“She’s alone right now!” I snarl back, trying to shake him off.
“And she won’t survive long if we’re dead,” Emerson snaps, voice low and deadly serious. “We do this smart.”
Rowan grips the railing, shaking with restraint. “She’s screaming, Em.”
“I know,” he whispers. “Believe me, I fucking know. But sloppy gets us all killed.”
More noise spills down from the upper floor—heavy boots pounding, a door slamming hard enough to shudder the beams, someone barking orders. Then laughter.
That sound crawls up my spine and locks it solid.
Dean.
His voice is faint but unmistakable. Smug. Taunting. Like he’s standing right above us with his foot on Berk’s throat.
He knows. He fucking knows she’s hurting.
The walkie clipped to my vest crackles again, the familiar static spikes of a scheduled check-in. Emerson thumbs the button, pitching his voice low as he tries to mimic one of the dead guards. It’s useless. Too many of them have missed their calls.
“Unit nine, copy?” the voice on the other end demands.
Emerson tries anyway. “Copy.”
“Negative on that,” another voice snaps, overlapping fast. “We have multiple silent units. Report now. All units report!”
Rowan mutters a curse under his breath. “Shit.”
Then the words we all expected but still punch me straight in the spine.
“We have a breach.”
The building erupts into motion. Footsteps hammer across the ceiling. Door’s slam open. Shouts echo from one end to the other as they scramble to reposition, to guard high-value assets, to hide whatever filth they don’t want us to find.
We don’t have time. If they move the girls—or decide it’s easier to kill them before we reach the door—we lose everything.
“We need to get in there,” Emerson urges. “Now.”
We sweep through the rest of the ground floor with lethal efficiency. The basement and main floor are clear; there is no one left alive down here. That means every remaining piece of shit is on the second floor. Which means Kimber and Berk are too.
My chest tightens; the pressure is so sharp I struggle to breathe. And then—
Another scream.
Berk.
High, ripping, blood-curdling. It tears through the ceiling like a blade. I don’t think. I just move.
Rowan stumbles forward with a strangled sound, catching himself on a crate before he can sprint blindly up the stairs. His eyes burn like wildfire. “If he’s hurting her…” his voice cracks, then strengthens into steel, “I’m killing him slow. I swear to fuck, Ro, I’ll make him beg.”
Dean once called himself our father. Hard to believe some creature like that was ever allowed near children—near us. Near her.
“We’re getting her back,” I growl, grabbing Rowan’s shoulder and pushing him toward the stairs. “Both of them.”
We ascend fast but carefully, raised weapons, breath controlled. Halfway up, the scent hits us.
Blood. Fresh. Heavy. Metallic.
Please—not Berk’s. Not Kimber’s. The plea tears through my head before I can rein it in, and the fury that follows slams through me hard enough to shatter bone.