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My heart skipped as I whispered for Misty to start that way. Each step was quieter than the hum of an appliance, but with each nearly silent tap, my heart hammered harder. We’d been louder in the stairwell, but that was an enclosed space where the sound had nowhere to escape. Here, every chirp echoed twice as loud off the empty walls.
We couldn’t have taken more than three steps when a thump sounded.
Then another.
Two more.
Footsteps. Two pairs of footsteps.
The stillness that settled through my heart slammed into an erratic pound against my ribs, reverberating into my thoughts. Hands suddenly trembling as the steps drew closer, I grabbed Misty’s arm and yanked her into the closest doorway.
I grabbed the handle to push it shut, but when I did, a creak sounded, and I jammed her into a wall instead.
“You’re sure this was it,” a familiar voice.
“Shh,” another voice.
“I can’t smell her, damn it,” he said, voice quiet. “All I smell is cat piss and—”
“Sh!”
My eyes shot open.
Declan.
I grabbed Misty—still in her zombie like trance—and hauled her into the hallway. Typically, I wasn’t one to run into the arms of a man for help, but if my experience fighting Demons taught me one thing, it was that a team against one asshole is better than the one best fighter wounded.
“Declan,” I said. “I’m right he—”
A hand closed around my lips from behind, and another locked around my waist. Misty toppled. I tried to scream through the hand, but he gripped my cheeks so hard that a crunch touched my ears.
Yanking me backwards, dragging me as he muffled my screams, footsteps stomped toward us.
“Misty!” Ria’s voice.
Still hauling me backward into a room, Declan came into view, and his eyes met mine. They were wide, furious. Fast breaths panted in and out of his nose, jaw tightening. “Let her go, Eric.”
Eric. Interesting.
“Can’t do that, kid.”
Declan’s eyes narrowed, taking a step forward.
Eric snapped my neck to the side.
I gasped at the pain that radiated down my spine.
“Take another step, and she’s dead,” Eric said, terror tinging his voice. “I’ll do it, Declan. Step back.”
Eyes wider, he walked backward. “If you hurt her, I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”
“And if I don’t?” he asked. Silence followed. “Exactly. You’re gonna try and kill me either way.”
“Let her go, and no one has to know—”
“Bullshit!” He clenched my cheeks tighter, and I couldn’t help my wince. “Bullshit and we both know it. You leave right now with these two, and Abe’s gonna tear me to shreds.”
Declan’s face screwed up in confusion. He glanced at Misty as Ria helped her upright behind him, and then back to the two of us. Slowly, his mouth parted, and his eyes widened. “That’s why you took her.”
