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“We’ll meet you downstairs in two minutes,” Kaden said.

“Two minutes? I had you pegged for at least five,” Cookie shouted back. Her laughter rang out and faded as she walked downstairs.

“See? You have to make it back. I can’t be left alone with these people.”

Cookie and the guys were waiting downstairs when I got there.

“No one is hugging,” Cookie said before I made it to the last step. “We’re warriors going into battle, and no one is damned dying, so there will be no acting as such.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Now you two head out, and you know we’ll be right behind you.”

Hank was waiting by the door. Instead of opening it, he stepped in front of it. “We chose a side,” he said. “We don’t choose sides. It’s bad for business. That means you’re going to have to win, all right?”

“I plan on it,” I said.

Hank moved to open the door. Kaden stood beside it. His hands were in fists as the door opened. The cords in his neck were so tight they looked like they might snap. He’d probably never waited on the sidelines in his life.

“I can do this,” I said softly, laying my hand on his chest.

“That, I don’t doubt. Now go get him before I drag you in the bushes for five whole minutes.”

I laughed, and then I left.

I’d only taken a few steps out of the woods before I was seen by one of the many guards around the fortress.

I approached slowly as they all aimed weapons at me but seemed wary to do anything else, like they were shocked to see me there alone.

“Tell your master that Billie is here to see him.”

Nobody moved for a second, and then one of them finally broke ranks and hurried inside.

The rest surrounded me, and then one of them, obviously the highest ranking, said, “Inside.”

“No. I’ll talk to Herrick out here.”

“Inside,” he repeated, but stayed right where he was. No one came too close. They’d been warned about me, or maybe heard the whispers. The outing had worked just as we’d hoped.

“We need him out of the fortress. That place is hard to breach. We lure the head of the snake out,” Tiber had said.

They were too scared to approach me or force me forward. Herrick would have to come out of the fortress to me.

It was working. It was going to work.

The guard came back out and joined his comrades. “He says you need to come in.”

Okay, this was still going to plan. We’d thought Herrick would be resistant.

“No. He comes to me.”

“He said no. And that if you didn’t come in, to shoot you.”

Don’t panic.We’d known this could happen as well. It had been one of Kaden’s biggest fears. Along with what might come next.

“I’m not going to come in.” I shrugged.

“He’s not bluffing. He wants you dead, so this is your last chance to come willingly, or we will shoot.”

“I heard you,” I said, not moving an inch. I had to lure Herrick out if I could. If he didn’t, things got a lot stickier trying to get into the fortress.

I let images of the girls, stranded in a dead world for the rest of their lives, run through my mind. Cookie and the guys, being hunted. Kaden…