by Aimee Carter
“I’m not asking for another chance,” said Knox. His voice cracked, and he sounded like a cornered animal. “I’m asking you to look at the facts.”
“I am,” said Daxton, “and what I see is a long list of reasons why I should stop putting up with this foolishness. The files are only the beginning. My patience is wearing thin, Lennox, and though I am a peace-loving man, there are some things not even I can tolerate.”
Silence. I held my breath, waiting for Knox to respond, but instead something shifted through the grates. Daxton stood directly below me, his hands clasped behind his back. He was fully dressed, even though it had to be well into the small hours of the morning by now.
“This is my final offer. Take it or leave it, Lennox. I am no longer interested in babysitting, and she must be detained.”
She. My blood ran cold. They weren’t talking about Knox—they were talking about me.
“And what happens if I don’t take it?” said Knox. I began to slide backward. Detained meant one of two things: it meant Elsewhere, or it meant death. And Knox had promised me months ago that he would kill me before he would let Daxton send me to be hunted by the very VIs who would have happily watched Lila burn.
“You know what happens then,” said Daxton, his voice fading. I didn’t care. I had to get back to Benjy before they found me, and we had to leave. Free or not, I had every intention of waking up the next morning as alive as I was today.
Once I’d cleared the office, I didn’t bother trying to keep quiet. I crawled as fast as I could back to the sitting room, where I dropped to the floor and raced into the hallway. I took the corners half blind and oblivious, but once I was clear of Daxton’s wing, the guards were at a minimum.
I reached my suite in record time. Bursting inside, I grabbed the duffel bag from underneath the sink and ran back into the hallway. I tried the knob to Knox’s suite, but it was locked. Swearing, I fumbled with my necklace, yanking the chain over my head. My fingers trembled, but I managed to unfold the lock pick and make quick work of it.
I nudged open the door and tugged the necklace back around my neck. Benjy had to be packed by now. If he’d stuffed his bag full of books instead of clothes—
I stopped cold. Benjy stood in the middle of the room, but he wasn’t alone. Knox stood beside him, and at first glance, it looked completely innocent. Benjy was pale and his shoulders hunched defensively, however, and his expression silently begged me to turn around and run. I opened my mouth to say something, but instead I spotted the glint of steel pressed against Benjy’s spine, and my stomach nearly turned inside out.
“Knox—what—” I began, but a cold hand settled on my shoulder, and I froze.
“Hello, my dear,” said Daxton, and my throat swelled. Shit. Shit shit shit.
“What’s going on?” I managed to force out. “Is everything okay?”
“You know it isn’t, Lila,” he said, tracing the three ridges on the back of my neck. “Tell me where you put the file.”
“What—what file?” I locked eyes with Benjy, and my heart raced. It would be okay. It had to be okay. This was not going to be the end.
“You know exactly what file I’m talking about,” said Daxton. “Guards—check her bag and search her suite.”
Half a dozen guards appeared from the fringes of the room, and while five of them marched out into the hallway, the last one ripped through my bag. Jewelry glittering with diamonds spilled from the pockets, along with the clothes I’d stuffed inside. My airway threatened to close up. That alone was worth an arrest.
“Knox, tell him it wasn’t me,” I said, but he didn’t move. “Knox.”
“He won’t lie for you,” said Daxton. “Tell me the truth, Lila.”
I searched Knox’s expression for any sign he had a plan, but instead he held my stare blankly, as much of a challenge as it was a surrender. There wasn’t a plan. This was it. We were the pawns, and Knox was making the necessary sacrifices to win the game.
Screw the game. If he wanted to play, then I’d play. “Knox stole that file, not me,” I spat. “He’s hiding the one on you, too. How do you think he got the first one? Do you really think I’d willingly hand it over to him?”
“Yes,” said Daxton smoothly, “because that is exactly what you did. Will you be honest with me, Lila, or do I have to bleed it out of you?”
