It had been a plan. Someone's plan, built specifically to hurt her sister and Amira, in her grief and her need and her desperate hunger to be loved by something that couldn't yet judge her, had walked directly into the middle of it and called it salvation.
She heard herself make a sound. She wasn't sure what kind.
"Amira," Leo started. She was already standing.
She didn't remember deciding to stand. She was simply up, the chair scraping back hard against the floor, her hand pressed flat against her own chest as if she could hold something in by force.
"Amira, wait," Leo was on his feet too now, reaching for her across the table, the guard near the door starting forward. "I told you, none of this is true, just let me explain, come back,"
She was already walking.
