“Nobody move,” Maganti roared, holding the gun to Abhijat’s head. His voice shook with fury.

Rito froze. She could feel Milli go still beside her. Across the room, Jehan stood pressed against a wall, barely breathing.

“To the wall,” Maganti snapped brusquely, raising one hand to point at the wall opposite the door. “All of you, stand with your backs against the wall, or he dies. Now!”

They rushed to obey. Within minutes, all three of them were on one side of the room, their backs pressed to the cold, concrete wall. The door opposite them seemed miles away, rather than a few feet across.

Rito closed her eyes, forcing herself to stop hyperventilating. This wasn’t over yet. There was a way; she just needed to find it.

Her brother’s life was on the line. There had to be a way.

Someone groaned.

Rito’s eyes flew open. Moving her head as little as possible, she scanned the room. The sound was barely audible, but it was there.

Another broken moan floated to her ears, and Rito finally realized it was coming from somewhere underneath.

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“Gri-go…ri,” Rinisa rasped from a shadowy corner of the floor, close to Rito’s feet.

Her voice was too soft to be heard by Maganti, who was shouting something into Abhijat’s ear across the room. But Rito could see that Rinisa was trying to sit up, still moaning quietly. The needle sticking out of her neck bobbed bizarrely up and down with her every move.

Amven. Rito cursed under her breath. Fasih had shot her up with his goddamned drug before she went down.

Unthinkingly, Rito clicked her tongue, the way she would when summoning a stray dog. Rinisa stilled, then looked around dazedly until her eyes landed on Rito.

The woman who had threatened her and her family more times than she could count, now gazed at her with wide, helpless eyes.

Resisting the urge to kick Rinisa in her stupid face, Rito leaned slightly sideways, bringing her mouth as close to Rinisa’s ear as she dared.

Too much movement one way or the other, and she’d draw Maganti’s attention. And this was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to miss. If she did, she was pretty sure none of them would get out of here alive.

If only she could order Rinisa to punch her beloved Grigori in the face.

But Rito remembered what Jehan had told her time and time again, ever since they’d started working together: Amven couldn’t be used for violence.

No one under the influence of the drug would ever knowingly hurt another person. That had been the entire point of Amven, the way Jehan had first envisioned it. Back when he’d still believed you could drug humanity into being decent to one another…into peace, tolerance, and benevolence.

Well, look where that’d gotten them.

Gathering every last drop of courage she could muster, Rito leaned a little further in and hissed at Rinisa:

“Go kiss him. Kiss Grigori, now!”