And now, he was in her lair.
“Come on,” he urged. “Everyone, get by the door. We’ll need to be fast when we leave.”
“Why are you doing this?” the first demon asked. He was slightly taller than Mynor and looked like he could crush him with no effort. Mynor wondered how he’d been caught. It should have been relatively easy for him to escape, but Mynor didn’t know the entire story.
“Because someone needs to,” Mynor told him before moving on to the next cell.
By the time all of them were open and everyone was out, the central room was crowded. The people were also making more noise than they could afford, so Mynor raised his hands, hoping to get everyone’s attention.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he explained. “Alphan and I timed the guard patrols, so we know when and where the guards will be, but there’s no certainty, which means we need to be fast. When Alphan and I give the signal, we’ll get out this door and hurry to the outside one.
“What about the other prisoners?” a demon asked. “My sister is here, too.”
Mynor shook his head. “We can only take care of this room. I’m sorry, but there are too many cells and too many demons.”
She opened her mouth, but she didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. The demon standing next to her grabbed her arm and squeezed, and while she glared, it was enough to keep her quiet.
Mynor and Alphan looked at each other. It was time.
“You go ahead,” Mynor told Alphan.
Alphan looked like he wanted to argue, but instead, he nodded curtly and stepped ahead. The door creaked slightlywhen he opened it, and he paused, listening. Luckily, no one came screaming at them to stop. They still had a little time before the guards were supposed to check this room, but they couldn’t waste it.
“Go,” Mynor ordered.
Alphan disappeared into the hallway. For a moment, no one else moved, so Mynor gestured at them to follow. “Alone. Follow Alphan. He knows the way.”
There was still a moment of hesitation before the first demon scurried out in the hallway behind Alphan. More followed, and Mynor waited until the last one was gone to do the same. He carefully closed the door behind himself so that nothing would look out of place when the guards came by.
Their luck held until Alphan started getting people out through the outside door. Everyone was moving fast now, but not fast enough.
Mynor was ushering the last few demons through when someone yelled behind him. He turned, his hands flying to his waist, where his weapons hung. He didn’t think they would do him much good since a group of five demons was running toward him, but he could try.
“Mynor!” Alphan yelled from outside.
Mynor glanced back at the door. It was still open, but everyone had gone through. Alphan was clutching the wood, looking like he was about to step back in, but Mynor shook his head. “Go,” he ordered.
“I’m not abandoning you.”
“You’re not abandoning me. You’re helping all these people. I’ll be fine.”
Alphan’s eyes were wide. “You won’t be.”
He was right. Mynor wasn’t even sure he’d survive this. “We knew this could happen when we decided to do this, remember,” he murmured as he held up his knives. “I’ll be fine.”
Alphan still didn’t move, so Mynor reached out and grabbed the door. For a second, Alphan resisted. Mynor didn’t give him the opportunity to do so for long. He pulled hard, slamming the door and hoping that Alphan would stick to the plan and leave. He had the key, so if he were smart, he’d lock the door so the guards couldn’t follow. Mynor doubted he’d be able to keep them back for long.
But he was going to try.
Justin didn’t knowwhere to go. It had been years since he’d had a home that wasn’t Caitlin’s house, and leaving it hurt. Leaving his brothers hurt even more, but right now, with them fighting the way they were, he couldn’t stay. He felt like his heart was going to explode. He was grieving Caitlin, now, he would have to grieve the relationships he’d lost with Calyx and the others. He wasn’t sure they could ever return to what they’d been before.
He didn’t understand. Why would Caitlin have done something like that? Wouldn’t she have known that leaving her house to Calyx would hurt everyone else? Justin was sure there was a good reason for her to have done so, but she hadn’t given them anything to work with. They didn’t know because she’d never told them, and now, it was too late. She was gone. The house belonged to Calyx, and Yancey was pissed.
Justin couldn’t care less about the house. It had been his home for years, but he didn’t need to own it for it to continue being his home. He could understand why Yancey was so angry, though. It wasn’t that Caitlin had left the house to Calyx—although maybe that was a tiny part of it, too. It was the secrecy. It was Caitlin not telling the rest of them about it. It was them having to find out when her will was read. It felt as if she hadn’ttrusted them, and Justin didn’t understand why. He’d never done anything that would cause her to feel that way, had he? What about the others?
He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter anymore. Caitlin was gone. She’d made her decision when it came to the house and everything else, and they’d all have to deal with it. Yancey was clearly dealing with it in a more complicated way than the rest of them. He’d taken it harder, almost as if Caitlin had done all of this to hurt him. It wasn’t something she would ever do, but Yancey was hurt and grieving, and he wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe Justin could reach out to him once he was sure that Yancey had cooled down and try to talk things through. In the meantime, he would have to find something to do.
He looked around the motel room he’d grabbed for the night. It wasn’t far from the house, but he didn’t feel like going back, not right now. All of them needed to cool down. Besides, Griffith had no doubt stayed with Calyx. Those two were inseparable.
