"I can't believe it," muttered one of the guards. "He's actually doing it." Beyond them, I thought I heard the sound of Mia crying.
The cuffs' burning increased. I'd never felt anything so painful in my life, and I'd been through a lot. Passing out was rapidly becoming a very real possibility.
"Hey," the guard suddenly said. "What's that smell?"
That smell was melting plastic. Or maybe my melting flesh. Honestly, it didn't matter because the next time I moved my wrists, they broke through the gooey, scalding cuffs.
I had ten seconds of surprise, and I used them. I leapt out of my chair, pushing Christian backward in the process. He'd had a guard on either side of him, and one still held the pliers. In a single motion, I grabbed the pliers from the guy and plunged them into his cheek. He gave some kind of gurgled scream, but I didn't wait to see what happened. My window of surprise was closing, and I couldn't waste time. As soon as I let go of the pliers, I punched the second guy. My kicks were stronger than my punches as a general rule, but I still hit him hard enough to startle him and make him stagger.
By then, the guards' leader was in action. As I'd feared, he still had a gun, and he went for it. "Don't move!" he yelled, aiming at me.
I froze. The guard I'd punched came forward and grabbed my arm. Nearby, the guy I'd stabbed was moaning on the floor. Still training the gun on me, the leader started to say something and then yelped in alarm. The gun glowed faintly orange and fell from his hands. Where he'd held it, the skin burned red and angry. Christian had heated the metal, I realized. Yeah. We definitely should have been using this magic thing from the start. If we got out of this, I was going to take up Tasha's cause. The Moroi anti-magic custom was so instilled in our brains that we hadn't even thought to try this sooner. It was stupid.
I turned on the guy holding me. I don't think he expected a girl my size to put up so much of a fight, plus he was still kind of stunned over what had happened to the other guy and the gun. I managed enough room to get in a kick to his stomach, a kick that would have earned me an A in my combat class. He grunted at the impact, and the motion propelled him back into the wall. In a flash, I was on him. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I slammed his head against the ground hard enough to knock him out but not kill him.
Immediately, I sprang up, surprised the leader hadn't come after me yet. It shouldn't have taken him that long to recover from the shock of the heated gun. But when I turned around, the room was quiet. The leader lay unconscious on the ground-with a newly freed Mason hovering over him. Nearby, Christian held the pliers in one hand and the gun in the other. It had to still be hot, but Christian's power must have made him immune. He was aiming at that man I'd stabbed. The guy wasn't unconscious, merely bleeding, but, like I had, he froze beneath that barrel.
"Holy shit," I muttered, taking in the scene. Staggering over to Christian, I held out my hand. "Give me that before you hurt somebody."
I expected a biting remark, but he simply handed the gun over with shaking hands. I shoved it into my belt. Studying him further, I saw how pale he was. He looked like he could collapse at any moment. He'd done some pretty major magic for someone who'd been starved for two days.
"Mase, get the cuffs," I said. Without turning his back on the rest of us, Mason took a few steps back toward the box where our captors had kept their stash of flex-cuffs. He pulled out three strips of plastic and then something else. With a questioning glance at me, he held up a roll of duct tape.
"Perfect," I said.
We bound our captors to the chairs. One had remained conscious, but we knocked him out too and then put duct tape over all their mouths. They'd eventually come to, and I didn't want them making any noise.
After releasing Mia and Eddie, the five of us huddled together and planned our next move. Christian and Eddie could barely stand, but at least Christian was aware of his surroundings. Mia's face was streaked with tears, but I suspected she'd be able to take orders. That left Mason and me as the most functional in the group.
"That guy's watch says it's morning," he said. "All we've got to do is get outside, and they can't touch us. As long as there are no more humans, at least."
"They said Isaiah was gone," said Mia in a small voice. "We should just be able to leave, right?"
"Those men haven't left in hours," I said. "They could be wrong. We can't do anything stupid."
Carefully, Mason opened the door to our room and peered out into the empty hallway. "Think there's a way outside down here?"
"That'd make our lives easier," I muttered. I glanced back at the others. "Stay here. We're going to check out the rest of the basement."
