“It’s not going to do us any good,” I protested, but I could see from the looks on their faces that I wasn’t exactly preaching to a crowd who gave much of a damn about what I had to say.

“Yeah, well, we have to try.” Marcus got to his feet. I wasn’t sure that he had slept at all the night before, judging by the dark circles under his eyes, but he had come out today even more certain than ever about what we needed. “If she thinks it’ll work, then I say we should at least think about giving it a go.”

I turned to Cora, and threw my hands up in the air. This had all been her idea and it seemed like, no matter how hard I tried, they weren’t going to hear anything different from me. The more I’d thought about how callous my father had been, the more it had seemed like a plan doomed to fail. And we couldn’t take another failure.

“Cora, please,” I begged her. “You have to know what a crazy idea this all is.”

“Yeah, I do,” she replied firmly. “But I also know that it’s the best idea we’ve got.”

“Yeah, okay, you want to run me through why that’s the case, again?” I asked pointedly. Cora took a deep breath, as though prepping herself for a big jump. She was feeling better, that much was obvious, but if I had known that she would be so stubborn when was back on her feet…

“Look, I think that your father turned you down because he couldn’t be seen to be giving help to someone outside the clan, right?” she began. “It sets a bad precedent. And not only that, it shows weakness. He exiled you. Allowing you back in and then also risking pack members to help your cause--”

“I’m his daughter,” I reminded her, a little bitterly, but she shook her head.

“You know everything with this clan stuff goes far deeper than family,” she reminded me gently. “It always has. They’ve got to…they’ve got to make it clear that there’s nothing more important than loyalty to the clan, even when it hurts them. Even when it goes against what they really want to do.”

“You think my father wanted to help me but couldn’t because he’s brainwashed everyone into believing that this clan thing is more important than family?” I shot in her direction. “If that’s the case, how did he justify leaving you there?”

The words felt cruel, and soured in my mouth, but they needed to be said. We were looking down the barrel of going back to that place once more, and even the thought of that was enough to get my blood curdling in my veins so I couldn’t believe Cora was so set on getting back in there – she had only just gotten away, and I would have understood if she’d wanted nothing more than to be taken back to the Kellum place and left to recover from what had happened to her. But no. She was willing to fight alongside us, and I knew that I couldn’t hold her back. She was filled with a fury at what she had seen, the same fury I had been filled with, but she hadn’t been shot down before. She was coming at this fresh and ready and I knew I should have let that carry me through, but I just wasn’t sure that I could. We needed a fool proof plan this time, and this sure as hell wasn’t it.

But I couldn’t silence the niggling voice that told me the truth. There would never be one.

I shook my head and turned away from her. All of us were crowded into that small room and suddenly it felt as though the air was choking me. I needed a break, but I was stuck here until we figured out what we were to do next.

“Please, Ari,” Cora implored me. She took my hand and looked dead into my eyes, and I felt this flood of emotion hit me at having her there in front of me again. No, it wasn’t emotion – it was memory, all these memories piling up on one another, of everything we’d shared growing up, everything we’d been to each other. And now she was asking for my help, to do the one thing that I couldn’t do.

“We can’t waste any more time on the Kellums or going back there when Rafe needs us,” I argued, turning away from her, trying to get rid of the crush of feelings in my head. “My father, he’s already made his stance clear and I don’t see what we gain by going back and trying to change his mind-”

“It’s not his mind that we’re trying to change.” She spread her hands wide. “It’s everyone else’s, remember? If we can get them to see the truth and see what your father has turned his back on-”

“Best case, it’ll tear the clan apart,” I pointed out. “No way they all agree. Like a civil war, I bet. You want that?”

“If it means we can take down that awful place?” She met my gaze steadily, eyes shining, voice taut with confidence. “Then yes. It’s a broken clan anyway if we can’t protect our own. It needs re-building.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. I had forgotten how convincing that Cora could be when she wanted to be, how easily she could twist me over to her side. I glanced around the room, looking desperately for someone to back-up my point, but I could see from the way they were all looking at me that they agreed with her.

I clenched my fists and released them again, trying to focus on the feeling of that, and not the fear that moved through me every time that I focused on what Cora was asking me to do right now.

“Anyone else got anything to say about this?” I looked around the room, appealing to the people around me in the hopes that one of the men that I loved so much would see how much I didn’t want to do this and would intervene. But they just stood there. In fact, of all the people in that place, it was Joel who stepped forward and spoke first.

“It’s the only option,” he announced, and his words seemed to hang in the air between us as I struggled to hold myself together. “We tried and, even with our skills, we failed. But more importantly, we can’t just go back and get Rafe anymore. We need to take down the MacLarens once and for all. You know that, Arianna. We all saw that place. You told us what they’re doing there. It’s got to end, and for that, we need an army. Don’t let Joseph’s sacrifice be for nothing…”

He trailed off, coming to a halt, as though it was too painful for him to continue.

None of us had really spoken to them about what had happened, and they had seemed happier to keep it that way. But they hadn’t left yet, which I had firmly expected them to do. Apparently, they wanted to see it through to the end, to avenge the loss of one of their own.

“It’s the only choice we have,” Marcus picked up where his companion had left off, his voice more certain than ever. “I didn’t know how bad it was until we walked into that place, and it’s a hell of a lot more heavily guarded and more dangerous than we thought.”

“You don’t have to do this.” I looked into his eyes. “No amount of gold can repay what-”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Marcus replied, voice low, meeting my gaze and daring me to say something else. “Not until those fuckers who killed Joseph pay.”

I took his at his word. They had lost more than any of us had, and they deserved to have that taken seriously. I turned to Anton, to Luke, to Ethan.

“Well?”

“It’s the only way that we can find enough people to end this for good,” Ethan replied. “You saw how many they sent after us. We were lucky that-” He cut himself off, realizing what he was saying was pretty damn insensitive considering that our “luck” had come from someone dying on our behalf. He lowered his gaze and shook his head.

“Rafe is still in that place,” he finally went on, quieter than before, so quiet that I had to strain to hear him. “We need to get him out. I don’t know how much more time we have.”

“And they’ll be expecting an invasion from us now,” Luke pointed out. He hadn’t been talking a lot the last day or so, since we’d got back, and it was clear that he’d been all up in his own head about what had happened. Like he had been brewing on the best course of action for the future. “We aren’t going to be able to get in there with wile this time,” he explained. “We’re going to need to take that place by force.”

“You really think we can do that?” I frowned. “You think there’s enough Kellums that will follow us?”

“I think we have to try,” Cora said, her face set in a mask of determination.

I looked up at her, defeated. They were right. It was the only hope we had. And every moment that I spent going back and forth on it was another moment that we left Rafe and everyone else trapped in there to suffer.

“Fine.” I held my hands up. “Fine, I’ll do it. But just the two of us are going into the compound. You guys can come to the gates, but if they turn on us, someone still needs to remain on the outside to help Rafe and the other prisoners.”

Luke opened his mouth to protest, but I kept talking. I wasn’t done yet.

“And if they turn us down this time,” I looked around the room slowly, making sure that everyone here could see that I was serious and not to be argued with on this, “we come up with a new plan of attack and go it alone. We can’t give up on Rafe. Not while any of us are breathing.”

“It won’t come to that,” Cora said grimly. “We’re going to make it happen, I swear it.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” I muttered, trying not to give over to the ember of hope that had almost broken me last time.

Please, God, let her be right.

She had to be…Rafe’s very life was depending on it.