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I swipea path through the hulass And I smile in at my reflection For the first ti to feel content, relieved by the outlook of my future Because before, all I could see of it was blackness, a void that had no beginning or end, everything hanging there in uncertainty But now I have sooing to waste a second of it

I squeeze the water from my hair with a towel and then pin it up sloppily at the back ofdressed, I head into the main room and start to turn the television on when there is a knock at the roolance at the clock beside the bed

It hasn’t been an hour already

Setting the remote control back on the bed, I walk toward the door to answer it, but just as I set my hand on the lever, the voice on the other side freezes et you"

My fingers fall away from the lever very slowly I take one step away froain

"Are you in there? Sarai? Come on and let me in I know you despisea beer in a quaint little bar somewhere, but Victor needed my help"

He’s lying Victor would’ve told me if he had sent Niklas here He would’ve told lance at the phone by the bed Maybe he did call while I was in the shower

I take another step away frohands There’s one more series of knocks and then it’s silent I stand in the center of the room, perfectly still, perfectly quiet The only sound I hear is a faint, buzzing co quickly across the rooh the peephole What I can see of the hallway is eone, why aht outside the door so for le against the peephole, trying to get a better visual to the left and the right Then I hear voices and see a shadowthe wall My heartbeat speeds up and I holdand heavily

But the relief is short-lived when I see Niklas again

I jump back and away froing through it to find Arthur Haet the feeling he left it in case of Arthur Ha Not his brother

There’s nowhere to hide in this place Absolutely nowhere that Niklas couldn’t easily find me in under a minute

I inhale a quick, sharp breath when I hear the tiny clicking sound of a card key being slid through the door and unlocking it He must’ve taken the housekeeper’s master key In half a second, and too late for me to realize and remedy my mistake, I see the chain on the door is still unlocked Iin my heart that I won’t make it to the door in time to slide the chain lock in place before Niklas is inside the rooainst the wall behind it, gripping the gun in both hands up against h my veins that ular throbbing

The door shuts and locks autoun pointed at the other

"Ah, there you are," he says with that glaring look in his eyes that shows just how er and although I’ht at his head

"I will kill you," I warn

"Yes, I know," he says, exuding more confidence than me by far "You were the one who shot Javier Ruiz, after all" He sighs dramatically and shakes his head "Sarai, I want you to know that I don’t get off on this, on killing innocent women I never wanted to kill you or hurt you for that matter, but what you’ve done to un trained on hier, I start to back away from the door He moves with my movements

"Why do you care what Victor does with his personal life?"

He cocks his head to one side "Victor doesn’t have a personal life None of us can have that It’s like oil and water Surely you know that by now"

"He’s takingany confidence I had, which wasn’trid of me He already told me that I can’t stay with hi what you want"

"It’s not what I want, Sarai" We’ve ed to steer far away from the door and are in the center of the roo brother!" His sudden anger er twitch

"Niklas, please just let ht and I know it I’ve known it for a while, that I’et hih his teeth and the barrel of his gun toward me "Even if he leaves you alone today, even if he never sees you again--fuck, even if he kills you--what has already happened is enough for the Order to kill hier, his expression distorted by pain "They will kill hioes to Germany he’s dead, Sarai Did he tell you that? I bet he didn’t tell you that"

I don’t want to believe it I shake hter

"You don’t know that," I say, but deep down I believe hio?"

A sneer crinkles the edge of Niklas’ ether behind his closed lips