The Darkest Hour(63)

“I gave you something to clear your head.”

Or something to kill me, more likely. This girl broke into my room and knocked out Nurse Keser, but if she wanted me dead, she should’ve strangled me by now. Another minute sweeps by, and my blood begins to thaw. Along with it my mind starts clearing, too, as if a giant hand has brushed away the fog that Dr. Nacht lovingly planted there. I blink up at the girl with new eyes.

Not just any girl.

Sabine.

“We don’t have much time,” she tells me. “I’ll undo your restraints, but don’t move too quickly. I’m sure your legs aren’t used to walking, and the antidote may make you nauseous.”

“Antidote?”

“The injection I gave you. Nacht keeps a few vials of it in his office. You’ll likely need another dose at some point, but too much of it at once could stop your heart.”

My teeth stop chattering, and the goose bumps that had sprouted over my skin disappear. As my mind continues clearing, a memory returns of Sabine and me in this room. Of her confessing that she chose to work for the Nazis. My eyes narrow at her. Is this one of Dr. Nacht’s tests?

I wait for Sabine to finish loosening the straps around my arms before I grab her by the neck and squeeze. “Did Dr. Nacht put you up to this? Did he?”

“Are you mad?” she rasps. Her fingernails scrape across my skin, but I refuse to let go until I get answers from this traitor.

I tighten my grip, fueled by the fury that has been locked away tight from the serum. But now the anger runs fresh through me, and I dig my fingers deeper into her neck. “Let’s see if your beloved Dr. Nacht comes to your rescue now. Do you even feel guilty for what you’ve done? Murdering Major Harken.” Desperate sounds come out of her throat, but I don’t care. “You might as well have killed Tilly and me, too.”

“I—I had no choice.”

“You always had a choice!”

“My brother—”

“I’m sure you’ve made him proud by what you’ve done.”

“Jean-Luc—”

A cramp travels up my arms. I’m out of breath after being strapped to my cot for who knows how long, but I won’t release her. Although that doesn’t silence Sabine.

“Jean-Luc”—a vein bulges on her forehead, and her entire face has turned red—“is dead.”

My grip weakens, and she uses that to wrench away from me. She doubles over at the foot of the cot, coughing until her throat grows hoarse. “He’s dead?”

“The Germans let him die,” she says between gasps.

She’s lying. That’s my first thought. But as I watch Sabine struggle for breath, I don’t know what to think. Her eyes are rimmed red, like she has been crying all night.

“How?” I say.

“Pneumonia.”

“When?”

She looks away. “I don’t know when it happened. Weeks ago, maybe. I found the telegram after I snuck into Nacht’s office. He kept promising he’d give me proof that Jean-Luc was alive and well.” Her eyes brim with new tears, which she swipes away with the back of a hand. “He lied to me.”

“Is that why you’ve come here? Now that Jean-Luc is dead, you think I’ll forgive you?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I came here to help you escape.”

“Just like that? Jean-Luc is gone and now we’re friends again?”

“I did what I did for my brother. I never said I thought it was right.” Her brows cross, and somehow she wipes clean the anguish from her face. “We don’t have much time. Are you coming or not?”

I look at her, then at the door. She killed Harken in cold blood. She betrayed Tilly and me. And I remind myself that this could all be an elaborate ruse for Dr. Nacht to test my loyalties. I don’t trust her or him one bit, but if she’s truly trying to help me escape, how can I turn her offer down?

“Tell me when you turned against us,” I say.

“Why does it matter?”

“You know why.”

She releases a tense breath through her nostrils. “After we parted ways en route to Dorner’s drop-off. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Nazis had been following me since my arrest in Cherbourg. They recognized me as a potential agent, but they decided to let me go to see where I’d lead them.”

“Recognized you how?”

“When they captured Jean-Luc a month ago, they interrogated him and eventually … he broke.” Her features cloud over. “He confessed to them what little I’d told him about Covert Ops, and then the Germans discovered the photo of him and me that he kept in his pocket. They circulated my picture across France.”

“Why didn’t they capture both of us together?”

“Because we were with Dorner, and they needed one of us to shepherd him to the boat so that he could infiltrate the SOE. And they knew … they knew that if they arrested me first, they had leverage to get me to turn on Covert Ops.”

A life for a life. The Nazis held Jean-Luc hostage and used him to get to Sabine.

“But now Jean-Luc is gone,” I say hollowly.

She sends me a look as sharp as the daggers she polished in the weaponry. “You would have done the same for Theo. Don’t deny it.”