"What in Hell?" For the very first time since Erskine walked through the door, Anton paused and looked at him in the face, properly physically acknowledged him instead of tacitly. He hadn't meant to, but all of a sudden phrasings people took for granted seemed extremely funny. And not in an amusing way.

His smile was testament to that. Small, tight, twisted even. "Hell would do it, don't you think, Erskine?"

Anton turned back to his work, the mop splashing into the bucket and then drawn out again. He shouldn't have said anything. For the last two days he'd managed with a fragile sort of never-ending action. While working, he could not think. But now even that brief pause was enough to crack the glass, and something seethed hot in his chest, like a fire just a shade too close.

The words came without him really wanting them to, without him looking up from the sweep of the mop across the floor. "We've been betrayed. We've all been betrayed."

His grip tightened on the stick to hide the way his fingers trembled.