Kenley studied whatever she saw in my eyes for one long moment, then she closed her own in thought. Or maybe in prayer. “Yes,” she said finally, and when her gaze met mine again, I recognized the determination shining in her eyes. I’d seen that same look on Kori at least a dozen times since we’d met. “What do I have to do?”

“I’ve heard that a Binder can break her own seal if she remembers enough specifics about the particular contract.” Which was what worried me about Steven’s binding—if my hunch was correct, she’d never even seen the binding her blood had sealed.

But Kenley shook her head. “I’ve tried. I tried for years to break the seal binding Kori to three of her friends, and I can’t do it. And I remember every word of that oath. I wrote it.”

“Try it,” I insisted. “Just think about Kori’s contract, as specifically as you can, and remove your will from the seal.”

“Okay.” She set her coffee down and took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and laid her hands flat on the counter. Her forehead furrowed and her lips pressed together. And she sat like that for nearly a minute, her eyes rolling behind closed lids as she thought.

Then, finally, she looked at me again, and I could read the outcome in her slumped shoulders and the disheartened way she rubbed her forehead, fighting resistance pain, because what we were attempting was no doubt a violation of her oath of loyalty to Tower. “Try it again,” I said, before she could tell me she’d failed. “You have to do it. You have to set her free, or she’s going to die.”

“I tried!” Kenley’s eyes watered, and though she and Kori were only two years apart, she suddenly looked much younger than her twenty-six years. “I don’t know how to remove my will. I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means you have to want to break the seal.” And as soon as the words left my mouth, I realized what was wrong. “You don’t want to, do you? Deep down, you don’t want to break the seal because you’re scared of being alone here.”

She blinked and those tears rolled down her cheeks. “What they did to her in the basement—they broke her. And if they can break Kori—the strongest person I’ve ever known—they can break me. I want her to be free. But I’m terrified of being here without her.”

“Okay.” Patience, Ian. I’d been a soldier when I was younger than Kenley, and Kori had obviously been fighting all her life. But we were the exceptions, right? Kenley’s fears were rational; who wouldn’t be scared of what Kori had been through? She just needed the proper motivation—a dose of the raw truth.

“If you don’t set her free, you’re going to be alone anyway, because they’ll kill her. They’ll fucking kill her, Kenley, and then you will be sent to the basement. And there’s nothing she can do for you from beyond the grave.”

More tears fell, and her chin started to quiver.

“Try it again,” I insisted, and she closed her eyes as the first tear rolled down her cheek and fell onto the countertop. “This is what she needs,” I whispered, as she breathed slowly in and out. “This is what you need. You have to want this.”

“I’m trying…”

“Try harder,” I demanded. “If you don’t free her, they will lock Kori in a basement cell and they’ll put you in the one next to her. They’ll shoot her, or stab her, but somewhere not immediately fatal, because they want her to suffer awhile. They want you to hear her scream.”

“Stop,” Kenley whispered, clutching the edge of the counter.

“That’s good. Get used to saying that, because it’ll be the last thing Kori hears. You, screaming for it to stop. Because whoever Tower sends into that cell with you will beat you to within an inch of your life. He’ll strip you and humiliate you. He will fuck you while you scream, and Kori will hear it all while she bleeds out on the floor in the room next door, and she’ll know exactly what’s happening to you, because that’s what happened to her.”

“Stop it!” Kenley cried, tears pouring down her face, the guard outside forgotten.

“You stop it!” I hated myself for what I was saying almost as much as I hated her in that moment. I hated us both for our inability to help Kori, not to mention Steven and Meghan. For our weakness, where they had nothing but strength and sheer determination to live. But their own strength wasn’t enough to save them. They needed help. “You make it stop, Kenley. Only you can do it. Free her so she can fight, and we can help her. Break the binding, for both of your sakes. Save your sister. You owe it to her.”

Kenley gasped, and her eyes flew open. She turned to me, eyes wide, jaw slack, tears still running down her face. “I think I did it. Something…snapped. Inside. I think I broke the seal.”

A rustling noise drew my gaze up, and I found Kori staring at us from across the room, a gun clutched in each fist, the back of one hand pressed to the chain marks tattooed on her upper arm. “What the fuck did you just do?”

Twenty-Seven

Kori

Flames licked my upper left arm, a brief burst of pain that died almost as soon as it had flared to life. I tried to touch it, to feel the heat, but I still held Harris’s gun, and that was just as well, because the burning had already stopped. But I could still feel the shape of it, like an echo on my skin, in the form of two chain links.

My headache was gone, in spite of the guns I still held. My stomach felt fine, though I’d disobeyed Jake on purpose this time.