There was a sound right next to us and everyone spun, raising their guns. I swept my flashlight back and forth and found the source: a metal cage. All I could see inside was brown fluff. Then it turned around and I saw its face. A baby brown bear, about the size of a big puppy.

Colton moved closer, reached through the bars and stroked the bear, and it pressed its head into his hand. “A bear? Why’s someone selling a bear? For some rich guy’s zoo?”

Cal looked at me. I looked at Bradan. Bradan looked at Gabriel. None of us wanted to be the one to tell him. “It’ll be going to China,” I said at last. “For traditional medicine. They keep it in a cage and they, uh…” I swallowed. “They put a tube in it. To collect bile from its gallbladder. They can keep it alive for about ten years.”

Colton stared at me in disbelief. Then his expression changed to anger. He stroked the bear again and it made the most pathetic, keening yowl I’d ever heard. I could see the rage spreading through Colton’s body as he stroked the little thing, his shoulders and back tensing. When he stepped away from the cage, he was shaking. I’d never seen him so mad.

We found stairs leading up into the castle. We knew Becker would be meeting his buyers in the library, but where was that? The place was huge and there were no signposts.

Then we heard the squeak of a wheel, around the next corner. Bradan crept forward and peeked, then waved us to him. A guard was pushing a moving cart and on it was the brown leather case of the bomb.

The guard disappeared through a doorway. We formed up beside it and I counted us in: one, two three—

We burst in, guns up. We’d found the library, a cavernous space with towering shelves of leather-bound books and a staircase leading up to a second floor. Becker was there, setting up a laptop, probably to arrange his payment. Two blond-haired men in expensive suits were inspecting the bomb. I could only see one guard, the one who’d pushed the cart, and he raised his hands as soon as we pointed our guns at him. We’d got the drop on them.

I marched forward, keeping my sights right in the center of Becker’s face. “Where’s Erin?” I yelled. “Where’s my sister?”

Becker’s lips twitched into a sad little smile. And suddenly the room exploded into noise and chaos.