The elevator doors slid open on forty-two.
Sloane stepped out — six children safely in the lobby with Nina, crisis theoretically contained — and almost walked directly into
Kai Torres, who was moving at a speed she'd never seen from him before. His composure was intact, barely, like a man holding a lid down on something that wanted badly to explode.
"Miss Carter." He didn't slow down. "Stay here."
"What's happening?"
"Children," he said, which explained nothing and everything simultaneously.
She followed him anyway.
✦✦✦✦✦
The sound reached her before the door opened.
Not screaming — something worse. The particular, catastrophic silence of a room that has been destroyed by very small people who
had absolutely no concept of consequence.
Kai pushed the door to Declan's office ope
