The Darkest Hour(59)

When he reaches for a fresh syringe, I don’t struggle this time. Let the serum kill me. Let this all be over. At least I’ll see Theo again, if he’s waiting for me somewhere. I’ll be able to tell him how sorry I am for how things ended between us. But if there’s only blackness ahead of me, it’ll be better than what I’m living now. The needle sinks into my arm, and I’m ready to go.

But Dr. Nacht won’t let his masterpiece die that easily.

I’m not sure how much time has passed when I wake up again. All I know is that I’m still in the same room with my arms and legs strapped like before, and I want to weep because I was so sure the serum would’ve killed me. How much more can my body take before it gives in?

“Lucienne.”

I go still. Hope blasts through my heart when I see her at the foot of my cot. “S-Sabine?” I croak out.

“It’s me.” She steps toward me, and I think I must be hallucinating. Is that an effect of the serum? Dr. Nacht hadn’t said so.

“Are you … real?”

She nods, and proves it by placing her hand over mine. Her skin is ice-cold, but it’s her skin that I’m touching. Not an illusion. My fingers cling around hers.

“How … ?” I clear my parched throat, which hasn’t tasted water for hours, maybe even for a day. “How did you get out of your room?”

She doesn’t answer me straightaway, but that doesn’t matter. She’s alive. Together we’ll find Tilly and escape. I try to move, but I’m still shackled. “Can you release me?”

She doesn’t touch the leather straps. “I didn’t come here for that.”

I struggle to sit up. “We don’t have much time! The guards are going to find out that you’re gone and come looking for you any second!”

“The guards already know that I’m here. They let me in to speak with you.”

My head falls back hard against the pillow. The realization strikes me like a bullet to the chest. The serum. Of course. “Did Dr. Nacht get to you already?” A cry chokes out of me. “You have to fight him! Don’t stop fighting, Sabine. This isn’t who you are. It’s the serum controlling you!”

Her tone goes flat and she says, “No, it isn’t.”

“It’s forcing you to say that!”

“I’m here of my own accord.”

“This is all part of their plan!” I have to talk some sense into her. If we wait much longer, I might succumb to the effects of the serum, too. “Your name is Sabine Chevalier. You’re an agent for Covert Ops. You hate the Nazis and Germany and Adolf Hitler.” I rattle off bits and pieces of her old life, but none of it takes hold.

Sabine’s gaze remains on the floor. “I wasn’t given the serum. They didn’t need to.”

“Don’t believe anything they’ve told you! They’ve locked you up for days and pumped your body full of poison and … and …” My words dry up because I finally get a long look at her. Her eyes are clear and her hair is carefully combed. She’s wearing a simple dress instead of a hospital gown. She doesn’t look like she’s suffering from any effects of the serum. She doesn’t look like she has taken any of it at all. If that’s the case …

Sabine says quietly, “I chose to work for them.”

“That’s … impossible.”

“They asked me to come see you. Dr. Nacht told me that you’re not responding well to the serum.”

She might as well have gutted me. Sabine, working with the Nazis? My vision blurs, and I know it’s not from the serum. I could take Dorner’s betrayal but not this. Please, not this.

“Lucienne,” she says.

I can’t even look at her, so I snap my head away—but I can’t escape her voice.

“Lucienne,” she tries again. “The Nazis will get their way in the end whether you fight them or not.”

“Oh? Like you fought them, Sabine?”

She flushes, whether from anger or embarrassment I don’t know. Maybe both.

“How long have you been a double agent?” I snarl at her. “How long have you been deceiving Tilly and me?”

She crosses her arms but says nothing. There’s nothing to say, really, not after what she has done to us, but I thought she’d be gloating and lording this fact over me. But her mouth simply tightens into a grim line.

“It doesn’t matter.” She sniffs. “I came here to help you, not for a lecture.”

“Help me? You killed Major Harken, and you turned Tilly and me over to the Nazis—and now you say that you’re helping me?”

“This serum could be the death of you. Dr. Nacht will continue with his regimen until you’re deemed ‘changed,’ or until you die. You can choose to live.”

“Choose to live?” I parrot her. “Choose to become his little puppet? Like you have?” She tries so hard to turn her face to stone—a trick I always thought she had learned from Major Harken—but there’s a furrow in her brow. “What did they pay you to turn? Was it money?”

“I didn’t come here to talk about that.”

“A hundred thousand francs? A million? Name your price, Sabine. You apparently had one.”