“Two. One to your belly, and one to your legacy.” Red-hot pain seared my cheek, but I forced a grin. “Smile, Victor. You’re on camera.”
He twisted around wildly, pressing one hand to his abdomen while the other gripped the knife. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the game you and Celia have been playing,” I said. “You’ve lost. The entire country is watching all of this, and they’ve heard every last word. No matter what you do to me now, you’re dead.”
Daxton scrambled toward the nearest cabinet, throwing open the door and ripping through the supplies. Blood dripped to the ground where he stood, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “You’re lying.”
“Go ahead and try to convince yourself of that, but I’m not,” I said. “You’re a dead man walking, Victor Mercer.”
With an enraged cry, he pulled a pistol from his jacket—the same one he’d given me to execute Celia. “Then I might as well take you with me,” he snarled.
I ducked as he pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the metal door behind me, and a cabinet across the room exploded. Daxton swore and, with trembling hands, dug through his pocket and produced another bullet. “Nowhere to go,” he said in a nervous singsong voice. The color drained from his face, and the puddle of blood beneath him grew larger. “I already told you, Lila. You will never outlive me.”
Suddenly something beeped, and the door to the safe room groaned and creaked open. Standing on the other side, his hair windswept and his face flushed, was Knox, a semiautomatic weapon in his hands. At least he’d had the senseto bring more than one bullet with him.
“Lila, move,” he ordered, and I jumped out of the way, giving him a clear shot at Daxton. It occurred to me half a second too late that I had also given Daxton a clear shot at Knox.
Another shot rang out, reverberating through the safe room, and Knox swore. He dropped his gun and clutched his shoulder, and Daxton dived for the loaded weapon. Panic and adrenaline surged through me, and I scrambled toward it as well, grabbing it an instant before he could and pointing the barrel directly at his head. This time I wouldn’t miss.
He laughed, a crazed, unhinged sound that turned my insides to ice. “You got me,” he said as he slowly stood, wincing as even more blood gushed from his belly. “You’ve won, Lila. Congratulations.”
“Can’t win while you’re still alive,” I said, finger on the trigger. “Now tell everyone what you did to Kitty.”
“What I—” He chuckled again. “Who cares? She was a nobody.”
“I care,” said Knox, stepping toward him with his hand still pressed against his wounded shoulder. “She may have been nobody to you, but the country loved her. So tell them what you did to her.”
“I—” Daxton sighed. He was ghostly pale now, but other than a slight tremor in his hands, there was no other sign he was injured. “I told her I would let her go. And I did.”
“And then what?” I growled.
“And then...and then I may or may not have had her helicopter blown to bits.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t say for sure.”
I swallowed hard. I could have told him it was Lila, and maybe I should have. The country had a right to know she was gone. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Lila deserved better than to die in the mountains, her body buried by snow and never recovered. She deserved this legacy. After all she had been through, she deserved to be remembered as one of the greats, too. Not me. I would have been nobody without her. But she was the reason behind allthis. She was the reason the Blackcoats would now celebrate a hard-won victory, and she was the reason half a billion people would now have the freedom to live the lives they chose. Not the lives the government gave them.
I couldn’t take that from her. I didn’t need the glory. I didn’t want the glory. All I wanted was for this to be over.
“Victor Mercer.” I could barely speak. My voice was broken and hoarse, and every word felt like I was swallowing glass, but I forced them out. “You have been found guilty of treason, conspiracy to commit treason, and the murders of Kitty Doe, Celia Hart, Minister Creed, Minister Ferras, and Minister Bradley, among countless others. You are hereby sentenced to death. Do you have any last words?”
He considered me for a long moment. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
And faster than I would have ever thought he could move, faster than I could react, he leaped toward Knox and pressed the knife against his throat.
“You will pardon me. You will get me medical treatment. And you will release me, or I will kill your fiancé.”
Knox fought back, but Victor dug his finger into the bullet wound in his shoulder, and Knox cried out in pain.