Aimee Carter - Pawn

My heart pounded. He wasn’t Daxton Hart. He’d been Masked, like me, and all this time, he wasn’t the real prime minister.

Was he dead? A second passed, and his chest rose and fell. Not yet. Half a dose wasn’t enough, and no matter who he was, when he woke up, they wouldn’t bother sending me Elsewhere. They would finally have a reason to execute Lila. Would they kill Celia, too, and Knox? And what about—

A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead. If Daxton woke up, he would kill Benjy. I needed to give him the rest of the dose.

I glanced around, searching for the syringe. Where was it? I dropped to my hands and knees, searching the lush carpet, but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere.

The fountains. I rushed to the nearest one. The syringe lay inside, already half dissolved. I scooped the remains out, but it was too late. The poison was gone.

No. No, no, no. I rushed to Daxton’s side. His breaths came slowly and laboriously, but he was still alive. My eyes fell on a throw pillow on a couch nearby. I could smother him. It would only take a minute, and then he wouldn’t be a threat anymore. It was my only option.

I tried to cross the room, but my feet were glued to the floor. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be like him. They’d taken everything from me already—I couldn’t let them take this last piece of my humanity, as well. III or not, I was better than that. I was better than him, whoever he was.

Shouts from the hallway echoed through the room. I’d waited too long. The guards who were dealing with Celia would undoubtedly have called in reinforcements by now, and I was trapped.

Frantically I searched the ceiling. In the corner I spotted an air vent the size of the one in my suite, and I didn’t waste any time. Hopping over the impostor’s body, I scrambled onto the massive desk, knocking over a stack of books in the process. With any luck, they’d blame the mess on him.

Using one of the sturdy bookcases, I climbed to the ceiling and knocked the cover out of place. I had just enough room to squeeze through it, and with so much adrenaline pumping through my veins, I had no trouble at all lifting myself up into the ceiling. After covering the vent once more, I collapsed in the tunnel, breathing heavily. I was safe.

But not for long.

I slipped back into my suite as I silently berated myself for ever trusting Celia. Her plan hadn’t been foolproof; a million things could’ve gone wrong, and at least two did. The guards arrived faster than she’d anticipated, and I hadn’t had the courage to kill him—whoever he really was. I’d backed out, and for that, my life might be forfeit.

Less than a minute after I’d thrown what was left of the syringe into the toilet and sank onto the sofa, I heard shouts coming from the hallway. A pair of guards burst into the room, but unlike my first night in Somerset, they didn’t try to drag me off to the safe room.

“What’s going on?” I said, but neither of them answered. Moments later Knox strode in, his mouth set in a thin line.

“Knox?” I said. He offered me his hands. I took them, and I couldn’t hide how badly mine trembled.

“It’s your mother,” he said. “The doctors think she’s been poisoned. She’s been taken to the infirmary.”

That was all? Nothing about Daxton? “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. But there’s something else.”

I held my breath. If he was dead, I would be directly responsible for it. But if he wasn’t...

“It’s the prime minister.” Something in his eyes flashed. “He’s also been poisoned.”

I opened and shut my mouth. Did Knox know that Daxton had been Masked, too? Did Celia know? Did Greyson?

“Is he—is he still...?” I said shakily.

Knox nodded, and I clutched his hands to keep from swaying. The guards stepped closer, but Knox shook his head, and they moved back. They were here to protect me now, but the moment Daxton woke up and revealed I was the one who’d tried to kill him, they would come for me and Benjy.

I must have looked as hysterical as I felt, because Knox guided me back onto the sofa and knelt next to me. “Lila,” he said, and even though I was dizzy with fear, I made myself look at him. “It’s all right. Your mother’s going to be okay. And Daxton...” He paused, and his expression hardened. “I promise you that everything will work out.”

He knew something had gone wrong. He had to, because Daxton wasn’t dead. And no matter how stupid I’d been letting Celia talk me into this mess to begin with, I wasn’t about to tell Knox what had happened. If he knew Daxton was Masked and discovered I’d found out—

“Think you can make it to the infirmary?” said Knox, and I nodded. Lila would be expected to visit her mother even though I wanted to stay as far away from Daxton as possible.

He and Celia had been brought to an underground level on the other side of the mansion. The infirmary took up the entire floor of the wing, and even though the walls were painted the same color as the summer sky, the corridors were so narrow that I couldn’t shake the feeling of being caged.

The infirmary had no waiting room packed with the sick and dying, like the public hospital I’d visited after breaking my arm when I was ten. Instead a doctor dressed in a white uniform led me and Knox into Celia’s room, where she was hooked up to the machine that beeped in time with her pulse.

I stepped forward, and tears stung my eyes. They weren’t as fake as I wanted to convince myself they were. As nice as it was to know that nothing had gone wrong with Celia’s part of the plan, I needed to know what had happened with Daxton.

Thankfully Knox seemed to understand, and as I took Celia’s hand, he spoke to the doctor. “How is the prime minister?”

“Alive,” she said, flipping through papers she held in the crook of her arm. “We don’t know much more than that. He hasn’t woken up yet, but his vitals are much weaker than Celia’s.”

“Do you know how this happened?” said Knox, and from across the room I saw him set his hand on her arm.

She scowled and shifted away. “We’re not sure. Both of them have needle marks on their skin, but in different places, and we haven’t found any syringes.”

“Someone did this?” said Knox, unfazed by her rejection.

When she nodded, I squeezed Celia’s hand, wishing she were conscious so she could help figure this out. She was the one who’d gotten me into this mess, but I was the idiot who hadn’t thought it through before going along with it.

“Thank you,” said Knox, and the doctor left the room. He closed the door behind her, and I looked down at Celia, not letting go of her yet. “Did anyone see you leave?” he said quietly.

“No. I went through the air vents.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You went through the what? ”

I pointed at the ceiling. “See that one up there? It’s a little smaller than the one in Daxton’s office, but it’s the same idea.”

While he squinted up at the grate, I studied Celia. Her chest rose steadily, her heartbeat was strong, and she looked peaceful as she slept. Not like the woman who’d lost her daughter and was willing to do whatever it took to get revenge. She couldn’t have known her brother was Masked, I decided. If she had, there would be no need to try to kill him. All she would have to do was tell the media that the prime minister was a fake. But if I spilled his secret, there was no telling what would happen to me and Benjy. For now, I had to keep my mouth shut and hope it didn’t matter anymore.

“How the hell do you fit through that?” said Knox, still staring at the vent. I shrugged.

“It’s not exactly hard.”

“Speak for yourself.” He shook his head incredulously. “But if no one saw you, good. What about going in?”