“Lila,” said a sharp voice over my shoulder. I jerked around. Scotia stood only a couple feet away, close enough to hear everything we’d just said. My face grew hot.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that eavesdropping is rude?” I snapped.
She ignored me. “I need to speak with Noelle,” she said, looking past me and staring directly at her instead. “Go back to Mercer Manor, Lila, and enjoy your dinner.”
“I—” I began, but Scotia grabbed me by the arms and hauled me to my feet, her fingers digging into bruises. I yelped.
“That wasn’t a request,” she said. “Go.”
Noelle sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “It’s okay, Lila,” she said, offering me a faint smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, and I glared at Scotia. This wasn’t over. She barely looked at me as she helped Noelle to her feet—much more gently than she’d been with me, I noticed—and led her deeper into the back alleys.
I watched them until they disappeared around a corner, and with a huff, I shoved my hands in my pockets and returned to the street. The bunkhouse wasn’t far, but the bottom of my jumpsuit was soaked with dirty snow, and the biting wind felt worse than usual. I hated myself for joining the Mercers, as necessary as it was, but I couldn’t deny it would be much more comfortable.
That wouldn’t fix the problem for the rest of the prisoners, though. The only thing that could possibly help them was finding those armory codes and giving the Blackcoats a fighting chance to overtake Elsewhere. Knox and Benjy were right—if I was caught searching for them, I’d be dead in seconds, and this time my face wouldn’t help me, not when everyone thought Lila was leading the rebellion in the first place. But that only meant I couldn’t get caught.
And in order to break into the filing cabinets and steal the codes, I needed my necklace. The chances of Scotia handing it over if I asked politely were slim, even if I explained myself, and I didn’t trust her enough to do that anyway. Not after all she’d done. She might have been working for the Blackcoats, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to rat me out in a second if it meant distracting the Mercers long enough to further her own agenda. Ratting me out meant potentially ratting out Knox and Benjy, too, and I couldn’t let that happen.
So that was it. I had to find the codes myself. If Knox could have done it, he would have already, and Scotia herself had admitted she stood no chance.
I had to steal back my necklace.
I slipped into the bunkhouse, relieved to see it abandoned. Everyone must have been at the dining hall already. The napkin Benjy had drawn was where I’d left it, underneath the thin mattress, and I slipped it into my coat pocket, where it stood the best chance of staying dry.
After I ducked into the bathroom to make sure it was empty, I stood in front of the curtain that separated Scotia’s room from the rest of us. My heart hammered, but I had no idea when she’d be back, and I didn’t have any time to waste. Now or never.
The curtain was heavier than I expected, and to my surprise, her room was almost warm. It was small—barely big enough for a bed, a tiny desk and chair, and a nightstand—but it was a palace compared to the rest of the bunkhouse.
In the group home, we had a strict no-snooping policy. Anyone caught looking through someone else’s stuff voided their right to privacy, making their possessions fair game for the rest of us, and I wasn’t stupid enough to give up what little I had. And even though I’d had no trouble going through Daxton and Lila’s things, being in here without Scotia made my skin prickle with the wrongness of it.
But I was on a mission. I hadn’t spotted the necklace on Scotia in the alleyway, and it could have easily been hiding underneath her jumpsuit. I silently prayed it was around here somewhere instead.
I started with the single thin drawer on the desk. It was empty, save for some scraps of paper with scribbles I couldn’t read. I found a handful of pencils, all worn down to the nubs, but there was nothing else there. I turned to the nightstand.
The top drawer was small and full of pictures of girls I didn’t recognize—smiling faces wearing white jumpsuits instead of red, which I could only guess meant they were from a different section. My eyes lingered on a younger-looking Scotia, with longer hair done in braids and a wide smile. Part of me was stunned to see anyone looking that happy Elsewhere, but most of me was relieved Scotia wasn’t a heartless monster after all. She had people she cared about, too, and at least now I had some glimmer of understanding as to why she’d risked her own safety and a cushy position all to help out the Blackcoats. We all had someone we were fighting for, even if that someone was ourselves.
I was careful not to disturb anything in the nightstand as I searched for the necklace. The second drawer was stuffed with an extra jumpsuit and wool socks, and among them I discovered a batch of folded notes bundled together with an old shoestring. I tried to make out the names on the top and bottom of each page, but the letters didn’t form any word I recognized. Not that that was hard. I bit my lip. Maybe if I took these, Scotia would be willing to trade.
Or she’d kill me. That was a much more likely outcome.
Without warning, the door to the bunkhouse opened, and I froze. For an instant, I couldn’t move as panic overcame me, but I forced it aside. The odds of it being Scotia were slim, but that was a chance I couldn’t take. As silently as I could, I shut the drawer and slid under the bed.
Uneven footsteps echoed from the doorway, almost as if whoever it was couldn’t keep her balance. Underneath the edge of the curtain, I spotted prisoner-issued boots, and I silently willed them to walk away from the curtain. Just one step, and I would be able to relax.
Instead they turned toward me, and a gloved hand pushed the curtain aside, revealing Scotia.
I remained absolutely still, not even daring to breathe. Scotia’s coat and jumpsuit were soaked in fresh blood, and she stumbled forward, groping around until she reached the nightstand. She was only a few inches from my hiding spot under her bed, close enough for me to hear her labored breathing.
Where had the blood come from? I searched for any sign of injury on Scotia, but all I could see were a few scratch marks across her neck. Nothing deep enough to cause that much blood to soak into her clothes.
I spotted something else, too—a delicate silver chain hanging around her neck. I bit back a hiss of frustration. The most I could do at this point was yank it off her and make a run for it, but even in her condition, she could probably take me. I couldn’t risk it.