of meaning for her. The documents they’d left behind would only be useful as paper airplanes. A whole squadron of them.
“Kori,” I said when she got to the end of the pages and started again, squatting to examine them on the floor. She didn’t even acknowledge me.
“Kori.” I knelt and put a hand on her shoulder, but she flinched and pulled away from me, and another crack widened in my heart. She didn’t seem to recognize me. She seemed...scared of me.
I’d never seen Kori scared of anything.
I stood and gave her some space, because I didn’t know what else to do, and Ian stepped into my place. He knelt in front of Kori and put one dark hand on the paper she was still clutching.
“Kori.” He didn’t try to touch her. He just waited for her to realize he was there. “Korinne. Look at me.”
Finally, she looked up. She blinked, and there were tears in her eyes, and my chest ached as though someone had ripped my heart out and left the wound gaping open. “I lost her,” Kori said. “I’m supposed to protect her, and I lost her.”
“No, Kor, I lost her.” I couldn’t stand to see her like this. She looked so...hopeless. “But we’re going to find her. And she’s going to be fine.”
“No, she won’t.” Kori turned on me, eyes blazing with anger, and Sera took a step back. “You have no idea what Julia will do to her if Kenley pisses her off. If we piss her off. She has to keep Kenni alive, but that doesn’t mean she won’t let them hurt her.”
Them?
Kori ran one hand through her hair, then gripped a handful of it. “I know where she is,” she whispered, and chill bumps popped up all over my arms. Ian shook his head, but she didn’t even notice. “You know where.”
“No.” He was still shaking his head. “She’s not in the basement, Kori. Julia’s not stupid. She knows that’s the first place we’d look.”
“But it wasn’t. This is the first place we looked. And we were wrong, because she’s in the basement.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides and my stomach started to churn. I felt helpless watching them. But I was so glad Ian could comfort my sister when I couldn’t.
“No, we were wrong because Julia moved the whole operation. Kenley’s not in the basement,” Ian insisted.
“We have to check.” Kori’s eyes were narrowed, her jaw set in a firm line. Ian nodded, Sera shot me a confused look, but I couldn’t explain, because I didn’t fully understand Kori’s mental shift, other than that it stemmed from whatever she’d suffered at Tower’s hands, whatever she thought they were now doing to Kenley.
“We will. We’ll look everywhere,” Ian promised. “But for now, let’s get out of here.” He wrapped one arm around Kori, and as grateful as I was that he was able to comfort her, I felt that his gain was my loss. I didn’t know how to be there for her anymore, and that realization resonated deep inside me, an ache I couldn’t ease.
“What basement?” Sera whispered in my direction.
Kori’s head snapped up and her sharp gaze found Sera. “Hell. The basement in hell. That’s where she put Kenley. I know it is.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” Ian held his hand out, then waited for her to take it. Finally she did, and there was a shift in her eyes. Behind her eyes. She blinked, then seemed to stand straighter, stronger, just from being close to him. Her focus returned, and she was with us again, back from whatever psychological detour had claimed her moments before.
I started to smile and welcome her back. Then something moved on my right. With a jolt of alarm, I turned just as two large hands aimed a silenced pistol through the doorway from the hall. I pulled my gun, but Sera was closer. And faster. She threw one arm up beneath his wrists, trying to raise his aim so he’d hit the ceiling.
It almost worked.
A flash of light came from the barrel an instant before the muted thwup echoed through the small room.
Ian crumpled to the ground. Kori and I fired at the same time—I hadn’t even seen her draw. I have no idea whose bullet actually did the job, but the shooter stumbled backward into the hallway, then slid down the opposite wall, leaving a single wide red smear on the white paint.
Out bullets had struck so close together—over his heart—that I could only see