The streetlights snapped off. The windows in the apartment complex nearby faded from bright orange squares to dark blue. The parking lot of the Institute, which had been awash with extra security lights, was now cloaked in shadow. The cameras that the Pinnacle had installed on each corner of the building stopped recording. My power-ups earlier in the day paid off, because the magic that I was using might normally have drained me. But that evening, it merely felt like a stretch.
Once the lights were out, I glanced to the side. The Institute would be on high alert—if we didn’t get inside fast enough.
The problem with getting inside fast enough was that we’d seen the Slow-Motion spell set on the parking lot. If we got stuck in that spell, we’d be sitting ducks for the guards on the roof, who manned a norm machine gun.
Gray levitated up into the air, just enough to see over the walls and spot the gun. Then he came back down and crouched beside Evan, whispering to him before Evan wrote a spell to jam the gun.
Everyone watched silently as the navy sparkles rose in the air like a tiny cloud and then drifted toward the Institute.
Then I said, “Playboy Mansion, you’re up.”
“We did not agree to that codename,” Z grumbled, the jealousy clear in his tone.
Gray just chuckled. “I’ll be whatever she wants to call me.”
Our eyes met and held for a second, sparks flying between us.
“Alright, Sucker,” I turned to Callum. “We’re up.”
Callum rolled his eyes as he stepped forward to take my hand. “So very childish.”
Ten of us were heading inside. Two were staying on the perimeter. There was no chance Gray could fly all of us in at once. So, we were going two by two, each of my crew paired with a vampire. In our mutual distrust, we had paired our teams so that neither of us could outnumber or betray the other.
Hopefully that works, I fretted. Because if Callum decided to betray us, I wasn’t certain that the silver knife hidden in my boot would be enough to stop him.
I turned to Callum, trying not to curl my lip in disgust as the brunette vampire walked casually back to our group, wiping blood from her mouth with her fingertips and sucking it off like it was a drip of ice cream. “Let’s go,” I told the lead vamp.
I mentally ran through the basics of the plan one final time. We would work together to free the vampires on Callum’s list, a list he deliberately failed to explain to me, and then to free Matthew.
Callum grabbed my hand in his, preparing for Gray to lift us into the air. His palm was soft but cold against mine and I tried not to cringe away from his touch. I had to stay focused and maintain my magic; it was how we were going to remain undetected inside the institute. I gave a quick nod, signaling that we were ready.
Z grabbed Malcolm, and together they raced around the building, their shapes nothing but a blur as Z activated his magic to speed them up.
Seconds later, a loud boom smacked our ears as one of Malcolm’s smaller explosives took out a chunk of the back door. Hopefully, that would give the guards something to do, because we’d determined the room housing our first target was near the front door and we wanted that space clear.
A second after the explosion, Gray’s magic swept Callum and I up. We vaulted into the dark sky—jetted by Gray’s Force magic—and the wind hit me, chilling my teeth until they felt like ice cubes stuck between my lips. Callum’s white-blond hair whipped back from his face as he let his fangs descend. His pupils dilated and grew until his eyes nearly looked black. I had never been more aware of his monstrous “otherness” than that moment, as I flew beside him. I might have been a magical, but I was still—at my core, completely human. He was something else. Even rational, devoid of bedlam-level bloodlust, he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing—a hunter wearing his prey’s skin.
What would that mean for Matthew? Would it be the same? Even after the serum, would my brother send chills down my spine and fill me with unacknowledgeable terror?
My fears were as cold as the night around me.
We descended before I could address them. Gray hovered us right next to the front door.
A terrified guard’s face peered through the glass pane in the door at us, his hand on a rifle, a jagged silver hunting knife strapped to his belt.
Pity lanced my stomach as I held up my free hand to blind the man’s eyes so that he couldn’t aim.
Callum launched himself forward, the hand not gripping mine transformed, fingers warping and elongating into raptor-like claws that burst through the glass and grabbed the guard by the neck. A geyser of blood erupted as Callum retrieved his claw; his shirtsleeve was shredded and tiny bits of glass fell from his arm as his cuts healed before my eyes, pushing the shards out of his skin.
Two seconds into the evening and there was a body for each one of them.
Fuck my life.
Our feet touched down. I stayed on the stoop as Callum ripped open the door and claimed his prize.
If he gets shot or spelled because he couldn’t control his appetite, that’s his problem—I started to allow bitter thoughts to cloud my judgement. But that was wrong.
I reminded myself that magic had warped him. He hadn’t chosen to become what he was. Just like Matthew hadn’t. It was all an accident.
I twisted my lips and tried not to look as I pulled open the door and stomped past Callum, trying not to step in the blood that coated the tile floor.
Another guard ran toward us, radio held to his lips. I killed the radio. Callum killed the guard.
In under five minutes, Gray had sent the rest of the team catapulting through the air to land on the stoop. We gathered in the foyer, where Potts had once taken me to check in with a bored, disinterested desk-rider.
The desk was empty now, a dark lump in the shadowy room.
Callum’s vampires gathered behind him and my crew did the same behind me.
Only Gray and the brunette with the appetite remained on the Institute’s perimeter, watching for signs of the Pinnacle police and keeping our exits clear.
The one guard outside and two inside were all we had seen or heard, which made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Or perhaps that was due to the fact that Callum stood close, bloody breath polluting the air with a hint of iron.
My heart trilled like a bird as my eyes darted around. “Be on alert,” I said.
There was no way the Pinnacle would make it this easy.
A second later, I spotted something that explained the lack of guards. An amulet was tucked into a crack between the stones of the hallway wall. The seam between stones had been chipped away and the amulet had been shoved inside and whitewashed to match the rest of the dreary wall. But my eyes spotted the faint purple glow, one that would have been just on the edge of the normal visual spectrum, probably invisible to most eyes.
“Stop!” I whispered, holding up a hand.
But one of Callum’s vampires didn’t listen. He slid in front of Callum and I as he checked the numbers on the doors. He got closer to the door we wanted—too close to the amulet.
“Stop!” I called again, louder.
But he took another step, putting his hand on the door.
“Room 33 is here,” he announced.
A second later, he screamed.
At nothing.
His hands turned into claws, his fangs descended, his brown eyes grew darker as his pupils blew until his eyes were full black with barely a hint of white and he looked just as insane as any of the vampires trapped inside these walls.