Chapter 11 · One Bed Downtown

"Joy's alive." Cassian's thumb was still hooked in my wrist when he said it, hard enough that I felt my pulse jump against his skin. "Barely. They pulled her out of the loading dock ten minutes ago."

"Barely doesn't mean alive, Cassian. Barely means dying slow." I yanked my hand back. He let it go, but not before I clocked the blood already drying under his nails. Not his. "Take me to her."

"No."

"That's not your call."

"It is tonight." He was already steering me by the shoulder, out of the stairwell and into a hallway that smelled like wet paint and somebody's microwaved dinner. "You're the target, Sloane. You walk into that hospital, you walk into the next hit list."

I dug my heels in outside a door with a keycard slot blinking red. "So what, I just disappear into a hotel room while Joy's on a table?"

"One room." He swiped the card. It clicked green. "One bed.