I know I'm in a hospital before I wake up. Not because of the cliche monitors beeping, or the uncomfortable smell, but because I remember falling. My mind starts working a few moments before my body does, and because I'm tired, it doesn't occur to me to panic. There's no movements in the room, and even though my body isn't responding to my brain, and maybe my spinal cord has finally given up, I'm grateful for the peace.

The bed is comfortable, and the sheets I can tell are clean and pulled tight across me. Before I can gather the strength to make my eyes open, I wonder whose job it was to put me here and tuck me in. I know there'll be tubes and wires all over me, and I'll probably be wearing a hospital gown, and it creeps me out a little that someone had to move me about and prod my unconscious body.

I summon all the energy I can find in the hidden pockets of my stiff muscles and try to pull open my eyes. Only one of them manages to twitch a little, and I furrow my eyebrows to blink them out of place. After a few seconds of scrunching up my tired face, my eyelids separate and I can roll my eyes around to try to find someone I recognise.

The whole room is blindingly bright and I wonder how long it is that I've been unconscious. It still looks like daytime, but what a shitty way this would be to spend my birthday. Everything is blurry except the beaming sunshine, and I force myself to stare at the rays for a second to burn my vision into working for itself.

'Hey, you're up.' I turn my head to see Emilio leaning over me, pushing some hair away from my face and leaning close so that I can see him. He looks relieved to see that I'm awake, 'I'm just going to run and grab a doctor and your parents.'

He disappears, leaving me to keep my eyes roaming around the room. There's no one else waiting in here with me, and Emilio's left an old book beside the chair he was sitting in. If that book has anything to do with The Court, I'm going to hit him with it, because it's the least subtle secret research method ever.

I try to push myself up but I notice the stiffness in my lower body, and let the confusion and panic finally set in. My legs are covered by a blanket but I can see my feet where they poke up at the end. I watch intensely as I try to make them move, wiggle, twitch, anything. More seconds pass as the frustration grows and grows until there's tears in my eyes and I'm bordering on screaming for someone to come and help me.

'Zia?' Asher says, bursting through the door and rushing over to me.

'Why don't my legs work?' I say, realising how much the panic is restricting the breath in my lungs, 'Asher, I can't move-'

'Calm down, it's okay.' He says, grabbing hold of my hand, 'You've been given a muscle relaxant and pain medication, that's why it's difficult to move.'

'What?' I gasp, barely hearing him.

'Look at me. Zia, look at me.' He says, grabbing my face and forcing me to look at him, 'The doctor is coming, he'll explain it better than I can, but please, just try to calm down.'

I take a rattling breath and stare hard down at my feet.

'Asher,' I ask, more frightened than I remember being in a long time, 'Do my legs still work?'

He looks down for a second, and then gives me a half smile, 'We don't know yet. You're post-op, so until the anesthetic wears off and we give it a try, we're just not sure.'

'Post-op?' I question.

He puts a hand on my shoulder and guides me back down to a comfortable position on my pillows, 'Do you remember what happened, in the library?'

I close my eyes for a second, and nod, 'I remember falling.'

'Yeah you did.' Asher says, 'When you fell, we brought you to the hospital and they told us that the shrapnel in your back had moved again when you hit the ground. They told us that they had to operate immediately, or you could end up paralysed.'

'But if they operated, then why can't I move?' I ask him.

'Well, they think the operation was successful.' He tells me and I look at him, trying to move myself about to feel the stitches, or a scar, but I can't, 'They've managed to get the shrapnel out of your back, and as far as they can tell, there's relatively little damage to your spinal cord. This is potentially really good news Z.'

'They got it out?' I blink, finding it difficult to imagine an x-ray of my spine without little diamond fragments, or walking a little too long without a simmering pain, 'Can I see?'

Asher laughs, 'Emilio knew you'd say that. He's asked for the pieces to be saved so that you can see them.'

'I'm sorry I scared you.' I say to him and he leans his head down so his chin rests on the hand of mine that he holds.

'Yeah, half to death.' Asher says, 'You should've seen Emilio. One of the doctors suggested the possibility of you losing movement in your legs and he nearly pinned him up against the wall. He's not left your bedside at all, he's just sat here holding your hand and reading his stupid book.'

'Has he found anything out?' I ask.

'I've just told you that you've had major spinal surgery, and you're asking about your brother's homework assignment?' He chuckles, 'He seems to think he's learned quite a lot. I'm sure he'll let you know before you go and visit Charlie.'

'He'll have to go see him without me, he's expecting us tomorrow.' I say, breathing through the uncomfortable feeling that begins to creep into my bones, 'He'll be worried if we don't show up and he needs what we've learnt, even if he just takes him the book.'

'Zia,' He begins to explain, 'You fell yesterday. You were in surgery all evening, and then you've been asleep for the best part of today. Emilio called Charlie and he's going to wait until you're feeling better before he leaves.'

