I stand, slip the scalpel into my sleeve. “There’s a burner phone under my mattress. It won’t work here – too much interference, too many jammers. But if we get clear air on the mainland, I can reach my contact within The Order. They’ll find her if anyone can.”
Honey spins on me, face flushed. “Then what the fuck are we waiting for?”
“Information,” I say mildly. “Precision before violence, Honey. You’re all noise and no aim.”
He takes a step toward me, but Ghost speaks first, voice thin and ragged. “It’s worse than you think.”
Nightshade glances over his shoulder, warning him to shut up, but Ghost keeps talking. “She’s pregnant.”
For the first time ever, the scalpel slips from my sleeve and clatters to the floor.
“What?”
Ghost looks away, voice small. “She’s carrying.”
My mouth goes dry. “And you’re sure?—”
Nightshade meets my eyes, a slow burning challenge behind his gaze. “It’s mine.”
That lands heavier than the alarms ever could. A thousand images slice through me – Kayla’s laughter, her scent, her hands – and I realise the air in the room has gone thin.
Honey mutters something sharp under his breath. Ghost stares at the floor. I force myself to move, crouch, pick up the scalpel like I didn’t just falter.
“Well,” I say softly, sliding it back into my sleeve, “that complicates things.”
Nightshade’s tone leaves no room for argument. “We’re leaving in ten. Valentine’s prepping the chopper. We find her, we get her back, and we erase whoever thought she was theirs.”
He turns to go, but I stop him. “The Order will want something in return.”
“They can have the whole damn asylum,” he says, and strides out. “Anything.”
I watch him go, then glance at Honey. “We’ll need Hatchet.”
“Two floors down,” he says, already moving. “Haven’t seen Snow.”
“Good,” I murmur. “The fewer witnesses, the better.”
I grab the burner from its hiding place, tucking it inside my coat. The plastic crinkles softly – the sound of promises I wish I hadn’t made.
When I step into the corridor, the silence is still there, heavy and wrong. But underneath it, faint and steady, I can hear the asylum breathing.
And tonight, we’re going to cut it open.
YOU CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING
All The Good Girls Go To Hell - Billie Eilish
Kookaburra
Water.
Always water.
It comes to me first as cold: a blade drawn across the skin of the world. The shock of it steals the breath from my lungs before the fear can even form. Hands push against my shoulders–firm, unrelenting–and the surface breaks above my head with a soft, final sound. The world goes blue and soundless. Bubbles climb past my face like small ghosts trying to escape. I open my mouth to scream and the river pours in, cold and endless, filling me until all that’s left is the drumbeat of my own heart somewhere far away.
“Stay still. Stop fighting, little bird.”
The voice isn’t cruel. It’s calm, certain, as though the drowning is a lesson I’ve forgotten. I learn to count instead of struggle–one, two, three–until the counting itself becomes a rhythm, a kind of lullaby. When I finally stop resisting, the current carries me down into quiet.
