“What’s going on?” Bastien continued, his warm voice full of concern.
How could the others not see the good in him?
“Nothing. Everything is quiet here. I just feel . . . anxious . . . like something is going to happen. Are you sure there aren’t any soldiers there? Could they be hiding again?”
“No soldiers. We’ve been teleporting from campus to campus, checking them out with the thermal vision scopes Chris gave us. We’ve checked every roof, every alcove, every damn tree and shrubbery, and have only encountered civilians. We haven’t even come across any vampires. I don’t know if word got out about what happened at Duke and they’re lying low or what.”
“Well . . . maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m just tired.”
“Trust your instincts. If—”
A thunderous boom drowned out whatever Bastien said next. The room around Melanie shook so violently she dropped the phone and had to grab hold of her desk to keep from falling to the floor. Pieces of sheetrock dropped like stones from the ceiling as cracks formed in the walls.
Heart racing, Melanie scrambled to pick up the phone. “Bastien?”
“Melanie? What happened?”
“Something’s wrong! I think—”
Another boom. The room quaked, rocked her from side to side, and tossed her to the floor. She rolled over and got to her hands and knees.
What the hell could rock a building that extended five stories underground?
The room plunged into darkness. Dimmer reserve lighting flared to life. Alarms blared.
“Code red! Code red!” Mr. Reordon shouted over the building’s intercom system.
Oh crap. That was the call to evacuate via the underground tunnel. Were they under attack?
Melanie saw the phone she’d dropped a few feet away and scrambled over to pick it up.
Broken. Great.
Thunder rumbled almost constantly above, created by explosions, not weather.
Melanie clambered to her feet and staggered across the vibrating floor toward the door. A form appeared in front of her.
Screaming, she rebounded off Bastien’s chest as he and Richart teleported into her office.
Bastien caught her by the arms and steadied her. “It’s okay. It’s okay. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
He and Richart looked toward the ceiling, then met each other’s gaze.
“I’ll get Lisette.” Richart vanished.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Melanie shouted over the noise.
“The fucking mercenaries are attacking! They’re blowing the place to hell!”
“What? How did they—”
“Stuart,” Bastien said, his expression darkening.
Richart and Lisette appeared. Richart vanished again as Bastien ushered Melanie out into the hallway.
Guards urged the other network employees toward the far end of the hallway. Already at the dead end, Todd fiddled with something in his hand, yelled, “Fire in the hole!” and detonated a charge, blowing a huge, jagged opening in the wall and revealing a cement escape tunnel.
“Lanie!”
Melanie turned and saw one of the guards steering Linda past.
“I’m fine. Keep going!”
She nodded, face pinched with fear, and was soon swallowed by the mass of men and women flowing toward Todd.
Bastien curled an arm around Melanie’s shoulders and cut a path across the stream of moving bodies, leading Melanie to the door of Stuart’s apartment. “Open it,” he ordered grimly.
Hands shaking, she fumbled for her security card. Déjà vu. Swiping the card, she entered the code as Lisette stepped up behind them.
Bastien threw the heavy steel door open as though it were hollowed-out plywood.
Stuart stood across the living room. Eyes wide, he backed away as Bastien and Lisette stalked toward him. “I didn’t do it! I swear! I didn’t lead them here!”
“Then how the hell did they find us?” Bastien demanded.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Wait.” Lisette halted Bastien. “He’s telling the truth. He has no memory of interacting with the mercenaries.”
“He wouldn’t if he let them drug him afterward.”
Lisette’s eyes narrowed. Her eyes glowed brighter.
Stuart winced and gripped his head. “Ahh! What are you doing?”
“Your memories are still there. The drug has merely hidden them from you. I intend to find them.”
Melanie bit her lip as Stuart tugged his hair, his face creased with pain.
The building continued to shake with blasts. Pieces of the ceiling fell like snow.
Was it true? Had Stuart betrayed them? Had he made a deal with the soldiers, then let them drug him?
“How could he have told them where we are?” she asked. “He has no way of communicating with them. No phone. No walkie-talkie.”
“I don’t know,” Bastien said. Face set in stone, he watched the vamp writhe as Lisette riffled through his thoughts. “But he found a way.”
“You said you searched him before you brought him here.”
“I must have missed something. Anything yet?” he asked Lisette.
“No. There’s nothing between his running from the mercenaries and his waking up in the shed.”
“There must be something! Because they sure as hell didn’t follow us from my lair. We teleported!”
“There’s a chip,” Richart spoke behind Melanie.
She spun around. “What?”
Clothing torn, rumpled, and stained with blood, he nodded at the vamp, who abruptly stopped moaning. “I heard the mercenaries talking. There’s a chip implanted just beneath the skin.”
“Where? I didn’t see anything when I examined him.”
“Under his hair at the base of his skull.”
Eyes wide, Stuart reached up to touch the back of his head.
Bastien palmed a dagger and strode toward him.
Stuart shook his head frantically. “Bullshit!” His voice rose an octave as he scrambled backward, bumped into a wall, and skidded sideways. “That’s bullshit! I didn’t help them!”
“It’s true,” Richart said. “He didn’t get away when they tranqed him. He passed out. They implanted the chip, then stuck him in the garden shed so he would think he did get away. All they had to do then was wait for us to take the bait.”
Melanie jumped when Bastien suddenly shot forward in a blur and caught Stuart. He overpowered the boy’s struggles with ease. Lisette crossed to the duo and took the dagger from Bastien.
When she ran her fingers through the vamp’s dark hair, then angled the dagger to remove the chip, Melanie looked away from the kid’s fear-filled face.
Richart dialed his cell phone and swore. “Why is Seth so fucking hard to reach?”
“Because so many need him,” his sister replied drolly as the building shook again.
Stuart howled.
Richart shoved his phone back in his pocket. “I already teleported Étienne in. He’s trying to hold down the fort on the ground until there are enough of us to start a counterassault. They’ve got fucking shoulder-fired missiles up there. Grenades. Too many mercenaries to count. Lisette, help Chris evacuate the mortals.”
“Hell no!” She handed Bastien his bloody dagger and the chip she’d removed, then zipped over to her brother’s side. “I’m going with you.”
Richart nodded and gripped her arm.
Melanie threw out her hands. “Wait!”
They hesitated.
“In my office. In my desk. Bottom right drawer. Auto-injectors with the tranquilizer antidote Bastien tested. They have green caps. I upped the dose, so you should only need one each. Take one for Étienne, too.”
Richart nodded. The two vanished.
Bastien drew his phone out and strode toward Melanie.
Face pale, she stared up at him with wide brown eyes. Her heart raced. Her hands shook. But she didn’t bolt. Her courage both impressed and terrified him. He wanted her on her way out of the damned building with her colleagues.