G I G I

Neve's rhythmic pacing across the hotel floor was distracting. Her heart was pounding, blood rushing, palms cold—

I couldn't take it anymore. Looking up, I asked, "Is something the matter?"

She stopped. "Would you care if there was?"

I found myself hesitating. "It depends."

"On?"

I paused, not having a good answer. "If it has something to do with me, just say it."

"My—my contact went silent," she burst out. "They might have gotten caught. Or killed."

My heart skittered. Running a hand through my rumpled hair, I said, "Our inside information could be gone. And our mission...could be at its end."

Neve turned on me again, but this time her face was twisted in anger. "This is more than just a mission for me, Julia. They could be dead. And I know you don't care. But I do. So have some compassion for me, if you can't have it yourself."

My lips parted, but I said nothing; I hadn't been expecting her to say that. But as she had, I realized how little I knew about her. What if her contact had been a loved one? What if it was her mother? What kind of human didn't care about the slaughter of an innocent? What would my own mother say?

I know you don't care... Didn't I? I used to. What had happened? Echoes of the word crazy rose in my mind. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

There was tension in the air before I said, "I'm sorry. I...want to care." The words felt so foreign on my tongue. How long had it been since I'd said such things? Or even admitted them to myself? Then, quieter, "Did you know them well?"

The rage melted from her features as she slumped against the wall across from me. "Yes. We were close. Once."

The look on her face was painful for me to look at, even more painful when I recognized it immediately: loss. I wondered if I'd worn that look on my face after my mother's murder. Or if I'd just buried it underneath layers and layers of rage.

"I'm sorry," I repeated, surprising even myself. "If it turns out they've been killed, we'll make Orion pay."

"They...they work for Benton," Neve continued, eyes glued to the floor. "If anyone was the murderer, it would be him."

Neither of us had mentioned his name in weeks—not after he'd made so many empty promises and had used the both of us for his own purposes. And then he'd ditched us in the middle of nowhere. My mother had told me he'd obey me because of my power. But...he'd been able to outmaneuver me every time.

"Did you know him?" I asked suddenly, watching her closely. "Benton. Did you know him at the fortress?"

She gave a wry chuckle, like she knew something I didn't. "We all knew about him. He was Orion's second hand, his executioner. Just like—" She paused and I knew she'd been meaning to say Delphinium's name, though I wasn't sure whose sake she'd stopped for: mine or her own. The thought scared me.

"Anyway," she waved her hand, ridding the conversation of any mention of the white-haired assassin. "The first job I went on with him was to break you out of the ONNT's headquarters. I'd never been on such a high-profile mission before. Sure, I'd been given targets to eliminate before, but this was a real chance to prove myself." She wore a small smile and I knew she was looking back on her old self like a fool. "I never ended up proving myself. Not to Orion, anyway.

"And then..." she trailed off again and I frowned. "Then I met you. And now here we are." She spread her hands.

"No...you left something out," I told her, now suspicious. "Just now. You were going to go on, but you stopped." I could now read her well enough to know that with certainty.

"I don't know if I should tell you." She spoke slowly, as if choosing every word deliberately. "I don't know how you'll react."

Neve's statement hit me and buried itself deep within my black, shrunken heart. "You think I'll hurt you?" No, no, no. Not her too.

Her black eyes bored into mine. "No. I don't think you'll hurt me. I think there's a lot you don't know; I'm not sure what you'll do with the information once I tell you." She cocked her head to the side, regarding me carefully. "Even after everything you've been through, you haven't been completely destroyed. And I don't want to see you do that to yourself."

I remembered the day Hunt had delivered the news: the coldness in my limbs, the shape of his mouth as he'd told me exactly what had occurred, how each word hit me and broke me further. I had a horrible feeling whatever Neve was about to tell me would do the same. Nevertheless, I squared my shoulders. "Tell me."

"Rumors swirled about Benton. Most were jealous of him, as he served at the head of the operation. His power was only topped by Orion's." She bit her lip, thinking. "You know how Adiago Hundsen was after your crew in return for Imperium's payment. Benton was the middle man between the two. And you're aware your mother worked for an intelligence-gathering firm. Delphinium was sent to kill her. But word between the assassins was that...Benton killed your mother and framed Delphinium for it."

It was the day I'd gotten the news again. I was cold, so cold and as lifeless as I'd felt inside for some time now. Somehow, I made myself say, "Why."

"Hundsen was getting too cocky. It was a way for Imperium to exert power over Adiago Hundsen, to show him that not everyone worked for him. And a way for Benton to rip two powerful people apart."

I stood, and the ground swayed beneath me. This couldn't be true. No, this couldn't be the truth. My mother was killed by Delphinium. She'd told me so. My mother...

I had to get away, had to confront the truth, had to have my mother back. So I shoved the door open and stumbled into the hotel hallway. Sliding down the side of the wall, I held my heavy head in my hands.

It had been weeks since I'd heard my mother. It had been weeks since I'd thought about talking to her ghost. I'd been preoccupied with my mission of killing Imperium assassins, even though it had been spurred by my mother's death. Immediately, I felt guilty for it. If I didn't remember her, who would?

Her voice didn't appear. I found unease rising within myself and I was half-unsure why it had appeared. That unease turned to panic when I realized I couldn't remember how her voice had sounded. What would I forget next—the memories filled with her? Or how she'd looked?

My mother had left me. She was gone—and not just her body, but her spirit as well. I was alone. So devastatingly alone that I felt an emptiness where she should have been. I'd never had much in life, even before...before the asylum. And during my long years in those padded walls, I'd known she was out there and the thought had brought me a small comfort. But now...she was gone. And I found myself wishing for the padded walls of the asylum if it meant her being alive again.

She was in the ground. She was not with me and she never was. That voice I'd been hearing in my mind...it was the same voice I'd used to comfort myself in the asylum. It had been my only connection to the outside world when it became nothing more than a distant memory. Her voice. It had let me cling to my last shred of sanity there. But now...

Now it was tearing my sanity away from me. And I didn't know if I could let go of her, even if it meant saving myself.

A tear escaped my lashes and I bit my lip to keep from losing control. I'd been desperate for a lot of things throughout my life. Desperation had always been a problem of mine, especially when I didn't know how to let things go. First, I'd been desperate to create a normal life for myself. When that failed, I'd desperately tried to prove myself innocent. And in the asylum, I'd been desperate to stay myself. Now...now I was desperate for my mother. So desperate that I'd conjured an image of my mother in my shattered mind and done my best to convince myself she was real.

No normal person had those thoughts. I was insane. I was insane. I was insane.

That was what caused me to break completely: the realization that I'd had to be too strong for too long—and when my strength had failed me, I'd finally resorted to the insanity everyone always said lived inside me.

It was the only way to protect myself. Without the insanity, I was stripped bare. I didn't want it, and yet I wasn't sure I could live without it. What if they were right? What if my sanity had truly left me and this was all I ever really was?

Neve had said she was worried I'd destroy myself. But now I knew I already had.