“I am being honest. Knox is trying to frame me. He’s the leader of the Blackcoats—him and Celia. All this time, they’ve been working together to destroy you.”
A strange sound emanated from deep within Daxton, and it took me several confused seconds before I realized what I was hearing. He was laughing. “Wrong again, my dear. You’re on quite the roll tonight, aren’t you? Knox has been working for me—reporting back on Blackcoat activity, telling me their next moves. How do you think we’ve been ahead of them the whole time?”
“I—” I faltered. Knox didn’t meet my eye, and his grip on Benjy’s shoulder tightened.
No. Not possible. After all this time and everything he’d done to help me—not possible.
“He’s lying,” I said, the words tumbling out of me in a rush as I tried to convince Daxton as well as myself. “He might be feeding you tidbits to make it look like he’s on your side, but he’s really telling the Blackcoats everything he knows about you and—”
“Everything I tell him to say,” said Daxton. “Why do you think the Blackcoats haven’t gotten any closer to their goal? Why do you think tonight’s raid failed? Why do you think they’re cut off at every turn before they can find their footing? No one, not even my sister, is that incompetent.”
I was going to throw up right there on Daxton’s leather shoes. “Knox?” I said, my voice shaking. “Is he telling the truth?”
“He seems to be the only one in the room who is,” said Knox coolly.
“It’s not here,” said the guard. He’d ripped apart my duffel bag, and it hung in pieces from the handles. In the room over, I could hear the sounds of furniture breaking and glass shattering.
Daxton’s fingers dug into my neck until the edges of my vision began to darken. “You have two choices,” he said with remarkable calm. “You can tell me where you hid it, or I can kill you right here and now.”
I forced myself to breathe steadily. In and out, in and out, slowly and deeply. “All right—okay,” I said. “Just—don’t hurt me, okay? The file...”
Daxton’s grip tightened. “Yes?”
I locked eyes with Benjy, my gaze unwavering. He knew how much I loved him. He knew I would do anything to save his life. But I couldn’t do this to save mine, not when it meant giving Knox and Daxton exactly what they wanted.
I’m sorry, I mouthed to him, before I said out loud, “The file’s exactly where it should be. Stuck so far up your ass that it’ll never see the light of day again.”
An enraged roar ripped through the room, and a burst of white-hot pain shot through me as Daxton forced me to the ground by my neck, pressing my cheek against the wooden floor.
“Last chance, little girl,” he whispered. “Five...four...three...two...”
“Sir!” A guard burst into the room, and Daxton’s grip relaxed enough for me to breathe. “It isn’t in her suite.”
“You’re sure?” said Daxton. “You looked through everything?”
“Yes, sir. If it’s in there, it’s in a place no one will ever find it.”
“Good.” I could hear the smile in Daxton’s voice, and he released me. As I began to stand, however, he stomped down on my back, digging his shoe into the middle of my shoulders. I bit back a cry. “Had you cooperated, we might have been able to avoid this sideshow of unpleasantries,” he said. “It does make for a bad taste in my mouth. But as it stands, you have left me with no choice.”
Even with half my face pressed against the floor, I sp
otted Daxton stroking his pistol lovingly. My eyes widened, but I kept my mouth shut. I refused to give him the satisfaction of making me beg.
“You have been nothing but a thorn in my side, dear niece, and the time has come to weed the garden,” he said smoothly. “I can’t say I’ll miss you.”
“Daxton.” Knox’s voice cut through the room, sharp and as much a warning as it was a reminder. The man who was supposed to be my uncle sighed dramatically.
“Oh, very well.” He gestured toward Knox with the gun. “Only because I like you, mind. Let’s get it over with.”
Knox grimaced, and my mind raced. What were they talking about, getting it over—
Bang.
A shot rang out, and my entire body turned cold with dread. An excruciatingly slow second passed, but pain didn’t blossom like I thought it would. Instead, the only agony I felt came from the pressure of Daxton’s shoe and the throbbing in my neck where he’d grabbed me.
