Dem had the man in a sleeper hold, his arm crooked around the man’s throat. Desperate hands scratched at Dem’s arm, which might as well have been a band of steel, and wild eyes pleaded with her to help. After a long moment, the scratching stopped, and the man passed out in their protector’s arms. Walking him back, he gently placed Daryl back into his seat, allowing him to slump over his keyboard as he detached the security keys just behind his badge.

Now they had to move. She lengthened her stride, and they reached the door to the stairs and pushed it open. The whole column of stairs was dark. They hadn’t accounted for no lighting when they were planning. She wanted to kick herself; this was what came of rushing things.

“Allow me.” Nimue’s voice skated over her oversensitive ears. Now that the door was closed behind them, all the sound was blocked out. Robin wasn’t used to so much silence. Every muscle in her body tensed as she watched what she thought was Nimue move, her hands creating the tiniest spark between them. She blew on it as if it were a real fire, and suddenly the tiny spark turned into an orb of yellow light swirling a few inches above her hand.

“I do have some skills,” she said, taking in their shocked expressions.

“Thank you.” Robin meant it. If she hadn’t been able to do that, they would be busy searching the unconscious guard and his desk for a flashlight.

They descended quickly and quietly until she saw a door that said: “Utility Closet.” They were just past the underground parking area, so Robin was willing to bet that the entrance to the private basement floors was around here somewhere.

“May I?” She looked at Dem as she held her hand out for the keys.

“Be my guest.” He dropped the warm metal into her hand. There were seven keys total on the keyring, and it was the fifth one she tried that opened the door. At first, when they looked in, they saw only cleaning supplies, but then there was a second door just to the left, which would have followed the pattern of the stairwell if it continued going down. She was about to try to open it with another key when Nimue asked her to wait.

Time ticked by. She knew, because it was so quiet, she could hear Dem’s watch. The sound of her pulse pounded in her ears.

“Okay.” Nimue nodded toward the door.

Robin lucked out, and the first key she tried opened it. Beyond it lay a badge scanner, which was down thanks to Ellie, and the rest of the stairs. The only problem was the wire mesh security door that could only be unlocked by the badge scanner. No keyhole present.

“May I?” Dem asked, mimicking her.

“Be my guest.” She echoed his own line back to him as she backed away from the door with a flourish.

In that moment, she was extremely glad that if she couldn’t have Hal with her, she had Dem. He was the biggest of the three brothers, with him and Hal being almost equal in height, and where Hal was beefy, Dem was ripped, which he demonstrated when he pulled the door’s mesh off. The muscles in his arms, back, and neck flexed as he moved it inch by inch.

The screech of the metal ripping out of the door it was soldered onto was almost deafening in the stairwell. Just as quickly as it had started, it was over. Dem’s arm reached through the gap he had created and opened the door from the other side. Apparently, they were so confident that whoever was being kept prisoner down there couldn’t get up here, that the badge-locking system was only in place on their side of the door.

Swinging the now-tattered metal door open, they continued down to the next floor.

“I’m in front. Nimue, keep an eye out for wards. Robin, look for your family.” Dem’s voice was low and nothing but business.

Nodding at him, Robin followed him through the first door, with Nimue just behind her. The scent of the cleaner was much heavier here, almost making her cough from the intensity of the acrid smell.

The hallway was similar to that of the conscripted employees’ upstairs, except there were none of the niceties. No wallpaper or paint, no carpet, no somewhat attractive light fixtures. Just concrete blocks and floors as far as the eye could see. The exposed bulb lights would have been painful on the eyes, if they were working. Thankfully, Nimue’s orb was a pleasant glow.

Dem went past the first set of opposing doors and stood guard while Robin peeked in.

