Taking us deeper into the labyrinth of their house, we follow a similar pattern. Slade assesses, recalculates our path, and we run as silently as possible. My hearing eventually returns, the sounds of muffled gunshots a soundtrack on repeat as we navigate through the house.
We’re not running towards the main fight, we’re picking off the stragglers one by one.
Reaching a door, Slade motions for me to stay back against the wall as he yanks it open. Two voices, a shout and a curse, before a series of shots have my body wound tight. My gaze bounces between either end of the hall, keeping watch, but no one appears before Slade returns to drag me into the room with him. Two bodies are shoved against the far wall of the small office, their blood being absorbed by the navy carpeting, darkening it in a slowly spreading stain. An array of screens line one wall with a desk and chair beneath them, and only one is shattered from a stray bullet, droplets of blood flecked across three others.
“Reid took point on this part,” Slade announces quickly, looking suddenly nervous, but I exhale heavily in relief. Setting my gun on the desk, I slide into the now vacant chair.
“This, I can do. What do you need?”
“Exits,” he commands, leaning on the desk beside me while his eyes race across the security screens. “Lock down all but the front gate, front door, and west patio entrance.”
My fingers fly across the keyboard, quickly picking up on how the system is laid out, familiar with Reid’s organizational preferences by now. “Done.”
While waiting for his next order, I scan the screens, freezing in horror when I get to the one showing the carnage in the library. Reid is up on the balcony that rings the second floor, firing down at the center where Bo drags a knife across one man’s throat, nearly slicing his head clean off his shoulders. Two wolves work in tandem to force someone within range for Reid to shoot, while a third savagely tears into another’s neck, blood coating his muzzle before lunging at someone else.
Lizzie’s mates.
I look over my shoulder to Slade. “Emmy and Lizzie?”
The desk groans under his tight grip of the edge. “The panic room, or there.” He taps a spot that the camera can’t pick up, the waist high wall of the balcony in the library made of solid wood. “Either Reid’s the final line of defense, or playing it as a decoy to keep as many of them contained in the library as possible.”
“Where’s the panic room?”
He taps the screen that shows the hallway outside of Emmy’s room, but not in it beyond the doorway. “Back of her closet, hidden panel. Set up so that even if we all died, she could wait them out for a week, as well as call for help.”
The door to her room is wide open, and I count four people for sure based on the glimpses in the corner of the frame. “So what do we do?”
He takes a deep breath, standing taller instead of letting emotions overrule rational thinking. “No help has arrived, and I don’t have any missed calls from the other alphas demanding an explanation. She’s in the library.”
Withdrawing my phone, I find six missed calls from Cin and cringe. Checking the times, though, I nod to myself, clinging to hope. “Cin should get here within ten minutes if he doesn’t run into any problems.”
“The second he does, lock the gate behind him. When he enters the house, seal the last two exits. No one in or out. Cinjin and I will pick off the stragglers; the others have control of the library and are chipping away at the masses steadily. I’ll make my way there to help.”
My heart skips a beat before pounding in double time. “You’re going alone? What if you get shot? Or someone breaks in here, or-”
Setting his gun on the desk, Slade captures my face, forcing me to meet his unwavering gaze, the gold flecks in his hazel eyes brighter than normal. His pupils are blown, which I’m coming to understand isn’t their vision adapting to the dark after all, but a sign that their other half is awake. “None of that’s going to happen, because I have you to help me. I won’t let anyone hurt you, but I can’t let anyone hurt them either. I’m counting on you to help me keep them safe, Sabrina. Can you do that for me?”
A sense of calm layers over me like a weighted blanket, suffocating my anxiety before it can spiral out of control and making me feel strangely relaxed; collected and at peace. Giving him a suspicious look, a ghost of a smile crosses his features before he presses a quick kiss to my forehead and stands up to his full height.
“I’d curse your alpha voodoo if it wasn’t honestly really helpful right now.”
Taking the dead guards' guns, he leaves his behind, so it must be nearly empty. “I’ll leave my phone on speaker. Remember, if I can hear you, anyone the next hall or two over can as well.”
“I don’t have your number,” I hastily point out as he gets ready to leave.
Dialing, he waits until I pick up. Setting mine face up beside me on the desk and switching it to speakerphone, he slips his into his pocket. “Not the way I envisioned you asking for it, but beggars can’t be choosers. Lock the door behind me.”
Then he’s just... gone, leaving me with only corpses for company.
Accessing the lock, I engage it from the computer, knowing it’ll be far more effective than the handle lock I can physically turn. A series of steel bars slide into the frame on the side and top, so if someone wants in, they’ll have better luck busting a hole in the wall.
I scan his path, gaze nervously flicking back to the library, but I don’t feel the same sense of urgency as before. Whatever it was Slade did to me is still lingering, giving me a purpose to latch onto to keep from falling apart, while knowing instinctively that everything is going to be okay.
He’ll make sure of it.
“To your right and down the left hall, two men.”
Slade follows my directions without question, and I ensure to only speak when necessary so the intruders can’t get a warning to their buddies about what we’re doing. It’s agonizing; watching the shot that Bo takes, his shoulder bleeding profusely, yet he never breaks stride, whittling down the numbers with Reid, David, Vince, and James. For every three that they kill, another one appears out of the woodwork, but they’re making damn impressive progress.
