The elevator inched down then picked up speed. It flew past us with Orion’s body still shielding mine, then dropped deeper and deeper into the well of darkness.
“You think it went all the way to the garage level?” Orion rumbled after the sound had faded.
I’d been counting seconds. Doing math in my head. I nodded. “I think so.”
Without further commentary, Orion pulled up the tracking app on his cell phone. At first, it told us nothing since the map only boasted horizontal axes, no way of displaying the vertical.
But then the tracking dot drifted sideways. Not in the direction it would have if it was inside Gabi’s apartment but rather the other way.
Julius might be moving a body, but I refused to believe that. No, it was a good sign Maya was being taken away from the apartment building. We needed to get the door to the hallway open and follow her. But first—
“There’s something,” I told Orion, “that we need to discuss.”
In the dim glow of the cell-phone light, I could see him tensing. He started to sidle away from me, even though there was no space to sidle on the elevator ledge.
Did he really think I was going to take him to task for his arm against my skin preventing me from getting tangled up in the elevator? When his sister was in danger?
I grabbed onto his wrist, suddenly terrified he’d give me too much space and fall into the vast emptiness yawning behind us. Then I returned to the topic at hand. “That was an ambush in Gabi’s apartment which means Julius knew we were coming. So who tipped him off?”
One beat, then Orion assured me: “No one in my pack.”
Which left the pack I’d recently been a part of. But despite breaking that connection, I spoke with certainty when I said: “Vega wouldn’t do that.”
Which left—“Finnegan,” I noted just as Orion said, “Hailey.”
“Hailey?” I couldn’t wrap my head around Orion’s accusation. But…maybe I could. The young woman I’d shared a house with was definitely part of Vega’s clan, but she didn’t seem to be related to anyone else there. Which meant she’d been taken in from outside—a plant inserted by the Council?
Plus, in the desert last night, Hailey had asked a question of the outpack that had been so vague the answer opened up more uncertainties than it closed. Her apology had smelled truthful. Still…
I didn’t want to accept the idea that the person who was starting to become my friend had betrayed us. But I needed to yank on that thread for Maya’s sake.
So I handed Orion’s phone back to him and pulled out my own. Vega, as my ex-alpha, was still top of my speed dial. The top of Orion’s, I noted while waiting for my call to connect, was the man I now knew was his half-brother—Donovan.
After that, our conversations intermingled like the air we breathed, pressing close together there on the dark ledge. “It’s me,” we both said, gazes colliding without meaning to. Orion half-smiled and my cheeks heated. He was the one who angled his neck away to give me space our bodies couldn’t actually take.
His voice was firm, though, as he ordered: “I need you to find out if Finnegan had access to any phones or computers since arriving.”
I kept my request briefer: “Do you trust Hailey?”
“Is she causing problems?” Vega sounded like my aunt again, which I guess is all she could be now that I’d broken our pack bond. “I knew she wouldn’t understand why I traded her. But perhaps you can help her make sense of it. The choice wasn’t a rejection of her role as my heir. It’s part of her training, proof of my confidence. Still, you can send her back if she’s a detriment.”
That hadn’t been what I was asking, but it answered my question anyway. Vega considered Hailey to be her heir, which meant she trusted the younger woman implicitly. She thought Hailey was in a snit, not that she was calling up the Council and relaying information behind our backs.
Still, I had to be sure. “How long has Hailey been part of your clan?”
“Five years? Six?”
Hailey would have been fourteen or fifteen at the time then. A child. Surely even the Council couldn’t expect to install a sleeper agent at such a young age and keep her at their beck and call indefinitely.
So—“Hailey’s not a problem,” I reassured my aunt. “She’s an asset.”
Then I placed another call and begged that asset to get Celeste out of the building now. No, I hadn’t forgotten my sister or the danger she was in. I just had to be sure the help I sent her didn’t make matters worse.
Orion ended his conversation at the same moment. Then he reopened the tracking app, which told us Maya remained within the building. Likely being loaded into a car or van for transport.
I was the one who stated the obvious. “We need to get out of this elevator shaft.”
“Brute force won’t open the doors,” Orion rumbled.
Since he’d already tried while in a fit of protective rage, I didn’t argue that my additional strength might help matters. Instead, I admitted. “I’m out of ideas.”
“I’m not,” Orion countered. “As long as you don’t mind losing more ink.”
Chapter 16
One of the pieces of cactus-scented clothing Orion had passed to me contained that handful of electrified sand in its pocket. And that was all we needed to call the desert magic toward us. Or so it seemed when Orion decanted bits of desert into his hand and electricity promptly raised hairs along both of my arms.
But he didn’t do anything else immediately. Instead, I was given time to shift my weight from foot to foot while imagining Julius searching Maya more thoroughly and finding the tracking bead. She wouldn’t have hidden it, just slipped it into a pocket. Why were we waiting when we couldn’t afford delay?
At long last, Orion caught my gaze and rumbled out words that seemed to have been building inside him ever since he’d turned lupine atop the elevator. “You’ve been having difficulties since breaking your pack bond.”
“Not so many difficulties I can’t do this job.” It was hard to remember the emptiness, actually, with his naked body pressed shoulder-to-shoulder up against my single layer of clothing.
Orion nodded as if he’d heard my thoughts as well as my words. “Still, you said friendship made it possible for you to be a lone wolf before. I’d like to offer you friendship now. No strings attached. No need to make further commitments until we’re both ready. Agreed?”
As he spoke, he extended a palm full of sand, and something settled inside me. Friendship wasn’t as exciting as when that same arm had slung itself around my waist and pressed our torsos so close together I could feel his breathing. But friendship was solid. It was dependable. It was…exactly what I needed right now.
So I placed my hand in his, grit grinding between us. And maybe it was friendship that made it so easy to act on instinct.
