“Saxon, listen to me—”
“I saidno,” he interrupted more harshly than he intended, but he couldn’t handle the idea of losing her.
“I’m not worth all this,” she protested.
“Yes. You. Are,” he bit out.
She tried to come up with another argument that might make him listen to her. “I’m only one life compared to all of yours and all the lives you save from these bastards.”
“And what if they don’t kill you but use you to find more vampires and build their army again?” Lucien inquired.
For some reason, she’d expected Lucien to hop on board with her plan; he seemed ready to wash his hands of all this and her. She didn’t have an answer for him, and it was possible they would use her for such a thing, but Saxon would be alive; she couldn’t guarantee that if they kept on this path. However, something in Lucien’s eyes told her that, though he understood why she was offering this, it would never happen.
“We’re in this together, and we’ll get out of it together,” Logan said.
“They’ll leave you alone if they have me,” she told them.
“No, they won’t,” Lucien said. “And we never leave one of our own behind.”
Elyse gawked at the man; she was fairly certain he didn’t like her, but now he was calling her one of their own. She knew it was because of Saxon and their love for him, but for the first time in years, she felt like she might have a place to belong—if she didn’t get them all killed first.
“I think we have to give up on the elevators,” Logan said, and he no longer looked amused by Lucien’s frustration.
“Maybe they shut them down,” Elyse suggested. “I mean, isn’t that what the police do on TV? They shut down the elevators to concentrate their search on the stairwells.”
“Which means the Savages are on their way up,” Logan said.
“Son of a bitch,” Lucien muttered.
“Are there cameras in the stairwells?” Saxon asked Logan.
“There are cameras everywhere, but I made sure they were shut down again before I left the security office.”
“Good,” Lucien said. “Did you see how many Savages there are before you left the office?”
“Two SUVs pulled up out front and two in the back. I saw seven get out before leaving the room.”
“So if there were five per vehicle, we can assume twenty of them,” Saxon said. He stared at the elevators before turning to study the hall. “Do you know how many stairwells there are?”
“Four,” Logan said.
“Five per stairwell, if theyallentered the building.”
“Five against three, those odds are in our favor,” Lucien said with a grin.
“We’ll take the closest stairwell,” Saxon said, which was back past Elyse’s room. “It will be faster if I carry you,” he told Elyse.
She nodded, and he plucked her out of the chair. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she draped her arms over his shoulders as he carried her. The strength of his arms and the power thrumming through his body helped ease her trepidation, but she couldn’t rid herself of a growing sense of urgency.
If something happened to one of them because ofher, she would never forgive herself.
“We spent too much time here,” she muttered.
“This isn’t your fault; it’s theirs,” Saxon said as Lucien opened the door to the stairs.
The crisper air in the stairwell cooled her heated skin when they stepped into it. Below, the squeak of sneakers rebounded off the gray, concrete walls. After the brightness of the hall, the dimmer glow of the light here was a welcome respite.
Whoever was below didn’t speak as they ascended, and it could be humans making their way up, but she doubted it; the Savages were coming for them. The door didn’t make a sound as Lucien closed it, but the steps stopped below them. A door opened, and Elyse held her breath as she strained to hear something more.Are they still down there?
