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“Go!” I call out.
“You’re bleeding—”
I shoot a murderous glare at him. “Roll this fucking gurney or I’ll take you apart!”
He sighs deeply and starts moving. I hope like hell that Gabriel went somewhere else and not straight here. Diego said Amira’s awake. If I can just get a few minutes to talk to her alone—
“Incoming!” Diego calls, angling the gurney to fit through the room’s doorway.
I look around wildly, my hope fading.
Gabriel is standing on one side of the bed, and a man and a woman I don’t recognize, both in ILF uniforms, are on the other side. Everyone, including Amira, who’s in a sitting position in her hospital bed, is looking at me.
Amira’s gold-moss-and-mahogany eyes are swimming with panic. I roll myself out of the bed, doubling over from the pain.
“Amira, don’t talk to them.” I gasp, trying to get a breath. “Don’t say a word.”
“Get him out of here!” Gabriel shouts, pointing at the door.
Diego drops his brows, looking confused. “Aren’t they partners?”
“No. Not anymore.”
Blood trickles from my wound to the floor. The pain is hot and all-consuming. It was so fucking stupid of me to go take that shower. I wanted to be clean when Amira woke up and saw me, and instead I ruined everything.
“What’s going on?” Amira asks me. “Are these people in the ILF?”
I groan, trying to stand. “They are, but don’t talk to them.”
“We know you’re Alice Glass,” Gabriel says to her. “All of us. Evander brought you here because we need your help with the Deadmen. It will be much easier for all of us if you willingly cooperate.”
Amira’s panicked gaze finds mine. “No. You ... ?” Her face twists with hurt. “You lied to me? This whole time you’ve been lying?”
“No.” The room starts to spin and I put a hand on the bed to steady myself. “Let me expl—”
Diego cuts me off, beside me though I didn’t even see him move. “Lie down. Now. I’m not letting you pass out and hit your head.”
I try to get a knee onto the bed, but my boot slips in the blood pooled on the floor.
“Help me.”
Diego’s command is distorted, like he’s far away. Something sharp pokes my upper arm.
“Amira ...”
I try to find her, but there are people surrounding me, lifting me into the bed. I want to push them away, but my arms won’t move like I want them to.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Gabriel says—his voice so faint I hardly hear it—“but we will do whatever it takes.”
I get a quick glimpse of Diego, his face hovering over me, brows pinched together in concern. Then everything fades away.
PART THREE
30
“Commander Milburn turned after we showed him our blackmail material. We’ll hide weapons in false bottoms in the trunks. Milburn will find a safe place to store them. If he turns on us and we reveal the blackmail material, Whitman will kill him.” – unencrypted message from ILF founder Marta Smythe to ILF handler Hiro Tanaka
Amira