'Right, when he leaves.' I remind myself. I try to arch my back and notice the splintering pain that richoches up and down. I wince, leaning myself back.

'Are you okay?' Asher asks, gripping a little tighter on my hand.

'I'm fine.' I lie, 'Just tired.'

'After almost eighteen hours asleep? How is that even possible?' He chuckles, 'I know you have an affinity for not waking up before midday, but this takes it even further.'

'Didn't you listen to my family during that breakfast?' I try to hide the grin, 'I don't sleep very well, apparently.'

'Did I mention how sorry I was about that?' He says, pulling the chair close to my bedside so that he can sit down but keep near to me.

'Don't apologise.' I glance at him, 'What do you think of this incredibly attractive hospital gown? I wore it just for you.'

'You shouldn't wear anything for me.' He raises his eyebrows.

'That's no way to talk to your queen.' I joke and he shakes his head.

He looks at me, squinting slightly, 'So you told Emilio huh?'

'What?' I babble, 'No I didn't.'

'It's fine.' He laughs, 'He didn't say anything to me. He just stared at me funny for the last day, and so I put two and two together.'

'Sorry, he's a little protective, but he'll get over it.' I explain, 'He's like a mixture of my brother and my dad all rolled into one without actually being either.'

'Please don't tell your dad or your brother.' He cringes.

'I won't, I promise.' I smile, and my eyes flick down to where Asher is still holding my hand. His thumb is running over my knuckles absentmindedly, and I look up to where he's gazing at me, 'Ash, can I ask you something?'

'Of course.' He nods.

I take a breath, 'I was talking to Emilio about what happened, with us, and-'

'Marzia!'

Both our heads snap over to where my parents have burst through the room, followed by a doctor and Emilio. Asher kicks Emilio's book behind a cabinet so no one else sees it as they crowd around my bed. My mother pushes past Asher without noticing, but he let go of my hand and jumped a foot away as soon as the noise disturbed us anyway. She kisses the top of my head and strokes my hair down.

'How are you feeling sweetpea?' She asks, 'We were so worried about you!'

'I don't know. I don't really feel anything.' I say, bringing myself back into my body. I look over at the doctor who is reading back through my chart, 'Should I be able to feel my legs?'

My father turns a little pale and exchanges a look with my mother that I know they're hoping I missed. The doctor flips to the section of my chart that I can easily recognise as the surgical notes, having seen hundreds of doctors read these pages a hundred times before.

'The surgeons note that there appears to be no more scar tissue than before, but we'll have to keep an eye on how your back heals after the removal of the shrapnel.' The doctor explains, talking to more to his king than his patient, 'They believe there should be no ill effects of the surgery beyond a few weeks worth of discomfort and recovery.'

'What about my legs? Why can't I move?' I ask. My mother grips a little more tightly to my shoulder.

'Why does she feel paralysed?' She says, and I can tell how anxious she is given the shrill tone to her voice.

'There's a very slim chance that Marzia will experience paralysis as a result of her surgery. But she's experienced bruising to her spinal cord, and we don't know yet whether the movement of the metal will have impacted on her spine until she regains feeling in her lower body-'

'When will that be?' Emilio interrupts the doctor, who looks around at all three parental figures. I'm assuming he thinks Emilio is a relative of some sort, but it's anyone's guess as to who he thinks Asher might be.

'The blunt force trauma has killed some spinal cells, but we won't know for definate how many until she regains feeling. It'll be a few more hours until the muscle relaxant and anesthetic wears off, but then she'll need pain management that might further impact her ability to walk.' He tells us.

'Then I don't want pain management.' I say and everyone turns to look at me, 'I'll wait until I know I'm not paralysed, and then I'll take pain meds. Until then, I won't take any.'

'Your Highness,' The doctor says carefully, 'The extent of the pain you're expected to feel is vast. Your spine isn't the only affected area, we've had to create an incision down your back which will cause pain, alongside the new exposed tissue that had previously fused around the metal, and the general discomfort caused by your fall will all contribute to a very uncomfortable few days.'

'If you say the anesthetic and muscle relaxant will fade in a few hours, then I'll cope with the pain until I know I can walk.' I say and Asher doesn't say anything, but looks at me with what I know is disappointment at my stubbornness.

'The pain may make it impossible for you to walk in itself. I really recommend waiting a few days with pain medication to assess the situation.' He tries to persuade me.

'No.' I shake my head, 'Take out the IV's, I don't want it.'

My father looks at my mother and I can tell they're about to try and persuade me otherwise. It's a conversation that will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears, but the doctor excuses himself for a moment for us to talk, promising he'll be back to remove the drips if I want him to. If Emilio wasn't glaring at me, I'd probably tell him not to even bother with his walk.

