I leave Donovan and the others in the EMTs’ capable hands and, after grabbing Declan, start up the stairs at a run.
“There are more people up here,” I yell over my shoulder. I hear them relay the message via radio and I know that Declan and I are on our own, at least for a few minutes.
I make it to the fourth floor in seconds, start to sprint down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. But I only manage to take a few steps before my already shaky legs go out from under me and I hit the ground, hard.
Declan’s right behind me, but I shake him off. Try to struggle to my feet. Shout, “Mom! Dad!” at the top of my lungs. If something happened to them, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Much as my mother drives me insane, she and my dad mean more to me than I’ve ever contemplated before. I can’t handle the idea of their dying. Don’t want to think what it will mean to me—or to our coven.
There’s no answer. The panic grows, especially when I see what it looks like up here—I don’t know how to describe it except that it appears as if a bomb went off. Which, I realize with a sinking feeling, is exactly what happened.
I start running, scrambling, down the hallway toward my parents’ wing. I’m not thinking now; I’m acting purely on instinct. Behind me, Declan curses and starts moving things out of my way so that I don’t hurt myself as I stumble forward.
I don’t pause until I get to the makeshift security station Jared had set up right at the beginning of my parents’ private hall. I freeze when I get there, my heart dropping to my feet as icy dread whips through me. Forget panicked, I’m terrified now and Declan’s muttered, “Oh fuck,” certainly doesn’t help matters.
Stretched out on the ground in front of us are the bodyguards Jared had stationed at the start of the hall. They’re all covered in varying degrees of rubble and none of them are moving. I want to stop and check on them, but I want to find my parents as well.
For long seconds, I’m paralyzed by indecision. It’s an unfamiliar state for me, made more powerful by the renewed throbbing in my head and my desperate desire to pretend none of this is really happening.
“Go!” Declan shouts to me, as he crouches down next to two of the fallen security guards. With a wave of his hand, he clears away the rubble in front of me, creating a path straight to my parents’ door.
Flashing him a grateful look that he doesn’t see—he’s already checking for survivors—I take off down the hall, screaming for my parents. Right before I reach what used to be my parents’ room and is now just a blown-up shell of a place, my mother stumbles to the doorway. She’s streaked in blood, covered in dirt and grime, but she’s alive. She also looks more like my mother than she has since I got here today—she’s as calm as I am frantic, as in control as I am crazed.
“Dad?” I demand as I stumble to a stop in front of her.
“Tsura’s with him. Even with this”—she gestures to the disaster around us—“he’s doing better than he has been since this whole thing began. How is everyone else?”
“I don’t know how many people were actually here, so I don’t know who else I’m looking for.” I tell her about Donovan and the others I found in the kitchen. Which is when it hits me. Rachael. She’s in her room, in the part of the house that has been absolutely decimated by the explosion.
I take off back the way I came, this time with my mother at my heels. Emergency services have arrived en masse and are swarming the place—there are more members of the royal family security detail, more cops and paramedics here now than I’ve seen in one place ever.
A few glom on to us as my mother and I sprint down the hallway. I’m inclined to wave them off, but with just a few words she has an entourage following behind us. Declan is still with the security guards, talking to the paramedic who is taking care of the lone survivor. But one look at my face has him springing into action. Just not the way I’d like him to.
He grabs my arm just as I’m about to step into the hallway for the other wing, the one that leads straight to Rachael’s room. “It’s dangerous,” he tells me when I try to wrench my arm from his grip.
“Let me go!” I demand. “Rachael’s down there.”
“Fuck.” He drops my arm. “You stay here. I’ll go.”
I look at the chasm yawning in front of us, the uneven boards on the other side of it that used to be my mother’s hardwood floor. There’s smoke drifting down the hallway, which means there’s a fire in that part of the house. I can’t let Declan go, can’t let him risk his life for my sister.