“I’m going in,” Blake growled.

“Wait!” Samson cautioned, but Blake was already running.

“Cover me!”

~ ~ ~

Lilo paced back and forth in Blake’s office. There wasn’t even a window to help her wile away the time, something she hadn’t noticed until Blake had left. Every few minutes she looked at the clock on his wall. There were actually three clocks. One showed the current time, the second counted down to sunrise, the third to sunset. And the less time there was left until sunrise, the more nervous she became.

She wished somebody would tell her what was happening. Had Ronny’s associates brought Hannah with them? What was happening right now? Were they all safe?

The ringing of Blake’s phone made her jump. She raced toward it and grabbed the receiver, afraid that the ringing would stop before she could get to it.

“Blake?”

“Lilo? Oh thank God, it’s you.”

The female voice couldn’t possibly belong to the person she thought. “Hannah?”

“Yes, Lilo, it’s me. Oh God! It’s terrible. I’m free, but Lilo, he’s hurt so bad. Blake is hurt so bad, and some of the others, they’re dead. I don’t know what to do.”

An iron fist clamped around her heart and squeezed. “Blake? Oh no! Please no!” She couldn’t go through this again. She’d almost lost him once, she wouldn’t survive a second time.

“Listen, Lilo. I’m in Blake’s car. He’s with me. We’ll be at HQ in a minute. But I don’t have the strength to get him into the building. He’s too badly hurt, he can’t move on his own. Help me!”

“I’ll be down there. Please, Hannah, hurry. I can’t lose him.”

She slammed the receiver down and charged to the door, ripped it open and ran for the elevator, pressing the button several times before the doors opened. She jumped in. The ride down to the first floor couldn’t have taken more than fifteen seconds, but it felt like an eternity. All she could think of was Blake. He was hurt. He needed her.

Oh God, what had happened at Fort Mason? What had these monsters done to the men of Scanguards? How many of them had died? A sob worked itself up from the pit of her stomach to her throat. She tried to force it down. Blake needed her. She had to remain strong.

When she reached the first floor she practically flew through the lobby, ignoring the questioning look of the woman behind the reception desk.

A guard stood at the glass exit door. He glanced at her visitor badge and nodded as she breezed past him and barreled outside onto the sidewalk.

She searched for Blake’s Aston Martin, but couldn’t see it. Had Hannah not gotten here yet?

Please, please!

She prayed silently. Don’t let him die.

“Lilo! Here!”

She whirled her head to the side and saw Hannah wave to her from the corner. “He’s here.”

Lilo ran toward her friend. “Hannah!” She’d never been more relieved to see her friend. Hannah looked exhausted and worn out, dark circles under her eyes, her red hair an unruly mess, her clothes rumpled.

When Lilo reached her, Hannah was already running toward the car, which was parked halfway down the block.

“You should have double-parked right in front!” Lilo called out, tears brimming at her eyes. How were they gonna carry Blake inside?

“Help me, Lilo!” Hannah waved to her as she opened the passenger door of Blake’s car. “Quickly. He hasn’t got much time left.”

She raced to the car, and Hannah stepped aside, so she could tend to Blake. Lilo reached out and bent toward the interior—but nobody was sitting in the passenger seat.

“Where is he?” She spun her head to Hannah, but it was too late.

Her friend pressed a cloth to her face. Lilo gasped in surprise and sucked in the vapors emanating from the cloth: chloroform.

“No! Help!” But nobody heard her muffled cries.

She tried to fight it, but all the strength seeped from her body and she collapsed, darkness descending on her.

39

Blake stared at the human who’d arrived with a small motorboat and then calmly walked into the arms of the vampires waiting for him. With a permanent marker somebody had written For Scanguards on his white T-shirt.

“They sent a fucking pawn!” Blake ground out, while the man continued to stare blankly into the distance.

“Drugged out, just like the other guy,” Wesley confirmed. “They must have known we were coming.”

Blake kicked against a trashcan. “Fuck!” No matter how careful they’d been, he’d always known that there was a chance that Norwood and his guys had been watching Ronny, though there hadn’t been any indication of it. “How’re we gonna find Hannah now?”

Several of his colleagues grunted in displeasure, and in the midst of it all, his cell phone vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the display.

Pressing the answer key, he said, “Thomas?”

“Can you talk?”

“Yeah, they didn’t show. They sent a drugged human instead. No sign of Hannah.”

“I wish I could say I was surprised, but I just got alerted that Hannah’s access card was swiped to enter the garage.”

“You mean somebody took her access card and managed to get inside Scanguards? How is that even possible?” There were more levels of security than just the access card. “They would have had to have her fingerprint, too.”

“I know. That’s why I pulled the video feeds from the levels accessed with Hannah’s card. Hold on.” He paused for a second. “Thanks, Eddie. Blake, you’re not gonna believe this: Hannah entered the garage. It’s her, without a doubt. She went to the main parking level and accessed the emergency key hold.”

This made no sense. “If she escaped somehow, then why wouldn’t she just go upstairs to the staff office and report back?”

“Blake, I don’t think she escaped. There’s something about her… Eddie, zoom in on her face again… There! Blake, I think she’s drugged.”

“Oh shit! Where did she go?”

“That’s just it, she took one of the keys, then went to parking level B2. Eddie, go to the recording for level B2… There, she comes out of the elevator, heads for the cars. Oh no.”

“What?” Blake barked into the phone.