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Roark turned.

Darien motioned, and Roark began walking this way.

When he was halfway here, Darien gestured to the madhouse of a parking lot. “Think you can help us get out of this cluster-fuck?”

Roark shifted his focus to Loren, who peeked around the open door, one foot on the running board, then to his other daughter climbing into the truck bed. “Give me two minutes.”

It took him less than that before his soldiers were clearing a path—one that would lead them through the exit and onto the highway. That highway was packed with evacuating cars, but it was better than being caged in this chaotic lot any longer.

“Here, give me those,” Darien said, taking Loren’s soda and panini out of her hands so she could get in easier.

“I can carry them—” she tried.

“So can I.” The last thing he needed was her falling. “Catch,” he said to Roman, throwing one item at a time, and then faced Loren.

“I know you’re upset right now,” he said quietly, noting the splotches of pink in her cheeks and the telltale shine in her eyes. “But you need to keep it together and focus on staying alive. If not for yourself, then for me. Now step up.”

She was about to do as he’d asked when the spitting of rapid-fire gunshots made everyone pause.

Several blocks away, soldiers were in the thick of combat, the bright flashes of fired bullets bouncing down the streets.

Monsters shrieked and roared. People—soldiers among them—screamed as claws and teeth ripped into them.

CRACK.

Darien grabbed onto the open truck door with one hand, his other arm wrapping tightly around Loren’s waist as the city shook, the ground vibrating beneath his boots.

With Loren clutching his arm, he tipped his head back, peering at the sky as the interdimensional portal that stretched from below ground to the heavens ripped open right before theireyes. The area visibly darkened as more shadows billowed out of the Void, winged creatures moving through the mass as they left the land of the dead and entered the living. Their haunting cries could curdle blood.

The streetlights went out—not just flicking off, butshatteringwith sprays of glass. More people screamed as the windows glowing in apartment buildings flickered and went dark, those that were closer to the ground smashing out.

Roark may have told them they had until noon tomorrow to get out, but they’d be lucky if they survived for that long.

“We have to go!”Roman thundered.

“Step up, please,” Darien said, gesturing for Loren to get in.

She stepped up?—

CRACKKKKKK.

The city shook again—harder than before.

Loren’s boot slipped on the wet running board, and she thumped against the rattling truck, falling backward?—

Darien dove, catching her.

But he wasn’t fast enough—not with the city still shaking with the force of a high-magnitude earthquake.

Not fast enough to stop her limp body from bowing over his arms as he caught her, the back of her head smacking against the ground.

The others were shouting—jumping out of the truck to help.

But Darien couldn’t focus on anything apart from Loren’s face—eerily peaceful, a line of blood trickling out of each nostril. And her heart?—

She wasn’t breathing.

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