The first room was a kitchen. The door looked similar to the others down the hall, but she was willing to bet that the rooms inside were mostly different from this one. Magazines and paperback books littered the table and chairs. The counter that ran around the outside of the room was filled with dirty dishes. Someone had been neglecting their chores. She moved over to the room on the other side. A cat’s eyes looked out from the corner of the room. Not a house cat. A large cat. Robin couldn’t tell what kind in the dim light. She turned and followed Dem to the next set of rooms. Again, she saw animals. This time a deer in one room and a wolf in another.

Something wasn’t right.

“Nimue, will you look into a room and tell me what you see?” she asked quietly, so as not to disturb any of the creatures that may be easily startled.

She nodded and looked into the room where Robin had seen the wolf. Before Nimue could speak, a woman’s voice called out from behind Robin.

“You don’t work here, do you?” A long thin arm hung out of the barred window Robin had just peered through.

There had been a giant cat in there. She knew she hadn’t hallucinated it. The reflective eyes staring back at her, the gleam of the fur in the faint light, she had seen those things, but now a young woman stood in the room where the cat had previously been. Robin hadn’t been aware that she had walked over, but now she stood in front of the woman.

Bright gold eyes stared back at her, long black hair outlining her face. Nimue came closer, and so did the light, making the scarab pendant the woman in the cell was wearing wink and shimmer.

“No, we don’t.” Robin’s mouth had moved, but her brain had stalled.

“Can you get us out of here? Please? All you have to do is open the door. That’s it!” The golden eyes were wide with panic now, but there was maybe a touch of excitement as she brushed inky strands away from her face.

“You . . . You were a cat.”

“Umm . . . maybe? I thought you’d know what the deal was if you were coming down here.” Her black slashes of eyebrow pinched together.

“How can we help you get out?” Robin shut the stunned part of her mind up and just let go. She could examine the memory of what she saw later. “Nim?” She used the shortened version she’d heard Randall using, since she wasn’t sure Nimue would want to be outed like that.

“There are enchantments on all the doors. Give me a moment.”

“How do we know you are safe to release?” Dem’s voice startled her. She hadn’t even thought of that.

“We are being held prisoner by a corporation, not the government, not in jail or an actual prison. We were given a life sentence without even being read our rights. How could you keep us in here?” She spat the words out at him.

“Dem, no one deserves this. Aster was here, remember? Someone is probably looking for these people too. They have families and loved ones, just like Aster did. The only difference is I couldn’t help them, since I didn’t know most of them were here. Now I do, and I’m not about to leave them behind.”

Nimue threw her head back with tightly closed eyes. The orb of light flickered but hovered where her hand had been as she opened her arms out to each side, moving them forward inch by inch. Her body shook with the effort. Every movement made a tremor run through her. But Robin could feel the magic breaking. Almost as if her ears were popping as each door was freed of its magical locks.

“Call in our backup. We need someone to get them out of here,” Robin said, glancing at Dem, who looked none too happy. When he didn’t immediately reach for his phone, she said, “I can if you don’t want to.”

Pulling the thin black device out, Dem’s fingers became a blur over the keypad, before he tucked it into a back pocket. By the time Nimue was done, Robin had started unlocking the doors after figuring out which key to use, and Thad appeared in the doorway.

“Thanks for getting here so fast.” Robin smiled over at him. “Can you lead these people out?”

“Um. Sure? What’s going on?”

“Robin’s a soft touch and can’t leave anyone behind,” Dem grumbled.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s just a grouch. I wouldn’t leave anyone behind, either, if I didn’t have to.” Thad’s eyes gleamed in the faint light, looking all the more eerie.

“They must go out through the front door. That is where the hole in the ward is. If they leave another way, I am not sure what will happen. Thank you.” The thanks that Nimue added seemed like an afterthought, which made Robin smile.

“Sounds good.”

Thad began speaking to each of the individuals who had been released from the cells, whether they were in human form or . . . not. He spoke to them all equally. Her eyes searched the growing crowd for her parents. As no one else joined, her heart sank.

