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here,” I stated, and instantly started freeing him from the ropes strapping him to the table.
    But his head rolled back and forth. He was limited to that one method to tell me to stop.
    I opened my mouth to argue with him when our eyes met, and I saw the life behind his ebb away.
    I didn’t hesitate, turning toward the other body slumped against the wall behind the door, searching the face for any sign of Jocelyn. When I realized it was a woman, my heart stopped. The long black hair matted with blood across her face, covering it almost entirely, sickened me and sent me into a rage as I crossed the room.
    A single word escaped, although in my haze I didn’t process right away that it came from me.
    “No…NO!”
    I reached her and fell to my knees, my hand sweeping the strands from her face as I descended, my eyes franticly searching for any sign of life, any at all.
    “No.” My throat closed off, a sob constricting it. The rest of my breath was released in a moan that seemed to echo its way through my chest.
    My fingers still held back the hair that clung to her skin, thought it was parted just enough to expose her features. My hand was shaking, but it was removed enough to allow me to see her clearly. I knew every fine detail of Jocelyn’s features, the curve of her cheekbones, the subtle indentations at the sides of her lips, the delicate slope of her nose. I memorized her from the second she turned to face me in Olivia’s store on the day we met, and it was this memory that was conjured as I inspected the face of the woman before me.
    Only the long, narrow nose of Mrs. Thibodeaux made me breath again. It emerged from behind her hair, crusted with pus and dirt.
    I withdrew my hand while settling back on my heels.
    The two of them had died together, tortured in a small room for information they probably never had in the first place.
    Damn it , I thought wearily.
    The grief I felt washed away by what I could only describe as hatred, directed solely at the seven individuals safely in their living quarters elsewhere in this fortress while the Thibodeauxes were tortured to their last breath. I had seen enough blood spilled for several lifetimes now, but still I coveted the blood of seven more. Rising to my feet, I fought the incredibly strong urge to leave the room with vengeance as my goal.
    Not yet, I told myself.
    Jocelyn…
    Placing my hand against the wall, I appreciated the feel of the cool rocky surface. My palm flattened as much as possible to take advantage of its chill, which I used to distract me from my emotions.
    I can’t allow my anger too much influence over me. That’s how people die. And if I die, Jocelyn dies.
    Whether it was the severity of that concept or the cut of the rock against my skin, I’ll never be sure. But I do know it was the flattening of my hand, that simple act that told me what I needed to know.
    With my head down, I didn’t see it at first. My fingertips registered it before my mind.
    The rock wall is dry , I realized, bone dry .
    Jocelyn was being kept in a cell surrounded by dewy rock, moist enough to glisten, to reflect back. I knew this because I had seen her memory of it. What hadn’t registered at the time was that only one element leaves a reflection…
    My head snapped up.
    Water.
    As if fighting its way in, the memory of Lacinda dragging Jocelyn on and off the stage in Mexico City hit me with the force of a sledgehammer.
    Lacinda…water…
    Lacinda lives on the cliff of the Oregon coastline…
    That cliff borders the ocean…
    Yes , I muttered to myself, finally reaching the conclusion my mind was leading me to.
    Jocelyn was being held at Lacinda’s …
    I paused, my muscles tensing.
    Beneath Lacinda’s house.
    Bastards.
    If The Sevens hadn’t led us to her home under the false pretense of agreeing to a truce weeks ago I wouldn’t have put it all together. But they had…and I now knew exactly where to find her.
    Rapidly straightening to a standing position, I headed