“Ezra?” some guy asks, whirling around in shock.
“Townsperson A?” I reply with matching enthusiasm, mouth agape before I realize I’m slap happy since Cai didn’t let me rob anyone and I’m fucking starving.
“Michael,” he corrects with a frown.
“That was going to be my second guess,” I retort flippantly. “My brothers at work?”
He’s already shaking his head and a sense of absolute dread turns my stomach. “They went to catch up with you after we drove off the outsiders, make sure you got there and back safely.”
My ears are ringing, fear seizing me along with absolute rage that we just marched all the way back here, just to have to turn around and make the hundred mile trip again. Not to mention, we can’t just drive over and pick them up, if they’re even still alive. There are too many sick bastards in that place to fight against and now they have four more weaknesses to use against me.
“I think she’s going to puke,” Yri mutters.
“No, punch him,” Cai disputes.
Soren rubs his hand up and down my back, strong and steady, until I can collect myself. “Come on. Let’s go home, regroup, and make a plan. We’ll get them back, Ezra.”
I take several deep breaths before following his lead back the way we came, busting one of the windows to get inside of the house. We take turns showering and inhaling food until we’re able to think straight, gathering in the living room with a notebook so we can start sketching out a plan.
“Okay, let’s start with facts. We aren’t sure my brothers actually made it there; just assuming the worst case scenario.”
A thought pops into my head and I grab the house phone to try calling each of their cellphones, not surprised when they all go straight to voicemail, but it was worth a shot just to be sure.
“It would be stupid to just storm in there assuming we could find them and fight our way back out; not with the dirty ammo they have,” Yri adds and I agree completely.
I stare at my blank page, willing the answers to appear. “Since it looks like the threat around here deescalated, we don’t have to walk, we can take my SUV. That will cut down on the travel time, exhaustion, provide us with a quick escape, and a place to sleep.”
“You think anyone here would fight with us?” Soren asks, but I shake my head.
“I can’t imagine so. Defending yourself and city is one thing, but actively starting a war with a group like that? It’s asking to be killed. People are selfish before anything else, and like the triplets always said, lean towards the winning side instead of loyalty. Knowing our luck, they’d turn on us and we’d just be adding to the enemy’s numbers.”
Cai rubs his temple. “So we need a way for four people to either sneak in and out of the place undetected, or successfully pull off an attack on the entire thing without killing everyone.”
“Finding four people in that hellhole is going to be next to impossible; it’s massive, and we only saw a fraction of the place,” Yri growls in frustration.
Cai’s face pinches as he suppresses his nerves. “Five. We need to get Saige out of there too.”
“You know they most likely killed her after we escaped?” Soren murmurs, no doubt hating to voice it, but needing to nonetheless.
“But we have to try,” I reply with conviction. “Because we’d all be dead right now if it wasn’t for that human.”
We argue back and forth for hours, only stopping for another food break. As much as I need to race after my brothers, running in halfcocked is idiotic. I have absolutely zero plans to end up imprisoned again, thank you very much, and we wouldn’t be any help getting ourselves recaptured.
“I hate to suggest it, but we should get some sleep,” Cai throws out there, scrubbing a hand down his face. “We’re all fucking exhausted and we’re getting nowhere. Ezra especially needs to heal and replenish her blood before she falls on her ass, and I don’t know about you two, but I still feel like shit. And I feel like an ass complaining, because you two had it way worse than I did.”
I hate it, don’t want to keep wasting time, but he’s right. In this condition, we’re not going to kick anybody’s ass, much less save four stubborn redheads and a mountain full of traumatized humans. We all get up before hesitating, not leaving the living room.
“I,” I choke on the admittance, “I’d rather not sleep alone, but my bed’s not big enough.”
Yri wraps an arm around my shoulder, kissing my temple. “Panic room we could push the mattresses together, be safer too, just in case. We aren’t sure how long your body will take before deciding you’re healed enough and throwing the ‘open for business’ sign up.”
I snort, leaning into him and inhaling his woodsy scent, no longer buried under blood and grime. The mood is gone just as quickly as it came as I sober.
“You guys okay with that though? Being sealed in that room?”
Vyrian tenses against me. “If we were followed here, I’d rather be locked in a cell of our own making rather than the one they’d drag us off to. If all of us are letting our guards down to sleep, I think we have to. Besides, we’ll be with you this time, angel.”
Cai smirks softly. “We can rest easy with our guardian psychopath watching over us.”
