, shoes, broken eyeglasses, pools of blood, pieces of teeth and bone. Throats had been slit. Bodies were piled one on top of the other where a single bullet had killed two, three, sometimes four people.

Two injured women were sobbing on the stairs. They cringed, hunkering their shoulders at the sight of Will. A sheriff’s deputy had tied his belt around his leg to stop the bleeding. His gun was raised at Will, but the chamber was empty. His finger would not stop pulling on the trigger. The rapid click-click of the hammer matched Will’s pounding heartbeat.

He ran up to the landing with the same quick steps he’d practiced at the Camp.

The spray-painted LG was for the Lieutenant Governor’s office.

The G was for the Governor.

Bravo team had been taken out before they could reach the door. Their chests had been ripped open by shotgun blasts. Tufts of white lining stuck out from their foam vests. One man was missing part of his jaw. Another was missing an arm. Will stepped over a disembodied hand that was still gripping one of the eight-inch hunting knives that all of the brothers wore on their belts.

Charlie team was nowhere in sight. Will crouched his way to the top of the stairs, hiding behind the thick, marble railing. He was about to peer around the corner when the sound of gunfire made him pull back.

The noise was coming from the floor directly above him. Bullets snapped like burning embers. The remnants of Team One. They were either finishing off the stragglers inside the House of Representatives or someone had managed to find a weapon to return fire.

Dash would be in the governor’s office by now. He would have a gun to the man’s head. He would be making demands.

White power. Kill the enablers. Blood and soil.

Will tried a second time to look around the railing.

He found himself staring into the muzzle of a Smith and Wesson five-shot revolver.

Amanda.

Her finger was in the process of moving to the trigger. Then she recognized Will. Slowly, she rested her finger along the trigger guard. He saw her mouth open as she took in a breath.

Will holstered the Glock. He kept the Sig Sauer in his hand. The balcony was empty. No black-hooded men. No civilians ducking and covering. No cops but Will and Amanda.

The gunfire had stopped. The silence inside the atrium felt like a tomb. Flickers of passing bodies strobed the sunlight in the high windows. SWAT was on the roof. Will heard sirens in the distance.

Amanda asked, “Where is Dash?”

Will’s eyes found the closed door of the governor’s office. Two highway patrolmen stood guard with pump-action shotguns. One of them had been wounded. Blood trickled from a hole in his bicep.

“Will?”

He shook his head, trying to put it together. The last time he had seen Dash was outside the van. Civilians were streaming out of the building. Gerald was murdering as many of them as he could. Dash’s rifle was blazing. He was shooting from the hip, not his shoulder. He was screaming for his men to keep moving. The wave of people running out the doors had engulfed Will, forcing him to give them cover instead of killing Dash.

By the time Will had been able to look for Dash again, the man had disappeared.

The hard facts punched Will in the chest. “He’s a coward, not a fighter. He was never going to go inside.”

Will ran down the stairs three at a time. He sprinted across the marble floor, around the bodies, then hurdled through the broken glass door and into the daylight.

Will jumped down the concrete stairs. He spiraled around, desperately searching for Dash. What he saw made him ill.

The park-like setting of the Capitol grounds had turned into a hellscape. People were moaning, crying, screaming. Bullets had torn through flesh, eyes were missing, chests were oozing.

Will saw Dash across the east lawn.

A large dogwood kept him in shadow. He was on his knees, but he hadn’t been shot. He was frantically searching the pockets of the dead.

The psychopath had planned everything so carefully, drilling his brothers into a trance, sending them out to be slaughtered, but Dash hadn’t once considered how he was going to make his escape without a set of keys.

Will raised the Sig Sauer, lining up the sights on Dash’s heart, yelling, “Stop!”

Dash’s head snapped up.

“Police!” Will said. “Hands in the air.”

Dash dove to the ground. Will fired two rounds before he realized what Dash was doing. He had surrounded himself with wounded. He grabbed a woman by the arm, yanking her up to her knees so that her body shielded his. She had already been shot in the leg. Dash’s hunting knife was pressed so hard into her neck that blood sagged into the collar of her white blouse.

Terror cut into every line of her face. She had passed the moment of fear and was paralyzed by the threat of darkness.

“Let her go.” Will started walking toward Dash, both the Glock and Sig Sauer out in front of him. “Now.”

“Two weapons,” Dash said, his face ducking below the woman’s shoulder. “You think you can make the shot, Wolfie?”

Will needed four more steps and he’d have this man dead on the ground. “I think I can kill you before you draw your next breath.”

“Hey, asshole!” Dobie yelled.

Chunks of concrete spit up at Will’s feet.

Dobie was shooting at him. The second bullet went wide. The third took out a window. The only reason Will wasn’t dead where he stood was that the kick from the rifle had slammed Dobie back into the van.

Will ducked behind a metal garbage can while Dobie scrambled.

The kid yelled, “Come out, you fucking coward!”

Will kept his Glock on Dash. He trained the Sig on Dobie. His arms formed a triangle between the three of them.

He yelled, “Dobie, put down the rifle! Right now!”

“Fuck you, asshole.” Dobie was out in the open, the weapon high on his shoulder.

SWAT was on the roof. Amanda was armed with her five-shot in the doorway. Sirens were roaring down the street. Bodies were everywhere. Someone was going to kill this kid.

“Hold your fire!” Will heard his voice scratch up like a needle on a record. “I’m GBI! Hold your fire!”

Dash was grinning, reveling in the horror. He had seen the armed men moving down the street, the snipers on the roof. He was shaded by a tree, on his knees, holding a hostage in front of him like a shield.

The only gun that had a possible shot on him was Will’s.

“Dobie,” Will kept his Glock pointed at Dash, but he begged the kid, “please, Dobie, put down the rifle.”

“I’m gonna murder you, you fucking pig!” Dobie was furious, burning from the betrayal. “You were my friend!”

“Dobie, I’m still your friend.” Will stood up from the trashcan. He waited for a bullet from either Dobie or SWAT. When nothing came, he took a step toward the kid, then another. His eyes stayed focused on Dash even as he got farther away from him. “Dobie, put the rifle on the ground. Please.”

“Fuck you!”

Dash’s grin was so smug that Will longed to put a bullet between his teeth. The knife was still tight against the woman’s throat. Tears mixed with blood on her face. She was trying not to breathe, to keep her body as still as possible.