Page 107 of Desperate Victory

The—

He looked like Bodhi. We needed to get all of these kids. If Bodhi’s sibling—Levi—was here, then there was a good chance we might have also found the third King child, Theo. It was hard to tell on the screens.

We’d be better off doing it in person. When I pulled away to look at Bodhi, he was checking the computer. “All of the security feeds through here. But there aren't any cameras outside.”

Disgust curled through me and Bodhi’s stony expression reflected my feelings.

“They won’t be in there any longer than absolutely necessary.”

He scooped up keys off the desk and nodded once. “Stay with me.”

“Never losing me,” I promised and that earned me a flash of a grin. On the third floor, the lighting didn’t change, but the doors did.

The locks were all located on the exterior. They weren’t securing their rooms from the inside. No, they were locked from the outside. When I found Juraj Vedriš, I was going to make sure they gutted him slowly.

The first door across from the stairwell was 302. 314 would be at the other end of the hallway. As desperate as I was to rush straight for her, I made myself wait. I let Bodhi lead.

There were eighteen rooms up here. All tiny little dorm rooms, each barricaded by a locked door to keep their prisoners inside. As impatience fountained through me again, I stuck with Bodhi. When we reached a room that didn’t have an exterior lock, he motioned me back.

The knife was in his hand, tucked and hidden against his arm. He tested the door knob and then pushed the door inward. The smell hit me first. The faint odor of too much cleaning product, maybe some mildew, and soap.

So much soap.

It was a communal shower.

There were thin curtains hanging as a suggestion of privacy, but that was it. Just a suggestion. Gritting my teeth, I checked the hallway behind us as Bodhi moved again and then we were at 314.

One by one, he tried the keys from the ring he’d taken from the guard’s office. The fifth one slipped into the lock easily, then the tumblers as the deadbolt released echoed in the silence of the hall.

“Let me,” I said before Bodhi opened the door. She was in there alone and Bodhi might scare her if she woke up to him looming out of the dark with a knife in his hand.

That image sent a shiver right through me. Not the time, I reminded myself. Absolutely not the time.

He nodded and turned the handle to push the door inward. I slipped inside. The room was so tiny. There was barely room for the single bed, an old night stand with a drawer at the top and a shelf at the bottom. No other furniture decorated the room.

My entrance hadn’t woken her. Pocketing the baton, I tried to cross the wooden floor to her quietly but it creaked and groaned with every step.

Andrea let out a sudden shriek as she jerked awake.

“No, no, no,” I chanted, closing the distance. “It’s me, sweetheart. It’s Lainey.”

Panting like she’d just run a marathon, Andrea stared at me wide eyed. The pillow had left a red mark on her cheek. No, that was a bruise.

Someone had hit her in the face hard enough to leave a bruise.

“Lainey?” The half-broken, half-disbelieving whisper refocused all my attention.

“It’s me, sweetheart. Adam’s here too. We’re getting you the hell out of here.”

Then she was lunging forward, crashing into me with a hug that knocked me on my ass. Shouting came from the hallway, someone slamming their fist against a door.

Tears burned in my eyes as I glanced at Bodhi. “I’ll deal with them…”

“No,” Andrea said abruptly, pulling back. “That’s Levi. He’s my friend. Kostya is here and Theo. They aren’t the guards or the man who runs the school.”

“I won’t hurt them,” Bodhi said. “But they heard you scream and?—”

There was another slam in the hallway, it sounded like someone was throwing themselves bodily at the door.

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