Free Innocence and Evil (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #6) by Jennifer Malone Wright Page B

was possible I would have.”
    Chloe stroked my arm in what she probably
considered a soothing manner. “We know.”
    “I’m going back in there. I just came for
you guys. I need help.”
    Drew glared at me. “I’ll radio the team.
Hey, why didn’t you use the radio?”
    “Christina has it.” I returned the glare.
“Besides, it didn’t work down there, she tried.”
    He nodded, knowing that was what she would
have done. While Drew was on the radio I turned to Chloe and shook
my head in disbelief again. “I can’t believe this happened. Even
with my powers, I wasn’t able to help her.”
    She shrugged. “It happens and it’s part of
the job. Look what happened to me and none of you were able to save
me at that moment.”
    “We need to meet with the whole team before
we go in there. We don’t have time to go home, so let’s head over
to the park.”
    Ugh. I didn’t want to go to the park. I
wanted to go in there and get my girl out. I also needed a drink.
“All right, but let’s hurry.”
    ***
    “You know they’re going to be waiting for
us.” Drew slid his gun into its holster and then covered it with
his hoodie.
    I nodded. “Yeah, I know, and I don’t care. I
just want to go get her.”
    “Oh, we’re going to get her. There’s no way
we aren’t going. I just wanted you to know it’s not going to be
easy getting in there a second time.”
    “Like I said, I don’t care.”
    Chloe stepped up beside Drew. “Let’s go over
the plan then. The sooner we do, the sooner we can go.”
    The team had met up in the park and we were
all packed into one of the gazebos. Drew called out to get
everyone’s attention. “All right everyone. This mission is going to
be messy. We’re going in with the vampires expecting us. So,
basically we are gonna have to storm the place.” He finished by
telling them where the entrance to the downstairs lair was and then
giving instructions on where he wanted everyone to go. By the time
he finished going over the plan about a zillion times I was
practically fuming.
    “Can we go already?” I snapped.
    “Zander,” Chloe chided. “We have to be sure
we do this right. For her sake and for ours.”
    I wasn’t going to apologize because I wasn’t
sorry. “Well hurry up, the longer we wait the longer they have to
drink her blood or kill her … or turn her.”
    Drew placed a hand on Chloe’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, we’re heading out now.”
    It didn’t take long for us to get back to
the library and we weren’t discreet about anything. The entire team
marched right up those massive stairs, pushed open the doors and
filed into the building.
    Once we were inside we found what we could
see of the first floor empty. That vampy blonde librarian wasn’t
anywhere to be found and the place was just as creepy and quiet as
it was before.
    You would think that this many people
tromping over a hardwood floor would have made more noise, but the
team was surprisingly quiet. It must be that Hunter training or
something. I was at the head of the pack, leading the way to the
door that led down into the freaky dungeon below.
    I pushed open the door and immediately the
smell of charred flesh and smoke assaulted my nostrils. Holy crap
that was bad. Trying not to cover my nose from the stench, I began
the descent. Some of the team stayed upstairs, since we didn’t want
to be trapped from both sides like what happened with me and
Christina. We hadn’t gotten far when we saw the blackened stone
walls and bloodstains on the steps.
    I tried not to let it get to me, that this
was where they took her. So, instead of stopping and wallowing in
self-loathing, I trudged on.
    We got all the way through the hallways and
into the room with the couches before we had to stop. “Which way
now?” Chloe asked.
    I shrugged. “I don’t know. This was as far
as we got.”
    She flicked her eyes back and forth between
the two choices. “Okay. Let’s go left and see what we find.”
    So we did, and