82
CORA
For a second, I don’t remember anything that happened.
Then I pry open my bleary eyes and see my surroundings.
Shadowy corners. Dripping pipes. The air smells dank, like we’re miles below the soil. I try to lift a hand to push my hair out of my face, but I can’t. Because my wrists are bound.
“Shit,” I hiss, jerking my arms against the chair I’m tied to. The metal rungs cut into my forearms and the rope burns my skin. “Shit, shit—”
A pale leg catches my eye. I turn and see Jorden slumped in the chair next to me.
My stomach roils, threatening to upend the toast I barely nibbled on this morning. “Jorden?” I keep my voice low. I have no idea who did this to us or where they might be, and I don’t want to alert them. “Jorden? Hello? Are you—”
She’s alive, I tell myself. She’s alive, and we’re going to get out of this. Whatever this is.
I’m still trying to talk myself back from the ledge when there’s movement to my other side. I spin around, moving so quickly that my shoulders twinge painfully against the bindings.
A sob wrenches out of my chest. “Francia.”
She’s in a chair facing me, her hands wrapped behind her chair. Her dark head is hanging forward. There’s dirt on her arms and a rip in her shirt. But she’s moving her legs.
“Francia, can you hear me?” I whisper. “Are you okay?”
She blinks slowly, opening her eyes wider each time. Finally, she lifts her head and looks around the room.
It’s strange to watch her shuffle through the same emotions I did. The confusion, the panic. Her eyes go wide, and I see her chest hitch like she’s going to scream.
“Francia,” I whisper again.
Her gaze slams into me and I feel every drop of her terror. “Cora, what is—Where are we? Who—What is happening?”
I take a deep breath and blow it out, hoping she’ll follow suit. Nothing is going to get any better if we panic. I need her to stay calm and help me figure this out.
Francia nods her head and takes a few deep breaths. When she’s calmer, she takes in the room again. She looks to Jorden and then to me, noticing the rope around my wrists.
“Wh-what happened?” Her voice is hoarse. I wonder how long she has been down here. Since our phone call last night?
“I don’t know,” I admit. “You went missing, so Yasha was trying to find you. Then these masked guys came into Jorden’s house and…” I gesture around. “I woke up down here. Do you remember anything?”
She tugs against her restraints and then sags into the chair with a huff. “I don’t know. I remember talking to you. I guess I fell asleep, but I don’t remember it. Then something was over my head. There were voices, but they were quiet. They grabbed me and…and I… They…” She shakes her head, fighting back tears.
“I’m so sorry.” The apology is dredged up from the deepest part of me. “This is all my fault. I got you both into this and I’m so sorry.”
“Ivan is behind this,” she says matter-of-factly.
I didn’t expect her to forgive me immediately, but her words still surprise me. The shift from panic to theorizing was whiplash quick.
“Well, I mean, we don’t know who is behind this. I haven’t really—” I haven’t thought about it yet. This is why I needed Francia to be clear-headed and not panicked. I may not like her theory, but she’s already trying to think about what is happening here and how to get out of it. If there’s anyone I’d want to be trapped in a prison with, it would be her.
“Of course he’s behind this,” she insists. “I thought it was strange that he let you walk out of his house so easily. Now, I know why. Because he always planned to get you back. No matter what.”
A few hours ago, I may have believed her. But now…
“Ivan isn’t what you think,” I tell her. “He isn’t what I thought, either. He’s different.”
“Come on, Cora. Look around. Who else could organize something like this? You’ve seen how much power he has. Who else could have gotten through the security measures he put in place but himself?”
She’s making good points and my mind is still so muddled from whatever knocked me out that I’m tempted to believe her. Ivan is strong. He’s powerful. He set up security around all of us—around Jorden’s apartment and the building where Francia was staying. It would make sense if he was the one who breached his own barriers. If he made us feel safe, only to yank the rug out from under our feet at the last moment.
