Chapter 9 · My Mother Is Calling

I can't leave Lucas here.

That's the only thing in my head as Drake yanks me toward the exit. His grip on my wrist is tight enough to bruise if I were human. Behind us, Vera's screaming something about treason and contamination, but the alarm's drowning her out. Red lights spin across the walls. Hunters are flooding the lower levels.

"Move," Drake snaps.

Lucas is half-conscious against my other side, his legs barely working. The stump where his right hand used to be is wrapped in my jacket, but it's already soaked through. He's shaking. The silver in his blood is eating him from the inside, same as Drake. My blood bought him maybe an hour. Maybe less.

"The garage," I say. "There's a service exit—"

"I know where it is." Drake cuts left down a maintenance corridor. His gun's in his free hand, barrel down but ready. He hasn't looked at me since the screens went dark. Since my mother's face filled every monitor in that room.

She's alive.

Four hundred years. Four hundred years I thought she was dead in that crypt, and she's been—what? Watching? Waiting? Setting traps?

"Ella." Lucas coughs, and there's blood on his lips.