Forty-Five
New York, New York
The world was a blur of white. White sheets and white curtains, the glare of fluorescent lights. Strange faces in masks hovered
over hers, prodding her with their words. Stay with me, all right? You’re going to be fine. Does it hurt?
The wheels of the gurney clattered on the linoleum. Cold scissor blades against her skin as they cut off her black dress,
replacing it with a paper gown. The snap of medical gloves. Her blood, pouring over the crinkling paper and dripping onto the floor, staining everything red and tinting
the air with the smell of death.
Nadiya’s vision went black.
When she came to, she was in a hospital bed, her left leg elevated in a sling. The light scalded her eyes. The monitor at
her bedside beeped in a steady rhythm. A nurse in navy scrubs sat beside her, and as soon as Nadiya stirred, she bolted up.
“Welcome back,” she said, her voice soft. “How are you feeling?”
“Where’s Giselle?”
The nurse frowned. The name tag on her scrubs read Sam. “Is that a friend of yours? If you give me her number, I can call her. She should be able to come for visiting hours as
soon as you’re cleared by a doctor.”
Her thoughts were swimming. There was nothing in her mind she could arrange into words. Nadiya slipped under once again.
The next time she woke, Sam was gone, and there was a doctor leaning over her instead. The name tag on his white coat read
Dr. Li.
“There you are,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
It seemed like an absurd question to ask someone who’d just had a bullet surgically removed from their thigh. Nadiya wondered
how much strange blood had been pumped into her to keep her heart beating. Despite the heaviness of exhaustion, she managed
to raise one shoulder in a shrug.
Dr. Li smiled slightly. “Well, that’s probably the best we can hope for at the moment.”
With no small amount of difficulty, Nadiya pushed herself into a sitting position. Her memories felt swampy, dissonant. “What
happened to me?”
“You were hemorrhaging from a gunshot wound when you came in. We were able to stop the blood loss and remove the bullet, so
you should heal up just fine with plenty of rest and some rehab.”
“Where am I?”
“St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, on the Upper West Side.” Dr. Li walked to the window and inched the curtains open, letting
in a stream of sunlight. “You can see the Columbia University campus from here.”
Columbia. Something surfaced from the murk of her mind. The completely unnecessary painkillers must have been dulling her good sense,
because Nadiya found herself mumbling out, “My father used to work here.”
“Your father?” Dr. Li cocked his head. “Should we call him?”
She wondered what story Chane’s guards had given when they brought her in. Had they just deposited her on the curb and then
fled? Nadiya looked down at her hospital bracelet. It read Unknown female, GSW upper thigh. And what had happened to Giselle?
Panic seeping in, Nadiya tried to rise from the bed. Her leg was still elevated in the sling, so she tugged at the restraints,
but within moments Dr. Li was at her side again, pressing her arms to the mattress.
“Hey, hey,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. But you need to stay calm and rest. I can have a nurse come in and sit with you, if you like.”
His voice was so gentle that it made her stomach clench. Nadiya realized what he must be seeing, when he looked at her: a
young girl, wounded and fragile and alone. Not a soldier.
She stopped struggling.
“There you go.” Dr. Li eased his grip on her arms. “Now . . . there is something I need to ask you. During surgery we noticed
significant scarring on your abdomen. An old wound. Can you tell me what happened?”
Nadiya shook her head.
Dr. Li frowned. “And there were some abnormalities in your blood test results—”
Just as panic rose in her again, a figure appeared in the threshold.
Bewildered, Dr. Li turned. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, striding toward the door. “This is a locked ward. I can have someone
show you back downstairs. . . .”
Dr. Iver didn’t move. He reached into his pocket and held something up—an ID badge? Nadiya couldn’t quite make it out from
a distance. But as soon as Dr. Li saw it, he shrank back. With one last glance at Nadiya, he exited the room.
In a careful but assured stride, Dr. Iver came to her bedside. His hair shone under the fluorescents like a slick of ice,
and his face was stony.
At first. Then the facade seemed to crack. His pale eyes brightened and dampened at the corners. Nadiya was so alarmed at
the sight of it that she flinched.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” he whispered. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”
“Are you?” Nadiya’s voice was hoarse. “You were conspiring with Chane and Deckard to send me to my death.”
“Is that really what you believe?”
“I don’t know.” Her head felt heavy. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
With a sigh, Dr. Iver perched on the edge of her bed. The sheets crumpled under the weight of his body. “I’ve kept you in
the dark for too long, and I’m sorry. I thought you would be safer there.”
“I haven’t been safe since I was nine years old.”
“Yes.” Dr. Iver bowed his head. “I know that.”
Slowly, and against her will, Nadiya’s anger began to drain out of her. He looked so dismayed, so mollified, that it eased
the tension in her chest. All she wanted was for him to hold her and tell her it was going to be all right. She wanted everything
to be easy again. No more nightmares, and no more dreams.
But it was too late for that. Her dreams had taken her far away. She couldn’t go back to who she had been before she knew
the feeling of Giselle’s lips on hers.
Tears leaped to her eyes. “Tell me the truth,” she said. “Tell me everything. About the mission. About my father.”
Dr. Iver lifted his gaze to hers. “You already know more than you think. You just have to remember.”
“I’m not in the mood for riddles.”
“Very well.” Dr. Iver pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Come home with me, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Nadiya tensed in shock. He phrased it as if she had a choice. Did she? What if she stayed here, recovered, and then went to
New Jersey to look for her family? It was just a short trip across the Hudson River.
But would they even want her back? Would they want the girl she was now, her body scarred, her hands stained with blood? The
girl who had been such a coward that she had fled instead of comforting her dying father? Feeling a bolt of alarm, Nadiya
patted the bedsheets, searching for her father’s cross. Her gaze scanned the room and she deflated with relief when she saw
it glinting on the bedside table.
Then thoughts of her family slipped away from her. Giselle’s voice wove its way through her mind instead.
I love you. She’d spoken the words with such fierceness that Nadiya had to believe her. It had transfigured everything: Nadiya’s entire
world reshaping itself around the sound of Giselle’s laugh, the soft pink flush that painted her cheeks when she smiled.
“Where is she? Giselle?”
“She’s safe,” Dr. Iver said. “At Valeran.”
And then everything became easy after all. A lightness descended on her, like the gentle sweep of silk across her skin.
Nadiya pushed herself up into a sitting position. When she reached for the sling, Dr. Iver didn’t stop her.
“I want to go,” she said, swallowing. “I want to go home.”
Dr. Iver rose. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “As you wish.”