I hear the rumblings about the resistance cells. Word is they’re popping up all over the country, smuggling carriers from checkpoint to checkpoint, working toward undermining the Agency and camps. The media insists it’s all exaggeration, but I think the Resistance is real. They’re out there and making a difference. There are more people questioning the validity of HTS. Things have got to change soon, Davy. Just hold on.

—Letter sent from Mitchell Hamilton

Destroyed upon receipt at Mount Haven

ELEVEN

BY THE TIME PHELPS ROLLS MY WOULD-BE-ASSASSIN off me, he’s made enough noise, shouting and calling for help, that a mob quickly crowds the infirmary. I wheeze, speech impossible.

Caden isn’t the first one to the room, but there’s a shift in the air once he arrives. He may claim not to be in charge, but everyone looks to him when he bursts through the door, shoving past bodies. Even Marcus looks at him. Or glares really. But Marcus has been glaring since he got here and crouched beside me and the dead guy, looking back and forth between the two of us with the oddest expression in his eyes.

Caden searches the room, takes it in with one sweep. His eyes light on the body of the man I killed. He’s still right there beside me, the copper-rich scent of him indistinguishable from my own smell. I reek of death. The entire room does.

Since the light flipped on, I’ve studied him, too. My would-be-killer. Another face for my nightmares. Although I won’t suffer guilt this time around. Not for this one. He didn’t have to creep into my room in the middle of the night and try to choke the life out of me. No one forced his hands around my throat. That was his choice. Killing him was mine, and I don’t regret it. Not when it came down to him or me.

I recognized him at once. The creeper.

Caden’s gaze locks on me. He moves to stand beside Phelps, who still inspects me, prodding at my neck, and it takes everything in me not to shrink away from the contact. Right now I really don’t feel like being touched. “Choked you, huh?” Phelps murmurs.

Caden’s hands lift, slightly flex on the air as though he’s not sure where he can touch me. If it’s okay. If I’m not spinning toward death even now. Whether the copious amount of blood covering me and the floor isn’t mine.

I stare at Caden’s hovering hands, hoping he doesn’t touch me. I don’t want the comfort. I need to remember hard, crushing hands strangling the life out of me. That will keep things in perspective. Keep me sharp. Alert to danger, to threats. I can’t let someone lull me with a tender touch. I’d dropped my guard here, and it nearly cost me.

“You’re bleeding?” It’s more question than statement as his eyes do a quick dance over me.

“No.” The word is a hoarse croak. His eyes narrow in on my face, that fiery brown warm and alive in the unkind light. “Well. Maybe.” I wince and shift my shoulder as much as I can bear. “Most of it is his.” I nod toward the dead guy.

“Your voice—” Caden starts to say, but Phelps cuts him off.

“She’s alive. She’s fine.” Phelps lifts a hand and pats Caden on the shoulder.

As though being not dead is all it takes to be fine. I bristle, wondering how he knows that. I want to shout at him, I don’t feel fine. I’m not fine. But I pull myself together with a rough breath.

“Get that out of here.” Phelps motions for a few of the guys crowding the room to grab the corpse and then he’s behind me, arms hooking under my shoulders. There’s fresh pain, but I barely register it as he drags me off to the side, away from the wide puddle of blood. I glide easily enough over the floor, the blood slick under me. My entire body feels like it went toe-to-toe with a semi. It could be worse. I guess Dr. Phelps is right, because I could be dead and not feeling anything at all anymore.

Rhiannon helps him get me up on an exam table. At least I’m not on the floor now—I felt too vulnerable with everyone towering over me—but all the movement has made me dizzy.

Caden stands off to the side, listening to something Marcus is saying, but his gaze flits back and forth between me and the body with a scalpel sticking out of its neck. That’s where I stabbed the winning blow.

Marcus’s hands slice the air and his voice lifts. I can’t focus on the words, but Caden doesn’t look happy with whatever he’s hearing. He shakes his head and tries to step around him, but Marcus stops him with a hand on his arm. Caden knocks it away. Marcus’s face turns several shades of red, and I know they’re about to get physical. And then Terrence is there, stepping between both of them, speaking in a low voice impossible for anyone but the two of them to hear.

My gaze slides away, drawn to my attacker. His body is gathered up into a sheet and hauled out the door. There’s so much blood left behind on the floor.

Rhiannon touches the back of my hand lightly, and I flinch.

She pulls away, her expression sliding into something cautious and distant. “Let’s get you showered.”

I shake my head, still staring at the dark puddle of blood like so much tar on the floor.

“You can’t stay like this. You’re covered in blood, Davy—”

“I can’t walk.” This last word catches, vanishing in my destroyed throat. My eyes swing to her, resenting that she’s making me say it. At Mount Haven they taught us, Never show weakness. But here I am. So weak. A broken bird. I have no fight left.

Rhiannon looks toward Phelps, and her gaze must communicate something because he places cool, gentle fingers at my neck, peering closely. I’m not sure what he can determine. Most of the skin there is covered with ink, but he frowns. “Is it too uncomfortable to speak? Can you say something more for me?”