Just before they left, the cat lady reached out, her elegant fingers brushing Robin’s arm. “Thank you. If I can ever repay the favor, call for me with this.” She unhooked the scarab necklace and placed it in Robin’s hand.

“You don’t need to—”

“Do not be ungrateful. You saved my life. I owe you a blood debt.”

“What’s your name?”

“Amisi.” The woman smiled, her golden eyes glowing in the light.

“Take care, Amisi.”

She nodded and followed the crowd out.

“We should walk the hallway to make sure there is no one left.” Dem’s voice was curt. He was unhappy with her choice.

The three of them walked in silence as they covered the ground. The empty floor seemed full of echoes now that the doors were open. When they found nothing but empty rooms, they went down to the next floor. It was similar, but slightly different.

Before they could even step foot through the doorway, they heard voices. Guards.

“I don’t like this, man.”

“Protocol is to stay at your post, so that’s what we are doing, Evanston. Now, tell me about the last movie you saw.”

The other man, Evanston, started prattling on about spaceships and aliens. Dem made eye contact with Nimue and Robin, motioning for them to stay put and quiet. His eyes were hard, and his face might as well have been chiseled from stone. It almost seemed like he was waiting for an argument from them, but he wasn’t going to get one. She knew they would be liabilities in a situation like this.

Robin watched as the man in front of her changed from stiff soldier to lethal predator. He moved with an almost feline grace that she wouldn’t have expected from a man his size. He disappeared into a room, and she heard a thud followed by a startled grunt and another thud. The stiff soldier returned, waving them forward.

The rooms on this floor were bigger, and as she peeked in through the window, she immediately knew why. These were the rooms where the guards interrogated the prisoners. She had watched the guards interrogate Aster in one of these rooms. They were designed to allow the guards to use whatever method they felt appropriate to get the answers they needed.

Thick metal chairs were bolted to the floor in the center of the room, with a light that could be used directly in front of them. To each side were folding chairs and cabinets containing instruments that had given her nightmares when she had first seen them.

As they moved down the hall, she was happy to discover that the rooms they passed were empty. A fact that also terrified her. Where the hell was her family? And what were the guards doing on this floor if the rooms weren’t occupied?

They were, though. She just hadn’t seen it yet. A man she didn’t recognize was chained to a chair in one room. She turned to look in the other room, and her heart stopped.

Her mother and her sister were handcuffed and chained to the wall at the back of the cell while another guard paced around her father, who was handcuffed to the chair. As she peered into the room from the hallway, her mother’s eyes widened, and she began violently shaking her head, tears streaming down her face.

“What the hell is wrong now?” The guard walked over to her, backhanding her across the face.

“S-S-Sorry.”

Robin turned the key in the lock as quietly as possible, and she knew without turning that Nimue was releasing the magic lock on the door. Her ears popped, and she turned the key the final little bit. There was an audible click that froze her in place. Footsteps came toward them.

“Mom! Stop! He’s just going to hit you again!” Caitlyn’s voice rang out in fear as her mom let loose a sob.

“I can’t hear myself think with you going on like that. Shut the hell up!” The guard seethed with anger as he headed back in the direction of her mother.

Dem moved Robin out of the way, and Nimue, who had already been out of sight, became as still as a statue. He pressed his ear to the door, listening to the movements inside. He peered inside and dropped back down again.

She caught a scent she wasn’t used to, but it was familiar, reminding her of summers as a child and thunderstorms. Fog filled the hallway.

Dem.

She had been wondering how he could control water. The visibility dropped, and it was only when she heard the handle of the door turn that she realized he was using the cloud he had created as cover. A confused grunt sounded from inside the room, before she heard a fist connecting with flesh, followed by a thud. If she was going to keep hanging out with these guys, then she needed to learn to fight. She hated feeling useless.

The fog seemed to get sucked up. As Robin watched, it condensed around Dem before seeming to just become part of him. If she had been asked to guess how he controlled water, this would not have been her first, or even her tenth, guess.

