Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
CHARLI
Macklin walks us over to the building across the street where Andros and I will be hiding during the battle. Still under construction, there’s nothing but concrete walls and steel framing. I stare at those familiar grey walls, and my heart starts racing.
“What is it?” Andros asks, swiveling around. “Are you having a vision?”
“This is the warehouse I saw in my vision. The one that catches on fire. With us in it,” I reveal, my voice shaking. “We can’t stay here.”
Macklin calmly picks up the phone. “We have a problem.” He explains to Teague what’s going on. “I’m changing the location to the office.” He listens for a second, then hangs up.
“Not only does it have a multitude of exits, but it also has places to hide, and Elijah will be on the roof if you need backup,” Macklin states, then glances at his military-looking watch. “Let’s get you over to the office. I’ll come back for my gear.”
When we get there, Elijah is already on the roof, setting up several long-range guns and a few other supplies. Macklin explains to him that we’re going to be on the fourth floor, in Andros’ office.
He dips his chin and continues setting up.
We follow Macklin down to Andros’ office, then he leaves us to settle in. I watch him walk away, biting my tongue so I don’t call out and beg him to stay. When he’s out of sight, I move to the window where Andros is standing.
“I’m sorry you have to stay here with me,” I murmur, knowing he’s been by their side for seven hundred years.
His lips compress with anger, and he whips his head around to stare at me. “Don’t ever say that to me again. You are our reason. For everything. And I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect you.”
Sighing, I link my fingers with his, and the vision comes without warning.
A helicopter hovering by the pass. Silver box with a cylinder of gold liquid. It sets down, and Hank gets out along with two others. One with silver eyes and electricity circling his hands. The helicopter takes off. Box still inside. Seconds later, the ridge explodes.
ATVs and off-road vehicles roar over the pass, but men also enter on foot from the woods. I count but lose track as the vision shifts. Over fifty, though.
The vision changes, and I see soldiers shooting round after round of bullets into Teague and Macklin.
Elijah shouts a warning. A loud boom reverberates across the office. The building shifts and crumbles around us. Elijah stares sightlessly out of the pile of rubble. Andros is caught in the second explosion. Hank drags me out into the street and aims a gun at me.
Andros’ lean body surrounds me when I come out of it. Teeth chattering, I press the lodestone to my heart and relay most of what I saw. He picks up the phone and calls Teague.
“Did you see which direction Hank came from?” Andros asks, and I try to remember, but the vision didn’t show it. I shake my head. “She didn’t see it.”
I stare out at the setting sun, knowing the attack is going to come quickly.
“I’ll get her down to the tunnels at the first sign of them,” Andros assures Teague. “Got it. Be careful.” He hangs up and paces over to the fridge. When he comes back, he hands me an opened bottle of water. “Drink.”
I tip the bottle back, wondering how I’m going to convince him to leave me.
Night descends, and I have to rely on Andros to tell me what’s happening.
All I see are flashes of explosions or the glow of a building burning.
Andros gets an alert. They’ve breached our home and are making their way through our condo, tearing the place apart.
He lifts his head. “I’m going to check the other side of the building. It will take me two seconds. While I’m gone, I want you to stand in the hallway where I can see you.”
Nodding, I put the water down. If I drink any more, I’ll have to use the restroom. I watch him use his vampiric speed to reach the other side of the fourth floor in a mere two seconds. It still astonishes me to watch him move this fast. He stops and looks out the window, then returns.
“Nothing,” he says, shoving a hand through his hair. A noise in the stairwell on this side of the building has us both turning. He pulls a gun from his waistband and holds a finger to his lips, then motions for me to step back into the office.
The second I do, the door to the stairs opens, and a man in camouflage quietly enters the fourth floor.
I gasp, and he turns toward me, automatic gun raised high.
My face is the last one he sees. Blood pours from his throat, and he falls to the ground.
I wait for his gun to go off, but there’s only silence.
Andros steps into the office and sets the gun on his desk, then removes the finger he stuck between the trigger and the metal around it to prevent it from going off.
A green dragon flies past, Macklin on its back, his face fierce, with a machine gun in his hand.
Andros and I walk over to the window and watch as the two of them circle the helicopter, ducking and weaving, but after a volley of gunfire, the nose dips and loses altitude.
Ames’ huge tail whips it into the mountain, where both it and the bomb inside explode.
Snow and rocks crash to the ground. The dragon banks, heading toward a group of soldiers on the ground.
“How—” I stop talking when he shakes his head.
“I can hear others on the floor below us,” he whispers in my ear. He grabs his phone and types something. It vibrates a second later. He bends down again. “Teague is covered up fighting the enemy. He’s sending TJ and Wyatt to help. Wolf shifters.”
