I lifted my hand to push myself upright and the IV cannula slid out of my vein.
A voice said, 'Oh, come on—took me an hour to find that vein!'
I turned. 'Zombie' was sprawled on a pistachio-green sofa, scowling and pointing at the drip. I blinked, startled.
Were we in her flat?
It came back in pieces: White Rose Division agents from the Organisation had found us, said we had to move to a safe location. So this was it.
'How long was I out?' I asked, levering myself up.
She rolled her eyes, blew a bubble with her gum, then looked me over. 'A full day.'
I yanked the cannula free, set the drip stand aside, and ignored the blood. I could feel Ashur's stare on me.
Zombie shifted, fixing those blue eyes—lenses, I knew—on mine. 'Bad dreams? You kept muttering… butterfly… lab… help… stuff like that.'
My heart dropped. I let a caged breath out. I glanced at Ashur; he was watching me straight on, cold and forensic, as if cataloguing every twitch.
'It was just a dream,' I whispered.
I looked down at my leg—and at the shorts I didn't remember putting on. My bullet wound was neatly re-bandaged.
Zombie filled in, breezy: 'You two rocked up out of nowhere. You were out cold, and he doesn't say a single word—proper scary. He re-stitched your leg; I changed your clothes.'
I stared at her face—eyes enlarged by lenses, uneven, colourful liner. Her hair was piled on top of her head. She looked nothing like the last time I'd seen her. Back then it was long chestnut; now it was pastel pink, and even the rest of her face seemed different.
Zombie stood, grabbed a blue bottle from the table, and set it beside me on the sofa. 'If I hadn't given you blood, you'd be dead,' she said, tipping her head with a toothy grin. 'My blood's in your veins now!'
She fluttered a hand between us. 'So we're blood sisters.'
My face twisted with disgust. She laughed, loud.
I frowned at her tattoos. She tapped her thigh. 'Temporary, babe—don't panic. I'm learning to tattoo. I'll probably look like a sketchbook soon.'
I shut my eyes for a second, exhausted. Couldn't believe I was stuck in this mess. I cut a glance at Ashur. His forearm was bandaged; he looked miles better than me. He fixed that dead, flat gaze on Zombie and said, voice rough and unfeeling, 'We want our papers by tomorrow. You understand?'
Zombie pulled up the hood of her fluffy pink hoodie and dropped into the chair at her rig. 'Don't worry,' she said, utterly casual. 'I know my job.'
Ashur shot me a sidelong glance, then pinned me with that cold, chastising stare. 'Not only are y… you not a professional operative; everyone around you is just like y… you.'
I arched a brow, let out a sharp little laugh, and looked away. The clack of Zombie's keyboard filled the room; she was deep in something, face set and serious.
'If I hadn't brought you here, you'd be dead,' Ashur said, voice flat as ice. 'Why didn't you t… tie that man's hands?'
I turned to him; my blood went cold. I pressed back into the cushion and, to avoid his gaze, fixed on Zombie as she typed. 'None of your business.'
I could still feel the weight of his eyes. In the end I looked back—and lost myself in that bottomless black. We stared each other down for a long time. The lamp's glow cast his lashes in shadow across his cheekbones, carving his face into something harsher.
'You can't be the "Jellyfish",' he growled, cool and certain.
He let his gaze rake me, mocking. 'The Rose Organisation's "Jellyfish" is known for beauty first, danger second. They gave you the name because, for all its delicacy, a jellyfish is one of the m… most dangerous creatures in the sea—each tentacle packed with t… thousands of stinging cells that deliver savage pain. I heard you were in the deadliest cadre.'
He tilted his head, eyes locked on mine. 'But you're weak.'
'I'm injured,' I bit out through clenched teeth. 'Months of torture—and then a bullet.'
He cut me off, leaning in, that numb, tidal blankness washing through his stare. 'I didn't mean your body.'
My heart gave a jolt. I dragged a hand over the damp nape of my neck and looked away. Where was this going? Was I really the 'Jellyfish'? No—everything had changed. Something inside me had shifted, like a house where someone had moved all the furniture round.
Zombie drank from a can of energy drink and kept typing.
I turned back to Ashur and whispered, thin and tight, 'You've no idea what I've lived through.'
He smirked, voice soft and needling. 'What's wrong—didn't they give you a doll to play with?'
I stared at the bandage round my leg. He doesn't know me. Not the nightmares, not the mistakes. My fists tightened. I looked at Zombie—I'm the reason she ended up in the Organisation; because of me she met them, and now she works for them. I'd ruined her ordinary life, the same way I'd cost Steven his. The same way, years ago in Russia, I killed that teenage boy—seventeen; he was eighteen—when my mission was to infiltrate his school and get close. My first assignment. The hardest. The worst.
It's the small and the huge things that make a person: months caged in that lab as a child; the camp's punishments, the brutal drills; Russia, and the boy I shot when I was seventeen; meeting Zombie and trying to help—only to realise it doesn't matter what I intend, good or bad. Every step I take seems to curdle into ruin.
She works for the very Organisation I hate and am fighting to escape, while she had the choice to live free. Because of me, she chose this hell.
And Steven's death—how was I supposed to live as if none of it had happened?
I looked at Ashur. He was hunting for the 'Jellyfish', but I didn't want to be a fearsome killer any more—
the girl famed for her marksmanship and kill count.
I wanted a life that was mine, not anyone else's.
And it seemed the price for that wish would be steep.