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My parents are gone.
Dead.
No.Murdered.
Killed by Cade as part of some sick revenge plot against my family.
Against Quinctus.
Pain splinters my chest as I inhale a ragged breath.
“Mia?” Sasha knocks on the bathroom door, and I startle.
“Just a second.”
It’s the first time I’ve been allowed to come in here alone. I stare at myself in the small mirror, horrified by what I see. Faded cuts and bruises mar my skin. The faint finger marks around my neck. The bite marks. It’s hard to tell which injuries were caused by Cade and which by the explosion, but I look like I just survived the apocalypse.
And Phillip Cargill stood there.
He just stood there, with his indifferent expression, apologizing for the death of my parents as if it was all just business as usual. He and the rest of Quinctus sent me off with Cade knowing what he was capable of…
They…
A garbled whimper spills from my lips.They did this.
It all starts and ends withthem.
From instructing my father to kill Gregory Kingsley and the other men on that list, to allowing it to stand when my name was pulled from the calix.
Anger rushes through me like wildfire as I grip the edge of the sink. They did this.
“Mia?” Sasha’s voice comes through the door again.
“Yeah,” I sigh, feeling the walls close in around me.
One of them has been at my side ever since I woke up yesterday.
After finding out the truth about my parents, and Phillip’s visit, I had to be sedated again. I woke up this morning with Sasha curled up in the chair beside me.
I rinse my hands and dry them before gingerly walking to the door. Everything hurts. My muscles, my bones, my organs. My body aches in a way I never thought possible as I gently turn the handle.
“Thank God,” Sasha breathes. “I was getting worried.”
She helps me back to bed, holding my IV stand out of the way as I climb up and slide under the stiff sheets.
“I can’t believe I was out of it for almost a week,” I say. “Will you tell me what happened after—" The words get stuck in my throat.
“It was chaos.” She gives me a sad smile. “Bexley was beside himself. At one point, I thought he was going to kill Dad.” Regret simmers in her eyes, and I swallow down the urge to tell her that he should have.
“They knew, didn’t they?” I say, coolly. “They knew Cade might…” Bile churns inside me, forcing me to take a deep breath. “They knew, and they sent me with him like a lamb to the slaughter.”
A shudder rolls through me. Now I remember that night, I can’t forget it. I almost wish my memory hadn’t returned. At least then I wouldn’t have to relive Cade… hurting me, over and over until I was nothing more than an empty shell of skin and bones in the cold undergrowth.
“Are you hungry?” she says. “I could ask the nurse to—"
“No.” I couldn’t eat if someone paid me. “Do they have any idea where Cade went?”
“None.” She sucks in a thin breath. “Q have people looking, though.”
