He gave me a nervous smile, and for a moment I saw the hesitation that always came with intensifying my training. “I feel it’s safe enough to try now. Zephyr!”
I turned in time to see Zephyr perk up from his own group of trainees.
He hurried over to us. “Your training going all right?”
I nodded. “I think I’m figuring out Damien’s pattern. Maybe I’ll be able to get him on his ass again. Last time was a fluke.”
“Was it?” Damien asked, and the heated look in his eyes brought me back to the moment he’d taken me on that mat. My blood heated, and I tried to pull myself from it as it brought forth the need we’d both struggled to resist over the last few weeks.
“You better make sure Barrett’s around to see it,” Zephyr whispered, and I snickered.
Damien shook his head. “We were just discussing her training with you.”
Zephyr’s brows rose and his pale green eyes swept back to me briefly. “You sure you’re ready for that?”
I nodded, touched that he cared enough to ask.
“Okay, uh…” He ran his hand through his hair, and I frowned at how nervous he seemed. “We can start in a few days, work it around your morning training. We’ll start with an hour a day and work up from there, so we don’t push you too hard and burn you out. Don’t want another recoil.”
“It happened one time,” I groaned.
“One time too many,” Damien added, and I rolled my eyes.
“Perfect,” Zephyr said, his eyes lighting up. “I’ve got to get back to my group. Oh, Damien.” Damien arched a brow, and Zephyr continued. “James wants us to meet at The Complex after training to discuss Cole’s escape. He’s got some stuff to go over.”
“Hopefully he was able to recover something,” Damien said, his eyes sharpening as his thoughts shifted to the traitor who’d slipped from our grasp.
I frowned. “Has James had any luck recovering footage from the cameras?”
Damien shrugged. “The SD cards were nearly fried when he pulled them out of the cameras. He’s been working to recover the data, but it isn’t looking good. Hopefully, we can get some answers as to how the hell Cole got free.”
“I’ll see you there, then,” Zephyr said as he hurried back to his group of recruits.
My skin crawled at the thought of Cole out there somewhere, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he might reappear. After he’d escaped, I remembered the terrible sight that greeted us when we’d rushed to The Complex.
The shadows receded, revealing the familiar hallway of The Complex. Damien rushed toward the doorway ahead of us, Barrett, Vincent, and Zephyr hot on my heels. My heart lurched, and I came to a stop at the sight of a man slouched on the floor, his head hanging to the side. Thalia stepped out of the room, her face grave.
Damien knelt next to the man, his hand shooting out to check his pulse.
“He’s gone,” she said, and my hand cupped my mouth. “We’ve got two more dead inside.”
Damien cursed and rose to his feet, stepping over the man’s legs to enter the room. I followed, my heart in my throat as the scent of burnt flesh reached my nose. Two men lay on the floor, their skin charred in various places.
“What the fuck happened?” Damien breathed as he looked over their bodies.
“I’m not sure,” Thalia said.
“Cole couldn’t have caused these wounds,” Zephyr added from where he knelt next to one of the fallen warriors.
I lingered in the doorway as Barrett and Vincent joined them inside. My gaze rose to the center of the room, to where the shackles hung empty—the only sign they’d ever been occupied Cole’s dried blood on the floor, smeared toward the door, as if he’d been near dragged out.
“Did anyone see what happened?” Damien asked as he approached the vacant chains.
Thalia drew a deep breath. “No. James got an alert when the security feed was disconnected. When I got here to investigate, Cole was already long gone.”
Damien’s eyes lingered on the empty shackle in his hand, his anger burning a path across my skin, and he cursed under his breath. I stepped toward him, my pulse pounding in my ears as I avoided the empty stares of the fallen men.
“There’s no way he could have used his magic to control his handlers; the shackles were warded the moment we learned he possessed Aíma abilities,” Damien said. His eyes rose to the ceiling, and I followed his gaze to the security camera, the plastic melted, lens shattered.
