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V ox came back out with Naomi in his arms. She was sobbing softly, and she had her face buried in his neck.

The anger and the horror that had already made a home in my chest ignited at the thought of sweet little Gnomes in such bad shape.

I met Vox’s eyes and immediately knew that whatever had happened in that room was bad. We’d been too late to spare Naomi any additional trauma.

Now was not the time to ask what happened, so I kept my mouth shut and glanced at Gavin.

‘He killed the guard inside. There’s only one more guard covering the room Cal’s in. I don’t think Damian believed you would make it this far.’

I relayed this to Vox and Theo, and they exchanged a glance.

“I can take Naomi to the car; you go with Ryan,” Theo said.

To my surprise, Vox shook his head and held Naomi tighter to his chest. I frowned.

“You want to take Naomi to the car? What about Cal?”

Vox gave me a pained look, and my heart stuttered in my chest in panic. He couldn’t abandon the mission now. We had to fucking save Cal.

‘I don’t think he wants to leave Gnomes. It was bad in there, Ryan. She needs to feel safe right now. Vox is the most qualified person here to protect her.’

“Yeah, but he’s also the most qualified guy to save fucking Cal!” I shouted, and I could see the indecision in Vox’s eyes.

He didn’t know what to do.

Prioritize his best friend? Or get his best friend’s little sister to safety?

I knew what Cal would want him to do, but I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t leave Cal here, not even for Naomi.

“We’ll get him out, Ryan. Let Vox get Naomi to the car. Vox, send in the boys as backup.” Theo turned to look at me, her knuckles cracking as she clutched her gun. “We’ve got this. It’s just one dude. There are two of us. We’re armed, and both of us know how to fight. Plus, you have your ghost friend who can scout the hall ahead of us.”

“Yeah, but you forget, Cal is fucking haunted by his psycho mother. He doesn’t have his talisman on him. I’m going to be distracted as fuck!” I snarled, and Theo bit her lip.

‘Let me deal with Cal’s mom. Some of the spirits haunting him are cool. I’ve been wandering around Apex since Damian murdered me here. I don’t think my spirit can move on until I see Vox and Cal safe, so I’ve had a lot of time to get to know his ghouls. I think I can get some of them to help me hold her back while you focus on freeing him.’

This was interesting.

“Really? So if we kill Damian, you can move on?”

Gavin shrugged. ‘It’s just a theory.’

“Do you think there’s a way to get rid of his fucked up mom? Like, can we banish her to Hell or something?”

Gavin’s eyes flashed, and a smile curled on his lips.

‘I actually might know a guy. I met a chaos demon shortly after I died. Funny guy. Kind of a dick, but I guess that’s to be expected, considering he’s a demon and all. Maybe I can summon him to collect Cal’s ghouls once we get rid of Damian? I assume we’ll want to get rid of that asshole’s spirit once he’s dead, too.’

Not too sure how I felt about summoning a fucking demon. I was still mulling over Gavin’s idea when Theo piped up.

“Don’t you have a grenade in your backpack?” she asked Vox, and he nodded. Theo shot him a devilish grin.

“Cool. Hand it over. I’ll blow up the jerk off guarding Cal’s door while you get Naomi to safety. Ryan’s ghost buddy can handle Cal’s ghouls while we free him. Cal can kill Damian, then we can all fucking go home.”

Vox gave Theo a smirk and nodded again, turning so Theo could dig through his bag for the grenade.

“You know how to use one of those?” I asked as Theo held up the black, egg-shaped explosive.

Her eyes were shining with excitement, and she shrugged.

“How hard can it be?”