'You've just had major surgery Marzia, this isn't something I'd like you to take lightly.' My father begins to speak.

'Dad, if someone said to you that you might be paralysed for the rest of your life, would you wait a few days to see if they were right when you could know by the evening?' I argue back, and I can already tell he's caving. It's Emilio that I'll have to really convince.

'Darling, in the grand scheme of things, it'll be much more beneficial for your recovery if you wait a few more days. The doctor says you might not even get a definitive answer if you're in too much pain to walk.' My mum says, trying her best to soothe me.

'Mum, when the explosion went off, and I had third degree burns all over my body and masses of metal fused to my spine, I managed to drag myself up and get away from the fire before someone found me.' I say, and I notice the way she tears up a little. She'd never say anything, but I know she can't think of her wedding day without imagining that little kid covered in unbelievable injuries, 'Don't start underestimating me now. It can't be any worse than that.'

'Yes it can!' Emilio says, and my parents turn to him, clearly recognising it's his turn to tell me what a stupid idea this is, 'I've seen what this pain does to you Zia. Last week was nowhere near the worst you've had, and even then you took pain meds. I can't sit and watch you suffer through that.'

'Even if it's for a good reason?' I ask.

'Even then.' Emilio growls, almost if he thinks I'm being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, 'We can't let you do this Z, it's too dangerous.'

'Yesterday you told me that you would support me no matter what decisions I made. You said you'd help me get whatever it was that would make me happy.' I tell him, and Asher looks at me, knowing exactly why Emilio would've said that, 'I want this Emilio.'

'That's emotional blackmail and I hate you for it.' He says, but comes and sits on the bed, looping an arm around my shoulders, 'Just promise me that if it becomes too much that you'll tell me, and we can have this conversation again.'

'I promise.' I tell him, even though I doubt there's any pain that could convince me.

'Marzia, sweetheart, I'm so sorry.' My father begins, 'I haven't been able to rearrange the Founders Council meeting for this afternoon on such short notice, do you mind if I make a quick trip out, and then I'll come right back?'

'Of course dad, it's really no problem.' I tell him and he gives my hand a squeeze, 'Are you okay to give Asher a lift?'

'I'm not going.' Asher interrupts. My family looks over at him and Emilio rests his head on my shoulder comfortingly as he settles himself in for our argument.

'What do you mean you're not going?' I frown.

'I changed my mind.' He says, unconvincingly.

'No, you didn't. You couldn't be happier at the idea yesterday.' I tell him, 'You just feel bad about leaving me here.'

He looks down, a little defeated, 'Well yeah, obviously. I can't leave you like this.'

'You can, and you're going to.' I demand, 'Either you get in a car with my father and appeal your title to the Founders Council, or you're fired.'

'Marzia.' My father looks at me sideways, knowing that's really not how it works.

'Emilio's here, and I'm feeling awfully crowded. If you don't go, I'll be throwing you out anyway.' I say, with no mercy. He doesn't look convinced, 'Dad, that lift?'

'Of course.' My dad nods and looks at Asher, taking away whatever little choice he thought he had to begin with. He shoots me a last look and smiles a little, before following my father from the room.

'Right, you're next.' I turn to look at my mother. She smiles, knowing what I'm about to tell her, 'I've never seen you with bags under your eyes before. I'll take a guess that you've been here all night, and that's not acceptable either. Go home and be with your family, I'm sure the kids miss you.'

'I was going to have Lars bring them here.' She counters, trying to undermine my point, 'They've been drawing you pictures, and making get-well-soon cards.'

'You're going to bring them to a hospital with nothing to entertain them? And I've got a terrible headache that won't be helped if Ansel starts to cry.' I smile, and she rolls her eyes at my tactics, knowing I'd never give up seeing them unless it was for her benefit.

'You're the most stubborn of all of you.' She says, kissing the top of my head, 'We'll only be ten minutes away, I'll come back in a few hours.'

'No you won't.'

'I'll be back before tonight.'

'No you won't.' I argue again, 'I'll see you tomorrow morning.'

'You promise in the morning you'll let me in?' She asks doubtfully.

'I promise I'll see you in the morning.' I say and she gives me a hug, 'I love you, mum.'

'I love you more.' She whispers, 'Don't go falling off anymore ladders until I get back.'

'I'll save all my future ladder-falling until you're here to witness.' I grin.

'I wish that was a joke, but you don't surprise me anymore Marzia.' She says, 'Emilio, please keep a keen eye on her, and if anything changes, call me and I'll be here within minutes.'

Emilio nods and she gathers up her bag and begins to leave the room. Once it's closed, I lean my head back so it's resting against Emilio's. He's wearing a comfortable hoodie and I snuggle myself into it, wishing I had something soft instead of this creased hospital gown that I have to believe has my blood on it somewhere. He takes a deep breath and tightens his grip on my shoulders when I try to move away.

