Page 50 of Elven Prince

In the back seat, Lerrick pressed a fist to his mouth and whispered, “Damn…”

“Let’s go.” Rebecca leapt out of the car, augmented assault rifle in hand, and slammed the door shut before anyone else had opened theirs.

If Maxwell couldn’t keep his attitude under control, given the stressful circumstances, fine. She could play that game.

She’d been playing it for months now.

In under a minute, the small team converged to approach the house together, where they hoped to find one Bruce Urholder still alive and kicking.

The house was completely dark, with no visible lights through the windows. Not even an exterior light over the garage or the front porch to signify anyone was home.

That darkness sprouted a pit of apprehension in Rebecca’s gut, but she wrote it off as nerves and hypervigilance.

A dark house after sundown didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Orit meant Shade’s newest unknown enemy had gotten here first and they were already too late.

“The guyliveshere?” Lerrick asked as Rebecca led them up the creaking porch steps towards the front door.

“Runs the shop right out of his house,” Tig whispered in reply. “Brilliant business model, if you ask me. Living and working in the same place.”

“That’s literally whatwedo.”

“Exactly.”

Rebecca ignored the banter, though she did wonder why Maxwell had selected these two tonight when he had to have known this was how they worked together.

Then again, they’d set out from Headquarters for an intel-only operation, which had now turned into a potential full-scale rescue and extraction.

Fingers crossed.

She rang the doorbell first, which elicited a chime inside that died into a crow-like squawk at the end.

Behind her, Lerrick snorted.

Rebecca rang twice more, then knocked on the door and waited.

Nothing.

“See anything?” she whispered.

Maxwell pulled his face away from the front window off the porch and turned toward her, shaking his head.

Normally, an unanswered knock on the door was reason enough to turn around and try again later, but tonightwasactually life or death. Hopefully, Bruce Urholder still had the privilege of that being an option.

“Just one more time,” Rebecca murmured, then pounded the heel of her fist three times against the door, hard enough to rattle the doorknob and all the front windows in their frames.

But still nothing.

She tested the doorknob just in case, but it was locked. Figured.

“Prepare to breach,” Maxwell grumbled as he rejoined the team’s formation in front of the door.

“On three,” Rebecca said. She lifted her rifle and aimed squarely at the doorknob. “One… Two…”

A blindingly bright light burst on directly overhead. The team ducked and pulled away from the sudden blaze, shielding their eyes.

Maxwell snarled and cast quick disapproving glances at the porch’s overhanging awning. “Who puts emergency floodlights on theirhouse?”

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