I blink up at Kev, foot hanging.
“If you drive your boot into his face, bones will shatter and go into his brain and kill him. You have every right to do whatever you want with him. But if he'll help others first, then we can always kill him later after he gives us information,” he says.
I glance over his shoulder at Ronan who simply nods. I put my foot back on the concrete. He's right. The guard has information we can use. I clutch Kev's hand. “You promise?”
“Anything you want, sweetheart.” The smile that Kev gives me isn't nice. Mine probably isn't either. Aubrey comes up to my other side, looking down at the unconscious beta and hugs me tight. I clench my eyes and hold him back tight.
“Looks like we're compromised. I suggest the team goes through the trap door down to the fifth level, and you take the omegas to the platform. We did a sweep before and no one is there, but you might be able to give us some more clues,” Ronan says. He indicates a corridor to our left, and beyond that, stairs. “Those will take you down to the station level. Levi and two other members will go with you.”
I start to shake my head. I want to go with them to find Sera but Ronan holds out a hand in a stop gesture.
“The second we have her, you'll know,” Ronan says.
I know it's going to be dangerous down there and I don't want to compromise them finding Sera. I stare at Ronan, letting him see exactly what happens if he doesn't bring Sera back. “You better.”
Ronan grins, pride washing over his features. “Said just like my omega.”
He turns and walks to the head of the team, the door swallowing them as they find the trap door.
“Come on. Let's get this over with,” Aubrey says.
The moment we start descending the sound changes. Everything muffled, close, the air still and cold. The two SWAT officers go first. Then Lex. Then Aubrey. I go next and Ezra comes behind me and I'm grateful for his linen scent at my back because the cold on these stairs is the kind that never fully leaves you.
The stairs open out and we step through a low archway and onto the platform. The scene opens up in vivid detail now I'm not drugged or passing out.
Green tile. Worn pale in the center from years of wear. Iron fretwork above us, every bit of metalwork dark with grime. The platform stretches out on both sides, lit only by the flashlight beams, and where the light doesn't reach there's just darkness and the smell of recycled air and that flat chemical undertone that never fully leaves.
On the wall to my right, where letters used to be, there are just the mounting holes left. Someone pried them off and scratched at the plaster underneath to take the name with them, and they did a poor job of it. The ghost of the lettering is right there in the plaster: A-S-H-C-R-O-F-T.
Aubrey stops beside me.
“This is it,” he whispers.
“I know.” My voice comes out steadier than it has any right to.
Aubrey's eyes are fixed on the ghost letters. The flashlight beams sweep ahead of us and I move with them. The SWAT officers push through the archways, check the alcoves, press into every shadow along the wall. I leave them behind, eyes on the tile, trying to cleave the bad memories from my mind until—
Basil. Blood orange. Cedar.
Wrong. All of it wrong, stripped down and sour at the edges, the chemical bite of distress cutting through the base notes, and I'm running to where her scent grows thicker.
Lex says my name but I don't stop. The scent comes from the far archway. My feet pound on the tile as I barrel around the corner. My flashlight swings up and finds her.
Her face. My Sera's face, bruised along the jaw, a smear of her own blood dried on her. A rust colored bandage is wrapped around her left hand. She's tied to the wall, struggling against the metal binding her.
“Sera!”
Her eyes flare when she sees me. She starts screaming. Muffled sound coming through the gag, strangled, unmistakable. She wrenches against the restraints, the veins standing out at her temples and her throat, and she screams the same two syllables through the cloth over and over.
The sound hits me low, not in my ears but in my chest and belly, every cell pitching toward her. It takes me half a breath to understand what she's screaming.
Not help. Not hurry.
Get out.
Get out.
Get out!