It's peaceful for a second, until I put a hand on his stomach and smile up at him, 'I don't want to alarm you, but you just pulled my IV out.'

'Shit.' He shuffles away for a second to see part of the bed damp with fluid and my arm bleeding a little, 'Am I getting kicked out now too?'

'Please no.' I smile and he kisses my head, before climbing back into the chair beside my bed and beginning to mop up the spillage, 'So, if we're being honest, what level of pain are we currently functioning at?'

'It's not so bad right now.' I tell him, 'Just uncomfortable. Once they remove the rest of the IV's, I'm sure you'll be hearing plenty of complaints, but right now, it's manageable.'

'I wish you were manageable.' He rolls his eyes, 'I'll go get the doctors to get rid of your pain management.'

He disappears into the corridor for a minute, leaving me in quiet once again. I look down at my feet and try to wiggle them once more, but to no avail. I remind myself that the drugs in my body are making my muscles ignore my brain, but I can't stop the nagging doubt that they've been cut off from my control altogether.

When the doctor emerges with Emilio, he takes a minute to write down some information on my chart, before he makes his way up to the head of the bed where he removes the cannulas from the back of my hand and the top of my arm. I revel in the sting that the removal of the surgical tape ignites, because it soothes itself quickly.

Here's to the false hope that my back does the same.

I mean, there's false hope, and then there's just being a fucking idiot.

'Have you heard anything from Nate?' I ask Emilio, pretending that I'm finding conversation while the doctors work, but really I've been dying to ask.

'I thought you were going to stop getting involved in my relationship? Considering it was all your fault in the first place.' He jokes and I reach over a tired hand to slap him, 'He's fine. I think I might be almost at the point where he can stand to look at me.'

'Really?' I say, unsure as to whether I should be glad it's getting better, or guilty of quite how bad I made it in the first place.

'Nah, not really.' Emilio grins wickedly, 'He's very close to agreeing to get coffee with me when I'm back home though. He can't shut up about how much he's missed you, it's like I didn't even exist.'

'I am the only good thing about that apartment back home.' I chuckle, and I notice subtly that both of us are being careful not to mention where home actually is, because you never know who's listening, 'I hope it works out E.'

'Me too kiddo.' He smiles, but it's not as sad as it used to be. He kisses the top of my knuckles and squeezes as there's a flash of pain in my back.

'How's the reading going?' I ask, breathing through the discomfort, as the doctor leaves once he's repeated Emilio's pain warning. Emilio leans down and picks up the heavy book that Asher kicked out of the way and holds it up. I frown, reading the title, 'The History of Mosquito Diseases?'

He removes the paper cover of the book to reveal Henri Sauval's biography, 'It's the only paper cover that Asher could find on such short notice.'

'So you're telling me that while I was laid paralysed on the floor of my library, Asher was looking around to steal paper covers from mosquito books?' I chuckle.

'You wanna explain to your father what we're really researching?' He asks.

'You wanna explain to my father that he's wasted millions searching for his son, when you knew where he was this entire time?' I counter, raising one eyebrow.

'You're in a very weakened state, it would be very easy for me to smother you with your own pillow, you know.' He snarks, flicking the pillow that's propping up my head, 'And it's completely unnecessary to keep punishing me for that.'

'It was completely unnecessary to hide it from me.' I reply, as I wiggle my shoulders to try to settle myself. Emilio watches as I struggle to be comfortable when the entire lower part of my body doesn't move, and eventually he stands up to help me. Without talking, because he knows how grumpy I get when he treats me like a child, he takes my back under his arm and moves the pillow so I'm laid down, 'Can I lay on my side?'

'Yeah if you wanna rip open your stitches.' He jokes.

'Emilio, the next time you're hungover to hell, I'm not going to help you rearrange yourself on the sofa.' I grumble.

'I'll ask the doctors if you can move, when you agree to painkillers.' He shrugs and I groan loudly, 'You wanna know what I learned or not?'

'Yes.' I snarl between gritted teeth.

'Okay, so do you remember what Charlie was saying about Loki, and the nicknames?' Emilio asks, flipping to the middle of the book where he's stuck ripped up pieces of my medical chart to keep his pages.

'Yeah, Loki's called an Archie, right?' I say, holding onto my head to try stop it from spinning and focus on the afternoon with my brother, 'And the other guy is what, a goose or something?'

'A Duc. I'm going to get the doctors to check you for a concussion too, if you carry on with stupid questions like that.' He says, pointing to a line in the book that I can't see from my position staring up at the ceiling, 'I found Sauval's documentation on the names of The Court. I'm guessing that Archie is short for the Archissuports like Charlie said, they teach the new recruits and it seems like they're the ones who do most of the wet work, I think.'