But I wasn’t their only prisoner. Across the room, Benjy went rigid, and his eyes grew wide. He seemed to fall in slow motion, his knees hitting the floor first, making a resounding crack against the hard wood. One moment our eyes were locked, and I saw the fear and pain and trepidation on his face—and the next, he slumped lifelessly to the ground.
My world went silent. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t move. As had happened when I’d killed Augusta, I was vaguely aware someone was screaming, and soon enough I realized it was me. My mind detached from my body, separating itself so completely that I felt as if I were looking down on myself, fighting underneath Daxton’s foot as he uncapped a syringe. Ten feet away, Knox knelt beside Benjy’s body and touched his throat as if he were feeling for a pulse. But even as he did so, I couldn’t look away from Benjy’s stare—his cold, empty stare void of any life or love or warmth, and I didn’t have to see Knox’s satisfied nod to know.
Benjy was dead.
Benjy was dead, and Knox had killed him.
“Now, my dear, this could have been so much simpler if only you’d listened,” murmured Daxton above me. His knee replaced his foot between my shoulder blades, and the needle stung as it slid into my neck. “Whatever the rest of your short life brings you, I do hope this was worth it.”
Unbearable pain rushed through me, setting my body on fire. But the heat of whatever it was Daxton had injected into my veins was nothing compared to the agony of losing Benjy, and as it burned me up from the inside out, I stared at his lifeless face, tears flooding my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered in vain hope that my voice would be the last thing he heard. But it was pointless—he was gone.
Everything went black.
V
SECTION X
Somewhere nearby, someone was singing.
I shielded my eyes from the morning light and groaned. My head pounded, and my throat was dry and scratchy, as if I hadn’t had anything to drink in days. I reached blindly for the glass of water I kept at my bedside, but my hand rammed into a rough wall, scraping my knuckles.
I opened my eyes and sat up, my heart pounding. I was in a cold concrete cell barely long enough to fit the cot beneath me, and it wasn’t much wider than I was tall. Wedged beside the bed was a metal nightstand with an empty bucket underneath, and the tiny window was high up in the corner of the room, far too small for me to fit through even if I climbed up to reach it. The air smelled like damp mold, and the metal door had a thin slit for peering out, but there was no way I could slip my hand through and undo the lock. Wherever this place was, it was as far from Somerset as I could possibly get.
Suddenly the memory of what had happened in Knox’s suite hit me, forcing all the air from my lungs. Pain sliced straight through me, and if my heart could have broken in half, I was sure it would have.
Benjy couldn’t be gone. He’d been alive hours ago, laughing and teasing and drawing our future on a napkin. It couldn’t just end like this. Maybe I was wrong—maybe I’d misunderstood what I’d seen.
But deep inside, I knew I’d understood just fine.
Benjy was dead.
I would never see him again. I would never touch him, never hug him, never kiss him—our future, the future we’d both dreamed of for so long, would never happen. We would never sit in the grass by a pond and have a picnic in the sunshine. I would never again be able to tell him how much I loved him. And he would never know how sorry I was for not giving up that file when I had the chance.
He was gone.
Grief overtook me like quicksand, so solid that it felt as if I were drowning in it. I sank back onto the cot as the tears began, hot and bitter as they carved out their paths running down my face. He would still be alive if I had just done what Daxton had told me to do. If I hadn’t trusted Knox—if I had run away with Benjy while I still could—
Infinite what ifs buzzed around me, smothering me until I couldn’t think. I should have made Daxton kill me. I should have killed myself instead. I should have never valued the Blackcoats’ useless revolution over Benjy’s life—they stood no chance, and I’d known it all along. I should have listened to my gut. I should have never let Knox convince me to stay as Lila in the first place. I should have done anything else, and Benjy would still be alive.
My fault. This was all my fault.
