The Savage Grace: A Dark Divine Novel (5 page)

TEN SECONDS LATER

My cell phone was out, and I’d dialed Dad’s number faster than I thought possible. The call went straight to voice mail.

“Ahhhh! Why do you never charge your phone?!” I shouted at the recording.
But what if that wasn’t the reason his phone wasn’t working? What if…

“What’s wrong?” April asked as she bounded up to me in the parking lot with her deli purchase.

“April, I need your car! Give me your keys. This is matter of life and death.”

“Yeah, right. My mom forbids me from letting anyone else drive it because of insurance.”

“No, like,
literally
a matter of life and death! My dad is in danger.”

“Now see, there’s someone who knows how to use ‘literally’ the correct way,” Brent said, smacking Ryan on the back.

“Not the right time for that,” I snapped at him. I turned back to April. “The warehouse is rigged to explode. I can’t get my dad on his phone, so I’ve got to try to get there before they go inside.”

“Oh!” April grabbed her keys from her purse and threw them to me.

“Which one of you can drive the fastest?”

“Slade,” Zach said. “He used to be a street racer.”

Of course it would be Slade.

“Zach and Ryan, can you two make the run to the city?”

They nodded.

“Go as fast as you can. You might beat us there. Brent, you come with Slade and me. Tell me everything you know about that bomb.”

“What do you want me to do?” April asked.

“Go back to school,” I practically ordered. I didn’t want April coming along.

Who knows what we’d find when we got there.

IN THE CAR

The next thing I knew, we were flying down the freeway in April’s jelly bean of a hatchback. I’d dialed Dad five more times for good measure, and then thought to try the phone in his office at the parish—just in case he hadn’t left yet. Someone picked up on the seventh ring.

“Thank goodness, Dad—” I started to say, but was cut off by a voice that wasn’t his.

“Grace,” Gabriel said. “Listen. Whatever you do, do not come back to the parish or the school this afternoon.”

“Why—?”

“Your dad left his phone charging here,” Gabriel said. “If you see him, tell him not to come back here, either.” And then he hung up.

I held my phone for a second, stunned. What on earth was that all about? Should I call him back? No, I didn’t have time to waste trying to figure out why Gabriel was being so cryptic. Dad was in trouble, and that’s all that mattered. At least I knew why his phone wasn’t working, and not because it had already been blown up.

Tension mounted in my muscles, and the anxiety only increased with each moment that passed and we weren’t in the city yet—despite Slade’s insane driving.

I shifted in the passenger seat so I could look at Brent in the backseat. “Tell me about that bomb.”

Brent leaned forward. “The bomb was Caleb’s backup plan in case he had to abandon the warehouse. He wanted a way to destroy any evidence he might have had to leave behind—or take down anyone who might have overthrown him. He’s really into getting the last laugh.”

“So why didn’t he just blow up the building after he escaped with rest of the Shadow Kings? We were in there for hours after he was gone. He could have gotten rid of all of us in one fell swoop.”

“It doesn’t work that way—at least not yet. I wasn’t finished working on a remote trigger before we left. The way it works now is that there’s a keypad in Caleb’s bedroom. Every night, he has to punch a code into it. If he misses a night—like if he had to abandon the building—the trip sensor will be activated. The bomb is rigged to blow ninety seconds after someone unlocks one of the entrances into the warehouse. That way the victim will be well inside the building when the explosives go off”—he swallowed hard—“making escape almost impossible.”

“You made that system?” Slade asked, swerving into the left lane at what felt like a hundred miles per hour. “Dude, I had no idea you were so hard-core. I shouldn’t have given you such a bad time. I knew you made those flash bombs we used when we robbed places—but man, you’ve got some real skills.”

“Tell that to my long string of foster parents. Nobody is too keen on a foster kid who enjoys making explosives in their garage. That’s how I ended up on the streets when Talbot found me and brought me to Caleb. I think they wanted me for my ‘skills,’ as you say.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about the trap?” I asked, trying to get us back to the topic at hand.

“I didn’t think you’d be crazy enough to go back there.”

