I release him.
Two.
Three.
The stairs are narrow and slick. I take them three at a time.
At the landing, two guards outside a lit door open fire. The first bullet punches into the wall beside my head. Plaster dust ghosts across the black glass eyes of my mask. I shoulder-charge a locker and use it as a moving shield, metal screaming against the floor as I drive forward.
Solar plexus.
Headbutt.
The first guard folds.
The second tries to swing his rifle around, but fear makes men clumsy. I grab his tactical vest and introduce his skull to the wall.
Four.
Five.
The door is reinforced oak. I put my boot through the center of it.
Sokolov is backed against the window, silver pistol in one hand, phone in the other. Not calling for help. Recording. Men like him always want proof they survived something.
On the desk behind him are a thick leather ledger and a stack of photographs.
Young women.
Not women.
Girls.
Scholarship files. Dorm assignments. Printed schedules. Faces clipped to lives the Order had already decided were disposable.
Then I see one photograph near the edge of the desk, half buried beneath the others.
Dark hair.
Small shoulders.
A face close enough to hers that my mind does something violent with it.
For one second, it is Amy. Not almost. Not similar.
Her.
The red light in the room deepens until everything looks soaked in it.
“You,” I say, and the word comes out low through the mask. Wrong. Inhuman. “You prey on girls.”
Sokolov’s eyes flick to the photographs, then back to me. For half a second, he looks offended. Not ashamed. Offended.
“They’re not girls,” he spits. “They’re leverage. The Order taught us that.”
The room goes quiet inside my head.
Beautifully quiet.
