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Yasha stops talking. His eyes narrow as he drops into a crouch and eases forward. I take up position behind him.
Maybe this won’t be such a waste of time after all. Maybe the kidnappers are using this building as their home base.
Maybe Cora is here.
Footsteps sound from the hallway up ahead. Yasha throws out an arm to stop me. “Who the fuck are you?” he roars down the corridor.
A second later, a figure appears at the end of the hallway with their hands raised.
“Don’t move!” Yasha yells. “Don’t take another—Francia?”
Sure enough, she lifts her head and as her dark hair parts, I see Francia’s pale face. When she sees us, she sobs. “I’m so s-sorry.”
I shift around Yasha and kneel down next to Francia. “Who did this?”
“I don’t know.” She swipes at her nose with her sleeve. Her shirt is torn and she’s dirty, but she looks otherwise unharmed.
Suddenly, Francia grabs my shirt and hauls herself against me. She presses her face into my chest and cries. “I’m so sorry, Ivan. I tried. I tried.”
I glance over my shoulder, and Yasha’s face is creased. “Sorry about what?”
Yasha asks the question, but Francia looks up at me. “I couldn’t save them.”
Our eyes meet. Dread pools low in my stomach.
Suddenly, it doesn’t matter if Cora is a spy. It doesn’t matter if every word out of her mouth has been a lie. Nothing at all matters…
If she’s already gone.
Francia buries her face back in my shirt. I can’t formulate the words to ask her what she means.
But Yasha can. “You couldn’t save who?”
“Jorden.” She sniffles, trying to gather herself before collapsing into more sobs. “And Cora.”
“Fuck!” Yasha bellows. He slams the palm of his hand against the wall, then wheels back around. “Who took you? Tell me everything that has happened. In as much detail as you can. Now.”
There isn’t time for Francia to gather herself or calm down. She’s telling us Cora and Jorden are dead, but Yasha is going to keep working until we find bodies.
Bodies.The term feels so cold. So callous. Cora can’t be just a body. She can’t be gone.
She can’t be.
I close my eyes and sense around me for some sign of her. I don’t feel anything. But maybe that’s good. Because if she was gone—really gone—I’d feel a whole lot worse than nothing.
Francia sits up and curls her body into mine. She’s leaning on me like a crutch, her arm clutched around my bicep. “They put a bag over my head while I was asleep. I never saw their faces. Then it all happened so fast. Jorden and Cora were there, but it wasn’t long before…before…before I didn’t hear them anymore.”
Did she suffer?
Did she scream?
Did she cry out for me?
Questions that will haunt me until the day I die ring out in my head, but I don’t ask them. I can’t ask them. Not yet.
“Why did they leave you here?” I ask.
She turns to me, her eyes wide and watery. “I think they wanted you to find me. Like…like a message.”
