Mercer. The name rattled around my head until an image of an airstrip in the middle of the woods appeared in my mind. He was the official who had met Daxton and me the day I’d visited Elsewhere.
What the hell was he doing in my cell?
“Miss Hart,” he said, his voice laced with admiration I didn’t expect. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, though I do wish it were under different circumstances. I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced—I’m Captain Jonathan Mercer. I’m the one in charge here.”
He paused, as if he was waiting for me to say something, but I stayed silent. I had nothing to say to him. I wasn’t going to beg and plead for my life—I wasn’t going to ask for his mercy. Neither would work, and with Benjy dead, I didn’t want them to, either. Growing up in the Heights, the roughest part of D.C., had taught me how to survive, but seeing the deadened eyes of the IIs who were days away from working themselves to death and the smiles on the faces of the corpses who already had—that had only proven to me that sometimes, death was a relief.
I would be another smiling corpse. Whether that day would be today, tomorrow, a week from now—I didn’t care, as long as it was soon.
Once it became clear I wasn’t going to say anything, Mercer cleared his throat. “Right, then. Before we begin, I wanted to extend an invitation for you to stay with us at Mercer Manor once you’re moved from the holding cell. I think you’ll find it a far sight better than your other accommodations would be.”
“I’m not staying here?” I said before I could stop myself.
Mercer looked down his blunted nose at me, and the corner of his lips twitched upward, as if he were pleased he’d made me talk. “No, no, this is just a holding and prep area. You’ll be released once we’re through.”
“Through with what?” I said, but as I spoke, I noticed Hannah digging through the medical supplies bag she’d brought. “I’m fine,” I added hastily. “I don’t need anything.”
“This isn’t for your benefit,” she said coolly, and when she straightened, she held a syringe and a strange tool that looked like the tip of a knife attached to a pen. “Stay still.”
Her gloved hand ran over the back of my neck, and I jumped to my feet, scrambling into the corner of my cell. “Don’t touch me,” I said in a strangled voice, but it was already too late. Her blue eyes had widened a fraction of an inch, and though she quickly wiped her expression of any trace of surprise, I knew she’d felt the three ridges on the back of my neck, unlike the VII Lila should have had.
She knew I was Masked. She knew I wasn’t a real Hart. I braced myself for her to blurt it out to her husband, but instead, as if nothing had happened, she rose smoothly and crossed the cell to join me.
“It won’t hurt, I assure you,” she said, setting her hand in the tender spot between my shoulder blades, exactly where Daxton’s boot had nearly crushed my spine. Underneath my hair, her fingertips brushed against the back of my neck again, slower this time. Our eyes locked, and for several infinite seconds, she searched mine. I stared back, silently daring her to speak. She said nothing.
At last she guided me back to the cot and gathered my hair in a clip. Fighting would do me no good—she was close enough that I could grab her gun and shoot, but the memory of what had happened with Augusta was too fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it again, even if it meant the quick death I was hoping for. If I couldn’t do that—the one thing that might save me from dying alone in the woods, hunted by the madman who ran the country—then in that moment, I decided I would do one last thing with the time I had left: figure out why she was keeping my secret from Mercer.
The pinprick in the center of my tattoo was nothing compared to the way Daxton had stabbed me with his needle, and I closed my eyes as the liquid she injected burned underneath my skin until the back of my neck was numb.
“What are you—” I began, but before I could finish, Hannah unclasped my necklace and handed it to Mercer. “Hey! That’s mine.”
“Wearing something like that here could get you killed,” she said as he pocketed my lock pick. “I’m doing you a favor. Stop moving.”
I gritted my teeth. “You will give that back to me,” I said, but both Mercer and Hannah ignored me. I opened my mouth to protest again, but something pressed against the numbed skin, and my words caught in my throat as a warm trickle ran down my neck.
Blood.
Instinctively I reached behind me, but Hannah caught my hand in an iron grip. “I’m not done yet.”
I yanked my hand away. “What are you doing to me?”
“Removing your rank,” she said. A sickening burning smell filled the air, and at last Hannah rose from the cot. “There.”
My fingers trembled as I brushed them against the back of my numb neck. The three ridges were still there, but two diagonal slashes of puckered skin cut through them now, forming a scarred X over the spot where my tattooed VII was.
I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. It didn’t matter what rank I was now—death wouldn’t care if I was a III or a VII. Or an X. But the loss of that VII felt more real than this cell or the rough cot I sat on, or even the cold concrete beneath my feet. That VII had given me a chance to be someone—to matter in the world more than I ever would as a III. It had given me a purpose, and now all I had to show for it was a scarred X and a life that dwindled with every passing second.
The despair I’d been struggling to hold at bay crept through me, and I rapidly blinked back tears. I wouldn’t let the Mercers see me cry, not over something this stupid. But it wasn’t stupid, not to me—it was the death of any hope I’d ever had. And it was the crushing pain of reality setting in. This time, there would be no Benjy or Celia or Knox there to save me. This was it, and I’d never been more alone in my life.
“Change into this, and I’ll take you to the manor,” said Hannah, tossing a plastic-wrapped bundle of clothing into my lap. A shirt, underwear, bra, and jumpsuit—all the same stomach-churning shade of blood-red.
“I’m not going to the manor,” I mumbled, slowly unwrapping it. Red had never been my color.
Hannah started to reply, but Mercer cut her off. “You will,” he said, his kind voice taking on a note of authority. “Believe me, with your name and former rank, the last thing you want is to mingle with the general population.”