'You're basing this all on the idea that Loki does a lot of work?' I chuckle, but the movement sends ripples of shooting pain up and down my spine and for the first time, the nerves outline the incision and I gasp a little, 'I hope you didn't take his word for it.'

'He kills and tortures people for them Marzia, he's got to put in some effort.' Emilio says, looking over at the uncomfortable look on my face and slumping down in frustration, 'How's your back?'

'If you're going to bug me about painkillers, then it's fine. If you're going to trust my decision, then it hurts like hell.' I tell him and despite the fact that he's angry at me, he takes my hands and lets me squeeze it whenever the pain seems to spike, 'So, what's a goose?'

'A Duc.' He insists, dropping a kiss on the back of my hand when he shuffles around a little in his chair, 'Sauval wrote that he was the right hand man, he was the King of Beggars assistant.'

'And that's what Loki called this other guy?' I frown, 'That must mean he's met The Court's second in command a hundred times, and just never realised it.'

'It would've been more helpful if Loki had done his homework.' Emilio grumbles, and I wonder how long it's going to take before he forgives him for beating me up when I was younger.

'I'm guessing he doesn't have access to an Alanian Royal library.' I try to persuade him, but he refuses to look up at me even when I beam at him, 'And the head of The Court is called the King?'

'Poetic, isn't it?' He grins, dripping with sarcasm behind it, 'The thing that worries me is the name that Otis Eberline didn't hear. They're called Narqouis, they're basically narcs. If The Court is using them, that means they have people pretending to be our friends, and they're feeding them intel.'

'What?' I blink, feeling the discomfort from my back move into my stomach.

'It would explain a lot, wouldn't it?' He shrugs, squinting his eyes fearfully, 'I mean, the places they kidnapped you, where they couldn't have guessed you'd be? I just don't know how we're supposed to guess who.'

I roll my head back on the pillow, my head swimming with the possibility that someone my family considers a friend could betray us so badly, 'It has to be someone in the agency, or a family friend, anyone else couldn't possibly know our schedules that well.'

'You don't suppose Otis might have been a Narc?' Emilio suggests but I run a hand through my hair and think it through.

'He can't have been, they wouldn't have tortured him if he was willingly giving them information.' I tell him, looking back at the window and noticing the way that the sun seems to be setting faster than I can follow it. I glance at the clock and try not to imagine Asher straightening his tie nervously before he meets the founding families.

'Well that means we definitely can't tell anyone what we're doing.' Emilio says, throwing his hands up in frustration, 'If The Court hears we're anywhere near learning about them, they'll go so far underground that we'll never find them again. We can't risk giving away our upper hand.'

'I'll make sure Asher doesn't slip anything to his agency buddies.' I sigh, wondering if my brain will remember to talk to him by the time he's back, given how easily information seems to be slipping around. The pain blocks every level of legible thought and forces me to blink myself back into my body every few seconds.

'He wouldn't do that.' Emilio says absentmindedly, turning over a few more pages in his book, 'And you'd better hope he's not crooked, since you just slept with him.'

'He's not.' I snap, 'And we're moving on. What else did you find?'

Emilio flips to another chapter of the book as I push my body up on my arms. I try to twist my shoulders onto their side, but there's tears in my eyes by the end of my attempt. He watches as I struggle and slaps a button beside the bed to call for a nurse. He tucks his book under his chair and smiles when someone knocks and pokes their head around the door.

'Is there any way I'd be allowed to lay on my side?' I ask her through breaths that don't alleviate any pain at all.

'Of course, I'll grab another nurse to help me roll you.' She says and disappears for a moment, returning with a helper as she promised. The two of them stand to one side and place their hands on my body. I try not to notice how I can feel the nurses' hands on my shoulders, but not on my hips, 'Ready, Your Highness?'

'Ready.' I say and Emilio leans forward to grab both of my hands.

As it turns out, I was not ready, nor do I think I could ever be ready for the intensity of the pain that explodes across my torso with the movement. I let out a yelp that I hope sounds like a whimper, but definitely sounded more like a scream. I bite down on my lip as the tears pool at the edges of my eyes and spill across onto the pillow.

The nurses push my body up and I can feel the weight adjustment as my hip and shoulder take the force of my dead-weight lower body. As soon as they let my body go, it comes crashing back down onto the mattress and I burst out a scream that I didn't know was capable from my lungs.

'That's it, you're having pain medication. Nurse-' Emilio begins.

'No!' I interrupt, breathing heavily, 'Try again, I won't fall this time, I promise.'

'Marzia-'

'Please.' I gasp, and the nurses exchange a look between themselves and with Emilio.

'One more try, and if it doesn't work, we'll administer some pain relief.' The nurse says, holding my shoulder. Preparing myself for the pain, I grip onto Emilio and exhale as they roll me again. It hurts slightly less the second time around, and I pull my chest forward to keep myself balanced, and this time when they let go, I manage to keep myself in position, 'We'll come back in an hour to see how you're doing with the pain.'

