Page 75 of The Tracker's Dawn: Sunderverse

Cautiously, he stepped in first, hands held in front of him. I waited for a second, then followed after him, my heart pounding out of control and Red nearly breaking through. All around us was darkness. My eyes took a moment to adjust before I was able to make out the shapes of some sort of large equipment.

I couldn’t tell what the machines were for, but certainly something industrial. Conveyor belts stretched from one machine to the next. Did they use the equipment for the production of rhabo? I had no idea what was needed to make the drug, but it seemed unlikely. Maybe the equipment was left over from whatever the place was used for before Mekare took over.

Damien walked further in, while I follow behind him at a crouch, my eyes darting in every direction, searching for more hybrids and for any sign off that fucking Midnight Witch. The mage threw a sidelong glance in my direction. He was standing erect as if parading in his own house. There was nothing furtive or defensive about his stance. I huffed. Did he think that made him braver? I sure felt more ready than him to lunge toward any attacker. Or maybe, with magic constantly at his fingertips, he thought of himself as untouchable. Maybe he’d forgotten about his stint as a worm and a cat.

We kept moving toward the center of the building. When we reached a door, Damien opened it a crack, peered out, then let it swing open. An expansive room illuminated by sparse fluorescent lights stretched before us. The concrete floor was pitted and stained by oil and paint spots. Narrow, overhead windows hung high on the walls. Besides that, there was nothing else to see. It was empty.Damn!We were too late.

My eyes narrowed as I scanned the space. A slimy feeling of foreboding slid down my back. A door opened across from us, then another one to the side. I crouched lower, a rumbling sound building in my chest.

Damien moved his hand up and down in a pacifying gesture. “It’s just the others.”

I squinted harder trying to make out their shapes behind Damien’s magic, but I saw nothing. I imagined Jake’s silver eyes scanning the area, sweeping right past us.

The mage cocked his head to one side as if listening for something, then he uttered a spell under his breath.

After a moment, his expression changed, and his next words froze me in place, “Oh, no!”

CHAPTER 25

The lights above uswent out. I blinked repeatedly, willing my eyes to adjust to the poor light that broke through the windows. After a moment that felt like an eternity with nothing but the sound of my heart pounding in my ears, I made out Damien’s cloaked figure, standing a few paces to my left.

“What’s going on?” I murmured in a voice that trembled as much as my taut nerves.

Damien didn’t answer. Instead, the next time I blinked, he was gone. I batted my arms in his direction, trying to touch him, but he was no longer there.

“Damien, where did you go?”

No answer.

I crouched lower. Red begged me to let her out. Instead, I held tighter to my gun. A bullet in the right place could take a hybrid down from a distance. If I shifted, I would need to get close to attack, and there was no way I could win against one of those beasts—not unless I used a blast of my tracker energy against them, and I still wasn’t so good at making that happen on command—not to mention that it left me exhausted, and I had a feeling there was more than one hybrid waiting to pounce on each of us.

“Jake,”I projected my alpha thoughts forward.“Can you hear me?”

No answer either.

It was as if everyone had truly disappeared.