He wasn’t running down. He was running up. To the forty-seventh floor. To Anna.

My body moved before my mind finished the thought. I took the stairs two at a time, lungs burning by the tenth floor, legs screaming by the twentieth.

Somewhere below, officers shouted. Somewhere above, a door slammed. Elias had a head start and desperation. I had rage.

By the forty-seventh floor the hallway was drenched in flashing red, the alarm making the walls pulse, smoke doors half closed near the elevator bank.

I saw the security supervisor first — on the floor, groaning, blood at his mouth. Elias must have found him waiting and put him down.

The door to my suite stood open. The chain hung broken.