'Pain.' I smile, trying to soothe myself, 'What pain?'

'I'm giving you one more hour, if you're not walking by then, you're having morphine anyway.' Emilio says, leaning over and stroking my hair, 'Try to close your eyes for a little while and I'll keep reading.'

I don't bother arguing with him, because my body feels like it's on fire, and all I can think about doing is closing my eyes to make it stop for a while. If it wasn't for the effect it might have on my ability to walk, I'd ask for a sedative, so I could at least sleep through the pain. But when my legs still don't respond to me asking them to move, I lay in the darkness and try to remember what feeling in my feet ever felt like.

When I wake back up, the sky outside is completely dark, but the florescent lights of the hospital paint it a beautiful navy blue. I watch the clouds disappear before Emilio notices that I'm awake. He puts a marker in his page and leans over and rests his head near to mine.

'Hey there, princess, how are you doing?' He asks.

'It hurts.' I whisper to myself, moving to crack my back, only to find that it won't move. I can't shake the tightness that restricts every bone that I have access to, and I breathe through the pain that settles itself in for the night, 'How long was I asleep?'

'Only an hour or so.' He says, checking his watch, 'The nurse came in to check the stitches. She says they're holding up quite well, and your feet demonstrated a few reflex actions when she pricked them, so they're pretty hopeful. I called your parents to let them know.'

'Can I try standing up now?' I ask.

'Not a chance.' Emilio barks out a laugh, 'Normally, I can't drag you out of bed until at least an hour after I've woken you up. Trust this to be the one time you want to jump up.'

'Right fine.' I smile weakly, 'Distract me, what else have you read?'

'Well, I'm pretty sure we can safely assume The Court is based in Paris. In the seventeenth century they had dozens of slums creating a web of beggars, but because of their active presence in Alania, we have to assume that their web is interconnected to both Paris and parts of East Laumant.'

'Loki told me about a job he did recently in East, but I don't think that's common for him. He wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't supposed to mean something.' I tell him, recalling a brief comment Loki made when I visited his apartment.

'If he tortured Otis, there's nothing to say he didn't also kill the other missing Alanian high society members.' Emilio shrugs, 'Of those who have been found, they've all been found here in East. He must have moved his practice a little.'

'They've obviously got enough resources to torture, hold and kill people here without being seen, as well as Paris.' I sigh, wincing at the way my lungs restrict and retract against my spine, 'What a way to welcome me home.'

'You're not going to believe this, but their hub in Paris was on Rue De Caire.' Emilio tells me, biting his lip.

'The street?' I ask, and he nods, 'We have that same street in Alania, it's mirrored. It's the street with the warehouse where-'

'-You and Christopher were held, I know, I remembered. But that's not everything.' He pauses.

'Oh, you have more good news?' I smile, finding it harder and harder to talk with the building pressure on my back, feeling like red hot pokers being inserted in between my ribs.

'Do you remember anything that Loki said about the Cutting Ritual after it happened?' He asks me, as he turns a few pages to try to find where his information is hiding.

'He told me there were two phases, the first one was getting the information, so he used me.' Emilio tries to hide the flash of fury, but it's not gotten any more subtle over the last four years of discussing it, 'He didn't know that the second phase was to see how well he could do under pressure and on the run. So, they called the police and he had to ditch.'

'It's almost identical, like Charlie said.' Emilio tells me, re-reading his page, 'The initiation would see a beggar steal purses from a large crowd, then the Duc would shout 'thief' and abandon them to see how practical they were and how fast they could escape. Our Court just upped it a notch.'

'Or a few notches.' I say, and without warning, a wave of pain rattles my bones and I let out a lingering moan.

'That's it, you either stand up now, or we try again in a few days. I'm not sitting here watching you torture yourself anymore.' Emilio says, storming away to get a nurse, without waiting to see if I'll agree.

At this point, the pain is so unbelievable that I'd get down on my knees and beg for relief if I could. I breathe through the idea of trying to stand while he's gone, and decide that he's right. My forehead is sweating and my eyes sting constantly with tears, it's not worth the pain.

Emilio appears with the two nurses from earlier, and they move the chair to better help surround the bed. They mutter something to each other that I don't catch and Emilio stands at the foot of my guerney, biting nervously on his fingernail. I know if he could, he'd be chain smoking his stresses away right now.

'We're going to sit you up first, okay? And then we'll move your feet down and try to stand you up.' The nurse says, as her face moves blurily around my vision, 'We'll have hold of you, but if you feel like you're going to fall, tell me. Ready?'

