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Lindsay’s hair. He kissed Lindsay fiercely, like he was pouring life and heat into Lindsay’s blood like that, and it worked.
Lindsay threw his arms around Dane’s neck and, in the midst of the chaos and the approaching sound
of dozens of pounding boots, kissed Dane back just as hard. And just like that, it was all okay. His head
was throbbing and his heart was pounding and he was terrified, but he was himself again, and they were
both alive, and nothing else mattered.
“Disgusting.” The sound of boots petered out into the sound of weapons being readied. “Touching,
but disgusting,” Jonas rumbled.
Dane’s hand in Lindsay’s hair kept him from turning to see what awaited them. Instead, he was
looking up into Dane’s beautiful golden face and its frame of bloody, matted hair. “Run,” Dane said softly.
“Run to Cyrus. And don’t look back.”
“If you kill the little one, we’re all in the shit,” Jonas said to his men. “The other one, on the other
hand…”
“I promise,” Lindsay whispered. He’d disobeyed Dane before, but he wouldn’t now. He understood.
Dane moved so that his body took up most of the hall and, when Dane straightened, his arms falling away,
Lindsay did what he was told. He ran.
“You said what about me?” The words were hardly out of Dane’s mouth when Lindsay heard the
frantic rattle of guns firing, and Jonas snapping orders, and someone screamed. The red exit sign was so
close and yet so far.
The door opened when he hit it—of course it would, in an emergency—and he burst into the stairwell.
There were feet descending, multiple booted feet. Lindsay mustered up a tiny illusion and laid it over
himself. It was a blonde woman, not a man, who threw herself out of the way of the soldiers.
“That way.” Lindsay pointed downward. He didn’t need to feign the tremor in his voice. “There’s an
animal…” The illusions were easier when he lied less, at least when he was tired.
“Keep going up, miss,” one of the men said to him. “Level Zero and follow the escape lights.”
“Thank you!” Lindsay took off, taking the stairs two at a time. The ground floor and the escape lights.
But Dane had said to run to Cyrus.
Run all the way home? Lindsay had nine floors going up to think about it. He couldn’t run all the way
home. He kept his illusion up, finding himself in the company of others struggling upward.
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Level Zero. Lindsay watched the man in front of him shove the door open and escape onto the main
floor. The door was open long enough for a blast of cool, sweet air to touch Lindsay’s face. Run to Cyrus.
Cyrus wouldn’t be on the ground.
Oh God. How far to the top? The safety strips on the stairs made his feet burn like they were being
flayed. Lindsay ran past the Level Zero door and kept going. Cyrus wasn’t on the main floor. Cyrus was in
the air. The sky. The roof. Fighting his own mind, Lindsay tried to spread the illusion that he and Dane had gone out the door he’d just passed, together.
Lindsay had no idea what floor he was on, only that he had to keep going. He fell to his knees again
and again, gasping for air, his lungs burning.
Then he heard footfalls behind him. Just one set. Jonas. Terror pushed Lindsay to his feet when he stumbled. He grabbed the rail and kept going.
“Didn’t think I’d beat him?” Dane’s voice was raw and wet, like his lungs were torn, but one big hand
grabbed Lindsay’s and pulled him upward.
“I just…” Lindsay hadn’t dared to hope. Besides, better to think it Jonas and keep going than to think
it Dane and get caught.
“I know. Smart.” Dane kept moving, eating up the stairs like a machine, half-carrying Lindsay along
with him.
Lindsay’s senses weren’t as good as Dane’s by even half, but the smell of blood and gore on his
protector was overwhelming. From the way Dane moved, Lindsay knew that too much of it was his own.
But Dane didn’t stop, and Lindsay knew why when the stairwell filled with shouts and the sound of boots
again.
“I don’t,” he gasped. “I’m trying. I don’t know why they know…”
Dane pointed at a camera in the corner of a landing when they reached it. “Feed’s been transferred
outside. Too far away for you to reach. Don’t waste your strength.”
One floor, and another, and then Dane threw Lindsay against the wall and fired down the stairwell,
over the rail. Lindsay hadn’t even known he had a gun in his other hand, but there it was, an automatic rifle he must have taken from a soldier. Lindsay, pressed close to him, focused and realized that the strap still over Dane’s shoulder must have been another gun.
There was answering fire and something ricocheted off of the stairs going up. Dane threw up his arm
almost before Lindsay heard the ping and Dane grunted as the thing bit into his flesh. Lindsay didn’t have
time to cringe with guilt before they were moving again, so he put the energy into ru
When they finally burst out onto the rooftop under a clear black sky shattered by spotlights and
helicopters, there was a moment when Lindsay realized he’d never expected to make it this far. He could
see for miles up here—the bright lights of the distant city, the black brow of a looming storm front rushing toward them. The air smelled like snow was on the way, sharp with anticipation.
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“Run.” Dane fired at a trio of soldiers, backing them up toward the shelter of the ventilation system.
At least this time he came with Lindsay, using his body to shelter Lindsay from the wind and the bullets
rattling off the rooftop around them. The bullets stopped. “They don’t want to kill you.”
The helicopters kept circling, like buzzards. “How…” How are we going to get out of here? Terror
kept banging up against Lindsay’s ribs, trying to climb up his throat.
“Trust me.”
A pair of jets from the nearby air force base shrieked overhead. Oh God. Lindsay did trust Dane, but things seemed impossible, even if no one wanted him dead. They were almost at the edge of the roof and
the wind was pushing them from behind even as it was shoving the storm toward them.
A helicopter dropped down and Lindsay could see the soldiers inside. One of them fired at the edge of
the roof, drawing a dotted line, warning them not to cross.
“Hold on.”
Lindsay had no idea what he was supposed to hold on to when Dane dropped the guns and swung
Lindsay up onto his back. Lindsay had no choice but to grab handfuls of thick black hair, clinging like a
burr as Dane took the last step. They were airborne, the wind lifting them up.
The wind couldn’t hold them up forever, though. They dropped, and Lindsay screamed. “Dane!”
Lindsay could feel Dane shifting under him and then they were rising. Lindsay raised his head and his
eyes widened. They should’ve been falling still, plummeting toward the ground, but they weren’t. Far from
it. They were flying.
The wind gathered up under them, vaulting them high into the air this time. Behind them, Lindsay felt
as much as heard a great thud and when he glanced over his shoulder, he could see the fire flowering where
a helicopter had crashed into the building. Clutching Dane’s mane, he cast about to locate the other just in time to see the wind drive it down and down, until it burst into flames on contact with the ground.
Cyrus. Run to Cyrus.
“Come home,” Cyrus murmured in his ears. The storm front yawned open and the wind pulled them