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His stare hardens, and I know exactly what’s going through his head. He doesn’t give a shit about being these people’s hope or putting on a fucking show for them. He doesn’t care about leading them or claiming the fucking power, he only wants Oakley. And fuck, I know the feeling.
Knowing he will do what’s right, I turn away and race back through the main entrance, back into the flames, and come to a stop, looking over the disheveled ballroom, the beauty that once was now nothing but horror in the wake of the explosion.
Blood soaks the dance floor, and I take in the many dead bodies—bodies of our people, Zade’s people, who he has to protect. Without a single doubt in my mind, I know that we will find the asshole responsible for this and make them pay for the lives they’ve taken tonight.
With the thick smoke billowing toward me, desperate to escape out into the night, I duck my head and race down into the ballroom, my gaze shooting left and right, desperately seeking out Sawyer. People are scattered everywhere, the smoke making it almost impossible to see.
“HELP!” The raw desperation and terror in the woman’s voice brings me to a stop. Glancing down through the thick smoke, I find a woman stuck beneath a table and immediately recognize her as one of my mom’s best friends. Then despite knowing I need to find Cara, I stop, grip the edge of the table, and pull it off her.
My gaze trails over her, and it’s clear she’s got a broken leg, and judging by the blood matting in the back of her head, I’d say one hell of a nasty concussion. Not wanting to leave her here to die, I swoop down and pull her into my arms, her ballgown making it difficult to carry her. She cries out as the movement jostles her injuries, but I don’t have time to pull back and take it easy. The longer we’re both stuck in the thick smoke, the worse it’s going to get.
With the woman gathered in my arms, I race back to the main entrance to call for help. I don’t take notice of who I’m handing her off to, but with my arms free, I circle back around to keep searching.
I don’t waste a second, breathing in the fresh air before diving back into the ballroom, squeezing past the bodies trying to get out. My sharp gaze scans the room before finally finding Sawyer hovering over his mother, and I hurry in to help, assessing what’s going on. She’s got a piece of glass protruding from her chest, and from what I can tell, it’s probably wedged down between her ribs. It’s clear why Sawyer hasn’t already taken her outside. If he moves her, if that glass has pierced through her lung, he could kill her.
Moving in beside him, I see the sheer panic in his eyes. “Come on,” I tell him, watching her shallow breaths, the smoke inhalation quickly claiming her. “We’ll lift her together. We need to get her out of here.”
“No,” he says. “Go and find Cara. I’ve got help coming.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” he booms. “Go.”
Racing back toward the storeroom we were in before Oakley took off, the same room where I first touched her, I find rubble and debris banked up in front of the room. I quickly search around, my gut telling me she’s inside, but if I’m wrong . . . If I spend the time trying to get in there only to find she’s already gone, I could be condemning us both to death.
Fuck.
I try to go over everything I know about Cara to figure out her way of thinking.
We were only gone from that room for a few seconds. Everything was heated, and Sawyer and Zade were in each other’s faces. Cara was frustrated and scared after being initiated into The Circle and more than ready to make Zade bleed, but then Oakley left and so did we, leaving her behind.
She’d been locked up by Zade for a few days after finding out that she was responsible for giving up Oakley’s location to our enemies, but at the same time, she’s very clearly in love with him too. If she was going to run, this would have been her only chance, but now being part of The Circle, she might have thought that this closed the gap between them. She’s not just Sawyer’s twin sister anymore, she has power of her own.
The question is—did she run or did she stay?
Fuck. I’ve never liked her. I’ve gone out of my way not to have known anything about her, but if she’s anything like her brother, she would have stayed to face the music in an attempt to get what she wanted. And with that, I start grabbing the debris and throwing it out of the way, taking slow breaths and trying to preserve what little oxygen I can get.
