“Fine,” Lucy relented, but a look of reliefflickered across her face.
“Shouldn’t we make sure she’s on the fifthfloor before we split up?” Isabelle inquired.
They all glanced at each other before his dadspoke. “Mike and Mollie, stay here and guard the door. We’ll all godown to make sure she’s below before finalizing a plan.”
CHAPTER 46
Kyle didn’t have towait for Brian to confirm Melanie was on the fifth floor; he knewit the second they stopped outside the door. He couldfeelher in there.
“She’s here,” Kyle said as the last camerafell to the ground and Nathan crushed it.
“Now what do we do?” Lucy asked.
“Do you think you can get the others into thecontrol room?”
“I know I can.”
“Then, we’ll split up. Half will go with youto the control room, and the rest of us will enter here as soon asyou go onto the fourth floor.”
“It’s going to take some time to get to thecontrol room. I’m sure there will be guards up above.”
“There will be plenty of guards for us totake out down here too. We’ll be ready for when you set Melaniefree.”
“How do we do this?” Cassidy asked.
“Lucy, Isabelle, Stefan, Vicky, Nathan,Aiden, Maggie, and David head back to the fourth floor and joinMike and Mollie,” Declan said. “Cassidy, follow them up there andonce they enter the hallway, come back down here and tell us. We’llgo inside here when that happens. They don’t have cameras on usanymore, so they won’t know we split up and hopefully aren’tprepared for it.”
“I’m going with her,” Dante said.
“If they have more than Melanie caged again,should I set them all free?” Lucy asked.
“Yes,” Willow said. “We’ll take care of theSavages if they turn on us, but they’ll most likely go for theircaptors, and that’s an asset to us.”
“I’m good with that,” Lucy said.
“Then let’s go,” Nathan said.
They all hugged and said their goodbyesbefore separating. With a heavy heart, Kyle watched the otherstrudge up to the fourth floor.
Turning, he faced the door to the fifth flooras he waited for Cassidy and Dante to return. His dad rested hisear against the door. When he pulled away, he looked at them andshook his head in response to their questioning stares.
“I don’t hear anything,” he whispered.
Cassidy and Dante turned the corner of thestairwell as gunfire erupted from above.
“Go,” Willow said.
Kyle grasped the knob, turned it, and threwopen the door. He ducked low and rolled into the room. Bullets toreup chunks of concrete and sprayed it over as they peppered theground all around him. The bullets whizzed by his ear and hit thefloor next to his feet as he launched himself up and ran.
He zigzagged as he sprinted behind a thickwall of glass. When he made it to the safety of the glass, heflattened himself against its smooth surface. Turning his head, helooked up into the red eyes of a Savage. The vamp stared back athim with hope etched onto its face.
Kyle ignored the creature as he searched forthe source of the gunshots. On the other side of the room, five menstood near the elevators. Ten more men had their rifles raised asthey defended their positions by the other stairwell.
When more gunfire erupted and a bullet toreacross the back of his calf, he realized the guards who werestanding near the stairwell where he entered had retreated. Theywere now interspersed between the cells. One of them had circledbehind him. He darted away from the glass, behind another cell, andaway from the gunfire.
Ethan, Brian, Willow, Declan, Aida, andJulian had managed to enter the room behind him, but the othersremained trapped in the Hall. When a lull in the gunfire occurred,his dad sprinted through the doorway and ran toward the right.
Time slowed so much that Kyle saw each of thespinning bullets tearing chunks from the floor and wall around hisdad. Then, a spray of blood exploded outward, and blood bloomedacross his dad’s chest a second before he hit the ground.
