Queen (The Blackcoat Rebellion #3)(38)

It was worth the risk. Especially if Lila was willing to take it. No, not willing—eager. She stared at me, practically begging, and the hope shining in her eyes was almost enough to make me agree.

“My foot is broken,” I said at last, but even to my ears, I sounded pathetic. “And there’s an X on the back of my neck, remember? My rank is gone. No one will believe I’m you.”

“They don’t have to, as long as they believe I’m you.” Lila stood and moved to the cupboards and cabinets that filled the white room, and I instantly knew what she was doing. It may have been my bedroom at the moment, but it was also more fully stocked than any hospital room in the country. “We can give me an X. And we’ll give you pain medication for your foot so you’ll be able to walk on it.”

“What if it doesn’t heal right? What if I have a limp for the rest of my life?” I said.

“So what? Add it to the list.” She pulled out several items from the cabinets and tossed them on the bed. “We can work on the details.”

I winced. “Lila—”

“What? Is a limp that big a deal to you? Daxton doesn’t ask to see us much anyway, so you can just stay in here and let it heal.”

I shook my head. “It isn’t that. It’s too risky. They might check my neck. They will check yours, and if they touch it, they’ll feel your VII.”

“They won’t,” said Lila firmly. “No one is crazy enough to X out a VII. No one.”

“Except you.”

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to be me anymore. You can be me—you’re good at being me. But I’m done. I don’t care about the risk involved. I don’t care where I end up. I just want to be gone, Kitty. I want to be free. And if that means dying in the middle of nowhere, then fine. I’d rather die out there tomorrow than die in here a hundred years from now.”

It was the feeling behind her words—deep, unshakable, and full of everything she wanted for herself in her own life—that struck a chord within me, and finally I had no choice but to relent. Because I knew that feeling. I’d lived that feeling every day of my life as Lila, and if one of us had the chance to escape and start over, it should have been her. She had been Lila Hart far longer than I had, after all. She deserved a break. “Okay. If you’re sure this is what you really want.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and she broke out into a wide grin. “I’m positive.”

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard that the sickening copper taste of blood filled my mouth. This was crazy. Insane. A million things could go wrong, and it would only take one for Daxton to discover us. One wrong move. One wrong look. One wrong anything, and it was over. At best, we would both be stuck here; at worst, we would both be dead. “We can’t tell anyone. Not even Greyson. Not until you’re gone,” I said, my voice trembling. He was going to kill me. And if Knox ever found out, he’d resurrect me and kill me again.

“I know,” she said firmly, but it wasn’t enough to settle my nerves. “This is just between you and me.”

“And—and if anything does go wrong—”

“We’ll figure it out.” She exhaled sharply and focused on me again. “You need to protect him, all right? You need to do everything you can to make sure Greyson makes it out of this in one piece. As soon as Victor thinks he’s about to lose, he’ll go after Greyson. I know he will.”

“I’ll protect him,” I said. “And I’ll find a way to kill Victor. It won’t be easy, but—”

“If anyone can, it’s you.” She pressed her lips together, and for a moment, guilt flashed across her face. “I shouldn’t leave him.”

“He’ll understand,” I said gently. “He knows how hard you’ve had it. And I think he’ll be glad at least one of you got to be free.”

Lila nodded, a jerky gesture that didn’t look natural. “He’s my best friend, and he’s the only real family I have left. So please, just—make sure he’s okay.”

“I will,” I promised. “No matter what. But, Lila—” I paused. “I know you’ve never liked me, but you and I are cousins, too. You’ll always have me. And your mom loves you. And Knox. You have more people in your life than you realize, and once this war’s over, we’ll get to be a normal family. No backstabbing or plotting or murders. Just family.”

She shook her head with a rueful smirk. “Maybe, but we’ll never be normal.”

“Probably not,” I agreed. “Could be fun to try, though.”

“You have a very strange definition of fun,” she said, and I managed a smile. She wasn’t wrong.

We spent the next several hours taking care of the details. The first thing we did was brand an X into the back of her neck with a small laser she’d found—the same kind Hannah had used on me my first day in Elsewhere. I was careful to match my X exactly, and though it was a punch to my gut, permanently marring Lila’s perfect VII tattoo, she beamed as soon as she saw it.

A cream took care of the redness and swelling, and we did her nails to match mine. Once Lila had painstakingly duplicated my makeup from the interview, I scrubbed it off my face and let her replicate her usual look on me instead. We switched outfits, shoes, hairstyles—and finally the time came to figure out how to make this work with my broken foot.