Agonizing sobs tore through me, ripped from depths I couldn’t imagine. Every single one felt like a knife to the heart, and in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to die right then and there. I’d read stories about prisoners who had done it—who had somehow willed themselves into death through the sheer power of their mind. But no matter how badly I wanted it to end, it couldn’t. Not yet. Daxton would never let me die that easily, not when he still had the opportunity to inflict as much pain as he could.
“It’s about time you woke up,” said a voice on the other side of the metal door. “Much longer, and you’d be eligible for a coma.”
I swallowed my sobs, causing a hard knot to form in my throat. “Who’s there?” Even to my own ears, I didn’t sound right, and for a second I wondered if they’d turned me back into my old self. The last time I’d been knocked out and brought to a strange place, I’d woken up looking exactly like Lila Hart—would they do the same in reverse?
No. I would never be that lucky. The only time I would ever be me again would be in death.
The screech of metal against metal filled my tiny cell, and the door swung open, revealing a woman with blue eyes and a long blond braid hanging over her shoulder. She wore a white uniform with silver trim, and she held a medical kit loosely in one hand. In the other, she balanced a tray of eggs, bacon, and toast, along with a porcelain bowl full of colorful fruit and a tall glass of orange juice.
“Breakfast was hours ago, but I thought you’d appreciate this more than a stale sandwich,” she said, setting the tray on the nightstand with impeccable balance. Despite the wry smile tugging at her lips, her tone wasn’t cheerful. If anything, it was strained, as if someone had told her to be nice even though she had no intention of doing so. “How do you feel?”
I blinked. “Where am I?”
“Answer me first.” There—now I could hear the edge in her voice she’d been trying to hide. “How do you feel? Is your mouth dry? Do you have a headache? Are you in pain?”
“What do you think?” I said dully. “Best day of my life, right here.”
“If you’re not careful, it’ll be the last,” she warned.
My gaze flickered to the gun holstered to her hip. One bullet. That was all it would take, and this would be over. “Why don’t I give you a free shot this time?” I said. “I won’t even fight you. You’ll get to tell all your friends you killed Lila Hart.”
“Tempting.” She offered me a strip of bacon. “Eat.”
Reluctantly I took it from her and nibbled. In another li
fe, I would have fought a dozen Shields for a chance to taste something this good. Today, it might as well have been made of chalk.
Still, it seemed to placate her, and she pulled a thermometer out of her medical kit and ran it across my forehead. It beeped, and she set it aside, seemingly satisfied. “Now, are you going to tell me how you feel, or am I going to have to resort to drastic measures?” she said. I shrugged.
“Headache. Sore throat. Dry mouth.” Empty hole where my heart used to be. “Who are you?”
The corners of her mouth twitched with annoyance, as if she expected me to know exactly who she was. “Hannah Mercer. Head of Section X.”
“Section X of what?”
Her thin eyebrow rose, and she looked at me as if I’d asked what one plus one was. “Section X of Elsewhere.”
Elsewhere.
Elsewhere.
For a fraction of a second, the grief inside me gave way to a new emotion: pure, unadulterated panic. Daxton was going to hunt me down, just like he’d hunted Nina. I would die screaming and terrified in the woods like a wild animal, without dignity or any hope of escape.
But I would be with Benjy again. That single fact alone made the tightness in my chest ease, and I managed a strangled exhale. There was no dignity in death, only in life. Benjy had lived with dignity. I would, too.
Before I could ask how long it would be before I was dumped in the woods, the metal door opened again, this time revealing a tall man who looked eerily familiar. I blinked, my mind racing to place him. He was dressed in a white uniform nearly identical to Hannah’s, though he wore a hat with his, the military style similar to the one that was part of the Shields’ uniform. His dark hair was cropped short, and his face was long, with a strong jaw that reminded me of the IIs who sat on their stoops in the hot D.C. summers, chewing jerky and grumbling about their work on the docks.
One look at this man, though, and it was obvious he’d never done a day of hard labor in his life. I was sure I’d seen him before, but my mind was too muddled with shock to place him. Until—
