Scotia stood with effort, crying out softly as she did so. She was hurt, and worse than it first appeared—maybe I could outrun her after all.
Clutching a fresh change of clothes, she stumbled out of her room and to the left, toward the bathroom. Moments later I heard the shower running, and I cautiously slid out from underneath the bed. Nudging the curtain aside, I peeked into the bathroom, relieved to see Scotia’s bloodied clothes discarded on the floor.
Her pile of fresh ones sat on the long counter beside a sink, and I tiptoed across the tile, careful not to make a sound. Sitting on top of a fresh shirt was the silver necklace Greyson had given me, half the face tinged red with blood.
I snatched it from the pile and didn’t bother washing it off. Within seconds, I slipped through the door of the bunkhouse and out into the snowy street, careful to keep a straight face. Finally, something was going my way. I could sneak into Mercer’s office while everyone was asleep, get the codes, and deliver them to the Blackcoats. The thought of facing Scotia again after what I’d just done made me queasy, but if I had the codes, maybe she’d forgive me for stealing the necklace. If she figured out it was me in the first place.
Feeling lighter than I had in days, I knelt beside a clean pile of snow a couple blocks from the bunkhouse and scooped a handful into my glove. I scrubbed the face of the necklace clean and pulled it apart to make sure the individual pieces were also free of blood. I had no way of knowing if the electric lock pick would still work, but I couldn’t imagine Greyson creating something this incredible and not waterproofing it. I hoped.
Once the disk was clean, I fastened the chain around my neck and paused, looking at the pink-tinged snow beside my boot. Now that my heart wasn’t in my throat, I realized I had no idea where the blood had come from. How had Scotia managed to get so messed up in the few minutes she’d spent with—
Noelle. The edges of my vision went dark, and I scrambled to my feet and looked around, as if she would be right there waiting for me to notice her. But of course she wasn’t there. Whatever Scotia had done to her, it must have been bad.
I ran through the street toward the dining hall, hoping against hope she would be there. As I passed the alleyway where I’d last seen her, I darted down the path in hopes of spotting her, or at the very least finding a trail of blood. I found neither, and after a minute of searching, I doubled back. The dining hall. She had to be inside the dining hall. If she was injured, she would have gone somewhere warm nearby, and in the sea of gray administrative buildings, that was the only option.
I burst through the doors and searched the crowd. Several people stopped eating and stared, but I ignored them as I scanned every face in there. Noelle wasn’t with them. She wasn’t anywhere.
I swallowed a screech of frustration before darting back outside. I didn’t feel the cold anymore, even with my jumpsuit still wet, and I hurried through the darkening streets, searching every building nearby with an open door. Bunks I didn’t recognize, buildings with cold entranceways and locked hallways—she wasn’t in any of them. And no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find the trail of blood that had to be somewhere.
Just as I decided to head back to the bunkhouse and see if I could trace Scotia’s boot prints, an air horn went off, and my entire body went numb. This time it had nothing to do with the cold.
I was one of the first to reach the railing around the cage. I found a spot where I had an unobstructed view of the rooftop where the Mercers and Knox had viewed the matches the day before, and I waited anxiously, fighting the fear that crept into my thoughts. It would be okay. Everything would be okay.
At last the Mercers appeared, and it was only then that I became aware of the crowd surrounding me, trapping me against the railing. Everyone in the section was here, just as they’d been the night before, and they were all ready to watch someone else die.
I looked up at Knox, waiting for him to notice me. He cast his gaze around the crowd, but at last our eyes met, and he shook his head minutely. I didn’t have to hear him to know what he was thinking: I’d missed dinner, and the Mercers weren’t pleased.
I didn’t care about the Mercers right now. All I could think about was that cage, and as the trapdoors opened underneath, I held my breath.
It would be okay. It would be okay. It would be okay.
But as the familiar mop of floppy brown hair appeared, my blood turned to ice, and I knew it wouldn’t be.
Elliott stood on trembling legs inside the cage, still in his guard uniform. And across from him, wearing a blood-soaked jumpsuit with no coat, knelt Noelle.
XIII
MERCY KILL
“Noelle!” I screamed. “Noelle!”
Even though she couldn’t have been more than twenty feet from me, she didn’t look my way. Her head lolled forward as if she were barely conscious, and her dark hair was matted with blood. Elliott knelt beside her, and for one terrible moment I thought he was going to kill her—until he wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her bloody hair, the same way Benjy had held me only hours before.
Desperation clawed at me from the inside out, but there was nothing I could do. They were already inside the cage. Guards holding rifles surrounded the base, making it a suicide mission at worst to even try to get to them.
But the crowd was dead silent. My scream had echoed through the streets, and even Mercer had glanced my way.
They could hear me.
“They did nothing wrong!” I shouted, climbing onto the railing so the Mercers could see me, too. Hannah averted her eyes, but Mercer stared straight at me, his gaze unblinking. Beside him, Knox leaned in and whispered something in his ear, but Mercer didn’t react. No one said a word.
“It’s okay, Lila,” said a small voice. I turned around. Noelle’s head was resting on Elliott’s shoulder, but she was looking at me, her eyes slightly unfocused. Her face already showed signs of bad bruising, and a gash ran from her temple to her chin. That must have been where most of the blood had come from. Even now, I could see it dripping down her cheek.
Tears stung my eyes, and without thinking, I tried to climb over the railing. “No, this isn’t okay—Noelle, this isn’t okay. Knox!” A guard grabbed my waist, and I began to kick. “Knox, do something!”
A second guard grabbed my flailing legs, and I stood no chance of fending off both. Their arms were strong and their grips unbreakable, and no matter how I twisted and moved, neither of them let go. I didn’t pay attention to them, though—instead I stared up at the rooftop where Knox and the Mercers stood, all three of them now pretending I wasn’t there.