Page 75 of House of Kallan
His gaze flickered around the room and then hooded. He already knew what was coming before the phone call ended.
“We don’t have time to match teams.”
“I’ll do it and text you. We need to move out immediately.” That was a female.
“Done,” Hadrian said, turning to look at Aden. “I’m bringing Aden to The Harem Project. I suggest not leaving them home. We’re all on that list.”
“Our kids will be there too.”
“Bring them to Haven,” I said.
“Will do,” someone answered before I heard the beep saying a line disconnected. Several more followed before Hadrian hung up.
“Before you argue, none of us are going to be able to concentrate when you’re there,” Hadrian said, pulling Aden to his feet and into his arms. “I love you. I really, really need you to be somewhere safe.”
Aden sighed. “When I say you all owe me for not arguing because I know time isn’t on our side right now, I mean that.”
“Understood,” Hadrian said. “Come on. I’ll drop you off.”
Our phones pinged one after another shortly after. My assignment was Vos, coordinates following. I shivered, not knowing what I was going to find, but sure without a doubt that it would be awful.
We said quick goodbyes, and I knew we were all feeling the same thing. The goodbyes really needed to be longer. There were things we wanted to say. Just in case. But as Aden said, there just wasn’t time.
I left, not knowing whether I’d see them all alive again. Tears stung my eyes as I climbed into my car. There was a lump in my throat that I just couldn’t clear.
Please don’t let me have found them only to lose them already.
Tatum
I arrived justas Merrik did. We exchanged looks before heading to where the chaos was happening in the distance. On the way, we caught up with a witch and a fae, both of whom I recognized from the party, but not enough to recall names.
Though it was barely the middle of the day, the sun was blocked by a haze of destruction. Particles of rubble filled the air and my lungs. The house that had once probably been grand was burning on one end, a blazing fire too big to be contained. As we got closer, I could see that the east corner had been blasted wide open.
But the four of us stopped short as soon as we came into view of the fray. It wasn’t just the hybrids of Silence that we’d come to expect. There were beasts like I’d never seen before. One with wings and another that moved around like it was the combination of a bunch of things. As though someone cut up a bunch of animals into many pieces and then stitched them together randomly.
They were vicious. Brutal.
It was easy to see which were the House of Vos. There were ten of them, from what I could tell. Though I wasn’t sure if thatwas all of them or part. They were earthen monsters. The ground shook under my feet.
However, none of those things were what had us completely stilling as we stared. Among the Silence attacking were children. Young children. The oldest I could see could be no more than seven.
Two things crossed my mind right then. Silence had been experimenting with genetics long before we caught on. And how the fuck were we going to fight children?
“Oh, no,” the fae said.
“Let me see if I can surprise them,” our witch said. “Take cover.”
“Are you going to hurt the kids?” the fae asked.
The witch looked at him. “Honey, I realize this is a huge moral dilemma. I have six kids. I get it. But look at them. They’re not just roughhousing. They’re fighting to kill.”
As she said it, I watched as a child, maybe four years old, sent a spray of something nasty towards one of the Voses. He went down to his hands and knees, bleeding from what looked like his entire body.
“She’s right,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “While I’d like to say that we need to keep them safe, we need to neutralize them first. By whatever means necessary. Though, I’d like actual unaliving to be a very last resort.”
“Of course,” the witch said.
“I’d also like to point out that maybe they’re not in control of what they’re doing. We know the hybrids are chipped,” Merrik said.
