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F oxx swallowed hard. His pulse beating away in his throat, he once again had to shove back the rising panic. Anger would really only hold it off for so long. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

“I mean, he was here, and then he wasn’t! I didn’t see or hear anything!” Oceana practically screeched.

Harlow groaned. “Fucking hell, we don’t have time to look for him.”

The man was right, they didn’t. They didn’t even know how many people inside needed their help. He really should look. Harlow was too new to tell, but he’d be able to. Foxx should have listened, really listened, the second they’d stepped out of the car…but…he hadn’t been able to then. And he still couldn’t make himself do it now.

He was…scared. No, he was being a coward. But he just couldn’t. Foxx wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold it together if he knew.

Oceana winced. “I know, I know. We should… We should go in.”

Police Chief Wicklow suddenly said, “Brice!”

Another uniformed officer with brown hair, who was likely in his twenties, stepped to the man’s side, shouting, “Yes, Chief?!”

“Get this woman’s statement, then take two others with you from the new arrivals and start a search.”

The man nodded. Oceana hesitated for a moment before moving closer to the officer, but as soon as Foxx registered the interaction, he took off again. Heading around the right side of the building to the back, he rushed towards the small structure that extended out, Harlow following closely behind.

He slowed as he reached the front of the structure, eyeing the black door in the center as he approached. A door he knew led to a small hallway that would take them into the back of the building. It didn’t appear to be damaged, but it was hard to see the roof from this angle.

Grabbing the handle, Foxx tried to yank it open with a hard jerk, but when it didn’t budge, he gripped on with both hands.

The door mockingly remained in place as the handle popped off. Foxx screamed, “Fuck,” as he stumbled back into Harlow, the man steadying him.

Pulling away from the dhampir with a growl of frustration, Foxx tossed the handle onto the ground, barely holding back his urge to kick the door. But he did, as accidentally denting it inward would not help.

“Does anyone have a key?” Police Chief Wicklow asked with a grimace the moment he caught up with them.

Harlow shook his head. “Tony is the only one with a key. And while it is an emergency exit, it only opens from the inside. Like the other doors and windows in this place, it's meant to withstand a hell of a lot, due to who we go after.” The dhampir looked at him. “If we push our fingers into the seal together, we should be able to pry it open.”

“I didn’t realize you were a vampire now,” Wicklow mused.

“I’m not,” Harlow stated, flashing his set of double fangs.

The human’s brow pulled. “Right…”

“Enough talking. You take the top, I’ll take the bottom.” The screams may have become less frantic and more all around pain-filled now, and Foxx may have even been trying not to hear them, but the former didn’t change things, and his trying wasn’t working. He needed—they needed—to get inside, now!

Crouching down, Foxx stabbed his nails into the small gap between the door and the wall, and dug back until he felt the edge, uncaring at the tight fit. Once Harlow had done the same, objectively with more effort involved due to his larger hands, Foxx yelled, “Pull!”

He tugged with all his strength. At first, nothing happened, but then, finally, it started to move. There was a loud, prolonged screech as they broke the mechanism that was keeping the door closed, and forced it open. While it had looked undamaged from the outside, the truth quickly became apparent. The door frame had collapsed down on the door itself, making every inch they opened an ear-piercing effort.

As soon as the space was big enough for someone Harlow’s size to squeeze through, Foxx released the door edge and ran in, only to come to an abrupt stop as he found his way blocked by part of the collapsed ceiling.

With a growl, he unzipped his face shield and tossed back his hood, before beginning to shove the debris out of his way. While Harlow helped, the path wasn’t big enough for more than them, so the police stayed back and out of the way, as they tossed things out the open door.

Even if there was space, they would have just been in the way if they had tried to help. The debris he was lifting would have been too heavy for them individually. Metal beams, thick pipes, cement slabs, and more. It was…weird how much of it there was. It almost seemed too much to find above such a small space.

When they got down to one last pipe, Foxx hopped over it and took off at a run. Leaving the small hallway, he went right, as that was the only way to go. He didn't pause when he heard Harlow lift the last obstruction out of the way.

Some of the doors he passed were open, but the rooms were empty. Others were blocked, just as the exit had been, and some were charred, looking as if the entire room had been burned up, while a few seemed to have completely collapsed in on themselves.

Foxx slowed to a stop as he reached the bend in the hallway and came across his first body. Lying half in a doorway, was a man with a metal pipe lodged in his upper right thigh. It looked as if the pipe had pinned him to the floor. Half the human’s body was a blackened, charred mess, the floor beneath him covered in scorch marks.

While he didn’t know or even recognize the man, he knew that the human had likely still been alive when the fire ate at him. That fact was etched on his face, his expression twisted and frozen in a scream. Foxx forced himself to look away from the man’s glazed, empty stare as Harlow caught up.

Shaking his head, he rushed off again, trying to not look at the injured people he passed in the hall, even as he saw recognition in some of their eyes. Help was coming, the police would be with them soon. And they weren’t all alone, some were already being helped by the paranormals that had been in the building.

As for the ones that were dead…well, no one could help them now. Either way, Foxx wasn’t needed here. He didn’t need to help these specific people, right at this moment. And that was the lie he was sticking to.

Jumping through a few minor blockages along the way, as Foxx came around the left side of the building, and stepped into the large multi-desk office space that was shared by many of the handlers, he froze.

All around the room, people were screaming. There were blackened areas, and parts of the ceiling had collapsed. Again, there was more metal and beams, and just stuff that didn’t make sense in terms of how much of it there was.

Vampires, and a few lucky humans, along with the werewolves from Santiago’s pack, who’d been there after volunteering during the last case, were all moving around, trying to help. Some were already beyond help.

But even with all the begging going on around him, Foxx didn’t move, nor did he when the police rushed in. By his side now stood Harlow, who was staring exactly where Foxx was.

He could hear choices being made…some yeses, some nos. To live on as ‘other’, or die as a human. But the choices, who it was being offered to, none of that was really registering.

The tears that he’d been fighting off and on since the drive back, finally spilled over as Foxx stared into the space that had once been Tony’s office. Looking as if a bomb had gone off directly inside, all that was left now of the small space, with its always covered glass wall and boxy furniture, was a pile of twisted, burnt scrap metal.

When Harlow wrapped his arms around him, Foxx grabbed onto the man for support. “Gone… It’s all gone,” he croaked.