She thinks for a moment. “Papa is scared sometimes, too?”
“I think so,” I say. “In his own way.”
She nods and presses her face back against my arm.
The clock creeps to thirty-five minutes.
Forty.
The noise above hasn’t stopped, but it has changed. Less constant, more intermittent, which could be good news… or a terrible, horrific turn of events.
We are safe here. Everything is going to be fine, I repeat to myself over and over.
But other thoughts slice through.
What if that door opens, and it isn’t one of our men? What if Rolan is gone? What if?—
Anya shifts against me. “Will it stop soon?”
“Yes,” I lie, holding her tighter.
The clock marks fifty minutes, mocking me.
The gunfire stops.
It doesn’t gradually slow to a quiet. It stops as if a light switch has been turned off. The silence that follows is a different kind of loud.
Anya squeezes my arm.
We both heard it. We’re both listening to the quiet, reading it, trying to determine what it means.
Then footsteps. Above us first, then closer, then on the stairs outside the door. Anya moves, and I move faster, pulling her behind the sofa — both of us crouched low, my arm across her chest, my eyes on the door.
“Miss Elizabeth?”
The voice is familiar. One of the guards, Savin, the one with the short hair.
“Miss Elizabeth, is everything alright in there?”
Anya goes tense against my arm. “Papa?—”
“Wait.” I hold her. “Wait one second.”
“Miss Elizabeth?”
“We’re here,” I call back. “We’re both here.”
The lock disengages.
Anya doesn’t wait. The moment the door opens, she’s moving, past my arm, past Savin in the doorway, and up the stairs.
“Anya!”
I’m already running. Fear be damned. I pass Savin, taking the stairs two at a time, following her to the floors above. She’s fast, too fast.
She reaches the main floor before I do.
I come through the door behind her and stop.
