Page 85 of The Ashes of Summer

The trees thin. I drop low and raise a fist, and the others go still behind me without a sound.

Then I see it.

Rivers Ridge comes up out of the dark like something dragged out of a nightmare. White stone climbing through the trees. Glass throwing the moon back at us. Wings spread out across the property, each one bigger than the last. It ought to look impressive.

It looks like a threat.

I drop beside Carter as he brings his scope up.

"What've you got?"

He doesn't answer straight away. His eyebrows pull together. Then he lowers it.

"Nothing."

My gut turns over, cold. "What do you mean, nothing?"

"No guards."

I look back at the house. Front entrance lit up like a hotel. Driveway curving round. Vehicles parked at the top of it.

And nobody. No patrols. No movement. Not one man walking that perimeter.

"Maybe they're inside," Hayes murmurs.

Maybe. But I don't buy it, and neither does he.

Because Jackson Moore doesn't spend years building a place like this and then leave the door hanging open. He trusts nobody. He controls everything. He plans for every version of tonight that exists.

Which means there should be men out here. There should be something.

"We pull back?" Carter asks quietly.

I stare at the windows. At the dark behind them. Then I think about Summer in there for another hour. Another thirty minutes. Another ten seconds.

"No. We move."

And as we come up off the forest floor and start toward that house, every instinct I've got is screaming the same thing.

This is a trap.

I don't care. If she's in there, I'll walk into hell with my eyes open.

The service entrance is exactly where it sits on Kurt's map—behind a wall of ivy and stone, a steel door set so flush into the side of the building you'd walk past it a hundred times and never see it. Hayes crouches at the panel. The rest of us spread out, covering angles, watching windows, waiting for the moment it all goes to shit.

"Got it," Hayes breathes.

The lock disengages with a soft click.

Nobody moves. Because that click was too easy. All of it's been too easy—the entrance, the empty perimeter, the security folding over like it was tired of standing.

This isn't breaking in. This is being invited.

"Let's go."

The door opens and cold air spills out at us. Not fresh—conditioned. Concrete and machinery and expensive ventilation. The hidden part of the house. The part the guests never see.

I go through first.