Page 119 of Hell’s Weapon

“I can follow orders, sometimes.” I give her a smirk. “But don’t get used to it.”

“I’ll remember that, Officer.” She grins back and slides her mask into place.

“Alright,” I say, shaking my head out of the moment and back to the priority situation. “You two stay here,” I tell Milo and Wyatt, “whilst we go wake up my team.”

“Why can’t we come?” Wyatt asks.

“Because it’s better if Milo stays out the way, and it’ll just be easier to explain this without having two of the contestants in the room.”

“Garrick’s right. And no one will suspect you both to be in this room. If anything happens quickly, you’ll be safer here,” Tacita adds.

After another minute of back and forth, Tacita and I are out the door, leaving Wyatt and Milo in my room. We’re just reaching the top of the basement stairs that lead to the shared office floor below when Teddy comes barrelling up them. “Sir, the Angels, they’ve opened a portal above us!”

It’s organised chaos as we reach the office floor. The TV hooked up on one wall is displaying one of the camera feeds, showing one of the cameras monitoring the air space over the compound. The portal isn’t directly above us but close enough for us to see Angels flying through and taking cover behind the main building.

Having sent Teddy to wake any officers currently sleeping, I bark orders to those on the night shift. Weapons are handed out, demons shift, and we prepare to meet our enemies head on. From our calculations, the Angels are fewer in numbers but the portal remains open, meaning more could pour through at a moment's notice.

Tacita disappeared into my office soon after we began coordinating the guards. The door is closed so she can call Hades without being overheard. I want to go to her, want my eyes on her at all times, as well as to see Hades’s response to her news about Milo.

“Sir, we’ve managed to get a team to each of the recruits’ dormitories. They’re being woken up as we speak. We’ll gather them on the lower floors. Do you want any of them to shift as well?” Elisa, ever the organised manager, lists off the protocols already completed. We’d run through various scenarios in training as we always knew this would be a possibility.

“If they feel comfortable to do so, then yes,” I respond, one eye still on my closed office door. “If the ones with wings aren’t confident yet with flight, tell them they can stay on the ground.”

“Got it.” She scribbles on her clipboard. “Which plan of attack are we going for?”

I take a second to look at the monitors, at the Angel agents gathering just beyond the base.

“Let’s not give away that we are aware of their presence. They will think they have the element of surprise; I don’t want to ruin that advantage.”

“Yes, of course. So, plan four then?”

“Please,” I tell her and listen in as she relays the orders to the senior staff over the radios we have.

“Thirty-Nine, Nineteen, and Ninety-Eight are missing from the dorms,” Tarron’s voice crackles over the system as Elisa finishes getting affirmatives from the guards.

Shit.

“They’re with me.” I grab my radio and reply.

“All three of them?” he repeats.

“Yes, that’s what I said,” I ground out. At least five of my officers will be hearing this conversation. No doubt they will have many questions, seeing as I haven’t reported the fact that the three missing contestants have any reason to not be in the dorms.

“Damn, Garrick.” Tarron chuckles over the line.

“Fuck you!” I snap. I know he saw Wyatt in my room, and he knows about me sleeping with the Death Bringer, but he’s jumping to way too many conclusions.

“What did I miss?” Dom’s voice joins in over the radio system.

“Nothing,” I say as Tarron replies, “I’ll fill you in later.”

Great. I’ll be feeding the fucking gossip mill for weeks with that information.

“Do your fucking jobs,” I growl down the line.

“I am. I’m checking all our contestants are safe, sir,” Tarron responds, his tone fully letting me know he’ll be ribbing me over this. “They are safe, right?”

“Yes, they’re safe,” I confirm. For some reason I haven’t thought about telling the staff that Nineteen is in fact the spy. I probably should. They should know who is responsible for bringing the Angels here, who they might target in this attack. But as my eyes track back to my office door, and the female currently behind it, I find that I can’t reveal that bit of information.