“Come on, Jo. Keep moving.” I pulled her as we skirted a dumpster in a dark alley, looking for the boiler room.
But it wasn’t nighttime, and I wasn’t human anymore.
The long expanse of the building had doors punched in it, but no fucking boiler sign.
“Layla,” I said. “Are you still with me?”
Silence.
I looked at my cell.Fuuuuck!Either she hung up, or she lost the signal.
The smell of detergent drifted out of an open door up ahead, accompanied by a cloud of steam. I tried Layla again. Her voice mail connected. I was ready to throw my phone when a man wearing a hairnet sauntered out with a cigarette in his hand.
He was about to light the cancer stick when his gaze landed on me. His hackles lifted, and he dropped his cigarette in fear.
I smiled, showing my fangs. “I don’t want trouble.”Unless you don’t answer my question correctly.
I quickly glanced into the laundry area where industrial washing machines and dryers droned, and bins of sheets were lined up side by side.
“I’m looking for two women. One with auburn hair and the other with brown. Have you seen them?”
He gulped in air. “You have fangs like the other men I saw.”
“Describe them quickly,” I ordered.
His pulse pounded within his carotid artery like a drummer in a solo performance. “Two of them had short blond hair, fangs like yours, and black eyes.” He shivered. “The other one was bald with a scar on his face.”
Lane had blond hair and Roman did too. “You saw all three of them together?”
“No. One of the blonds came through the laundry room about thirty minutes ago, carrying a duffel bag. He asked for the electrical room. The other blond was in a Jeep and chased the bald guy.” He stuck his finger to his right. “That way.”
Fury had me growling, which made the human shake like a leaf.
All I could think about was Layla’s rental house blowing up. Roman had lured me there while he stormed the naval base.
“And the women?” I asked, clenching my teeth so hard my fangs embedded in the skin below my lip.
He swung out his trembling arm to the door behind him. “They ran through here too. Are you people the reason the fire alarm went off?”
Ignoring his question, I asked, “Where’s the boiler room?”
“Around the back side of the hospital, or you can go through—”
I took off before he could finish, my mind scrambling to figure out what the fuck Roman was up to. Maybe his agenda didn’t match Emery’s or Harriet’s. Maybe he just wanted to kill Layla and me both. But that didn’t add up either. Or… he was creating a diversion.
They had to be watching us, waiting for us to leave the naval base. How else had they known Layla and I would be at the hospital? It wasn’t like her emergency was planned. Not only that, but Roman was supposed to be in Cleveland, although Tripp and Ben only talked about Roman’s men. They’d never said they had eyes on Roman. But the hows and whys had to wait along with the answers to my questions.
When I turned the corner, I came to an abrupt halt as pain clawed at my chest. Lane’s head sat in the middle of the road next to the idling Jeep.
Pure hellfire burned through me as an intense need to kill pulsed in my veins.
I shook my head like a dog shaking off water, but it did nothing except spike my adrenaline to new heights.
I took off running like a wild man, scanning doors, seething, and hoping beyond hope I got to Layla in time. The hospital had too many fucking entrances. I passed a door with no sign on it. The next one—electrical. As tempted as I was to find out what Roman was up to, I had to get to Layla first.
I sprinted to the end of the building and came up empty for the boiler area. I turned the corner, but there weren’t any doors along that side.
I backtracked and ripped off the door to the electrical room. The electricity in the air hummed and sizzled, and I absorbed every bit of it. Pipes, control boxes, pumps, and tanks crowded the space. Straight ahead, an open archway spilled into yet another area.
