G I G I

      Neve hadn't brought up my breakdown the other day and I was grateful for it. I was simply glad she hadn't come out in the hallway to see me falling apart.

I bit my lip as I stared out the hotel room window, trying not to remember the devastation I'd felt that day. I'd kept myself too busy to think for the past few days.

"We should probably move on."

I was instantly snapped out of my thoughts. "What?" Had she read something on my face to say that?

"We've been in this hotel for almost a week," she said, looking at me like it should be obvious. "We've undoubtedly made some enemies. They'll be looking for us."

I breathed out an imperceptible breath. So she hadn't been talking about the other day. Nodding quickly, I said, "I agree. Moving further east will probably be best, as we've been killing our way across the west."

As soon as I said it, I realized what traveling east would bring us close to: my mother's resting spot. And immediately, I wished I hadn't remembered. Guilt sank in.

      She was still staring at me in that watchful way of hers and I made my face as impassive as stone. I hated that she knew what haunted me, what kept me from sleeping at night.

      For once, I held her stare. "Your contact is still silent?" I didn't miss how she slept as little as I did—probably out of worry. That meant her contact was indeed someone she cared about, as I suspected.

      "Yes." Her dark eyes flicked to look out the window. "It's been over a week since we talked. She didn't have the name of an assassin to give us, but...it was good to hear her voice."

      She? A significant other, perhaps? I wanted to ask, but found myself staying silent. I know you don't care, Neve had said the other day. Part of me wanted to show her she was wrong.

      My head bobbed faintly. "I understand what that's like. No one should have to experience it."

      I could feel her gaze still on me. For a moment before she spoke again, the silence was loud. "You once wanted to know why I was with Imperium."

      "Yes. But I don't suspect you of betraying me anymore." Looking back on it, knowing the things I knew now, I'd been foolish to ever suspect her over Benny.

       She tucked her sleek hair behind an ear. "My younger sister Arezo and I were orphans in Syria. For years, it was just the two of us surviving alone on the streets and hoping for a better life. When she went missing without a trace, I vowed to find her and bring her back."

     My eyes were still on the ground when she continued. "I followed Arezo's trail until I discovered where she'd been taken: the Imperium fortress in Romania. She was meant to be a child soldier in Orion's growing army. I'd always been more sly and quiet, so I enlisted in the ranks as an assassin. Someone had to watch over her. Someone had to be sure Orion wouldn't get her killed. I knew no one else would.

      "I became one of his personal killers and she was a soldier rising fast in the ranks, so I didn't see her much. Orion hardly thinks interpersonal relationships within the ranks are efficient. But I kept my unsaid promise to her and made sure she was safe." She gave a little smile. "Though we fought, worked and killed for Orion, we never supported his cause. That's why Arezo has been giving me information this whole time."

      I never would have guessed her contact was her sister—I'd never even imagined her with family at all. And she'd joined Imperium willingly for her sister's sake. I'd always known Neve had been good and brave—more so than me—for as long as we had been together. But now Arezo was surrounded by our enemies and had gone silent...

      My mother was dead and it had been the most painful experience I'd gone through. But Neve's sister was alone, enslaved and suffering a sort of long death of her own, even if she was still breathing. And she hadn't gone mad in the face of her loss. Neve was determined and relentless even as her sister was claimed by Imperium. I'd turned to insanity. We all had variously dangerous ways of protecting ourselves.

      I opened my mouth to tell her I understood, that I was sorry she went through that, that—

The hotel door burst open, splinters flying everywhere.

My hand was already on my bow, the quiver at my side running dangerously low. Neve shielded herself from the debris and ducked farther into the room. Soldiers burst into the room and for a split second, I feared they were with Imperium. But then I saw the ONNT colors and logo on their dark uniforms.

I aimed one of my few arrows at the growing group. Neve was behind me, knives drawn. "Back off," I said. "We're not your enemies." I decided I wouldn't shoot or use my power unless they tried to hurt us. I figured I'd killed my share of ONNT soldiers and wasn't looking to add to my kill count.

But they raised their guns. "Where are the other fugitives? They have to be near—Williams, Shires, Tesla—"

"Delphinium?" I asked, bow lowering a bit. The others were fugitives now? That had to mean something bad enough had happened for them to need to run from our—their—allies. And the fact that they'd mentioned Delphinium was among them...

That meant she was free from Imperium again.

I waited for the pain and rage to swell at the mention of her name. It didn't come. Instead, something dark in me smiled. She was free from her enslavers—the same enslavers that had taken Arezo and Neve. They took victim after victim and ruined them one by one.

      I didn't know exactly why, but I was glad Delphinium was far from Orion. Strangely enough, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"Julia." Neve's low whisper came from behind me. "Out the window. Now."

The guns were still raised. And yet I didn't feel the raging bloodlust that had become familiar to me within the past months. Something told me Neve wouldn't look at me the same if I committed a mass murder of all these soldiers, and I'd come to enjoy her friendship. It had certainly filled an empty hole in me.

Chin held high, I let my power surge over the group. Their blood slowed and became like syrup in their veins. One by one, they dropped, guns clattering to the floor.

Every soldier was unconscious in mere seconds. For a moment, I stared at their bared throats, knowing it would be easy to bury arrows in them. It would be easier to cut our losses and run free. The ONNT wouldn't know what happened until we were long gone.

      Neve broke the window behind me, but I didn't move. I remembered how the bodies had fallen into piles when we'd broken out of the ONNT cell. I'd crushed skulls, snapped ribs, ruptured organs without raising a finger, even as they ran at me with weapons. They'd never stood a chance.

       I'd spent much of my imprisonment alone for years, drugged out of my mind and mourning the unfairness of the situation. What happened to me wasn't fair. But that should hardly mean I should inflict it upon others as vulnerable as I'd been.

       Neve called my name, but I didn't hear her. I heard the whispers of a child. As I stared down at the unconscious soldiers, I saw a too-small girl with brown skin gone pale. She couldn't move, could barely even think. And on the rare occasion a medic's footsteps came near her cell door, she half-wondered if they'd be done with it and finally end her.

      I knew what I'd become. I'd strayed down a dark path that I perhaps could never turn from. But I'd always had a firm grasp on fairness. An eye for an eye, tears for tears. Blood for blood.

       They never stood a chance. It wouldn't be fair.

       Stepping away from the pile of soldiers, I followed Neve out the window and into the world below.