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“I killed him.” Like that wasn’t obvious.
“Yes, and I thank you. You saved my life.” She gave me a tentative smile, but the tears were welling up in my eyes.
“Yeah, I know.” The tears spilled over, and I wiped at them. “Sorry. Just…I’ve never…”
“I know.” Macey wrapped her arms around me as Archer began barking orders at everyone. They could come with us and hide, or they could try to escape or hide on their own.
In the end, five more people joined us. Four were Neutrals and one a cadet, a boy. The others wandered off to find their own places of safety or escape. I wished them luck. No one knew the future, and I hoped they all remained alive to be free.
We continued on once the other five joined us. I forgot their names almost right away. Names and I had never been friends. Faces, I could do faces, but names, forget it.
The library doors hung by one hinge each. My breath came in gasps. What if the enemy were inside? We’d let the other group take the knives which had belonged to the Demons who’d attacked us. That meant we still had two knives only. Plus, our Neutrals now outnumbered our cadets. If the enemy waited within, our attempt to hide would not end well.
“Stay quiet and stay low,” Archer whispered before entering the library, manipulating his body so he wouldn’t knock the doors.
Yeah, staying low would be easy for everyone else, even if Archer was the next tallest at almost six feet. My six and a half feet would be awkward, and I was probably about to knock these doors off the last of their hinges.
I should just do the honorable thing and wait in the hallway, but being by myself didn’t sound like a great idea. So, I slowly bent backwards a little and scooted mere inches at a time until I passed through the doors. Then, I had to kneel and crawl to where the others sat in front of the librarian’s large, long desk at the front of the room.
By this point, the other Neutrals looked as terrified as I felt. The warriors—or cadets, rather—looked more worried than scared, but I knew they were almost as freaked out as the rest of us. They just hid their fear better. I needed to learn to do that. Adam hid all his emotions. Compared to him, I was an open book. I’d tried to practice hiding how I felt from him, but I couldn’t.
Archer waved us on, and we crawled to the end of the desk. Then, one by one, we crossed to the end of the row of books next to the desk. We crossed to the following rows until Archer held up a hand. Then, we paused.
Voices were coming our way. My stomach churned, and I wanted to be sick.
Archer came back my way but waved at me to stay still. The others came with him, and we walked into the aisle where I’d been hiding. When he had everyone’s attention, Archer held his finger up to his mouth to indicate we needed to be silent. Then, he bolted toward the other end of the long row.
I’d have run faster, but I again found myself at the back of the line, and the short people in front of me were in my way.
By the time we reached the other end of the aisle and had backtracked so each of us stood with a buddy at the end of a row, my hands shook, and I swore I was close to wetting my pants. Not that anyone could blame me. We hadn’t been allowed to use the bathroom, and it had been hours since I’d last sat on a toilet before the attack.
We waited, hearts pounding, until the voices disappeared. They’d been male. What race they were, I couldn’t tell. Their voices had been deep, but I hadn’t heard their words.
Archer moved us onward again. This time, we reached the door to the Vault without issue or noise. I wanted to groan when I saw the keypad. Did one of these knuckleheads know the code to enter?
Vera pushed Archer aside when he hesitated and jabbed some numbers. The door opened when she hit the final button. I owed her a cookie. Or a dozen.
The smell wafting from the Vault was stale, but I’d deal with that. I’d smelled worse when someone burnt food in the kitchen. However, another smell hit my senses the further we walked down the stairs. It was metallic and made my stomach turn over.
“Oh my gosh.” Archer’s voice, I couldn’t tell his emotions from it. What did he see?
At the bottom of the stairs, we all gathered. No one said a word as we observed the piles of dead people. All the races seemed to be accounted for at first glance. Who in the world had killed them all down here? Was it the people who’d left the vault that we’d hidden from in the library?
“Jeff?” Archer rushed forward to a table where a man had been tied down. The lights in the room illuminated him and a female witch on a table beside him. She was tied down as well.
“Hey, Archer.” The man tilted his head up a little to glance at my friend, and my body froze. Jeff was Jeff Lanshay, my brother-in-law. Why was Adam’s brother down in the vault tied to a table with many dead bodies lying around him?
“What in the world is going on?” Archer began cutting through the ropes holding Jeff while Macey moved to do the same on the other side of the table. “Where’s my sister? Is she safe? What about the rest of my family?”
“Sylee is fine. Your family is fine.” Jeff’s voice trembled from weakness. “The Mindolin was released. We need to get out of here. My brothers are on their way in. We need to find them and get out.”
Archer finished cutting through the rope on Jeff’s wrist at the same time Macey did on his other side. The female warrior began cutting on the ankle rope, but Archer attempted to help Jeff sit up.
The man was pale and leaned heavily on the cadet. Even the darkness couldn’t hide his weakness, which, because I knew Adam, Jeff would hate. There just wasn’t a choice. We all saw him, but no one thought less of him for not having the physical strength to hold himself up.
“I’m okay.” Jeff waved Archer off. “Help Tessa.” He pointed to the witch. I hadn’t noticed her fingers wriggling before, and she hadn’t spoken yet.
“You’re not fine.” Archer didn’t even attempt to move from the ranked warrior. “Vera, come here. Take this knife and cut Tessa free. Be careful not to harm her.”