I nod my agreement and the two nurses pick up my shoulders and raise me to a sitting position. My back cracks from my sleep finally, and sends a ricocheting bullet throughout the rest of my spinal cord. I grip onto the nurse's arms and they leave me a second to adjust to the new position. Emilio walks behind me, instructed by the second nurse, and they lean my body back against his torso.

'You look drunk.' He chuckles in my ear as the nurses move my feet from the bed onto the floor. Emilio keeps tight hold of my shoulders to make sure I don't fall, while trying to distract me from the pain with more sarcastic lines that I barely hear even though he's talking right in my ear.

'Okay, we're going to stand you up now Marzia.' The nurse smiles, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. The both take a shoulder and grip tightly onto my elbow as they pull me to a standing position. I don't let my head roll back even though I want to, so I stare down at my feet in defiance.

'The muscle relaxant should have worn off by now, but the anesthetic might still be causing some numbness.' The nurse says in my ear, 'Can you try straightening your feet flat out for me?'

I close my eyes for a second to indulge in the pain, before I swallow my self pity and look down to where my toes curl under a little from their lack of use. I try to remember how I used to make my body move, but I can't, and the panic rises at the lack of movement.

'Just relax Z.' Emilio says from behind me, 'Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and just try.'

I do as he says, filling up my lungs and letting my brain clear of any other thoughts than my legs. They're heavier than I ever remember them feeling, and I try to avoid thinking of the six months it took me to relearn to walk the first time my spine got jabbed by some unwanted metal.

There's a twitch in my foot and I look down, noticing how one foot is now flat out on the floor. I tense my body and the other foot follows suit. I look back at Emilio who is grinning at me, shaking his head because another one of my stupid and reckless plans has somehow paid off.

'There'll be no living with her after this.' He grumbles, 'So, morphine time?'

'No.' I bite back, even more determined than ever and he rolls his eyes.

My legs are shaking at the new weight but I can feel the sensation and I lift one foot to alleviate the pressure. When I put it back down, the other comes up almost instinctively and after a few seconds, I've worked my way a few inches from the bed. The nurses keep up their encouragement but Emilio just mutters at me from the corner of the room.

The pain becomes too much to bear the further away from the bed I get, so they carefully help me to turn back around and with little pressure under my arms to keep me up, I manage to walk back, my steps getting wider every time I move. When we reach the bed, they let me climb myself back up until I'm sitting up on the bed, podding at my legs and grinning when I can feel it.

'Congratulations, Your Highness.' One nurse says before bowing out of the room, leaving just one to strap an IV to the back of my hand and attach it to morphine that I can't believe I ever refused. When the first droplet of liquid hits my veins, I breathe a sigh of relief and roll my back my head, relishing in the lack of pain, but not loss of feeling.

'I'll go call your parents.' Emilio says, leaning over and dropping a kiss on the top of my head, 'You're never pulling anything like that ever again, you hear me? Next time I'm knocking you out with that bloody book and giving you an IV myself.'

'Yeah, yeah. I love you too.' I grin woozily up at him.

He disappears for a minute into the corridor and I watch through a crack in the blinds as he smiles down the phone to my mother, and then puts on his serious face to leave a message with my father's secretary, showing he's still in his meeting. I look at the clock, regretting sending Asher with my father given how bored he must be.

Actually, knowing him, he's probably really enjoying sitting and listening to political debates.

I frown a little when Emilio straightens up and shakes hands with someone just out of sight. It can't be any of my family, he'd never bother with the formalities. I try to crane my neck, but even with the morphine, the movement is a little too painful, so I watch him instead and after a second, he takes an envelope and shakes hands again.

He emerges back into my room, adjusting the hoodie that he must've grabbed before we left the castle, turning over the envelope in his hands. I nod over to him as he sits himself back in his chair which is too wooden to still be comfortable after all these hours.

'What's that?' I ask.

'I asked Aeduin Legarreta, a secretary for the Founders Council to let me know what happened with Asher's application, but I have no idea what he's sent me.' He says, flipping it over to open it, where he pulls out a couple of pages, stapled together. He doesn't say anything for a minute, as his eyes frantically scan the document, 'I don't understand.'

'What?' I pester him, and he looks at me with confusion written across his face.

'Has Asher ever applied for his title back before?' He asks me, leaning closer to read the fineprint.

'No, he didn't even know he could until I asked for him.' I tell him, 'Why? What's going on?'

'Aeduin's sent me an application for his title from almost ten years ago.' He says, reading the dates up at the top and shaking his head, 'It was rejected, it's been pretty much buried ever since.'

'Maybe his father applied for it after he rejected the title initially?' I suggest.

'No, it's a year too late. It was rejected because of his disappearance,' He pauses, flipping to the back page, 'They needed proof that there were no more Thorne heirs from Rusty's generation before they passed down the title to someone else. It was never presented to the Founders Council because of lack of sufficient evidence that Rusty had died.'

