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Because they had chosen not to be regular people. There would be no crumbling into a heap, sobbing about how unfair it was, or trying to figure out an exit strategy.

Because first, they had to do their job.

“Okay, then,” Bethan said, at last. Five seconds had passed, though it felt much longer. “Then this time, when I shoot him, I’ll make sure it takes.”

Her gaze was still fastened to Jonas’s. She could see too much there. All the nights they wouldn’t have. All the days they should have had.

All that wasted time when they could have been who they really were.

It ached. It hurt like a mortal blow. But she let it go.

Because they’d had so much already. And wasn’t that the point? They’d had more than some people ever would.

She blinked, her eyes too full, and he was gone.

Bethan turned, wondering what the clock looked like now. Not the famous one before her but her own personal clock. She both wanted and didn’t want to know how much time she actually had left.

She started another scan of the crowd, turning incrementally, and went still when a woman staggered into her. Then lifted her head.

“Iyara,” Bethan whispered.

And even as she did, something stung her. Like a hornet, making her entire arm burn. She jerked back, but the other woman was holding her by the elbow and yanked her close.

“Do you remember what you told me?” And though Iyara’s voice was cold, there was something about the expression in her eyes. Almost as if she was pleading. “In that hut where we met?”

“I said a lot of things,” she hedged as Iyara pocketed the syringe she’d just used.

Iyara moved closer, still holding Bethan’s arm. “You should have known that I would take my revenge, then.”

That didn’t make sense.

But as Bethan frowned and opened her mouth, Iyara shifted. And as she did, the open collar of her T-shirt moved slightly, so Bethan could see the wire taped there.

He was listening.

And even as comprehension dawned, she realized something was wrong with her body. Deeply wrong. Her head was starting to feel upsettingly fuzzy, and her limbs worryingly thick.

“This is my revenge,” Iyara said, louder, then began to walk.

When Bethan stumbled, she propped her up, wrapping one arm around her back.

Bethan laughed as the crowd around her dimmed, and her vision blurred, so there was nothing but that clock, ticking away the breaths she had remaining.

“I saved you,” she told Iyara. Or maybe she only dreamed it. Maybe she was already dead. “And you killed me.”

She heard a sound in her ear that she couldn’t identify. She thought about Jonas in her cabin, his hands flat on the door on either side of her head, and both of them laughing because kissing wasn’t enough.

Nothing with Jonas was ever enough.

Then everything went blank.

Twenty-four

You killed me, Jonas heard Bethan say, over and over again in his head, and that was unacceptable. Flat wrong.

He couldn’t bear it.

Worse, he’d lost sight of her. By design, he assumed, because he couldn’t spot Iyara Sowande, either.