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Jack showed me the blueprints of the school to familiarize me with it. The bad guys might be able to get to these doors, but there are too many ways into the school besides this one door for them to cover.

I make my way over to the next door and try it without any luck.

“Hey, man, can we help?”

I turn to see Mike Cook and a few other guys I recognize from the team. It’s a huge building and I’m fucking slow. I look back and see Emma standing with Ashley and Hannah.

At least his girl is out.

He runs a hand through his wet hair and says, “Those guys need to be reminded who’s in charge.”

I straighten as best I can on the crutches. “Yeah, I could use help. We need to make sure there’s a way out for the students left in there.”

Including Harper, Luke, Jack, Eli, and Caden. Fuck, my whole future is trapped in this building.

Mike turns to the others. “You two go left and we’ll go right. If you see Trace, hold him for me. I need to repay him for what he did to Emma.”

Mike rubs his knuckles. The others nod and head off in the other direction.

As I make my way to the next door, Mike keeps pace with me.

“If I’d known what those fuckers were up to, I would have tied their asses to their chairs during the dance.” Mike shakes his head. His anger feeds mine, along with my worry. If all this is to trap Harper, they’ve got her, but they’ve got the others in there too. We’re stronger together.

Mike and I stop at the next doors. When he yanks on them, they don’t budge.

“You couldn’t have known this is what they had planned.” I make my way to the next door and give it a jerk. Again. Nothing. “These guys had it all worked out.”

Maybe that’s what gets to me the most. These guys had plans. We have cameras and plants everywhere and we still only knew the bare minimum of what was going to happen. We should have shut them down before they even had a chance to make their move.

I get the whole take them out of the equation. Making them escalate just enough to get into serious trouble they can’t buy their way out of. But I don’t like having Harper in their crosshairs.

“We just need to find a way to get everyone out.” That’s my job. Protect the exit. But there are multiple exits and the one that would have been our easiest is compromised.

The guys are on to contingency plans. Which one, at this point, is anyone’s guess. If I were inside, I could tell. But I’m out here, trying to clear a path. Which is my job, and as long as I focus on that and not what could be happening inside, I’ll be fine.

“Your knee doing okay?” Mike asks as he checks a door.

Nodding, I pass him. It throbs a little after dancing with Harper. I tried to keep my weight off it, but it couldn’t be helped. Not if I wanted to dance with my girl.

There’s only one more door on this side.

“Sucks that you got hurt. With you on the team, we would have been undefeatable.” Mike shakes his head as we reach the final door.

It’s locked.

Before we round the corner, voices reach us from that side.

“Let them know we’re ready.” That sounds like Zach Gray.

Someone clicks something and says, “It’s go time.”

Mike tries to step around me, but I put my hand on his chest. When he questions me, I shake my head. We don’t know what we’re walking into. We need to be careful.

I glance around the corner and see Tanner carrying Harper, lowering her into the back of a van. She’s limp, clearly unconscious. Red fills my vision. I can stop this. When I surge forward, Mike follows me.

Zach dumps Jack into the back of the van too. He turns and sees us coming. Smirking, he salutes me before jumping into the van and closing the door. A group of guys in masks burst out of another door farther down the school. They whoop and holler as they run for the van.

Mike takes off toward them, and I try my best to keep up with him. We have to stop them. They have Harper and Jack. I’m not losing anyone.