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“I’ve got Max and Jack.”
“Send them ASAP, and tell them to bring salt. Lots of it. Got it?”
“Got it. And be careful, will you?”
“Always am.”
—
Loren was drained.
She had managed to use her gift from Tempus—whatever it was—to freeze the creature for two minutes near the locker rooms. Two.
It was barely enough, but they’d made it out of the swimming pool and were now running, feet clapping on the floors, breath rasping through the hallways. Dallas and Sabrine had their magic staves out, but they were already exhausted, their magic all used up. Even their Familiars were too drained to come back out of their shadows.
Angelthene Academy had two indoor shelters designed to protect against threats, but they were flawed in the sense that they operated on a timer. If you didn’t make it in time, the doors would shut, and you would be trapped in the school with whatever threat had managed to breach the magic spells.
One shelter was too far away; it was several floors up. The one on the ground floor, right around the corner from the library, was where they were heading.
Loren could see it from here. Could see some of the students and professors gathered inside. Terror-stricken faces watched. Voices screamed, encouraging them. Telling them to run faster. To hurry.
“Wait!” Loren shouted, her voice crackling with exhaustion. “Please wait for us.” But she knew it was no use; once the timer started it, it stopped for nothing.
Headmaster Miles Osborn pushed to the front of the group. His mouth opened around bellowed words, but Loren couldn’t make any of them out over the din swelling in her ears. Her head.
“Faster!” Dallas shouted, the single word snapping against the stone walls. Torches streaked by in fiery blurs.
A piercing roar shredded the air at Loren’s back. Her stomach plummeted out her ass, fear coating her veins.
The door of the shelter began to slide shut.
The Headmaster stumbled back, out of the path of the shutting door, the professors standing on either side of him doing the same.
They were going to leave them out here. They were leaving them—
“No,” Loren rasped. No one was going to help them, none of the teachers. No one. She pushed herself faster, leg muscles screaming, heart about to burst. “Please.”
But the shelter door banged shut.
A scream of anger tore out of Dallas’s lungs. On Loren’s other side, Sabrine sobbed. None of them slowed. They kept running for the shelters, driven by a fool’s hope.
Loren knew she wasn’t the only one who could hear the creature coming. They were too far away from any exit, any windows.
She caught herself with a hand thrown against the sealed door of the shelter, nearly spraining her good wrist. Looked over her shoulder.
The monster was coming. And Darien still wasn’t here.
—
Too much time was passing. Too much fucking time.
Darien paced before the gates to Angelthene Academy for Magic, phone glued to his ear. Keys clicked in the background—the only sound to indicate that his call with Tanner hadn’t dropped.
Max and Jack stood beside him, watching the school for any signs of what was going on inside the walls. They’d both tried numerous times to get a hold of the girls since Loren had made the initial call for help, but every attempt had gone straight to voicemail.
He didn’t know how much longer he could take it. Knowing Loren was in that school, trapped with gods-knew-what…
The lack of cell reception in the academy had to have something to do with the protective spellwork covering the property. By now, it would’ve sensed the unauthorized threat and gone haywire trying to search for flaws in its own system.
