Talia shook her head once, sharply. No.
He raised his hand to the keypad, but a suffocating pressure built in his chest. He turned to her, grabbing her shoulders and abandoning all dignity to plead, “Please, go back. I can’t let you in there. Not even for Custo. I just can’t. I won’t deliver you into their hands. Will you go back to the club? Will you go back for me?”
“I’m going inside that building for you,” she said in a jagged whisper, but whether it was because of emotion or her injury, he couldn’t tell.
“Damn it, Talia. I should never have had sex with you. I told you that we couldn’t have a ‘you and me’ right now.” He released her abruptly, shoving her away from the door. “Don’t lose the war because of some sentimental attachment you have formed in a stressful situation.”
Talia stepped forward again. Her black eyes glinted dangerously. “I choose my own battles, not you. Don’t make me try to find a way inside on my own. It will only cost Custo time.”
She waved him back to the keypad.
Damn it. Abigail was right: Talia was determined to follow. He should’ve tied her down somewhere. Too late now. Too late for everything now.
He coded inside. The small lobby was empty. “Stairs or elevator?”
“Elevator’s faster,” Talia answered.
Fine. He sheltered her body as he punched the pad at the elevator. The metal door slid open.
Empty.
Talia stepped around him and entered. “I think we should do this Dark.” She lifted an eyebrow waiting for his response.
He stepped inside beside her, lacing his fingers through hers, and pulled her against the side wall. “Dark sounds good.”
Shadows caressed him, feathering lightly across his body like an extension of Talia. His perspective altered, senses sharpening as the physical world deepened and became more distinct, hyperaware of the environment. Of Talia’s slender, warm hand in his.
The steel box had them to the top of the building in five seconds.
Adam gripped her hand. “Here we go.”
The elevator door slid open, and Talia sent a churning wave of darkness tumbling into the room. The flood of shadow poured out from her and filled the great room of the loft, skating across the floors and climbing the walls until the space was thick with the watery veils that separated the mundane world from the Otherworld in a wash of obscurity.
Armored men knelt in assault position, aiming toward the elevator as shadow-blindness overcame them. They were clothed in bulky black, as if that color could hide anything from her, and they wore gas masks. Behind the men were two wraiths moving around the perimeter of the room with the slow, predatory fluidity of a mudslide.
Talia sniffed the air. A faint trace of the sickly chemical tang still lingered. There was too much at stake for her to succumb to that again.
The loft needed air.
Talia reached for the window with the fingers of her shadows, tracing the splintered cracks in the glass from the earlier impacts. She insinuated darkness into the thick panes with a gentle, but building, insistent pressure. With a hiss, a crack darted, gashing through the window. The heavy glass buckled and slid to crash partly on the loft’s floors and partly on the sidewalk many stories below. But Talia let no sunlight penetrate the loft as fresh air replaced poisoned.
“Whoa,” Adam murmured, gaze slanting down at her. Was that respect in his eyes?
He tugged her hand, pulled her toward the kitchen, and brought them both to their knees behind the kitchen counter. He silently slid open a drawer and selected a knife, which he tucked into his belt. He pulled out a second, a short utility knife, and held it out to her.
No. She shook her head. She could protect him, but she wouldn’t kill anyone.
He pressed the blade into her hand. “You asked to come,” he reminded her. “Now take the damn knife and use it, if necessary.”
Her fingers closed around the wooden grip. She had no handy place to stow it—the elastic waistband of Adam’s sweatpants was too loose on her waist.
Adam ducked his head to hers and murmured, “Can you see Custo?”
She shook her head. No. But she could see a spray of blood on the wall in keeping with Adam’s stark, abstract paintings. An aggressive red splatter on white evoking Jackson Pollock.
Custo was here, and he had met with violence.
“The bedroom, most likely,” he said through gritted teeth.
But he didn’t move. Resolute anguish swept across the connection of their hands.
Talia understood why. If they both crept to the bedroom, the shadows would lift in the great room, allowing the men and wraiths to corner them. But Adam wouldn’t leave her alone to keep the place cloaked in shadow either, not in a room of guns and wraiths. His first priority was the war, so he had to protect her before saving his friend.
“You just have to trust me,” Talia whispered. She wasn’t afraid. Hiding was what she did best.
He shot her a tormented look.
Talia squeezed his hand, wishing he could feel her emotions for once. She resorted to words. “I hid in shadow for months without detection, I can handle a few minutes while you get Custo.”
“But—”
“No time for ‘buts.’ I’ll hold these men here, in the dark. I’m not afraid—this is my territory. I’ll be safe. Trust me to handle myself.”
Adam hesitated, indecision mixing with his worry.
“Go on.” She released her hold on his hand and waited for him to do the same.
Urgent focus surged within him. He pulled her close to stroke her face, a soft caress across the plane of her cheek, and murmured, “I’ll be right back.”
Adam touched the right angles of the refrigerator and moved around the side to the alcove where his work station was located. The foot of the desk indicated that he’d reached the turn to the hallway, but the chair was missing. He crawled through the space until the shadows weakened and he could see the outline of his hand on the floor.
He stood, gun in hand, and approached the diluted line of vertical light at the bedroom door.
The door swung open, a female wraith bolting from the room in an eerie glide.
Adam shot her in the head and kicked her body back inside, where the shadows were thinner yet, Talia’s reach weakening. The wraith hit the edge at the end of the bed awkwardly and thunked to the floor to regenerate while stinking up the place.
“Hello, Adam.”
Spencer stood in the center of the room, outfitted in black gear like his team and aiming a gun his way. His stance blocked Adam’s view of a person bound to a chair behind him.
Alive. Please be alive.
Adam braced and kept a throttle hold on his thumping heart, sweat burning through his skin with the effort, as he shifted to the side to get a better look.
Custo sat in the office chair, hands bound to the armrests, feet bound to the legs of the chair, one ankle cruelly skewed. His head lolled forward, blood staining his shirt and the lap of his pants. The faint acrid smell of urine made Adam grit his teeth.
Hold on, Custo. Stay alive.
He sighted down the barrel at Spencer’s head, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation of the sweet satisfaction of pulling the trigger. Spencer was going to die, had to die. Right now. “Why? You son of a bitch. Why?”
Spencer kept his gun steady. “I was sure he knew where you were, he always does. But this is much easier. Him bringing you and the girl to me. Really very convenient.”
“How could you do this?”