“Yeah, it is,” Asher muttered.
He’d always understood Logan’s anguish. He’d been there for the start of his and Elena’s relationship and watched his friend fall in love. And that love was cruelly ripped away from them.
But now that he had Brie, his mate, and a love he’d never expected to discover, he understood his friend’s pain more. He’d rather have this safe bashed over his head a thousand times than lose her.
The idea of something happening to her was enough to make him want to tear this entire building apart as it shriveled something in his heart. How Logan had managed to keep it together this long was amazing, but if they lost Elena, he would lose it.
Asher hoped they wouldn’t have to take him down. It would destroy him to kill his best friend, but they would all do whatever was necessary to keep everyone else safe.
CHAPTERFIFTY-EIGHT
Unwilling to thinkabout it any further, he turned to Ronan. “It would be better if we got everyone together for what’s in this safe. They should all see it, and it will be a lot easier if we only have to explain it once. If that’s okay with you?” he asked Brie.
“It is,” she murmured.
“I’ll get everyone together and meet you in the old gym. Join me?” Ronan asked Declan.
Declan nodded, squeezed Asher’s shoulder, and strode away with Ronan toward the rooms where they often slept. Asher continued toward the cells with Nathan, Cabo, Zina, and Brie. When they arrived at the door leading to the cells, Nathan grasped the thick, steel door handle.
“I’ll wait out here,” Cabo said.
“I’ll stay with you,” Zina said.
Brie was about to offer the same, but Asher gave her a small, subtle head shake. He wanted her with him, and she wouldn’t deny him that. She had a feeling what lay beyond the door was exceptionally difficult for him.
She rested her hand on his arm as Nathan opened the door. Cabo and Zina leaned against the wall with their arms crossed as they stared at the wall across from them. She’d given them the chance to get out of this, run, and live the long lives they’d been given; both had refused.
For that, she was grateful, but a part of her wished they’d run. She loved them both so much; they’d given her hope when it was running out and love when she didn’t have any,
But she couldn’t stand it if anything happened to them because they felt they owed her some debt. They insisted they didn’t feel that way. They claimed they were here because they wanted to see this through to the end and destroy the demons, but she still worried it was something more.
“Quit looking at us like that,” Cabo muttered when Nathan and Asher entered the hall beyond.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like you’ve condemned us to death. For the thousandth time, we’re here because wewantto be.”
“We really are,” Zina said. “Now go, because it’s time we get this over with and plan a war. I’m ready to kick some demon ass so we can have a party.”
Brie chuckled. “As long as there’s no tequila.”
“It’s not a party without tequila. Nowgo.”
Brie turned and followed Asher and Nathan through the door where they stood waiting for her on the other side. Brie stopped when she spotted the glass cages; dismay curdled in her stomach as she took in the occupants of some of those cages. Not all of them were full, but she spotted an occupant about halfway down the hall, and sitting across from the woman was a man.
Asher set the safe down inside the door. “It will be safe here,” he assured Brie.
Unable to form words, she nodded in response. The place smelled of blood, cleaning supplies, the faint hint of something rotten, and despair. Way too much despair.
These prisoners hadn’t been killers, but the blood injected into them had stained their souls and warped them into something else. And she felt the eyes of that something else watching them with malicious intent.
How can these creations possibly be saved?Brie cursed the question for crossing her mind because once it did, she couldn’t rid herself of the clawing awfulness of it.
This whole time she’d been so sure Asher’s friends would somehow come up with a solution to the cruel fate that had befallen their friends. Now, she wasn’t so sure. She wouldnottell Asher that. She knew how much all this pained him.
When he rose from setting the safe down, Asher spotted Logan. His friend sat halfway down the hall with one leg drawn up and an arm draped over his knee.
Logan hadn’t noticed their presence yet as his attention remained riveted on the cell across from him. Elena stood near the back of the cell; she returned her mate’s stare.
