Sterling slowly turns. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
I narrow my eyes. “Tell you what?”
“Where is she, Priest?”
The words don’t register.
“What?”
“Arlo. She’s gone.”
My stomach drops. “What the fuck do you mean gone?”
“She escaped.”
The room tightens around me. A dozen pairs of eyes locked on mine. My spine goes rigid. Fury claws up my throat. That little fucking…How? How the fuck did she pull it off? Something else slithers under my skin, something sharper.
“Did you do this?” Sterling steps closer. “Did you help her?”
“No. Why the fuck would I help her?”
He doesn’t reply. Just gestures to the screen, and the main monitor flickers to life.
The moment I see her, something ruptures inside me.
Arlo’s strapped to a metal chair.
Naked.
Blood streaks her body. Her face is swollen. Her mouth cracked open in a silent scream. A Sovereign presses a gun to her temple, laughing.
I take one step forward.
Then another.
My jaw tightens. My hands curl into fists.
“I had nothing to do with her escape,” I mutter, trying to turn, to walk, to breathe.
“PRIEST! PLEASE!”
Her scream cuts through me like a serrated blade.
My name on her lips. Again. And again.
“HELP ME! PRIEST!”
Then the gunshot.
I jerk toward the screen as she thrashes against the restraints. Blood pours from her ears. He didn’t shoot her. He shot next to her.
And she’s still fucking screaming.
“Turn it off.”
Sterling doesn’t move. “Why would she call for you?”
I don’t answer.I can’t.
