Page 3 of Ambition

It is pure fear, excoriating and animalistic.

There’s something else too.

I hear it as I knock down a door set among the erected walls. It too was a prop, and it crashes to the floor with a startling thud, but over that sound is another. Crashing cymbals, bass beats, horrifying guitar. Heavy metal, similar to what Isadora loves, but this is jarring and too loud, and the scent of iron and rot leaches into my nose as I blink behind my mask. Then I see her. In a glow of red light, she is sitting on the floor, knees curled to her chest, forearms wrapped around her legs. Her eyes are dark as she stares up at me, her lips parted, chest heaving beneath an oversized white T-shirt I recognize as one she routinely sleeps in.

What she was wearing when they took her from Hotel No. 7. I know because the shirt has a pumpkin in blue on the back, and she was giddy over the fact it was almost Halloween, so she even wore it to the party. Each October thirty-first, she would drag me out of the house, and we would get candy no matter how old we were and I would smile beneath my mask because doing anything with Isadora feels like heaven.

My knees almost give with some sort of sickening relief seeing her like this, that maybe…they didn’t touch her. Hurt her.

But there’s crimson splattered along the white of her shirt.

The sweet-sick smell of death crawls through my mask.

I try to breathe deep, arms by my side, gun still in hand. The music assaults me, nearly blinding all of my senses. I need to move, but I don’t want to hear the screech picking and bleeding at my ears. It’s like a physical force holding me in place.

And maybe it’s the music or maybe it’s the fucking relief but now that I’ve found her, it’s like I don’t know what to do.

The blood… It’s on her face, too. Red against her brown skin.

She is saying nothing now.

Even if she was, I might not hear it as my body tenses, reacting to the sheer volume of the fucking music.

I try to find the source of her wound in the auditory chaos. I try not to panic, which is something my dad has taught me since I was born. I’m seventeen. Over a decade of grueling training and I do the one thing I shouldn’t.

I freeze.

Suddenly, the music cuts.

It creates a visceral reaction in me.

I stumble back a step.

Isadora only blinks.

The silence that follows is shattering. It feels as if something is wrong with the world. Like something is…off.My ears don’t adjust quickly enough.

“Von.” Isa’s bottom lip trembles as she says my name, staring up at me with those big eyes. The sound is raw against my eardrums, but I hear her or maybe I only see her mouth the word. “Be careful,” she whispers. The red lights strung up around the room tint the sclera of her eyes pink. She jerks her chin and I slowly follow where she indicated.

There. In the far corner. What I didn’t see, because when I’m near her, she is my center. Dad always said it would be my biggest weakness.

But there’s a man on the floor.

Big, like those routinely picked for bodyguards. On his stomach, face turned away.

There is something beneath him, but it looks as if it’s comingfromhim.

Tubes of…

Intestines.

His intestines have spilled out under him.

Bile works its way up my throat.

I stumble toward Isadora as if I can shield her from the sight.

“He’s still here,” she says, her voice remarkably calm.

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