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"I want to know too," I whisper, my eyes on him. "I want to know who took that from me. I want to know who paid for my bone marrow. Hell, Vlad, I…" I trail off, my throat clogging with emotion as I realize just how much this place had exploited me.

Me and all these other children.

"Sisi." He grips my nape, bringing my forehead to his. Closing his eyes, he holds me to him, his breath on my lips, his warmth on my skin. "We'll find out. I promise you. And I'll kill everyone who touched a hair on your body, you get me?"

His hands move slowly to cup my cheeks, urging me to look him in the eyes.

"You get me, Sisi? I'll kill everyone you want me to. You just give me a name, and it's done. Fuck." He releases a ragged breath. "Fuck, Sisi. I can't…" He leans closer, kissing my forehead, my nose, and finally my lips.

"The thought of you, small and defenseless on a fucking hospital bed while some makeshift nurse is sticking a needle into your spine is killing me," he sighs deeply. "It's fucking killing me."

"I don't remember it. I really don't." I press my own hand to his cheek. "Maybe it's better this way, but I still need to find out. I… This can't go on, Vlad. I know the world is a fucked up place, but we're talking about children. Defenseless children with no one to look after them." My breath catches in my throat, because this feels a little too close to home.

I was one of those children, after all.

"They can't get away with it," I continue, almost suffocating from this anguish, a deep chasm opening in my heart as I realize how lucky I'd been to make it out alive.

When others weren't.

"They won't," he's quick to say. "They won't. One word from you, hell girl, and I pull the trigger. That's it. No questions asked." He strokes my hair gently, the emotion in his features almost mirroring my own.

Because we are one.

"I'myourkilling machine. So use me. Kill everyone you want. You say the word, and their heads drop. It's that easy," he continues, and I can see this is the only way he knows how to comfort me.

"We'll do it. Together," I say, more resolute than ever.

By the time we finish filtering through everything, it's already night. We put everything back, and then we make our way toward the living quarters.

"How are we going to make her talk?" I ask right before we go inside the building.

"Leave that to me, Sisi. I'll make sure she tells useverythingbefore I kill her in the most painful way for everything she's done to you."

"No." I stop, my hand on his arm. "Let me." I raise my eyes to his. "I want to be the one to do this. I…"

He places his finger on my lips, not letting me continue.

"I know. I know." He presses his lips in a tight line. "I'll help you with whatever you need. You know I always have your back," he says, his sweet words warming me on the inside.

"I know the whole purpose of this was to find Miles," I tell him before I lose my courage. "But I also feel like I'm finally closing a painful chapter in my life. Past secrets are being revealed, and the people who made my life a living hell are going to be punished."

"I'm glad." He lifts my hand to his mouth. "As long as you're happy, I'm happy," he says and I can't help myself as I quickly jump up to lay a kiss on his cheek.

"Let's do this!"

Except Mother Superior isn't in her apartments. We search everywhere for her, but she's not inside.

"Let me check the cameras quickly." Vlad pulls out his phone, accessing the feed and looking for any sign of her.

"There." He finds her in one frame, leaving her quarters at midnight. Accessing some of the other cameras, we manage to pinpoint her location to somewhere around the church.

Vlad also does one of his tricks and manages to divert all security footage, placing it in a loop, so there will be no trace of us.

"She must be inside the church," I note when we get in front of it.

"A bit too late to pray her sins away, wouldn't you say?" Vlad mutters dryly, aggression already rolling off of him.

He's been like this since we found my medical file. While he hadn't outright said it, I can tell it pains him even more than me, since I don't remember anything. But he has intimate knowledge of what it feels like to be cut and probed, so it must not have been easy to hear that I'd been in a similar situation.