Queen (The Blackcoat Rebellion #3)(27)

I tried to put pressure on my broken foot, and excruciating pain shot through me like a thousand volts of electricity. “I can’t—I can’t walk.”

Shouts echoed down the hallway. The soldiers were getting closer. “I’ll carry you,” said Knox, but before he could pick me up, I shoved the file toward him.

“You can’t carry me and run all the way back to the car.”

“Yes, I can. I’m not having this argument with you right now, Kitty.”

The shouts grew louder, and anger pulsed through me. “They are seconds away from bursting in here. If you were the one who couldn’t walk, you’d make me do the exact same thing. You need to get this file out of here. The entirerebellion is counting on it.”

At last his fingers closed around the folder, and his face contorted into a look I’d never seen from him before. “Here—” He fumbled with his holster. “Take my gun. It’ll give you a fighting chance.”

“They’ll kill me for sure if I’m armed. Unarmed, there’s a chance they won’t.” Someone banged on Lila’s door, and I winced. “I can only buy you so much time, Knox. Go.”

He touched my cheek wordlessly, his eyes shining as he held my gaze for an infinite second. “You’re one of a kind, Kitty,” he said thickly. “Wherever they take you, I’ll find you.”

I managed a short nod, my throat constricting too tightly for me to speak. But it didn’t matter—he didn’t give me time to reply. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone. And for three quiet seconds, I was alone.

The door burst open in a shower of splinters and chunks of wood, and four armed men carrying shields and automatic weapons spilled inside. Their shouts melded together into a wall of noise I couldn’t comprehend, but I held up my hands and made sure they could see my face.

One of the men stormed toward me. “The double is here,” he said into his sleeve before grabbing my hands and forcing them behind my back. Metal cuffs tightened around my wrists, and I winced.

“My foot—my foot’s broken. I can’t walk.”

“Won’t need to,” he said, and I felt the sharp stab of a needle in the back of my neck, right over the scarred X. My vision blurred, and as my knees gave out, the world went black.





VII

Déjà Vu

Beep. Beep. Beep.

In the hazy edge of consciousness, I was sure I was still dreaming. I heard those beeps sometimes—on quiet mornings where, for a split second, I forgot who I was now. They were the same beeps I’d woken up to in the Stronghold four months ago, when I’d discovered Daxton had Masked me into Lila Hart. Those were the last things I’d heard before everything had changed, and they were almost comforting, in a way. A reminder of who I used to be.

“Kitty?”

A familiar voice drifted toward me. I didn’t want to move. Everything felt heavy and sluggish, and I would have given anything to fall back asleep and never have to worry about anything ever again.

“Kitty—come on, wake up. I know you can hear me.”

Annoyed, I cracked open my eyes. White walls and crown molding. The smell of antiseptic. Sunlight streaming in through a window behind me as I lay in a bed that was far too comfortable to ever be in a hospital.

The Stronghold.

This was the exact same room I’d woken up in before.

Everything that had happened at Somerset rushed into my mind, as if it had all been waiting for me to come crashing back to reality. So the soldiers had kept me alive after all. And now I was here, in the Stronghold, the most fiercely protected safe house the Harts had. It was somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, surrounded on all sides by snowy peaks. I knew because I’d tried to leave once, and I’d discovered the only way out of here was by air. There was no way the Blackcoats could launch an attack here and win, not when the Stronghold was so well fortified.

“There you are. Kitty, it’s me—it’s Greyson.”

At last I turned my head. Greyson Hart, only living son of Daxton Hart, lingered at my bedside. His blond hair fell into his face, and he raked it back, offering me a small smile.

“Hey. How do you feel?”

“Like shit, probably,” said another voice—Lila. I raised my head. She stood nearby, her arms crossed and her expression sour. “That’s what happens when you take the drugs away.”

“I cut off your sedatives and painkillers,” he said apologetically, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. “I can start them again, if you want.”

I shook my head. Now that he’d mentioned it, my foot was beginning to throb, but it was hardly noticeable. “What’s going on?” I croaked. My throat was raw. “Why am I not dead?”

“You might as well be,” said Lila sharply. “Welcome to hell.”

She had no idea what hell really was, but I held my tongue. They were the only two allies I would find here, and I couldn’t afford to alienate them.

Greyson glared at her. “We don’t know what he plans to do with her yet. He wouldn’t have let the doctors near her if he only planned on killing her once she woke up.”

“You have met this *, right?” said Lila. “Dark hair, roughly six feet tall, twisted lump of coal where his humanity ought to be?”