I freeze. Of all the scenarios I imagined taking place, this was never one of them. I've underestimated Addie again. I take a tiny step back to stay out of sight while I regroup, but my movement catches her eye and the color drains from her face when she realizes it's me.
"No..." she whispers.
The man kneeling in front of her takes advantage of the distraction and dives for Addie's waist. They topple to the floor, and the second man straddles her chest.
I race into the room, gripping the shiv tightly in my fist. "Get the fuck off her!"
The men don't spare me a glance—until I stab the one on Addie's chest in the shoulder with all my strength, knocking him off her. He turns and aims a laser pen at my heart, but I manage to swiftly kick it out of his hand. Sharp pain lances through my inner thigh as the pen's beam pierces me as it falls.
The man grunts, annoyed to have missed my heart, and I stab him again, this time in the neck. He clasps the wound, probably to try to contain it, but I struck too deep. Blood runs through the cracks in his fingers and he falls sideways to the ground.
My shiv falls from my shaking hand, and I just barely hold back a scream.
"Focus, Joan! You need to get to safety," Addie commands in a voice I've never heard from her before. I look up and see that she's holding her laser pen against the other man's temple. Unlike the man I killed, this one is a Dean clone type.
"I'm not leaving without you," I whisper, trying to focus on what's next, instead of the gurgles that the man on the floor is making as he bleeds out on Lexi's expensive carpet.
Addie looks down at the man in front of her and he bows his head. "Please... use the stun setting. Right now it's set to kill."
Addie presses a button with her thumb, and he crumples silently to the ground.
"Did you...?"
"He'll live," Addie says, her voice now the comforting tone that I associate with her. She stands in front of the man I killed, blocking my view of his now lifeless body.
"If I had trusted that you knew what you were doing, both of these men would only be stunned, and you would have escaped, like you promised me you could. Instead, I barged in against all warnings, and that man is dead because of me."
"You did what you had to, Joan. Mourn later. We need to leave."
Addie pulls me out of Lexi's office and back into the stairwell. "The best way out is through Dr. Rodriguez's lab. That exit is guarded by two of our own."
As we make our way back to Dr. Rodriguez's laboratory, blood flows in a steady stream down my leg, soaking my sock. Already I'm dizzy from the blood I'm losing. The laser pen must have nicked an artery.
Determined to stay conscious and not make things even worse for Addie, I focus on putting one foot in front of the other. We make it back to the hallway that leads the laboratory, and Addie freezes.
"What's wrong?"
"The lights are on. Not the emergency lights that come on when the breaker is overloaded, the regular lights. Which means everything is back online down here—including the cameras."
"Then they've seen that the pod and cells are empty. Lexi will have called for security to head down here by now."
"Move fast," Addie says, and then shoves her laser pen into my hand so that I can defend myself.
Before I can give it back to her, she's racing down the hallway and all I can do is limp after her as fast as I can. We burst into Dr. Rodriguez's lab, which is silent and empty. Lozen has left but that still leaves—
A strange sound, like the pop of a firecracker, pierces the air. A soft sound escapes Addie, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, before she falls to the floor. It's only then that I see Dr. Avery holding a type of gun so old that I've only seen it in movies. He's pale, and his hand is shaking.
My gaze moves down to Addie. In the middle of her forehead is an angry red wound, and blood is already pooling behind her head. Her blue eyes are wide open, and her body has the perfect motionlessness that only the dead can achieve.
A sound comes out of me that isn't human. It's a howl of rage and loss that comes from a primitive part of my mind that I'm not totally in control of.
I look back up at Dr. Avery, who is clearly in shock. "I...I...she was rushing in. She would have killed me if I hadn't killed her."
He's not talking to me; he's talking to himself. I hate him. I hate him with a ferocity that surpasses any other emotion I've ever known. With a flick of my thumb, I change the setting on the laser pen to kill.
Dr. Avery's eyes meet mine, and I move faster than I knew I could. It takes less than a second to point and shoot, and he falls to the ground.
My breaths come in short, shallow gasps, and darkness creeps into the edges of my vision. I fall to my knees, and my pants are instantly soaked with Addie's blood. I cradle her head in my lap, but no tears come.
Leaving Addie is unthinkable, so I curl up next to her instead. Maybe I'll bleed out from the wound on my leg, or perhaps Strand's goons will find me and kill me. If neither outcome happens, I'll find a way to end my life myself.
When darkness takes me, I hope that I never have to wake from it again.
***
"Oh my God."
"Are they both dead?"
"No, Joan's breathing."
"Justus! Justus, snap out of it! You need to get Joan out of here. Mason and I will bring Addie. Go!"
Two sets of arms haul me up, and then I'm thrown over someone's shoulder. I groan, wanting to demand that they leave me here to die, but my mouth won't form the words.
Instead, I fade in and out of consciousness as someone—Justus—hauls me out a back exit and into a waiting van. He's speaking to me, but I can't make sense of what he's saying. He lays me across one of the seats and efficiently rips my pant leg to expose the wound in my upper thigh.
I briefly register Harriet and Mason getting in the front seats and the van taking off. The vehicle jolts violently several times, and Harriet changes the setting of the car from self-driving to manual. Justus grips me tightly so that I don't fall off the seat.
Seconds or minutes or hours later, the van slows to a more normal speed and Justus opens a med kit. His hands move efficiently as they clean and numb my wound. Talking to me all the while in low, soothing tones, he stitches it closed.
"Hang in there," Harriet says. I don't deserve the empathy in her warm brown eyes.
"Nnnnn—" I keep trying to form words, but the pain in my chest is so intense I can't fully focus on anything else—until a vision hits me.
I'm in a tiny enclosed space, laying down flat on my back. A cabinet? No, it's long enough that my legs can stretch out fully, and the sides are made of something padded and satiny. My fingers explore every surface, and I realize where I am.
A coffin. They've buried me alive. I pound on the lid, straining my muscles and pushing with everything I have. But no amount of struggling will succeed in pushing open a lid covered by six feet of dirt.
The panic drains out of me as I remember I have a choice. I slide my hand in my pocket, and find the pill that I've been carrying with me all these weeks. I've been saving it for just this moment.
I place it in my mouth, at peace with the knowledge that with one swallow, all the pain will be gone.
I snap back into the present. Harriet is holding one of my hands, and Justus has his fingers on my pulse, likely monitoring my heart rate while I was under the spell of my vision. He relaxes slightly when he sees that I'm conscious.
"You're okay, Joan. You're safe."
Harriet nods. "We're laying low for a while, because this van is now too recognizable by Strand to be driven. But Marie is sending another vehicle for us to take back to the Chrysalis. And Joan—Lozen and the others made it out alive."
And Addie would have, too, if not for my bad call. But I don't say that. "I want..."
"What do you want?" Justus asks me softly, cradling my chin in his hands as if I'm the most precious thing in the world. But even Justus's gentle touch doesn't lessen the grief weighing on my heart. Addie is dead, and all I can think of is how much I wish I could switch places with her.
I remember that magic, lethal little pill that I held in my mouth in my vision. "I want...to die."