Taking in the guard sprawled across the floor and Dem standing over him, she knew that without having this unlikely companion, she would have failed at rescuing her parents and would be stuck back with Randall.

“Mom? Caitlyn?” Robin’s voice sounded shaky to her own ears.

“Robin?” Caitlyn’s eyes bugged out of her head as she stared at her sister, whereas her mother and father couldn’t look at her.

“We’re here to get you out.” She sighed, thankful to have found them. The keys jangled in her hand as she began trying each one on the lock that kept their arms raised over their heads.

None of them worked.

“Does he have any keys on him?” She turned to Dem, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

“No. I’ll go check the other guards. Stay here.” He pointed at Robin and then Nimue as he walked out.

“I’m so glad we found you. We’re going to get you out of here and then get you somewhere safe.”

“One of your friends told us that we were safe before, and look where we ended up.” The venom in her father’s voice surprised her.

The rush of anger scorched her cheeks, and she was sure they were flaming red. “You led them to the safe house, not me! If you had given up betting like you told me you were going to when you sold me to Randall Fields, then you wouldn’t be in this mess. You just can’t keep away from the track, though, can you!”

“Mom, what’s Robin talking about?” Caitlyn’s voice was small, tight with fear.

“It doesn’t matter now.” Her mother cooed at her little sister.

“It doesn’t matter? Are you serious?” Robin turned from her mom to her little sister. Looking at either of her parents made her sick to her stomach. “Dad sold me to a man who made me watch who knows how many people die, just because he wanted to test my abilities, let alone the fact that he controlled every inch of my life, of my body. The contract that he and I signed gave Randall complete control over the length of my service to him. It was twenty years at the beginning, and I know to the depths of my soul that even if I had survived those twenty years, he wouldn’t have let me go, especially since he could add years for any perceived infraction.

“All that to pay off a gambling debt. You know what he told me on the drive over, before he and I watched Randall kill two men, before he pushed me into the arms of a murderer? He promised me that giving me up was the hardest thing he had ever done and that he would never gamble again because of it. He promised me as he used me to pay a debt.

“Then when I couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to escape becoming Randall’s personal sex toy, I made sure you were all safe because I knew what kind of man Fields was. I knew he would kill each of you to get to me. It was only then that I even tried to run. And he risked all of that and betrayed the one promise I begged him to keep, just so he could lose money.” Her chest heaved as she finished speaking.

Without thinking, she turned on her heel and was about to walk out, the rage flowing inside her too much to deal with in front of her family right now, when she saw Dem standing in the doorway. Fury contorted his features, and she knew he had heard more than she had ever planned on sharing with him.

Whipping his phone out, his fingers flew over the buttons once more. She had no idea what he was saying or to whom, but as he marched past her with a different set of keys in hand, she walked out. Once she was out of the room, not looking at the parents who had abandoned her so easily, the pain became too much. Tears streaked down her face, and she slid down the concrete wall, curling into a ball on the floor. She gave herself sixty seconds to feel this, and then she had to pack it up once more so they could escape this wretched building.

Footsteps approached from the hall. Glancing up, she saw Thad, distorted by tears, and waved him through into the room. The boys’ voices were quiet, and she couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she knew she had to get a handle on her emotions. Her sixty seconds were up.

Wiping her eyes and tear-stained cheeks, she started to push herself up. Nimue was there, her touch gentle, as she helped Robin stand. The woman embraced her, squeezing her tightly. It almost caused the tears to start once more, but she let go just in time. Robin nodded at the woman and cleared her throat before going back into the room.

Everyone was free and standing.

“Thad isn’t comfortable jumping your mom and your sister out through such a small hole in the enchantments, so we are just going to walk everyone out.”

“There are more stairs going down. Don’t you want to see where they lead? What if there are more people trapped down there?” Robin’s voice was rough and strained in her own ears as she carefully kept her eyes from going to her family. She knew if they did, then the storm of emotions inside her would just bring her to her knees once more.

