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had a saying grilled into us from an early age: Only they matter.

Everyone stopped and looked between him and me. Apparently we were the acknowledged leaders here. "What do you want?" I asked harshly.

The guy pressed his gun closer to Mia's neck, and she whimpered. For all her talk about fighting, she was smaller than me and not nearly as strong. And she was too terrified to move.

The man inclined his head toward the van's open door. "I want you to get inside. And don't start anything. You do, and she's gone."

I looked at Mia, the van, my other friends, and then back to the guy. Shit.

Chapter 19

Nineteen

I HATE BEING POWERLESS. AND I hate going down without a fight. What had taken place outside in the alley hadn't been a real fight. If it had- if I'd been beaten into submission ... well, yeah. Maybe I could accept that. Maybe. But I hadn't been beaten. I'd barely gotten my hands dirty. Instead, I'd gone quietly.

Once they had us sitting on the floor of the van, they'd bound each of our hands behind our back with flex-cuffs- strips of plastic that cinched together and held just as well as anything made of metal.

After that, we rode in near silence. The men occasionally murmured something to each other, speaking too softly for any of us to hear. Christian or Mia might have been able to understand the words, but they were in no position to communicate anything to the rest of us. Mia looked as terrified as she had out on the street, and while Christian's fear had rapidly given way to his typical haughty anger, even he didn't dare act out with guards nearby.

I was glad for Christian's self-control. I didn't doubt any of these men would smack him if he got out of line, and neither I nor the other novices were in a position to stop them. That was what really drove me crazy. The instinct to protect Moroi was so deeply ingrained in me that I couldn't even pause to worry about myself. Christian and Mia were the focus. They were the ones I had to get out of this mess.

And how had this mess started? Who were these guys? That was a mystery. They were human, but I didn't believe for an instant that a group of dhampirs and Moroi had been random kidnapping victims. We'd been targeted for a reason.

Our captors made no attempts to blindfold us or conceal our route, which I didn't take as a good sign. Did they think we didn't know the city well enough to retrace our steps? Or did they figure it didn't matter since we wouldn't be leaving wherever they were taking us? All I sensed was that we were driving away from downtown, off toward a more suburban area. Spokane was as dull as I'd imagined. Unlike where pristine white snow lay in drifts, slushy gray puddles lined the streets and dirty patches dotted the lawns. There were also a lot fewer evergreen trees than I was used to. The scraggly, leafless deciduous trees here seemed skeletal by comparison. They only added to the mood of impending doom.

After what felt like less than an hour, the van turned down a quiet cul-de-sac, and we drove up to a very ordinary- yet large- house. Other houses- identical in the way suburban homes often are- stood nearby, which gave me hope. Maybe we could get some help from the neighbors.

We pulled inside the garage, and once the door was back down, the men ushered us into the house. It looked a lot more interesting on the inside. Antique, claw-footed sofas and chairs. A large, saltwater fish tank. Swords crossed over the fireplace. One of those stupid modern art paintings that consisted of a few lines splayed across the canvas.

The part of me that enjoyed destroying things would have liked to study the swords in detail, but the main floor wasn't our destination. Instead, we were led down a narrow flight of stairs, down to a basement as large as the floor above. Only, unlike the main floor's open space, the basement was sectioned off into a series of halls and closed doors. It was like a rat's maze. Our captors led us through it without hesitation, into a small room with a concrete floor and unpainted drywall.

The furniture inside consisted of several very uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs with slatted backs- backs that proved to be a convenient place for