1
VI
I knowthe voice before I know the name.
It comes through the door like something barely pulled alive from a wreck—all but destroyed, barely hanging on, its ass kicked beyond recognition.
Vi. I know you’re in there.
My body jolts before my brain can catch up.
Not from fear. Not the roiling, nauseous stomach I’ve learned to associate with threat. Something older, something embedded in my nervous system years before the Rot existed. A reaction that whisperssafe. Something I haven’t felt in a long time.
Mara.
The guys react before I can even finish the thought. From his chair by the window, Sting crosses the room in two strides, laying his palm flat against the doorframe, his body a wall between us and whatever’s on the other side. Armen, next to me in the bed, touches my shoulder, firm, holding me in place. And Rogue sits up from his spot on the floor, alert seconds after waking. Three men. Three positions. No discussion.
I’d be impressed if my brain wasn’t short-circuiting.
The voice comes again. Smaller this time. Like it’s running out of air. “Vi. It’s me. Please.”
Please.
That word stops me cold. Because Mara doesn’t beg. She argues. She digs in. She once screamed at a parking enforcement officer for twelve straight minutes because he put a boot on her car and she decided, on principle, that she’d rather lose her voice than lose the fight. The girl I grew up with does not saypleaselike that, like she’s been practicing, trying to get it right even if it feels strange in her mouth, knowing it might be the only word that makes the door between us open.
Which means whatever broke her down after the fall of Rothwell must have been worse than anything I can imagine. And I can imagine a lot these days.
“Open the door,” I say.
Sting doesn’t move. His hand stays flat on the frame, fingers spread, every line of him locked in the intense stillness I’ve come to recognize as him at his most dangerous. Not because he’s angry but because he’s thinking, calculating, and planning for the worst.
“Open the door, Sting,” I repeat. “It’s my friend.”
“You don’t know what’s out there with her.”
I gulp. “Neither do you. But it’s Mara. I’d know her voice in a room full of screaming.”
He side-eyes me and I watch his calculation in real time in the way he moves, scanning threats I can’t see, including how much of a problem I’m about to become versus how much of one is standing on the other side of that door.
It’s not my fault I have to be a pain in the ass from time to time
Next to me, Armen’s hand on my arm gets heavier, more serious, like a reminder.You’re not running this show. Back off.
Yeah, yeah.
I look at him next to me. His expression is flat, which means he’s pretty much decided how this is going to go and is waiting for everyone else to figure it out.
“Armen.”
“No,” he says.
“I didn’t ask you a question.”
“You were about to.”
He’s right. I was going to ask him to overrule Sting. To pull rank or whatever the hell the hierarchy is when they disagree. But the look on his face tells me that’s not happening. Not because he doesn’t hear me. Because the door is a security decision, and security decisions belong to Sting, and Armen doesn’t override Sting on security. Not even for me.
I turn back to the door.
