She doesn’t answer me, but she stands tall, her brown eyes looking down on me as she waits mere feet in front of me. Her eyes flick down to the white scar on my chest and then she pulls me into a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

I wait for the hallucination to fade. It’s been several weeks. I can’t remember the last time I had an actual meal or water that wasn’t riddled with parasites. I’d seen her once before, in the mines, but she wasn’t real then. She can’t be real now.

It’s official. I’ve gone insane.

It’s like the hallucination can read my thoughts as the apparition of my best friend hugs me tighter. She’s cold like metal, digging into my back as she whispers to me.

“I’m so sorry,” she says again.

My brows pinch together and I force her arms off me, squeezing her shoulder and waiting for it to disappear into Baron or Castor, but the two men watch out of my peripheral, seemingly just as confused and alarmed as I am.

“Sara?” I say finally.

She nods with a tearful laugh.

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” She hugs me again but it’s lighter this time. Numb.

My best friend is dead. This isn’t real.

But the longer she hugs me, the longer her warmth melts into my body, the faster the illusion fades and I hug her back, squeezing her so tightly until I’m sure neither of us can breathe.

“You’re alive?” I ask in disbelief, expecting her to fade into another nightmare.

She nods, offering me a smile.

“I should’ve told you. I’m so sorry I let it get this far.”

My lip quivers, a hot tear sliding down my cheek. “No. You’re dead. My best friend is dead.”

She winces. “I’m here, Helena, I promise. I tried to find you, I swear, but Bane already had you. Arik and Silas had to get you out.”

No. She’s dead. I held her. I felt her stop breathing. I buried her.

I bite down on my cheek, forcing the tears to stop, but the rage comes through as another falls.

“You’re Fury?” I ask, my voice tight.

She nods.

No. That’s a fucking lie. I would know if my best friend was some kind of vigilante. We knew everything about each other. She was with Bane too.

But the longer Sara looks at me, the more I begin to notice the guilt in her eyes, and the recognition in Baron and Castor’s.

The rage festers, coupling with the grief until it finally boils over.

I throw my fist back, punching her straight in the jaw.

She scrambles back and Castor catches her, Baron already holding me back as I lunge at her again.

“Where the hell were you?” I cry. “I needed you! You were alive this whole fucking time and you left me to die!”

Sara doesn’t defend herself. She rubs her cheek with her hand, and the tightness in my chest explodes when I catch the similar metal coating her arm.

She straightens, rigidly tugging her sleeve over her prosthetic as soon as I notice.

“I know,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry. I just needed time to heal. I promise, I came to you as soon as I could. None of this was your fault.” Her eyes turn up to theirs in a hot glare. “It’s theirs.”

I turn back to the two men. They’re watching with stiff stares, like children caught in a lie.

Sara turns, standing toe to toe with the two men.

Castor’s eyes flick down to her, his lips pressing together in a thin line.

“Hello, Samara,” he says calmly. “You look well.”

She slaps him.

Castor doesn’t flinch. He covers his cheek with his hand, his voice low and tight. “Ow.”

“That’s for shooting me!” She shouts, turning her glare to Baron. “I asked you to do one thing! Keep Helena out of it, and what did you do? You behave like an idiot!”

“She followed us,” Baron says dryly. “We ran into an unforeseen circumstance.”

“Branding her wasn’t an unforeseen circumstance! You’re not a dog and she isn’t your territory.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Baron grumbles.

Her head whips back to him, throwing him a sharp look that even I can feel. He turns his head away, muttering to himself but he doesn’t argue.

“We needed Bane’s location,” Castor says sheepishly. “We weren’t going to go too far.”

“The moment you kidnapped her, you went too far. You could’ve sent her to me!”

“You were in surgery!” Castor says exasperated. “You were incapacitated and she kept trying to fucking kill us. We were trying to detain her, not traumatize her.”

“So you thought torturing her was the best way to avoid traumatizing her?”

The two step closer, a heated stare between the two of them. Castor is refusing to back down while Sara—Samara—stands even with him, her tall lean frame staring up at him with flames dancing in her eyes, daring the two men to challenge her.

“She’s fine, Samara,” he mutters, his voice tinged up in annoyance. “Look at her, see?”

