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Caleb holds his breath to listen, barely able to make out the tumult in the council hall beyond the secret library. “Listen. We’re coming to get you.” Caleb puts the SUV into reverse and peels out of the parking lot. “Don’t try to leave. Maybe we can create a distraction or something.”
“One more thing,” Cora says. “Bring a bag we can hide the book in.”
“Got it. Stay until we get there.” Caleb taps the red phone on the screen and speeds back toward the council building.
Maddy lowers the now-empty bag. “How are we going to get in?”
Caleb slows for a red light, glad when it turns green before they come to a complete stop. “Based on the noise of the hall, there’s got to be some meeting or something, so I bet there’s a lot of vampires on their way in. Maybe we can slip in with the next group.”
Maddy scrunches her nose.
“Or you can run us in there with your vampire speed.”
Her expression pinches even more. “Are you serious? How is that going to work? You have to know of a way to get in there that’s more reliable than waltzing in and hope they don’t notice us.”
“I might have a better idea,” he says. “It’s a long shot, but we’ll see.”
Maddy doesn’t answer. Instead, she breaks into her other blood bag, so Caleb doesn’t push it anymore. She’ll be easier to talk to when she’s no longer hungry, anyway.
When they get to the building, groups of vampires are hurrying into the council building, but instead of pulling into the main parking area, Caleb continues around to the rear. Maybe there’s enough uproar nobody will notice the extra tint on the windows or the human and the vampire in it.
He vaguely recalls a window at the rear of the building which hadn’t been screwed closed. They’d left it alone so it could be used as a fire escape from the basement. Not many vampires know about it. If it’s still there, they can climb into the basement of the building and take the rear staircase to get into the hidden library.
Maddy finishes the second bag, and she presses a hand to her middle again while using the other to wipe her face. She’s already much calmer, and her fidgeting has quieted.
Caleb grabs a napkin from the center console. “Feel better?”
“Yeah,” she whispers, using the paper to clean her face.
“Glad one of us does,” Caleb mutters. His stomach death rolls, churning and threatening to make him lose his last meal.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to seeing blood all over my own face.”
“Give it time,” he offers, even as he’s conscious she never wanted to be a vampire and now she is one—in the middle of the biggest fight of their life. He wishes there was time to say more, to maybe take her in his arms, but Cora has the book, and she’s trapped in the back room with a growing crowd of vampires in the council hall. He pats Maddy’s hand. “Come on.”
She steps out, and Caleb does, too. But he lopes to the back of the SUV, and he opens the rear to rummage in the back. There’s not much in the way of disguises, but he finds two hats and a small reusable shopping bag. That’s what there is, so that’s what they’ll use. He hands one to Maddy, and she mashes it down on her head while simultaneously tucking her hair up into it. Then he does the same.
She gives him a rueful look. “It’s not much.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s not, but maybe they’re all too busy with whatever they’re doing to notice.”
With that, they jog to the rear of the building and run along the back edge of the perimeter, stopping between two large bushes in the middle of the long wall. Caleb ducks down, looking for the low window. When they reach it, he lets out a low whistle. “That’s narrower than I remember.”
The window is about two feet wide and maybe about eighteen inches tall. It’s been there long enough that the earth has encroached on the window itself, and he takes a moment to dig the grass and soil out and pull it away from the window.
“This is the way we’re getting in?” Maddy asks. “Without being seen?”
Caleb drops to his belly and peers into the dark room. His heart pounds in his ears, and he’s so nervous he’s trembling. Will he ever get used to being human again? He grabs the edge of the window and pulls, but the panes don’t budge. He tries again, bracing himself against the brick wall of the building, but it doesn’t move at all.
Behind him, Maddy glances over her shoulder and dances in place. “What’s taking so long?”
“I can’t get the window open,” he grunts.
“On the count of three. One, two…” She crouches beside him, grabs the window edge close to where Caleb’s holding on, and her hands graze his. “Three.”
Together, they yank.
With a pop, the window slides open, the pane cracking and the frame crunching. Bits of glass fall out of the now broken window, but at least it’s open.
