The tires skid over the sand-coated asphalt as the tail end fishes out, and Atticus rights the vehicle to speed down the narrow strip of road.
"Yes, this is it!" Eli shouts to be heard over the engine's roar. "Through those trees!"
I check my mag and click off my safety as the enormous villa comes into view. It's gated in the front.
Unguarded.
"What the fuck?" I hiss through my teeth.
"Hold on to something," Atty orders, gunning it toward the gate.
I brace my foot against the dash and shield my face as the vehicle rams the gate, and my hip buckles under the pressure of the crash when Atty drives us right into the building.
He was clearly aiming for the massive front window, but he clipped the stucco concrete and smashed his forehead against the wheel.
"Christ, Atty," I growl, wrenching him back by a fist curled into the shoulder of his tac vest. "You good?"
He shakes off the stun I can see in his eyes, swiping the back of his palm across his brow to stop the blood from the gash in his forehead from impairing his vision.
"Move," he snarls.
I check to make sure Eli is good, waiting for a hail of bullets that doesn't seem to be coming, but he's already kicking his way out of the back door.
I try my door, but it's jammed.
"Fuck."
I grip the frame and haul myself through the window in time to fall into Eli's shadow as he clambers over the busted rubble and through the shattered window into the mansion.
"Aurora!" he calls, and I cover him as he moves through the house with Atticus only seconds behind us.
"Something's not right!" he shouts from the rear, and heat floods into my chest. "Where the hell is everyone?"
"Aurora!" I bellow into the tepid silence.
I look into every room. Every nook and opening. Stalking the halls like a feral beast chasing the scent of prey.
"Auro—"
I run into Elijah, and he's knocked forward a step.
"What are you?—"
My heart stops when I see the head of dark hair and the slender frame attached to it on the floor in the next room.
"No." I race past Eli, dropping to my knees, flipping her onto her back, ready to start CPR or whatever the fuck Atty tells me to do to save her.
But it's not her.
My fingers twitch over the woman. She's not that much older than Ro, maybe in her early thirties. She's in a white blouse with a tacky red stain coating the front where she was shot in the chest.
"It's not her." I push the words out of my throat, past the raw, scraping sensation there.
Eli stomps forward. "Who is that?"
"I don't know," I mutter, setting her back down and picking up the gun I never should've dropped. "But she's in uniform. House staff?"
"They all are," Atticus growls on approach, jerking his chin toward another body.