I nod, then give a short scream when the radio on the soldier’s belt starts squawking. “Sorry,” I whisper, knowing they probably heard me.
Andros cocks his head and motions with two fingers, the signal for running. Slipping over to the body, he pulls the radio from the belt and turns it down, but not off.
“Fourth floor. Heard a scream. Viper, confirm.”
Silence.
“Viper, check in.”
Silence.
“Viper not responding. Cobra, check it out.”
“Roger, Cobra moving to the fourth floor.”
Andros stuffs me behind his desk, then quietly disappears.
Sweat drips down my neck, plastering my hair to my skin, but I don’t move an inch.
Barely breathing, I try to hold as still as possible.
The door to the stairs opens, and I clamp a hand over my mouth.
There’s a brief scuffle, then the sound of a gun going off, and finally, a loud thud.
Reaching around the desk, Andros hauls me out and into his arms. “You okay?”
Trembling, I stare down at the bodies on the floor and nod.
There’s a loud noise outside, and we both rush to the window.
ATVs fill the street below us along with roughly a dozen soldiers.
Fanning out, they move into a circle formation.
Two more ATVs roar up, and my hands shake as I stare down at the technowitch with the silver eyes that I saw in my last vision and Hank.
“Cobra report.” Squawks the guy on the radio.
We hear gunfire going off on the floors below us. TJ and Wyatt must be here too.
“We need to get you out of here,” Andros says, grabbing my grey coat.
I shake my head, knowing it’s too late. “If we leave, Elijah will die.”
He looks shaken. “What are you talking about?”
I wince. “I didn’t tell you everything I saw in my vision. In a few minutes, those soldiers are going to bomb this building. Elijah will die if you don’t get him out.”
“I’ll come back for him,” Andros snarls. “You’re my priority.”
“If you don’t save him, you won’t be able to save me. Because you’ll be dead too.”
“What about you?” he rasps. “Tell me you make it out of here alive.”
“I don’t die in the building,” I reply with a sad smile. “Hank pulls me out of the rubble and finishes the job.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispers, gripping my shoulders. “If I save Elijah, what happens then?”
“If you save Elijah, you’ll both make it out alive,” I whisper back. He stares down at me, waiting. “Then you’ll have one chance to save me. A small one, but if you wait for the moment, I’ll survive too.”
“You’re immortal,” he returns in a harsh voice, but I can see the wheels turning in his analytical mind. “An explosion.”
I nod.
“How will I know when to save you?”
“If I’m right, you won’t be able to miss it,” I murmur, knowing I’m taking a huge gamble.
A roaring fire races across the ridge from the chemical bomb HRC set off, building faster and faster until it covers the entire side of the mountain.
The ground rumbles beneath us, and channels split open like seams on a shirt across the face of the ridge, swallowing up the fire bit by bit until not a single ember remains.
The HRC unit near us immediately moves to the building across the street from our home.
“Tell Wyatt and TJ to use the tunnels and get out. Now.”
He quickly sends them a text, and they confirm.
Minutes later, the empty building blazes with fire, and I bite my lip, knowing Andros would have died if we’d stayed there.
Electricity arcs outside the window. “You need to go get Elijah. Now.”
“I don’t think I can leave you,” he replies with a stubborn shake of his head.
“You have to, or neither of us will survive,” I say softly.
He darts a glance outside and sees them moving toward the office. “Fuck!” Lifting my chin, he presses a hard kiss against my lips. “You better be right. If you don’t make it out of this alive, I’m following you to whatever comes next.” He blurs out of the office.
When he’s gone, I head straight to the elevator and take it down to the lobby.
If I don’t give myself up, Elijah and Andros will die, and so will I.
Teague and Macklin both roar in my head.
We’re on our way. Stay put.
I can’t. I explain what happens if I don’t. They protest, but I can tell they don’t know how to fight something that has only happened in a vision. But I do.
Holding up my hands, I walk out, heading straight toward the technowitch with the silver eyes. Guns swing toward me, but James orders them to lower their weapons.
I stare at him, silently thanking him for the information he sent earlier as I give him the information he needs in order to help us take down Hank and the soldiers. “They’re gone. Safe.”
He closes his eyes for a brief second, and when he opens them, they’re full of resolve.
Turning, I stare at the man who has haunted my every thought for the last ten years. Hard to believe I once loved him like a father.
Hazel eyes burning with madness and obsession, he reaches out and gently grasps my chin. “You look like your mother. God rest her soul.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Instead, I embrace the rage that’s been building since that terrible day. “At least she’s in heaven. Too bad you’re going to hell.”
Roaring with rage, he picks up his gun and shoots me.