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He grabbed the door handle and wrenched open the door.
“Look, buddy?—”
He swung around to face her. Jana slammed her fist into his face. She might not have her fire, but she wasn’t helpless.
The man sank to the ground. She went with him, patting his pockets, finding his keys, a phone, and—yes!—a gun. Jana tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans and glanced back at the fire. Zane was in there. Other paranormals were trapped inside. She looked down at her hands. Phone. Keys. The perfect time to escape. There were no more ties to her past. Perseus wouldn’t come after her. She could get away clean.
But Zane was in the fire.
Zane.
She punched in a quick series of numbers on the phone. Numbers she’d memorized earlier, when she’d seen Zane make one of his calls. The phone rang once, twice?—
“Who the hell is this?” a snarling voice demanded.
Jana’s fingers tightened around the phone. “I’m calling about Zane Wynter.” She didn’t have a whole lot of time to waste.
“Zane?” The voice sharpened. “Is he okay?”
“Kinda hard to say.” She bit her lip and rose, stepping away from the fallen guard and keeping his keys. She had to strain to make her voice louder and clearer when she said, “He’s in the fire right now.”
“What?”
“I don’t know where we are,” she said. “Some damn swamp.”
Other voices murmured in the background, then he told her, “Just keep the phone on. We can find you.”
“Send some fire trucks, would you?” She watched those flames blaze. They’d burned through the roof and were reaching so high. With a fire like this, there was only one way to stop the flames. Just one. “People are still inside. They need help.”
A pause. Then he asked, “Is it your fire, Jana?”
It should have been. “I’ll keep the phone on,” she told him. “You just get help out here, got it? Perseus is burning, but I’m not letting them destroy Zane.”
Then she put the phone on the hood of the truck and made the stupidest move of her life. She went back into the fire.
* * *
“Help me.” The voice drew Zane in closer. It was weak, rough, desperate.
Not Catalina.
He found himself in the same conference room he’d been in when he’d first seen Catalina. The fire had already come inside, the flames surging against the walls. The guards were gone. They’d cleared out fast, but then, his psychic blast wouldn’t have kept them knocked out for long.
He’d never seen a fire like this one. Even with his power, it was hard to push the flames back. And if he hadn’t been so high on the demon scale then he never would have been able to clear a path back inside. The fire was too wild.
The flames weren’t just sticking to the walls. They were surging forward, actually tracking people—as if they were intent on killing. Hell, they were intent. An Ignitor aimed the fire where she wanted it. Beth wanted the fire to kill, and it was. Only, it wasn’t just killing Beth’s enemies. It was killing everyone.
“Help…me.” The voice came again and Zane hurried forward, even as he shoved back those greedy flames. He rushed down the hallway and turned right. Another room, this one with chains on the walls.
He found Davey on the floor. His legs were pinned by a heavy metal cage that had fallen onto him. Hell, this must be some kind of damn containment room. Fire circled around Davey, but the demon held the flames back from him, keeping a protective circle around his body. A circle that barely seemed to be holding. Blood dripped from his temple. “Don’t leave me here.”
Zane stared down at the kid. “You chose the wrong side.”
Tears leaked from his eyes. “I chose the—the only side that I had! I was trying—trying to save l-lives!” The fire inched closer. Young Davey wasn’t a strong demon, that much was obvious, or he would have freed himself by now.
A weak demon. A kid. One who’d been pulled in and used by humans gone crazy with their own power.
“Tell me where you keep the paranormal prisoners.”