I shake my head. “I can’t tell you everything, but I know Ivan didn’t do this.”
“You have to tell me something!” she cries. “Because none of this makes sense. If you know anything, I need to hear it. Otherwise, we might not make it out of here.”
I glance over my shoulder and see that Jorden is still slumped in her chair. Now that my eyes have adjusted, I can see that her chest is rising and falling. Relief pulses through me and I turn back to Francia.
“Katerina isn’t dead,” I say quietly.
Francia frowns. “What does that have to do with this?”
“Ivan is a good guy. That’s what it has to do with this. The last time we talked, I still thought Ivan might have killed Katerina, but I know now that he didn’t.”
Francia is quiet for a second. Then she shakes her head. “How do you know Katerina isn’t dead? Did he tell you that?”
I nod. “He did. And I believe him.”
Francia blows a dark strand of hair off her forehead and sighs. “I guess it doesn’t really matter either way.”
“Why not?”
She tries to gesture around and then lets out a humorless chuckle when she can’t raise her arms. “Because we aren’t getting out of here.”
“Don’t say that. We just have to think and try to—”
“Try to break through steel?” she snaps. “Because you can’t see the door from where you’re sitting, but I can. That door is steel and there’s no lock on this side.”
I turn my head as far as I can, but the only thing I can glimpse in my peripherals is more shadows. I rock back and forth, but all it does is make the metal chair legs scrape against the concrete.
Francia winces. “Stop. Just give it up, Cora. We’re trapped.”
I whirl back to her. “No. No, I won’t give up. I’m the reason we are all here and I’m not going to sit back and let you all suffer for me.”
Francia and Jorden are going to die down here with me. Ivan is going to get killed trying to save me. Everyone I care about is going to die.
And it will all be my fault.
“What do you plan to do?” Francia asks. “What have you done so far?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you were almost sniped at work, when you were poisoned, when Mikhail cornered you at the club—”
I frown. “Did Jorden tell you about that? I didn’t think anyone else—”
“What did you do all of those times?” she asks, lowering her eyes to meet mine. “Nothing. That’s what. You did nothing and waited for Ivan to save you.”
I press back into my chair and stare at her. I’m too stunned to say anything.
She’s right, a voice in the back of my head says. You’ve never been able to save yourself. You won’t be able to save yourself now. It’s over.
But I shake the thought loose and try to drum up a response. Before I can, Francia releases a sudden sob.
She wasn’t crying before, but now, she’s shaking. It came on suddenly. Shock, probably. A delayed response to the stress we’re under.
“We can’t save ourselves,” she cries. “So who is going to save us?”
“I told you, Ivan is going to—”
“What big, muscled man is going to burst through the door and take us in his arms?” she continues. “Who is going to put us on his white steed and gallop us out of danger?”
Something isn’t right.
The feeling comes over me suddenly. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. Goosebumps prickle against the ropes around my wrists.
“Francia, what are you talking about?”
She looks up at me, all signs of tears gone. Her cheeks are dry and her face is once again flat. Emotionless. “I’m talking about you taking some fucking initiative in your life, Cora. For once.”
Then Francia stands up.
No ropes around her wrist. No bindings tying her to the chair. She was faking.
She stands up and walks across the room towards me, and I can’t process what I’m seeing. Now, I’m the one in shock.
It’s Francia.
She did this.
She toes at Jorden’s limp leg. “She got a stronger dose than you. So she’ll be out for a while.”
“Let me go,” I beg. I’m still tangled deep in my denial. “Untie us.”
Francia grabs the back of Jorden’s chair and drags her through a doorway I didn’t notice before. The sound is shrill and piercing. I want to cover my ears, but I can’t. All I can do is watch.
Then she returns, her eyes dark and fixed on me.
She smiles. I feel the cruel curl of evil slip down my spine.
“No, Cordelia,” she says, sauntering towards me, “I don’t think I will.”