One of the guards sees where my focus has gone, and he barely has enough time to shout and push Whitmore out of the way before a bullet flies through the air, striking the guard in the arm.
Whitmore falls to the ground with a thud, and all the guards draw their weapons, pointing them behind us. At the same time, Sam, West and Fuzzy raise their guns, and I, helpfully, take out my lighter and a can of travel hairspray Helaena gave me yesterday.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Bullets rain down on the guards from behind us, which causes the guards to start firing in our direction.
Whitmore pulls a radio off of his belt, presumably to call for help. Luckily, he doesn’t make it that far. I spot another red dot on Whitmore’s hand a split second before the radio explodes, a flash of blood splattering everywhere as he screams in pain.
The guys and I rush to take cover behind the parked cars, and then there’s a hand on my shoulder. I whip around, ready to see Sam, or, much much worse, a guard that somehow followed me, but am met with Jo’s green eyes on the face of a ginger, freckled man.
Weird.
“You ready to use that lighter, Kid?” The man who must be Declan asks in a gruff voice. Wordlessly, I nod, and he turns to the other guys, who are still taking cover as Declan’s forces of about ten men rain hell on the Thornfield guards.
“I’ve just had them activate the jammer for their radios—unfortunately, that means we’ll be unable to use comms as well. Hayden and I are going to head straight to the lab. Aidan, my pack brother, will cover us as we go.” He points behind us, over our heads to a tree in the forest behind the parking lot, where I can barely make out a body crouching in the branches with a giant sniper rifle. A bearded buff guy comes up behind Declan, his black hair in a knot on the top ofhis head, and a celtic knot tattoo on his bicep. Declan jams a thumb in the newcomer’s direction. “Rory, Fuzzy, Sam, and West, wait until there’s only five guards left standing, then stagger your exit. Rory will accompany Sam and West to the lab as backup, while Nolan goes with Fuzzy to make sure no more orderlies get any ideas about trying to leave the dorms. We get Jo, we get Mabel, and we get out. My men will hold the line to make sure we get out safely.” He turns his attention to Rory. “Where the fuck is Nolan?”
Rory tosses a couple of bullet-proof vests at Sam and West, who promptly pull them on and start getting strapped in. “Directing the getaway drivers to park so they don’t get sprayed full of bullets. Johnson is right behind him, and he’ll keep lookout over the vans while we’re inside.”
“What if they have other omegas?” I ask. “Jo will want to save them all.”
“We have four vans that hold ten each. One van is for my backup, one is for my pack, one is for Jo and you guys, and the last one is for whoever we can pull out. If there’s more than that, we can fill the extra spots in our vehicles. But…” Declan gives me a warning look. “But I’m not going to push our luck. We’ll grab as many as we can, but I’m here for my sister.”
I don’t like it, but I nod anyway because at the end of the day, I’m not risking Jo foranything. “Okay.”
Everyone nods in agreement, and Declan and I get ready to run. “On three.” He looks over at me, and I nod again. “One,” I brace myself, “two,” I let out a deep breath, “three.” We take off, and my heart hammers in my chest as bullets whiz past us. The guards don’t make it any further than raising their weapons towards us before they drop to the ground, taken out by Declan’s pack brother, Aidan.
It’s then I realize that I don’t think I see Whitmoreanywhere.
I think I’m going to throw up.
Pushing aside the rising fear of the unknown, I sprint like I’m being chased down by gunfire, which as luck would have it, I am. We make it around the corner of the gym unscathed, and we run in silence to the hole in the gate before I lead Declan through the broken door we snuck out of the night Jo killed Banesworth.
The abandoned wing is still as creepy as ever, yet somehow even more so now that the sound of gunfire is playing in the background.
We don’t stop running until we come to the bookcase Jo told me about, and then I find the button in the shelving, pushing it so it slides open and reveals the door.
Declan had managed to uncover a failsafe within the programming. If the temperature sensors in the keypad detect heat of over five hundred degrees, the lock disengages to allow escape from a potential fire.
Which is why, after Declan places some kind of device on the keypad that keeps the door from triggering any sort of fire alarm, I take out the lighter and the little can of hairspray, and light it up like a fucking flame thrower.
The flames lick out like I’m a damn dragon, and euphoria fills my veins as I cackle with glee, my bond alight with the sensation of knowing that we’ll be reuniting with our omega at any moment.
The lock disengages and the door swings open. The area opens up to a small annex with two more doors, side by side. They’re nearly identical to the one that we just came through.
“Which door?” Declan mutters, looking between the two of them.
“The right,” I answer, my fingers twitching as I remember the note that Helaena slipped to West yesterday.
He nods, his jaw tight with determination as he attaches another device to this door, cutting off the electronic signal to the rest of thesecurity system. When I light this one up, the euphoria from only a moment ago is dulled.
What if we’re too late? What if they’ve broken her beyond repair?
I only realize that I’ve said that last part out loud when Declan’s hand grips my jaw angrily, his face twisted into a scowl. “Nothing, and I meannothingwill break her. She has gone through more hell than you can imagine and has only come out stronger, so don’t youdareinsult her like that.”
Once I get past the initial indignation of his grip on me, there’s something comforting about Declan’s anger. About his surety that Jo is still in one piece.
Because really, if the big bad Irish Mafia boss has so much faith in my Fireball, who am I to question it?