“We don’t have time. Ellie is getting tired. Whatever or whoever is down there is not what we came for. Right now we need to get out and get safe, before any of the other guards realize what’s up. We’ve been insanely lucky so far.” Thad was the voice of reason.

Robin nodded. She hadn’t thought about Ellie. Guilt swamped her. She glanced over at Dem, who was currently giving her father a death stare. This was going to be interesting.

They walked out, up the stairs and into the lobby. There were some people milling around, but no one she recognized. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t recognize her, though, so she pulled her ponytail out and used it to hide her profile as they passed the group.

Complaints about the power being out and the fact that they weren’t just released to go home seemed to be all the group was worried about. She knew that if they could go home, then they weren’t any of the employees who could have recognized her.

The security guard from the front desk was missing from his post. She dropped the set of keys they had taken from him on the desk and walked out into the sunshine.

Finally, they were back on the island, and for the first time, she felt like she could take a deep breath. It was only a matter of seconds, though, before her mind jumped forward and started focusing on rescuing Hal. She walked away from her family, knowing they were safe and couldn’t cause trouble, so she could save the man who had stolen her heart.

* * *

Hal wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep fighting. The woman lending Randall her support was on the ground, in pain and exhausted, but the man just kept coming at him. His own body was becoming stiff as it tried to protect itself from further damage.

“You’re all a bunch of cowards!” Poseidon yelled, as another one of his rages came on.

His moods seemed to ebb and flow like the ocean itself. One minute he would be quiet, observing the fight, and the next he would be yelling at the purple cloaks, trying to bait them into lowering the circle. It appeared he was trying to bait them once more. Hal sighed as he circled around, making Randall work for his next hit. The god might feel better raging at the masks on the other side, but it was damn distracting when he was trying to concentrate on staying conscious.

“You know what? Screw this! And screw all of you!”

The ground under them rumbled, and Hal almost lost his footing. He really hoped that the god known as the Earth Shaker had more than that if he hoped to accomplish anything.

Poseidon slowly began raising his arms. Water began pouring in through minute cracks in the floor, covering everything up to the barrier faster than Hal thought possible. The fight was getting more complicated as the water rose higher. It slowly crept up Hal’s legs until he was wading back and forth through it, trying to stay out of Randall’s reach.

The frustration on his opponent’s face was clear, but it didn’t stop him and barely slowed him down. Hal focused on the water around him, pulling a wave of it from behind Randall’s legs, pushing him off balance.

When the dark swath of hair went under the water, he knew this was his opportunity. One Hal couldn’t waste. Jumping on top of Randall, he held him down with one knee and most of his weight on the man’s back, forcing his opponent to struggle against his larger frame. It was when the woman on the floor started gasping for breath that he pulled the scrawny man up.

Taking a deep, shaking breath followed by a hacking cough, Randall went to turn to attack Hal once more, but this time Hal’s arm snaked around his neck, putting him in a choke hold.

Before he could do anything further, a great crack sounded, making his ears ring with pain. Lightning streaked out from the wall behind him, bouncing off the invisible shield holding not only them but the water in. Hal knew as soon as he saw it that they were screwed. He had only released Randall by a fraction of an inch when the lightning connected with the water. The pain exploded through him at an intensity he’d never felt before. Every muscle in his body locked up, and as the water rushed out of the room, he followed it to the floor, with Randall landing beside him. The last thing he saw was the woman who had been suffering to help Randall. She was still conscious, unlike the man she’d been connected to. Perhaps the bond broke when one of the members lost consciousness, but as her body collapsed to the floor, he gave up trying to think past the pain.

“I told you not to interfere,” the High Brother’s voice scolded, before screams began ripping through the air.

Hal knew he should be concerned about what was happening, but he couldn’t move. Every single hair on his body hurt. His skin felt like it was on fire, and that was all he could think about.