The Ends of the World (The Conspiracy of Us 3)

I heard the echo of myself outside the initiation. I didn’t move my foot.

Stellan let his head fall forward, his hair hanging in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t like hospitals.”

“I know. I’m sorry I had us brought here.”

“Not like the alternative was better.”

The soldier turned around. “Sheket!” he barked. It wasn’t hard to grasp the meaning of that. I shut my mouth until he turned back around.

When he did, Stellan inched his own chair closer. With a glance at the soldier, he leaned in like he was going to whisper something to me. I inclined my ear to him, but he just sat there, his breath uneven. Our cheeks were almost touching. Stellan’s skin was warm and he smelled like blood and dirt, but under it, enough like him that it cut through the sad, sterile hospital smell. Except for the fake canoodling at the party, this was the closest we’d been in a long time. The closest I’d been to anyone in a long time. I remembered what had happened at the Melechs’: the flashbacks to when we’d kissed at Cannes, the flashbacks to the attack in Paris.

I wanted to pull away. I wanted my walls to snap up. But just this tiny bit of allowing myself to feel things had shattered those carefully built mechanisms into dust. “All that time, they’d been saying we were a miracle. The Circle’s salvation,” I breathed. “But we’re not salvation. We’re destruction. The two of us are the end of the world.”

I waited for him to tell me everything would be okay.

“I know,” he whispered instead. “And now so does the Circle.”

I felt his lashes blink against my cheek. Neither of us moved.

I don’t know whether I was trying to comfort him or myself. But I leaned into him, letting my cheek touch his. He sighed then, so softly. And he nuzzled his head into me, like a kitten wanting to snuggle.

We sat like that, his face in the crook of my neck, listening to each other’s breathing, and I felt the hummingbird flutter of my heartbeat slowly calm.

The guard’s walkie-talkie crackled to life, and as he answered, Stellan pulled away, avoiding my eyes. “We have to find some way to get the cuffs off,” he whispered, like that hadn’t just happened.

I sat back, too, embarrassed at how much better I felt now. My head was suddenly clear enough to realize something. “I have a knife.”

I glanced at the guard, who was still turned away, and scooted my chair even closer to Stellan, maneuvering my free leg behind him. “My thigh,” I breathed, nudging my leg against his cuffed hands.

He understood immediately. Goose bumps rose on my legs as his cold hands worked my robe up until he could reach the knife. I kept an eye on the guard while his fingers fumbled with the strap. I felt when it came free. “Turn around,” he whispered. “Give me your hands.”

The guard had started fidgeting, looking at his watch. I rolled away from Stellan with a loud cough, so the guard turned around and saw us both sitting quietly. When he turned back again, satisfied that we were being good prisoners, I rolled over quickly and offered Stellan my cuffs.

There was a quiet scrabbling as he worked at the lock with the slim knife, and then a snick. The guard turned, and just in time, I swiveled and rested my head on Stellan’s shoulder, playing the tired, dejected tourist.

The guard snapped something, and I sat up, pretending to be chagrined.

As I did, I felt my unlocked cuff slip. I twisted my wrist to keep it on, but it kept falling. At the last second, I shoved my other hand under it before it could smack the chair with a clang.

I held my breath, but the guard sneered and turned back around, none the wiser.

After a second, Stellan turned his back to me, and I loosened my hands and took the knife. Elodie had taught me to pick the locks on handcuffs, but I wasn’t very good at it. My eyes flicked from the cuffs to the guard’s back, and I worked the tip of the knife back and forth.

Finally—finally—I heard a click. Stellan immediately worked his hands free. In moments, he had his ankle cuff undone, then mine.

He leaned across to me again. “We have to get him in here,” he whispered. “Pretend to be hurt again.”

I nodded, and, my hands clasped behind me like I was still cuffed, I let my head droop forward. Stellan yelled something frantic. I heard the guard mutter into his walkie-talkie.

I fell over, pulling the chair with me.

Stellan yelled more. The guard said something gruff, and then keys jangled in the lock of our cell. I barely sensed him leaning over me before there was a thud, and Stellan was lowering him to the ground.

CHAPTER 5

I disentangled myself from my chair, rubbing my elbow. “He called someone. We need to go.”

Down the hall, the elevator dinged. I cursed. “There.” I pointed to another elevator at the end of the hall. We ran to it, and I punched the button over and over.

Shouts came up from where we had just been. Our elevator doors dinged open. Empty, thank God.

We jumped inside just as a voice yelled something behind us. The doors slid shut. I started to press the Lobby button, but Stellan stopped me. “Too many people. We’ll find a back stairwell from another floor.”

He ran a finger over the listings of the floors, and pressed the button for 3. “The ICU,” he said. “No one will be looking for us there.”

We got off the elevator without anyone else getting on. The floor was quiet besides a nurses’ station, staffed by one woman with her back to us. We walked quickly in the other direction and ducked inside the first empty room we saw. “We won’t be able to get out of here wearing this,” I whispered.

The rooms here were just glass boxes, some of which had dingy white curtains drawn across their fronts. Across the hall from the one we were in, something caught my eye. A pile of clothing sat perfectly folded on the chair by the window. It was the same uniform all the soldiers wore: a greenish khaki top and pants, with a wide brown belt. There were even boots. And farther across the room, I could see the room’s occupant. A woman. She was asleep, her long dark hair spilling over her pillow, her entire upper body bandaged.