Cabe didn’t answer and I didn’t answer either. I couldn’t. Cabe wasn’t drawing me closer, so I assumed that he was feeling the same way as Noah. I took a shuddering breath, stood, and pushed open the cupboard door. I stepped out, closed it behind me, and hurried over to the desk, huddling beneath it. They didn’t come after me and I was grateful for that small fact—that is, until the door opened again. I froze, drawing my knees up tighter to my chest, dread churning in my stomach.
“Seph? Cabe? Noah?”
I spilled out, scrambling in my haste, and the cupboard doors burst open as I launched myself at Quillan.
“Bossman,” I groaned. “I’m so happy to see you!”
He accepted my hug, probably because he could feel the complicated mess of my emotion as it churned sickeningly beneath the surface of my skin. My feet lifted from the floor and I locked my arms around his neck, clinging to him.
Safe, comfortable Quillan. God, I loved him.
Wait, what?
Pushing that thought way back, I struggled out of his arms and looked to the open doorway. “Is it over?”
“Yeah.” He was cocking his head at me, his eyes narrowed in curiosity. When he realised that we were all waiting for him to say something more, he turned to regard Noah and Cabe. “The human police took a lifetime to negotiate with them, but everyone’s fine. What’s wrong with you two?”
I refused to look at Noah and Cabe, not wanting to see whatever Quillan was seeing.
“Nothing,” Noah grunted. “Can we go now? If I spend one more second inside this office I’m going to break something.”
Quillan’s eyebrows shot up and he flicked his eyes between the three of us. “Did something happen? Danny wasn’t there today.”
I shook my head numbly, but frowned when I heard that Danny hadn’t shown up to his lecture. “Maybe he knew this was going to happen?” I asked, my forehead crinkling with worry.
That would mean that he was working with Weston, and I didn’t like that idea at all.
“This doesn’t really seem like something he’d be interested in,” Cabe spoke up. “He likes terrorizing Seph, not Zevs in general.”
I was still frowning as I pulled my phone out and dialed Silas.
He answered after the fourth ring. “Is everyone okay?”
“Yes.” I walked over to the window, tapping a few fingers against the sill.
From what I could see of the campus grounds, the parking lots were all overflowing with news vans and emergency vehicles. The ambulances were beginning to draw away now, since nobody had been injured. As far as hostage situations went, this had been a fairly boring one… not that I had any experience with hostage situations. Maybe they were all like this.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes against the sight. “Where are you?” I asked Silas. He didn’t answer me, and that was all the answer I needed. I turned to the others and met Quillan’s eyes, keeping the phone to my mouth as I said, “He lied to us.”
Quillan snatched the phone out of my hand, but only stared at it. I realised why when I spotted the screen displaying that Silas had hung up the call. Panic swept through me with enough potency to cause black spots to flash across my vision, and then I was dialing Silas’s number again. It rang out. I cursed and dialed Clarin instead.
“We were just about to call you,” he answered. “Are you guys okay?”
“Yes,” I bit out. “Can you meet us in your dorm room?”
“Sure.”
I hung up and made to storm out of the office, but Quillan grabbed me as I passed him.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to find out where Danny is.”
He nodded and released me, and they all fell into step behind me as I wrenched the door open. Andrei and Hans stood there, looking unharmed and unfazed and—if possible—a little bored. I nodded to them, they nodded back, and I continued marching. The six of us had to dodge press interviews, emergency crews and crying college students as we made our way to the boys’ residential building, but then the crowds thinned out. Clarin was waiting in the hallway and he tucked me into his side as soon as he saw me, steering me into the room. Poison jumped up from his bed and drew me into a quick hug, but I could tell from their expressions that they knew something was going on. Something more than the after-effects of the hostage situation.
Hans and Andrei followed us into the room this time, apparently not wanting to get separated, and they closed the door securely behind them, taking up positions against it. I noticed Clarin’s roommate, Charles, sitting in his desk chair again and staring at us with wide eyes.
“Hey, Charles.” I waved at him.
He swallowed, waving back silently.
“What’s going on, mouse?” Clarin planted himself in front of me, hands on hips, eyes narrowed on my face.
“I need to get into Danny Callaghan’s room. Do you know where it is?”
He shook his head, darting a look at Poison.