“Yeah. Kori says they have fewer employees on hand after 6:00 p.m.”

Sera’s eyes widened and she glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. My nightstand. “How did it get so late? I think I forgot to eat lunch.” Before I could offer her a snack, she sat on the bed to zip her boots and looked up at me. “Employees of what? Where are we going?”

“Well...” I glanced behind me, expecting Kori to answer, since she’d actually been where we were headed, but she was gone. “It’s a pharmaceutical company. Of sorts. Only you don’t want the kind of drugs they make.”

* * *

“Why does a pharmaceutical company have a darkroom?” Sera whispered, still holding my hand in the dark. Kori and Ian stood less than a foot in front of us. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them breathing. Hell, I could practically feel their body heat in the cramped quarters.

“The drugs produced here are very...special,” I whispered, fighting the urge to squeeze her hand, to run my thumb over the back of hers. Sera made me hungry for something I couldn’t define—couldn’t even understand—and each moment I spent with her made that craving worse. Yet the moments spent away from her didn’t ease the urge.

I let go of Sera before I could embarrass myself, and for a second she let her hand hang between us, as if the release had caught her by surprise. Which is when I realized I hadn’t done a damn thing right since the moment I’d met her.

“Keep in mind that ‘special’ doesn’t imply legality or ethics,” Kori added just as softly as I’d spoken.

Sera shifted her feet next to me. “So, how do we get out of the darkroom without alerting security?” Secure darkrooms have no interior doorknobs, as a precaution. Under normal circumstances, someone in the control room would have to buzz us into the building, but in this particular case, they were more likely to gas us through specialized vents in the ceiling.

We could shoot our way out, as I’d done at the Tower estate, but that would kill any hope of a stealthy entry.

“Have I mentioned that I’m a Blinder?” Ian’s whisper was somehow even deeper than his normal voice.

Sera chuckled. “Yeah.”

“Have we mentioned that he’s the best in the country?” Kori added.

“Okay, we’re all ready,” Ian said before Sera could answer. A second later, he and my sister were gone, though in the absence of light, I felt, rather than saw them leave.

“What happened?” Sera’s whisper held an edge of fear. In answer, I fumbled for her hand again—and got her hip instead. I thought she’d yell at me, but she just took my hand and held on tight, and I realized she’d figured out the plan. I tugged her forward, through the darkness Ian had produced, and two steps later, the echo of our soft footsteps changed when our boots hit the floor in the hall, which was just as dark as the adjacent darkroom had been.

That time, before I released her hand, I squeezed it in the intimate semi-privacy of near-total darkness.

The shadows around us faded completely in less than a second and a glance around revealed only a sterile white hallway, lined with doors. Sera turned and found the darkroom door behind us, marked and missing its exterior doorknob, as well, as only the most high-security rooms were.

“What the hell just happened?” she demanded, in spite of the finger I pressed against my lips, reminding her to keep it quiet. “I thought you were taking us into some other darkroom.”

“There aren’t any other darkrooms in the building. The whole place is fitted with an infrared grid.” I gave her a smile. “Good thing we have Ian, huh?”

She glanced at him and nodded, and Kori leaned closer to whisper. “He can throw darkness through walls. Comes in handy.”

Sera nodded, eyes wide.

Kori led the way, silently pointing out video cameras as we went. Even unspoken, her point was clear. If someone was watching those monitors, we were screwed. But unless their alarm was the silent kind, so far, the coast was clear. Yet that put me even more on edge, because it made no sense. We’d expected to have to fight our way to Kenley.

Halfway down the next hall, I stepped closer to Kori and whispered into her ear. “Where is everyone? This is weird.”

“I know. I expected the traffic to be light, but not nonexistent.”

“We’ve walked into either a trap or a truly abandoned building.”

She nodded solemnly. “We can either push forward or go home.”

We weren’t going home without Kenley. I gestured down the hall for her to lead on. “Just be prepared for anything.”

She nodded again and stood on her toes to whisper in my ear. “Ian and I will take point. You watch out for Sera. A damsel in distress is always the weakest link.”

Sera was far from helpless—the still-healing cuts on my arm were proof of that. But I would gladly watch out for her.

After several turns and an unlocked white door, then another Ian-assisted shadow-walk through a locked door, we came to a third door with a different, more complicated-looking finger-print pad/pass-code lock. “We’ll go first and disable whoever’s on duty, then open the door for you guys.” Kori’s shoulders were stiff with tension, her arms taut, her jaw clenched. My heart beat harder in response to her anxiety.

We were close.

In minutes, we could have Kenley, and she could be just fine, and maybe she would forgive me for losing her in the first place.