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“We hear you. Stop pressing after you talk so I can answer.”
“I don’t know what to do. Alexei—” Fear had Joelle’s voice breaking, her hands shaking. More shrill cries came from downstairs. A crackle of something burning ended in a hiss. Mashing the button again, she rushed to add, “He’s fighting a supernatural army. Noxx messed them all up, stitching together demon hybrids and shifters. He sent me to the roof, but I don’t want to leave him.” Fire snaked along one wall, crawling and falling in a way only magic could.
“We’ll find you.”
The flames licked higher, not stopping this time. Something had to be wrong. Her mate wouldn’t send the place crashing down around her. “The building’s on fire. I have to save Alexei.”
“No.” Alys clipped the order, fast and demanding. “He can take care of himself. If he’s using magic, do what he said. Go up. He’ll find you. We’re almost there.” The squeal of tires blared through her side of the connection.
Hooking the radio on her belt, Joelle climbed. The yells and smacking sound of skin hitting skin faded downstairs, leaving an eerie silence that wrapped around her like a snake coiling, crushing the breath from her chest in a rush.
“Help!”The cry came from her right, but it sounded so far away. She stopped, tensed, listened intently.Nothing. Perhaps she’d imagined it. “Help us!”There the voice came again, scared and shrill. A girl’s high-pitched wail. She turned, closed her eyes and waited, counting the seconds.One, two, three.
The same child yelled again. “Please, if anyone can hear me, we need your help.”
Hurrying to the floor, Joelle grabbed the radio. “Alys, someone’s crying for help. It could be the kids. I need to look.”
“Don’t. It might be part of the Order’s trap. Who knows what else Noxx hid? Get out of there.”
Another plea, this one more desperate and followed by a racking cough. She couldn’t go without checking. One quick sweep and she would be out.
“I can’t leave children here with a fire.” She hurried to the offices, testing one door after another.Locked. She wished for Alexei’s lockpicking skills. Smoke stung her nose and burned her eyes. Pounding came from the other side of the last door she tried. “Hello?” she called.
“Please don’t leave us,” the same child cried, desperation in her voice. Or at least Joelle hoped she would find a kid and not some horrible Noxx creation.
“Step away from the window,” she yelled, grabbing a chair from an empty cubicle and rushing back. “I’m going to break in.” She hoped. This company had employed demon hybrids. The last thing she needed was protected glass. She smashed the window once, twice, three times, and it cracked. Aiming for the corner nearest the door, she shoved her elbow through, counting on her combat uniform to be as durable as Alys had said. It worked. The glass gave and the fabric held.
Silently thanking her new sister’s brilliance, she twisted the knob from inside and peeked in the office. If more supernatural creatures lurked within, she’d have already been dead. “Hello?”
“You heard.” From under the desk crawled a girl covered in scars, cuts, and bruises. She’d been starved given the way her bones stuck out. “Can you help us?”
Joelle swallowed hard. This kid could’ve been a reflection of her own torture if she hadn’t had healing abilities. She focused on the girl’s words. “Us?”
The child gestured toward the desk, and more little faces peered over the edge. Two of them stared back at her with the golden glow of a shifter’s gaze. Dread slid down Joelle’s throat along with the burn of smoke. What if she couldn’t save them? She wouldn’t consider that possibility. “Let’s go.” She hustled the six children toward the ladder. “Can you climb?”
Without answering her, the smallest shimmied up the ladder. The others followed, leaving her last to catch any who might slip. “Be quick but safe.” While she could heal them, she would rather not risk any of them getting injured worse than they already appeared to be.
“Go,” the girl urged the slowest of them.
Joelle tried the radio, but Alys didn’t answer. She spoke anyway into what looked like a stubby microphone. “I have six children with me. We’ll be on the roof. Alexei’s still downstairs.” She climbed behind the kids. “Did Noxx take you from your families?” she asked them.
“Yeah,” the girl said. “She grabbed a new boy this morning and brought us here.”
Hope flared. “The new boy? Was his name Tai?”
“How’d you know? He seemed super ticked. Sometimes the kids don’t speak English, but he did. He said he knows the local demon prince, but he’ll figure out quick enough that no one comes for us.”
“The Maronov prince came,” Joelle said. “He’s downstairs fighting for us to get free.”
“I don’t believe you,” the girl argued. “Is this a trick? Do you work for the Order?”
“No trick. Noxx kept me as a kid too. Just climb. We’ll get you somewhere safe.” Smoke rose around them in fast tendrils, and something hissed downstairs like a giant steam kettle. She watched the smallest child reach the top of the ladder and muttered a curse. The door to the roof remained closed and the kid looked barely old enough to be out of diapers.
“It’s fine,” the girl said. “He’s strong.”
Sure enough, the little one shoved open the door as easily as he might’ve knocked a tiny sippy cup off a table.Supernatural strength. The kid had to be a shifter or a demon hybrid.
One by one, the children reached the roof. Small bodies went through the hole, legs scrambling over the edge. Whatever waited for them up there had to be safer than what they fled. Flames crawled across the floor below, inching toward the ladder.