“But wouldn’t Talbot know about the explosives?” Was he intentionally leading my dad into the trap?
I
knew
he couldn’t be trusted.

“No,” Brent said. “I’m the only one who knew. Caleb is super-freaking-paranoid. That was his backup plan to get revenge on anyone who might turn on him. I’m probably still alive only because I stalled on making the remote trigger. No way Talbot knows about it.”

“Talbot!” I grabbed my phone and dialed Talbot’s number. It rang six times and then went to voice mail. I left a message of warning and then dialed the number over and over again. “Why aren’t you picking up?!”

Slade swerved the car between two semis and then jutted in front of one of them, cutting it off. Perhaps Caleb had chosen him for his special
skills
, too. I clutched at my stomach as the car took a hard right turn onto the exit. But we were still a good five minutes from the warehouse. I opened my phone with the intention of sending a couple dozen texts to Talbot—anything to get his attention—when my phone suddenly rang in my hand.

It was Talbot’s number. Relief gripped me so hard I almost missed answering it in time.

“Talbot!” I said into my phone. “Thank heaven—”

“Wow. Twenty missed calls? And you
claim
not to like me—”

“Shut up,” I said. “I need to tell you,
don’t
go to the warehouse. You can’t go—”

“We’re already here. I’m keeping watch while the others head inside.”

“No! There’s a bomb. Whatever you do,
don’t
let them go inside.”

“There’s a what? Sorry, you cut out. I’m in the underground corridor between … Depot and … warehouse. Just a sec.”

I could tell from the distance in his voice that he’d lowered the phone from his ear before he’d finished talking. I shouted as loud as I could so he might still hear me, “No! Listen to me—”

“Go ahead. It’s just Grace,” I heard Talbot’s voice call to someone on his end of the line.

“There’s a—” But I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence. I didn’t need to. Because I heard what had happened: a horrible explosive crescendo mixed with a sound so terrible it could only be a human scream before the line went completely silent.

TWO HORRIFYING MINUTES LATER

I saw the smoke almost immediately, billowing from a few blocks away. Slade hit the gas, and the car practically flew through the few remaining streets. To me, it felt like we couldn’t possibly move any slower.

I don’t know how I did what I did next. I don’t know how I had the presence of mind to call 911, but I did. I wasn’t sure if they understood anything that I’d said—that there had been an explosion at the warehouse next to the old train station on Murphy Street, and there were people inside—but I shouted it out before the phone fell from my shaking fingers.

I was out of the car before Slade had swerved to a stop half a block from the flaming warehouse. Onlookers stood in the street, all staring at what I could barely stand to witness. The building that had once been the warehouse was now mostly a crumbled mass of burning rubble. Debris from the explosion littered the street, and tongues of flame lapped up at the sky from what remained of the building. Even from this far away, the black smoke and ash made me cough.

How could anyone have survived this?

“Dad!” I screamed, scanning every face in the small crowd of spectators. “Talbot!”

Where were they?

“Come on,” I cried to Brent and Slade. “Let’s go, we have to find them.” I started toward the warehouse, expecting the boys to follow, but when I turned back to say something, I realized that neither of them had moved from the car.

I pulled open Slade’s door. “I said come on, and that’s an order.”

“I can’t,” Slade said. He gripped the steering wheel like he was afraid I was going to try to physically pull him out of the car—and he was holding on for dear life. He stared at the flames, as if entranced by their deadly dance.

“What do you mean you can’t? I need your help.”

Slade just shook his head, not taking his eyes off the fire. I looked at Brent. His face was paler than morning frost. And then I realized what was going on. Something I’d read somewhere in all that research but I’d thought it was just another myth—werewolves were supposedly petrified by fire. Not a small flame like from Slade’s lighter, or the burn of a cigarette—but real, raging fire. Like the one that engulfed the warehouse.

“I know you’re freaked out. I’m scared, too, but we need to find them.”

