The Mercenary Queen Strikes Back novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Vaughn Wakes
Vaughn woke to white light and a tube taped to the back of his hand.
His side felt packed with hot sand.
A calendar on the wall of the room said the ninth.
He had gone under on the night of the gala, and it had been eight days.
"Eight days," said the old doctor at the foot of the bed, who worked for Cinder and asked no questions. "The bullet went through your lung and then broke apart. You had two surgeries and a fever of a hundred and five."
"Where is she?"
"At the warehouse, with Duncan. She sat in that chair for three of the nights."
Vaughn looked at the chair.
A grey jacket lay folded over the arm, and a pistol lay on the seat beside it, where she had left it in a hurry.
A scrap of paper lay under the pistol, and he reached for it with his good arm.
It was in her sharp handwriting: Stay where I can see you.
He read it three times.
It was the first thing she had ever written to him, and it was an order, and he kept it in his fist.
He was not a man who wept, so he looked at the ceiling.
"Marguerite?" he said.
"Still alive. Everard released a video yesterday. It shows her in a room with a clock behind her."
"What does the clock say?"
"Midnight tonight. That is when Astrid turns twenty-four."
He pushed himself upright, and the doctor swore at him in three languages.
A door banged downstairs.
Boots rang on the stairs, a lot of them, and a voice called out in the bright, official tone Vaughn had heard on a hundred prison visits.
"Chief Garrow! Chief Garrow, I know you're up there!"
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