Page 77 of Pretty Little Assassin

The seventh is at the end of the upstairs hall, and that door was shut the day my mother moved us in, and it never once opened after. When I was fifteen, I decided it was storage and stopped wondering. I kick beside the lock. The frame splinters, and the door crashes inward.

It’s a child’s room.

Small bed. Wallpaper with rabbits on it. A chest of drawers with the bottom drawer hanging open and empty, the way a drawer is left when someone packs in a hurry. The window has a lock on the outside.

There is nothing of mine in here.

A photograph lies face-down on the dresser. I turn it over. A woman I have never seen in my life, holding a girl of about four on her hip, both of them laughing at whoever is standing behind the camera.

Somebody has cut that person out of the picture. Scissors, neatly, all the way down one side.

On the back, in pencil: C., four.

I put it in my jacket and head to the last room. My old bedroom.

I move through the room the way I move through every room. Corners first. Under the bed. Inside the wardrobe. Everything is exactly as I remembered it.

I’m almost done when I see it.

A cell phone. A burner that looks discarded.

Someone left this behind on purpose. The screen is unlocked. A message is already open on its face.

YOUR REFUSAL TO COMPLETE THE CONTRACT HAS MARKED YOU FOR TERMINATION.

DELIVER ASSET 13.

DEAD OR ALIVE.

YOUR STANDING WITH THE PRIMACY WILL BE RESTORED.

I look at the recipient’s contact number. But I don’t need to. I already know who it’s for, and I look anyway.

The message was for Viktor.

This isn’t part of the mirror contract. It came afterward, once he chose to team up with me. The Primacy offered him a way back in, and he never told me.

He didn’t take it. He’s here, fighting beside me. But he still hid it.

I know exactly why my stepfather left this here. He wants the secret to do what the contract couldn’t: turn us against each other.

Knowing that doesn’t make me any less pissed.

I toss the phone against the wall and feel only slightly better.

“You should have told me, Wraith,” I mutter to myself as I walk out of the bedroom and slam the door behind me.

The burner rings behind the closed door.

I go back in. I don’t pick it up. I crouch over it and read the screen.

38 minutes before the omegas die, Valentina.

24

VIKTOR

This isn’t going to be pretty.