"What if somebody comes?" exclaimed Mia.
"They won't," I assured her. I was actually pretty sure there was no one else in the basement; they would have come running with all that racket. And if anyone tried to come down the stairs, we would hear them first.
Still, Mason and I moved cautiously as we scouted around the basement, watching each other's backs and checking around corners. It was every bit the rat's maze I remembered from our initial capture. Twisted hallways and lots of rooms. One by one, we opened each door. Every room was empty, save for the occasional chair or two. I shuddered, thinking that all of these were probably used as prisons, just as ours had been.
"Not a goddamned window in this whole place," I muttered when we'd finished our sweep. "We've got to go upstairs."
We headed back toward our room, but before we got there, Mason caught hold of my hand. "Rose … "
I stopped and looked up at him. "Yeah?"
His blues eyes-more serious than I'd ever seen them- looked down at me regretfully. "I really screwed things up."
I thought about all the events that had led to this. "We screwed things up, Mason."
He sighed. "I hope … I hope when this is all done, we can sit down and talk and figure things out. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you."
I wanted to tell him that that wasn't going to happen, that when he'd disappeared, I'd actually been on my way to tell him things wouldn't be better between us. Since this didn't seem like the right time or place to bring up a breakup, I lied.
I squeezed his hand. "I hope so too."
He smiled, and we returned to the others.
"All right," I told them. "Here's how it's going to be."
We quickly hashed out a plan and then crept up the stairs. I led, followed by Mia as she tried to support a reluctant Christian. Mason brought up the rear, practically dragging Eddie.
"I should be first," Mason murmured as we stood at the top of the stairs.
"You aren't," I snapped back, resting my hand on the doorknob.
"Yeah, but if something happens-"
"Mason," I interrupted. I stared at him hard, and suddenly, I had a brief flash of my mother that day when the Drozdov attack had broken. Calm and controlled, even in the wake of something so horrible. They'd needed a leader, just like this group did now, and I tried as hard as I could to channel her. "If something happens, you get them out of here. Run fast and run far. Do not come back without a herd of guardians."
"You'll be the one who gets attacked first! What am I supposed to do?" he hissed. "Leave you?"
"Yes. You forget about me if you can get them out."
"Rose, I'm not going to-"
"Mason." I again envisioned my mother, fighting for that strength and power to lead others. "Can you do this or not?"
We stared at each other for several heavy moments while the others held their breaths.
"I can do this," he said stiffly. I nodded and turned back around.
The basement door squeaked when I opened it, and I grimaced at the sound. Scarcely daring to breathe, I stood perfectly still at the top of the stairs, waiting and listening. The house and its eccentric decorating looked the same as when we'd been brought in. Dark blinds covered all of the windows, but along the edges, I could see bright light peeping in. Sunshine had never tasted so sweet as it did at that moment. Getting to it meant freedom.
There were no sounds, no movements. Looking around, I tried to remember where the front door was. It was on the other side of the house-really not far in the grand scheme of things but a gaping chasm at the moment.
"Scout with me," I whispered to Mason, hoping to make him feel better about bringing up the rear.
He let Eddie lean on Mia for a moment and stepped forward with me to do a quick sweep of the main living area. Nothing. The path was clear from here to the front door. I exhaled in relief. Mason took hold of Eddie again, and we moved forward, all of us tense and nervous. God. We were going to do this, I realized. We were really going to do this. I couldn't believe how lucky we'd gotten. We'd been so close to disaster-and had just barely made it through. It was one of those moments that made you appreciate your life and want to turn things around. A second chance you swear you won't let go to waste. A realization that-
I heard them move almost at the same time I saw them step in front of us. It was like a magician conjured Isaiah and Elena out of thin air. Only, I knew there was no magic involved this time. Strigoi just moved that quickly. They must have been in one of the other main floor rooms that we'd assumed were empty-we hadn't wanted to waste the extra time looking. I raged at myself internally for not having checked out every inch of the whole floor. Somewhere, in the back of my memory, I heard myself taunting my mother in Stan's class: "It seems to me like you guys messed up. Why didn't you scope out the place and make sure it was clear of Strigoi in the first place? Seems like you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble."