His soft chuckle brushed right over me. “Hmm, that’s going to demand a repeat performance.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Trouble.”
Silence wrapped around us, then he slipped his phone from his pocket. I braced for the screen light to blind me, but it didn’t come on.
“We’re going in now,” he said softly, then hit send.
A voice clip.
Phone back in pocket, he slipped a knife from its sheath. I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out the baton. It was the weapon I was the most comfortable with. It was also good in close quarters.
“Moving now.” Bodhi didn’t look back for me or offer me a hand. He trusted me to follow him.
He was just another shadow in the darkness, visible against the faint light outlining the two sconces near the main door. Or at least what I thought was the main door.
No sign of security to warn us off. Even when I searched for them, I didn’t see cameras. That did not mean they weren’t there. We wanted the strike to be surgical, quick and efficient. When I left this place, I wanted it to be with my arm around Andrea.
At the door, Bodhi reached for the handle and tested it. Locked.
“Keep watch,” he said over his shoulder and then he was kneeling. As curious as I was to watch him work, I planted myself against the edge of the alcove so I could scan the darkness.
The seconds ticked toward a minute and then there was a distinct sound of tumblers releasing.
“Eyes,” he warned and I raised a hand to shield my eyes when he turned the hand and pushed the door in. It gave the faintest of squeaks like maintenance on the hinges had been an afterthought.
Lights were on inside, but they were low, night burning lights, tucked up against the ceiling and in little vents along the walls that led up the stairs.
It illuminated a path, but it wasn’t blinding. Bodhi held one hand up to me as he eased inside. I swore, he moved more quietly than a cat. He scanned the left, then the right. With a nod, he curled his fingers to beckon me inside.
I pushed the door too, but I didn’t close it. We left it for the others. Bodhi headed for the stairs and I followed him up.
First floor were classrooms and practice rooms.
Second floor, more of the same. The stairs took us right to a juncture in the center that let you look down below. The fat square opening took up a lot of space. But it also didn’t have the next flight of stairs to take us up higher.
Like the first floor, this one was illuminated with dim track lighting. The pools of light were intermittent, probably because this wasn’t a residential floor. Made sense.
If anything made sense in this insane world.
The stairs were tucked at the end of the hall, these doubling back on each other to get us to the next floor. Bodhi turned to glance at me just as the click of a door touched my ears.
“Down,” Bodhi said and I dropped. The knife he’d been holding flew through the air and slammed into someone. There was a grunt.
A single grunt, but Bodhi was on him, hand wrapped around his throat and dragging him into a room that he’d probably exited.
It wasn’t a class room or practice room at all. It was an office. The man gurgled, but Bodhi didn’t let him make another sound. Then he was dead. I scanned the wall of monitors.
There were a dozen different kids on those monitors. Most of them were in rooms. They had cameras on them in their bedrooms. Cameras with night vision that let them see clearly.
I kind of wished the bastard was alive so we could—
Andrea.
“She’s here,” I whispered, fastening my gaze on my sister where she curled on her side. Hugging her pillow with a white knuckled grip that translated even over the grainy footage.
There were numbers at the bottom of the screens. Room numbers maybe. Andrea’s was 314. That was upstairs.
Bodhi stripped the guard of his weapons, then pulled his knife out so he could wipe it off on him. I scanned the other kids on the screens and blinked before taking a step closer to it.
The angle of the jaw.
The cheekbones.
The—
He looked like Bodhi. We needed to get all of these kids. If Bodhi’s sibling—Levi—was here, then there was a good chance we might have also found the third King child, Theo. It was hard to tell on the screens.
We’d be better off doing it in person. When I pulled away to look at Bodhi, he was checking the computer. “All of the security feeds through here. But there aren't any cameras outside.”
Disgust curled through me and Bodhi’s stony expression reflected my feelings.
“They won’t be in there any longer than absolutely necessary.”
He scooped up keys off the desk and nodded once. “Stay with me.”
“Never losing me,” I promised and that earned me a flash of a grin. On the third floor, the lighting didn’t change, but the doors did.
The locks were all located on the exterior. They weren’t securing their rooms from the inside. No, they were locked from the outside. When I found Juraj Vedriš, I was going to make sure they gutted him slowly.
