There was no way the woman could have gotten herself out of that tub, across the breadth of that open area, and locked herself in. Even if she hadn’t been injured.

And that was the other thing. When he’d found her outside of the garage, she’d been bleeding in a lot of places, bruised and beaten. But when he’d helped her with the bustier? When she’d stared at him from the tub? There had been nothing marring the porcelain skin of her face.

At the time, he’d been too busy making sure he didn’t look anywhere he shouldn’t to really notice. But now? He knew that kind of healing was flat-out impossible—

“This is fucked-up.”

Butch glanced over. “So I wasn’t here?”

“No, you were, but last night, there was a helluva misread on your location.” V turned his phone around. “This is the map of Caldwell. This is you. Here we go.”

V tapped something, and like some old-school Pac-Man shit, a little blinking dot moved through the block maze of streets.

“This is Trade here.” V’s finger went vertically across the screen. “And now you’re on Thirteenth. And… here we are, one block from this address.”

The dot disappeared.

“Fast-forward about fifteen, twenty minutes at the most,” V said. “And… here you are again.”

All at once, the dot reappeared and moved away from the dead zone. Which seemed to take up the entire block that the building was on.

“What the fuck,” Butch muttered. “And who the hell was I talking to?”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Not just one car. Many.

As what sounded like a goddamn flotilla pulled up to the groundskeeping facility, Syn put his body between Jo and the door they’d come through. Getting out his gun, he cursed himself as he flicked off his flashlight. There had been no cover that he’d seen as he’d looked around the interior space. Nothing but support beams, the roof overhead, and the oil-stained, concrete floor.

He was getting out his gun when the situation went from bad to deadly.

At first, as the scent of the enemy reached his nose, he tried to tell himself he was imagining it. What the hell would lessers be doing out—

“That smell,” Jo hissed. “It was on the train coming back from Philadelphia today. And I swear I’ve sm—”

“Shh.”

As she fell silent, he listened hard, threading through the wind and the slamming of that door, waiting for voices. Although what was that really going to tell him?

Grabbing her hand, he took her further into the darkness. Totally no cover. Absolutely no escape. And here he was with a limited amount of weapons and ammo, a half-breed who didn’t know what she was, and God only knew how many lessers.

Voices just outside the flimsy building now. A congregation. Three? Four of them? It was hard to get a bead on multiple scents this far back.

A blowtorch. What he needed was a blowtorch so he could burn a hole through the metal walling for Jo to squeeze through. But like he could have thought that far ahead? The only other option he had was to leave her in the back here, totally undefended, essentially unarmed, while he went on a blitz offensive, shooting up whatever the fuck was out there. Not appealing. Not by a long shot—or a hundred of the point-blank variety.

What other choice did he have, though? He couldn’t call the Brotherhood or the other fighters. If he thought he had problems with the proverbial management already, it was nothing compared to what would happen if he were caught with a half-breed, pretrans female, out in the dark, all by their lonesome.

Besides, she was his. Not theirs.

“Take this,” he said as he unholstered the backup forty he kept on his calf. “It’s heavier than you’re used to, but it’ll blow a hole in—”

He froze. And then twisted around to the corrugated metal wall behind them.

Yes, he thought. That may work.

“On three, I’m going to start shooting at the wall,” he said as he palmed up the other Smith & Wesson on his hip. “They’ll take cover, but not for long, so I need you to be ready to run. After we’ve busted out, we go straight for the wood line. All you have to do is keep up, okay?”

“Who are they?”

“No questions. And no, we’re not calling the police. They cannot help us. You have to trust me.”

There was a pause. “Okay.”

Syn closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“What for.”

Without answering, he put up both of his autoloaders and pulled the triggers—and got the opposite result he’d been hoping for. The barrage of bullets went haywire, sparks flying as lead slugs ricocheted back at them instead of penetrating through the panels.

He had to stop shooting. If he could keep going, he might be able to sieve shit up enough for him to bust through with his shoulder, but it was too risky. He was going to fill Jo and him full of fucking holes first.

“Damn it,” he bit out.

And of course, now those lessers outside knew that there was somebody on the property who was armed.

As much as he hated everything in this moment, as much as he dreaded what he had to do, Jo’s life was more important than absolutely everything.

Including whatever future he had secretly been deluding himself into believing they might have.

Syn sent out a distress call to all the fighters on duty.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

No, I’m telling you the bruises weren’t there.” Butch felt like he was pleading in front of a jury. Except given V’s nodding head, the brother at least agreed with the version of events being described. “I just didn’t notice it at the time—”

“Because you were trying not to notice—”

“So many other things—”

As Butch’s phone started to vibrate in his pocket, he jumped and then went on a hand dive to get the thing—while V did likewise without the jerk of alarm. When they both read the same message, they looked at each other.

“The outlet mall,” Butch said as he started texting fast.

“Where the induction we cleaned up was.”

“What the fuck is Syn doing out there?” Butch grabbed V’s arm. “And you’re not going on this call. No fucking way—”

“There are slayers. So it’s time for you and me to go to work—”

All at once, Lassiter appeared, a milkshake in one hand, a TV remote in the other. As he finished sucking the bottom of the old-school soda fountain glass, the slurping noise was loud as—well, Vishous dropping seven f-bombs in a row.

“You rang?” the fallen angel said in a pleasant tone.

“No.” V punched at Butch’s pecs. “You did not text him.”

“He did.” Lassiter gave the straw another suck. Then he metronomed his head back and forth, his blond and black hair swinging. “He did, he did, he did.”

To the tune of Hocus Pocus’s “amuck, amuck, amuck.”

Vishous jabbed a finger in the angel’s face. “I’m not going back with you, asshole.”

“Okay, that is really hurtful.” More with the sucking. “I mean, what’d I ever do to you?”