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My beautiful butterfly.

My everything.

“No one, Valerie.” Not anymore. “Go back to sleep.”

Sixty-Nine

Astor

It’s three in the morning when the hospital room door creaks open. I’m sitting on the couch, my elbows on my knees, watching Valerie breathe.

It’s Cillian.

I quickly lift my finger to my mouth. I don’t want him to wake her.

He nods and jerks his chin to the hallway.

Quietly, I step outside. “What’s going on?”

He glances furtively at the nurse behind the computer a few yards away.

“She can’t hear us,” I say, suddenly very aware that something is wrong. “What’s going on? Speak.”

“She’s not there.”

Every single hair on my forearms rises.

“What do you mean? Who’s not there?”

“Sabine. Her body was not in the hangar when the crime scene techs did their sweep. Only two bodies were found, both confirmed to be Prishna’s and Carlos’s. There is no trace of Sabine Hart anywhere in that hangar.”

“I don’t understand.” I’m suddenly breathless. “I don’t fucking understand.” My lungs feel like they are squeezing in on themselves. “She was dead, right?”

The look of doubt on his face makes me snap.

I grab his collar, lift him off the floor, and yank him to me.

“Right, Cillian?!” I bellow, and the nurses turn in our direction. “You pulled me off her because she was dead. You told me she was dead!”

“Astor, stop—calm the hell down.” He jerks out of my hold and pulls me into an empty room and closes the door.

“Yeah.” He begins pacing. “I thought she was dead. But the fact is that her remains are not in that hangar. I talked to the responding officers—had to bribe one of them for information; you’ll get that bill. He told me when the explosive went off, only one side of the building burned. The other collapsed but was largely still standing. Technically, she could have gotten out if she was still alive. They’re being super tight-lipped about it all ...”

His voice fades. The room begins to spin, and I feel like I’m falling through a big black hole.

I reach forward, grasping for the wall, a second before everything goes black.

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