There. On the roof of a dark SUV was Val, arms and legs splayed in broken, unnatural ways.

Val was dead.

~

Numbing instinct took over. I knew I had to get away from the hotel without being seen, and that wasn’t going to be easy considering I’d run into the hotel, chasing Val . . . the woman who was dead outside.

Oh God.

Emotion clogged my throat as I raced down the stairs and then entered one of the hotel hallways, making my way to an elevator. Luckily, I didn’t need a card to use it. I pulled my hair up, twisting it into a knot. The lobby was full of people crowding the glass revolving doors. Squeezing past them, I slipped out onto Canal and headed right, ignoring all the sounds—what the people were seeing, the shocked gasps, the sirens. Once I was back on Bourbon, I pulled out my phone. I started to call Ren, but since he hadn’t texted me, I knew he was still busy. In a weird, detached daze, I decided not to bother him. I knew I had to report this, so I searched for David’s number and hit SEND as I blindly made my way down the street.

David answered on the fourth ring. “What.”

He always answered like that. What. Not a question but a demand. For some reason, hearing something so familiar settled the tight knots building in my stomach. “It’s Ivy.”

“Sort of figured that out when the caller ID showed your name,” he replied dryly. “What’s going on?”

An older woman noticed me, and her face pinched with concern. I wiped my sleeve under my nose, forgetting it was bloodied. “Val’s dead.”

There was a sharp expletive that blasted my ears. “I need a little more detail, like about five seconds ago.”

“I saw her on Bourbon, and she ran. I chased her up to the roof of one of the hotels on Canal,” I explained, keeping my voice low as I made my way toward the street. “She was down here doing something, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was. We fought, and she . . .” My breath caught because I couldn’t tell the complete truth, and what did that make me? I’d have to unpack all that mess later. “She fell off the roof.”

“Shit,” muttered David.

I took a breath that seemed to get stuck. “I didn’t kill her.” David didn’t reply, and I don’t even know why I continued speaking. “I asked her why she did this, why she betrayed us. She—”

“It doesn’t matter, Ivy. The why does not matter. She did what she did. She made that choice,” David replied with a heavy sigh. “She still out on Canal?”

My stomach turned. “Yeah.”

“I’ll send someone out. Call Robby. Let them know she’s one of ours.” There was a pause. “You’re off for the rest of the night.”

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Someone knocked into me, and I shot the woman a look that warned her not to say one word. “Why? I’m fine. I can—”

“You were close to her. You just saw her die. I don’t care what you say you are, you’re off for the rest of the night. Get your ass off the streets or you’ll find yourself off tomorrow too,” David advised. “I’m being serious. It’s an order.”

Starting to walk again, I gritted my teeth and immediately regretted it, because my jaw ached. “All right.”

“I’m gonna need you to come down tomorrow and fill out a report,” he said. “Don’t forget.”

I was so not looking forward to that. I hung up and walked about four steps before my phone rang again. It was Ren. I answered. “Hey.”

“Just heard about Val. Where are you?” he asked.

“Um . . .” I looked around. “On Bourbon. Across from Galatoire’s.”

“Hang out there, and I’ll meet in you in a couple of minutes.”

“Ren,” I whispered, my heart flipping all over the place. I really wanted to cry. “You’re busy doing special Elite stuff, and you don’t need to come to me.”

“You need me and that’s where I need to be,” he replied. “I’ll be right there. Okay?”

Ren hung up before I could respond, and I had to breathe deeply so I didn’t break down. I looked around, and not finding any place to sit, leaned against the mustard-colored wall and waited while this horrible burning sensation churned in my stomach, slowly crawling up my throat.

Val had betrayed the Order. She had nearly gotten me killed, but . . . she’d been my best friend, and now she was gone. Dead on the street because of the choices she’d made, the trusts she’d broken and horribly misplaced in others. I didn’t understand how I could feel so much pain for a person who’d done one of the worst things, but I did and the heartbreak wasn’t any less because of her actions.

It was more.

~

Ren showed up about twenty minutes later, shaving off about five minutes of that walk, which was rather impressive. He didn’t say anything when he spotted me leaning against the wall, and neither did I. Partly because I was just so . . . relieved to see him—that wonderfully messy, wavy hair of his, those bright, warm green eyes, and everything that was alive about him.

He walked up to me, and a second later, I was in his arms, and he was holding me so tight and so close. I didn’t care what we must look like to others on the street. I wrapped my arms around him and held on. One of his hands slid up and down my back, and we stood there like that for what felt like eternity.

“You okay?” Ren leaned back and brushed his lips over my forehead. “Looks like your jaw is a little red.”