She nearly came out of her skin when Arjun leaned close to her back to murmur, “Almost there.”
All at once, she was back in her body, in the terrifying hallway, with an elf at her back. Trying to speak without moving her lips, she breathed, “Is he in a cell?”
“We received a report that he’s in interrogation room three,” he answered.
Her stomach dropped. “He’s being interrogated? Is he— Are they torturing him?”
“Unlikely.”
But not impossible,she realized, blood curdling.
“Get me there,” she ordered. “Get me therenow,guys.”
Vesta’s helmet tilted ever-so-slightly in her direction. “Heard.”
Their pace increased just enough to make her feel like they were really moving. Her cold fingers curled and uncurled reflexively by her sides as they approached a corner. Somewhere up ahead around the blind corner, the sound of a heavy door opening and closing echoed off the walls.
Cecilia just caught a fluttering of soft green fabric disappearing into a stairwell as they stepped into a hallway lined with reinforced metal doors.
She’d never seen an interrogation room before, but she didn’t need to. Cecilia knew exactly what she was looking at. The air in the hallway was different. The shapes of the doors were different. The glare of the lights was different.
It wassinister.And she would be damned if she left Sloane by himself in a place like that.
It wasn’t necessary for one of her escort to point out what room he was in. The two guards stationed in front of it were a neon sign.
Her heartbeat slowed. Her fear eased. Even the armed guards standing outside the door didn’t worry her. They were just obstacles to getting what she wanted, and if she had to get through them, she would.
One way or another, she would.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Vesta stoppedin front of the guards. “Captain Le Roy ordered Miss Warren be delivered to interrogation room three.”
One of the guards gave Cecilia a disinterested look. “We didn’t receive that order.”
“You’re not Fracture,” Vesta replied, robotic and yet somehow cutting.
There was a moment of silence. The guards shared a long look before they stepped aside. Vesta lifted her chin in what Cecilia supposed was a silent thank you and punched a complicated geometric code in the door’s locking mechanism.
A familiar hiss and thud brought her back to Sloane’s bedroom. Her heart jammed into her throat when Vesta grasped the handle and opened the door for her.
It took everything in her to stop herself from sprinting into the room. Keenly aware of the guards’ eyes on her, she moved stiffly, one foot in front of the other, toward her forever.
She didn’t hear the door slamming shut behind her, or the locks reengaging. Cecilia’s steps stuttered. She threw herself at the bloodied elf chained to the floor with a wordless cry.
Sloane’s head whipped toward her. Without his helmet, smeared with dark blue blood and a patchwork of bruises, he looked almost unrecognizable in that awful metal chair.
Except for his sad eyes that came to life the moment they caught sight of hers. Those she’d knowanywhere.
“Cece,” he breathed. His pale brows bunched as a look like pain crossed his face. Chains clattered against his chair and the concrete floor with the force of his instinctive twist in her direction.“Cece?”
She nearly tripped on her own two feet in her haste to get to him. “Sloane, I’m so?—”
In an instant, his expression dropped. “Cece,stop!”
She skidded to a stop a few feet away from him. His expression morphed into one of horror as he wrenched himself as far backward as he could. “Get out,” he hissed through his clenched teeth. “They took my helmet! Get out now, Cece!”