“No, she’s most certainly not fine .” She fires back. “She has a bullet in her leg, burns on her hands and a fucking star carved into her chest and I know it was Arik. That’s your problem.” She points her finger at him angrily, tapping him on the chest with every word she speaks. His lip curls up but he doesn’t speak, clenching his jaw tightly while she yells.

“You let him act on impulse and then rely on you or me to come in and fix it.” She turns sharply on her heel towards Baron, offering him the same angry treatment. “You have no self control. If it wasn’t for us, you’d be dead by now. If you both had stuck to my plan, none of us would be here!”

“We kept her safe!” Castor shoots back, his voice making both me and Baron flinch. “It wasn’t our fault that Helena snuck out and got stuck in the middle of this. We did our part and made sure that she was taken out of the field. The rest was your job, so quit being pissy with us. This isn’t all on us.”

Samara rips up her sleeve, revealing her metal prosthetic. “I didn’t have many options, did I?” Her arm whirs mechanically as she flashes him a middle finger. “You could’ve had better aim. So excuse me for holding you accountable when we were running the operation from the inside.”

Castor’s jaw falls shut, crossing his arms like a tattled child. “You were in the way,” he grumbles. “I was aiming for Anderson.”

“You were supposed to get out before the smoke blew,” Baron adds.

She throws her fist into his shoulder, screaming. “I’m not interested in your excuses! We were in the clearing and you strayed outside of the kill zone. That’s two limbs I’ve lost because of you two. Prosthetics are expensive!”

“We bought you a new one…” Castor mumbles.

“I’d rather have both my arms and legs, Silas!” She screams.

They both step back, cringing at the mention of it. For the first time, they both stand down, hands in their pockets. Disarmed by nothing more than a few words.

She speaks to them like a mother, standing tall, whipping them with their own faults and they take it, standing under the bright lights, taking their lashing with shame written all over their faces.

I can’t stop the laughter from breaking out. It’s soft at first, but it grows, echoing off the walls like an eerie call.

They all grow silent, in an instant, all the voices stopping and the three of them staring at me. It makes me laugh harder, I can’t stop, even when it wrenches my gut, stinging in my lungs, burning tears in my eyes.

Samara turns back to the boys, muttering something I can’t hear, but they leave moments later, climbing up the stairs without another word.

She places a hand on my shoulder, her brows pushed together in concern. “I know how this looks, but it’ll be okay. We’re going to get you home.”

“You’re taking me home?” I flash her a mocking smile. “I’m sure that will end well, Samara .”

Her eyes flicker downward, sighing.

“I should’ve told you,” she admits. “Let me explain. The truth this time.”

I scoff.

“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Which truth am I going to get from you? Or do you need a minute with them to get your stories straight?”

She winces like she’s been physically hit.

Goddammit .

I’ve never once yelled at her. Even during our service together, there was always a mutual respect between us. I guess now I know why, but it still feels foreign to me. Wrong. Just like everything else in these mountains.

“I’m tired, Sar–” I pause, correcting myself. “Samara.”

“You can still call me Sara,” she offers. “I’ll answer to it.”

I shake my head. It’s not her name. I’m not going to pretend that it is.

“Samara is your name,” I say, though the words feel like hate on my tongue.

She sighs and nods, knowing she won’t change my mind. She guides me to the stairs, where Baron and Castor’s shadows are visible just at the top.

“Let me take you home. I’ll explain everything. Any questions you have. You have my word.” She offers me a smile but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I don’t want to go home. Alastor could find us easily there.”

“Not your home. Mine.”

The shadows upstairs shift, and I can hear the faint tenor of Baron’s voice talking quickly with Castor.

Tears well up in my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. Not this time. Everything is making my head swell and all I can think of is that this is another cruel scenario my mind has conjured up to save me from the fact that I never made it out of that school. I’m still there, burning.

“I buried you,” I whisper.

She bites down on her lip, fighting the way that it trembles underneath. “I know. Let me make it up to you. I’m still your best friend, Helena. Please.”

I let her lead me up the stairs and to a tinted SUV waiting outside. I let Castor buckle me up into the front seat and I let them drive me out of the Austrian mountains in mere minutes, but I don’t follow them. My body is here, but the rest of me is still burning in that school and I don’t think I’ll ever get that back.