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“I’m not a vampire. I’m a Shadow, like you. Has PARA checked your blood?”

Her face paled slightly. “Yes.”

Pax cursed under his breath at her pained answer. They’d been testing her blood just like Amaros guessed they would. What was so special about her? About Kali? Was their blood different from other Shadows?

“We’re getting you away from PARA,” Pax said gently. “They won’t touch you again.”

“And why should I believe you?” she spat out, her eyes darting between me and Pax. “You two could be just as bad as the man you just killed.”

We were worse.But since she wasn’t our enemy, she didn’t need to know that. I bit my tongue when she lifted her chin and scowled at us. It was a mind fuck seeing the look that Kalihad given me hundreds of times when she wasn’t the woman standing in front of me.

“We need to go,” I growled out impatiently. “There is a small window before we get caught.”

Pax stepped up beside me, looking at Keeva. “You have no reason to trust us. But we don’t want to hurt you. If you stay here, PARA won’t stop torturing you like they’ve been your entire life.”

Indecision swept across her face as she crossed her arms. “Fine. But if you hurt me, I won’t stop trying to kill you.”

I chuckled humorlessly. If she possessed the growing strength that Kali had, she could probably get away from us if she really tried. I guessed she had no idea the power she had inside her.

I crouched down and untied the boots of the dead PARA member. “You need to put his uniform on. It’s going to be big, but we have to make it work. It’s the only way we’ll get back on the convoy without detection.”

She nodded stiffly, not uttering a word. I heard Pax shift behind me before he began speaking.

“When we leave, you’ll stay here until Norman wakes up,” Pax said in a calm voice as he entranced the remaining guard. “When you alert the others what happened, you’ll tell them that Norman is a new vampire, and he was trying to help Keeva escape. When he tries to tell anyone that we were here, you will say that he is lying. We were never here. It was all Norman. But he got caught.”

I yanked off the boot before working on the other one. I doubted PARA would believe that Norman was doing this on his own. But none of it mattered, which was why I turned him. By the time PARA realizes that new vampires are practically human, it wouldn’t matter. This war had already started.

“We need to go,” Pax hissed. “I can hear them downstairs. They’re already getting set to leave.”

I rushed to take the rest of the clothes off. We had a few vampires from Deadwood make a ruckus in the woods so that another convoy would go out tonight, but if we didn’t get on it, we had no other plan to get out.

“Am I going to meet my twin?” Keeva asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” I answered gruffly.

I only hoped we could get both of them away from Amaros.

Chapter 17

Kali

Istared at the door of the cage, halting the pacing I’d been doing for the last couple of hours. I’d been exerting my energy trying to listen to everything I could upstairs, and while it was still a struggle to throw my hearing like I know Shadows could do, I could hear everything perfectly at the top of the stairs. Which was why I knew a new vampire was now guarding the door above me, meaning the sun was up.

Viggo had brought me back down here hours ago after I’d entranced Jasper at the Pen. While that conversation was playing on repeat in my head, there was something even stronger that was plaguing me.Blood.I knew the cravings would come, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so overwhelming. It was hard to concentrate on anything else, which was highly aggravating when I had so much to plan.

If I had more time, I would have made sure everything was precise to be sure this worked. But Amaros could possibly be back by tonight.

I had every intention to be gone before then.

Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath, attempting to think past my dry mouth. My body was craving blood so muchthat I would do nearly anything to get it. Maybe that was partly how I found the strength to break the cage door. Or maybe it was because I knew this could be my only chance to slip away with Amaros gone. Either way, I’d been staring at the wide-open door for the last hour, waiting for the sun to rise.

Now it was time.

My heart beat unevenly as I stepped out of the cage. Tilting my head, I focused again, trying to find Viggo’s voice upstairs. But he was either too far away or silent because I hadn’t heard him since he brought me back down here. If he caught on to what I was doing, he’d try to stop me.

Rolling my shoulders, I pushed past the doubt that was swallowing me as I jogged toward the stairs. Taking two steps at a time, I hurried, knowing the vampire guarding the stairs would hear me. A moment later, the door swung open, the vampire’s head popping into view, his eyes widening when he saw me.

“Hey, you’re not supposed?—”