“There he is,” Ivy said, and my attention followed hers to the rear door. “Ready, Nina?”

A Were in a suit with his hair carefully corralled in a trendy ponytail was leaning halfway through the white fire door, beckoning us in. Nina started to get out, jerking to a halt when Trent caught her arm. Her lips pulled back in a snarl, and Ivy hesitated when he tugged her close, ignoring her tiny little fangs, now bared at him.

“No one dies, Nina. Especially if they deserve it. Understand?”

Her brow furrowed, and Trent pulled her closer, demanding an answer. Jenks hovered over his shoulder, and finally she accepted his dominance and nodded. Ivy took a slow breath, relieved. Nina was an odd mix now that Felix was gone, and no one quite trusted it.

“Just give us ten minutes to put everyone in a closet,” Ivy said to break the tension, but I could tell she was worried about Nina as she handed me the keys to the van and got out.

“Be right back, Rache,” Jenks said, then zipped out the side door with a sullen Nina.

Ivy’s pace was held to a deliberate, sexy stride as she went around the front and joined Nina and Jenks. I had a pang of worry that we were here alone and unsanctioned by any police force. But damn it, if we had brought the FIB into it, we’d still be arguing with Edden about vampires getting their souls being a bad thing. Even so, I hunched in guilt, wondering what that said about me. Who had changed, me or Trent? Stop it, Rachel.

“They’d better leave us something to do,” Nina complained as they neared the building, and Trent chuckled.

I licked my lips, worried as Jenks back-winged in front of Ivy and reminded her to put a box in the door to keep it from shutting. Ivy’s singsong “I got it, pixy!” was soft, and I smiled as she nudged it forward, waiting for Jenks’s approval before stepping over it. She was gone.

Jenks gave me a thumbs-up and darted after her.

Ten minutes.

“We’ve got an hour until the undead can be aboveground,” I said, checking the clock on the van’s dash. “Twenty minutes until the equinox officially begins. We need to be in and out before then.” Forty minutes minus ten equals thirty. Why did we always cut these things so Turn-blasted close?

Trent was fidgeting, and I moved in a hunched walk to the back of the van. “Relax.”

Trent followed my gaze to his hands and shook the tension from them. “Easy for you to say. It’s not your people who are about to flush everything back to pre-Turn chaos. If I’d known they were going to do something this boneheaded, I wouldn’t have pushed to come out of the closet.”