Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
I’m only focused on today, the first Wednesday of March, and how it’s nearly over. Today shouldn’t end without them arriving, because that was the plan: two days early, disguised as the Order inspection team, with key cards from September and uniforms made by Mercy.
But the hours pass.
The day ends.
And they don’t come.
ELEVEN
MY BREAKFAST ARRIVES BEARING A gift. It is unintentional, I’m sure. Someone very foolish didn’t think of the sort of damage that can be done with something so small.
I pull the toothpick out of the fruit and hide it in the palm of my hand. I need the wood dry, sharp. I eat my breakfast with my fingers.
When a guard finally comes for me, I have to fight the urge to spring into action. Unless I somehow manage to get my hands on his gun, I’m doomed, and my arms are still bound. The odds wouldn’t be good. I’ve never been a patient person, but I force myself to cooperate, letting the guard blindfold me and drag me into the hall.
Once again, I lose myself in the turns. We go up two flights of stairs. More dizzying direction changes. I’m handed off to my Forged counterpart. I know it’s him because our gaits match perfectly.
When the blindfold is ripped off, I find myself back in Harvey’s interrogation room. The tools are laid out, waiting beside my chair, but no one else is present.
“Are you doing the honors today?”
“Harvey is preoccupied.”
The toothpick feels like even more of a blessing now. I’m not sure what it says about me when I know my own Forgery will be more ruthless than any other interrogator.
He moves me toward the seat, and as he reaches to adjust one of the straps that will soon tether me in place, I twist. Thrusting with both hands, I aim for his throat. He barely gets a hand up in time, and the toothpick lodges in the web between his thumb and forefinger. He yells with surprise, staggers. In that flash of his panic, I grab the nearest tool from the tray—a wooden mallet—and swing. He tries to dodge the blow but isn’t quick enough. The wood connects with the side of his head, and the light winks out of his eyes.
My chest is pounding, but my hands are steady as they work. I grab a knife from the tray, and with the blade pointing toward my stomach, saw through my bindings. Then, when my hands are free, I strip the Forgery of his uniform. It fits perfectly, and soon I look like an Order member, and him, like me.
I struggle with his limp body but manage to strap him into the chair. I doubt this room is free of cameras, which means someone, somewhere, is probably watching. I can only hope they missed our fight, that when they next look at the feeds, they assume my Forgery stepped out and left me in the chair.
I momentarily consider killing him but know a dead body will look too suspicious. The Forgery was trying to get answers from me, not kill me, and I need to buy myself as much time as possible.
I toss the mallet on the tray and wrap the blindfold around the blade of the knife before tucking it into my waistband. Then I dart into the hall.
Two Order guards stand a little ways ahead, one of whom may have even been my escort earlier. They each have a handgun at the hip and an Order-issued rifle in arm, the barrels resting against their shoulders. I walk confidently. They nod as I pass by, assuming I’m my Forgery.
I pick up my pace after rounding a corner. The window for escape is shrinking even as I walk down this hallway, and I need to find stairs. The shipment center—the docks—was below the Compound itself. If I locate it, I might be able to hop a boat, flee back onto the Gulf, but only after finding Blaine and Emma. If they’re being held anywhere near my cell . . .
Two flights down.
With luck, I find a stairwell. There’s another armed guard stationed here, and I slow my gait, try to appear as calm as possible as I pass by. I descend two levels. The door on the landing won’t open until I fish a card from the pocket of the Order uniform and swipe it for entry.
The room I step into is massive. Pillars support the ceiling at various intervals and the only light source comes from row upon row of what look like glass coffins. They sit on waist-high tables that extend as far as I can see, their contents filled with teal liquid, murky like pond water. It’s the liquid, I realize, that’s glowing just slightly, casting a halo of green-blue light around each unit.
Two flights. This should be the holding cells. Or at least a hallway leading to them. The levels between my cell and the interrogation room are the only detail I’m sure about.
A wave of panic hits me. The Compound is large and probably has multiple stairwells. Just because I counted two flights between my cell and the interrogation room does not mean that all stairwells will bring me between the two.
I consider backtracking, but worry the stairwell guard might be suspicious. Maybe I can go through this room, find another set of stairs. Maybe the cells are even waiting just beyond this room.
Too many maybes. I’m going to get caught.
I push the thoughts aside and move forward just as lights along the lab’s ceiling begin pulsing. A silent alarm. Someone found Forged Me or I was seen fleeing. Regardless, it isn’t good.
I spot a glass box mounted on the wall, holding an Order rifle. I throw my elbow into the case and the pane shatters. I’ve held this model only once before, when I was tasked with executing Harvey in Taem. In the end, I didn’t pull the trigger—Bree made sure of that—but the shape of the weapon feels startlingly familiar in my hands now.