The words hung in the clearing long after Sienna's voice had faded into ragged, shallow breathing, and I felt something in my chest go very still and very cold the particular quiet that came before violence, the same stillness I remembered feeling the moment before I'd stepped into the gladiator pit and decided I no longer cared whether I lived through what came next.
*The next one they take won't be released.*
"We need to move her," I said, forcing the fury down into something useful. "Now, whoever did this decides to circle back and finish the job properly."
Arwen was already working the rope from Sienna's wrists, her fingers steady despite the tears still tracking silently down her face, the particular calm of a woman who'd learned to grieve and function in the same breath. "Help me