Brent reached for the handle of his door, then he pulled his hand back. “I don’t think I can … I’m sorry…”

Slade didn’t say a word. I slammed his door. Ignoring the twinges of pain in my ankle, I bolted down the street toward the decimated warehouse, knowing I was on my own. I broke through the crowd—someone tried to hold me back from the building, but whoever it was wasn’t strong enough to stop me—and got as close to the fire as I could.

“Dad! Talbot!” I shouted toward the building. Of course, there was no response.

I stood absolutely still, the heat of the fire baking my face, and used all my concentration to let my senses guide me to where they might be. The ground underneath my feet shifted like it would during an earthquake. Talbot had said he was in the corridor between the Depot and the warehouse. That meant they had gone in through the secret underground club in the basement of the abandoned train station next door.

I ran down what remained of the alley between the two buildings and came to the thick metal door that led to the Depot. Normally, I’d need a key card to open it, but the explosion must have fried the sensors because the door was unlocked. I pulled it open. Heavy, black smoke mixed with concrete dust smacked me in the face. I choked and sputtered, then pulled off my jacket and used it to cover my nose and mouth as I ran through the doorway and navigated my way down through the blackness of the stairwell. I passed the entrance to the empty club, and opted for the second door that I had never walked through before—which I realized now must have been the secret entrance to Caleb’s lair all this time. It looked like it was normally guarded by a similar powerful electronic lock system as the one outside—but the door stood almost wide open now.

I hoped it had only been left open by Talbot, and not blown open by the force of the blast. Could anyone survive an explosion that strong?

I stood silently again, willing my pounding heart to quiet, until a faint sound reverberated in my sensitive ears. A low, airy noise accompanied by a high-pitched wheeze. Almost like a cough.

Someone was alive in the corridor!

I entered the pitch black of the hallway. Even with night vision, I could barely see anything in the thick smoke. I held my jacket over my mouth and nose with one hand, crouching low to stay out of the worst of the smoke, as I made my way through the dark of the corridor toward the source of the noise. I coughed into my jacket, grateful for the noise of it to help block out the howls of the wolf inside my head. It feared the fire even more than I did. It screamed at me,
Turn back, turn back!
I pushed forward instead.

It felt like it took an hour to traverse the corridor, but I knew it had been only a few minutes. I finally came to the end, only to find my way blocked by a flaming wooded beam that had fallen from the ceiling, cutting off the end of the corridor. Rolls of flames curled and lapped at what remained of the corridor above me. My lungs burned and ached, and my inner wolf grew more frantic.
It’s not worth risking your own life. They’re all dead anyway. Turn back!
Just when I thought the need for fresh air was going to force me to retreat, I saw something move behind the fiery barricade.

I willed my power into my eyes, and through the smoke and flickering flames I saw him. He was collapsed against the wall at the end of the corridor, just on the other side of the barrier—with what looked like my unconscious father in his arms!

I lowered my jacket just long enough to scream his name, “Talbot!”

“Grace,” he choked out. “Help me.”

My muscles surged with adrenaline. I forced power into my good leg.
Don’t!
the wolf shrieked as I sent a kick into the burning wood beam, flames licking at my pant leg. It cracked, splintering from the impact of my foot. One more kick broke it completely, sending cinders swirling around me.
Run away! Get out of here!
I used my jacket as a shield as I passed through the opening in the barrier in order to get to Talbot. I pulled my father from his arms.

“The smoke … too much.” Talbot coughed. His head lolled back.

“Stay with me! I can’t carry both of you.”

I pulled Talbot against my side. He clutched at my arm for support, and I tried to concentrate all my supernatural strength into my muscles as I hitched my large father up in my arms. But the lack of oxygen must have been getting to me, because he felt like a giant, limp rag doll—his dead weight almost crushing me.

Dead weight
… No. I didn’t know that.
He’s just unconscious,
I tried to tell myself.

I took three lumbering steps, carrying my father and practically dragging Talbot at my side. I could barely see anything with the smoke stinging my eyes, but I could hear Talbot gagging and wheezing next to me.

“Marcos?” I asked, with the realization that he was missing. “Where’s Marcos?”

Talbot shook his head.