The foyer is — I don’t have the right word. My brain attempts several and discards them in sequence.Destroyedis too clean.Aftermathis too abstract. What I’m looking at is apocalyptic.
There are bodies.
Fifteen, maybe twenty, in my immediate sightline. I stop counting.
There’s blood on the marble floor, on the walls, a dark spray across the bottom of the staircase banister that my eyes skate over and away from.
The smell hits next. Coppery and chemical, smoke or powder, a combination that I’ve only read about.
From across the room I hear a shout in a language I don’t speak.
Then a single sharp crack.
I don’t let myself look toward it. I find Anya three feet ahead of me, frozen. I reach her in two steps. My hands go over her ears. I pull her face against my chest and turn her body so that her back is to the carnage.
She doesn’t resist. She presses into me, grabs two fistfuls of my sweater, and holds on.
From somewhere to my right, the wet noise of repeated impact. Rhythmic. A man I don’t know is being beaten against the wall, his face unrecognizable, blood pouring out of every orifice.
I look at the floor in front of me, and I breathe, holding Anya and waiting for my legs to remember how to move.
“We need to go back.” Savin has caught up. He doesn’t touch me. “Miss Elizabeth. We need to go back downstairs.”
I know he’s right. I want to go, but my legs won’t listen.
Anya shakes against me. Or maybe that’s me. I can’t locate the boundary between us right now.
Movement stirs in my peripheral vision. From the far corridor, coming through the archway near the east wall.
Rolan.
His shirt is torn at the shoulder, the fabric dark and stained red. There’s blood on his hands, blood on his face, and his eyes are burning with a brightness that isn’t warmth but pure cold.
He looks primal.
He takes in the room, spotting me and Anya. His gaze drops to Anya’s face pressed against my chest, and for a split second, his face contorts with emotion, then quickly hardens.
“Back to the safe room.”
I stare at him. I still can’t move.
He crosses the room and stops in front of us. His eyes never leave mine.
“NOW!” he shouts.
Anya flinches against me.
Tears escape my eyes. I try to reach for air but find none. Anya is crying too. I can feel the trembling of her small body.
Rolan is standing in front of us, covered in blood and God knows what else.
My legs finally decide to work. I keep Anya’s face turned away. I steer us back toward the corridor, back toward the stairs, past Savin, who flattens himself against the wall to let us through. I don’t look at the floor or the walls. I stare at the twelve feet in front of us until we’re back.
The safe room door closes behind us.
The lock engages.
I sit on the floor with Anya in my lap, my arms wrappedtightly around her. Her face presses against my neck, and I listen to her cry herself back toward a semblance of calm.