'Someone else?' I say, trying to piece together a jigsaw in my head that I've never seen before, 'Who?'

'Ezekiel Thorne.' Emilio reads and I try to think back to see if Asher has ever said anything about him, but nothing about the name rings a bell, 'Has he ever mentioned him? Is he an uncle or something?'

'I don't think so.' I shake my head, trying to get rid of the fuzzy feeling that the morphine makes worse, 'Won't there be files on the Thorne family tree that could tell us? If he's an uncle, he'll be listed as Lance and Agnes' son.'

'I'll try the agency system.' Emilio says, taking a few minutes to type in his passcodes and find Asher's family tree. I don't know why I never thought to show him it back in London, because maybe then I'd have Emilio's answer, 'Lance and Agnes had two children, Rusty and Augustine, Asher's other aunt. She's not married, never had kids. She'd lived in Canada since she was a teenager, it can't be her.'

I pause for a beat, looking out at the window to try focus my brain, 'Then who the hell is Ezekiel? And why does he want a royal title?'

'I don't know, but I'd quite like to find out.' Emilio says, typing the name and dates into his agency search. It beeps to let him know he's hit a dead end, 'There's no record of an Ezekiel Thorne in any of our databases.'

'Emilio,' I say warningly and he looks up at me, 'If there really is another Thorne heir besides Asher, why was this application buried? Why has no one ever come forward before?'

'Call Asher.' Emilio says and I can tell that the unnerving feeling I have, has spread to my usually cool best friend.

Emilio hands me his phone and I dial Asher's number that I didn't realise was ingrained in my brain. After a few rings, he picks up, 'Hey Emilio! How's Zia?'

'Actually Ash, it's me.' I say and I can hear a beeping noise in the background, 'Where are you right now?'

'That's Sir Ash, to you now. They gave me my title back!' He says and I can practically hear him beaming through the phone, 'I'm downstairs actually, I'm just on my way up to you, is everything okay?'

'Just hurry.' I say before ending the call and handing it back to Emilio, 'What are we supposed to say to him?'

'I don't know-'

'Hey, what's wrong?' Asher asks, bursting through the door, 'How's your back?'

'Oh,' I say, frowning, realising how easy it is to forget the whole thing when the pain isn't blinding. It's gone back to the pain that I live with so often that I hardly register it anymore, 'It's fine, I can walk.'

'That's brilliant.' He beams, but it fades a little as he looks between Emilio and I, 'Is that not a good thing? Were we aiming for spinal paralysis, because I can push you off another ladder if you want?'

'Asher, sit down a second.' I tell him and he comes to perch on the end of my bed, frowning in concern, 'Do you know anyone named Ezekiel Thorne?'

'Yeah, he was my cousin.' He says and Emilio and I exchange a glance, wondering how this could be possible, 'He died as a kid, why?'

'What?' Emilio frowns, diving back to the paper.

'What's going on?' Asher repeats.

'Whose son was he?' I ask him, putting a hand on his arm to try calm him down.

'My dad's sister Augustine. She died when he was young, and Ezekiel lived with my family for a while.' Asher protests, confirming the fact that he knows even less about his family than Emilio and I have discovered in a few brief moments, 'He drowned in a swimming pool when I was four. Guys seriously, why are you bringing this up?'

'Ash, your aunt Augustine is still alive.' Emilio says carefully, and Asher shakes his head slightly without realising, 'And, she never had any children.'

'Yes she did, he was my cousin.' He insists, 'Look, I'll show you.'

He pulls his phone from his pocket and googles an article that I wonder how many times he's looked at. He passes the two of us the phone and in the middle of an article about the devastating loss of a child at a public pool, under an abrasive headline about the need for new legislature, is a little boy.

He looks around Adanna's age, and he's grinning, with a kid beside him that looks awfully like Asher, and awfully similar to this boy. The photo is faded and must have been a few years old, but the colour stands out so painfully I don't know how it has never occured to Asher.

'I've seen photos of your mother, Asher. You got your golden eyes from her.' I choose my words carefully, 'She's not a Thorne, so how could this little boy possibly have them too?'

'Why are you asking me this?' He says, snatching back the phone, getting overly defensive of the only family he never knew, 'So he's got brown eyes, why does that matter?'

'When did Ezekiel die?' I ask, as I put my hand on his neck to help him focus on me.

'When I was four, so he must have been around eight I think. Somewhere about the 2000 mark, I figure.' He shrugs, 'I don't really know.'

'You're not the first Thorne to apply for your title back Ash.' Emilio tells him and he looks over at him and takes the papers from Emilio's clutch, 'Someone put in an application for a Thorne heir named Ezekiel back in 2005, after your parents disappeared.'

'It's not possible.' He shakes his head, 'And what, the eyes? You're trying to tell me that my cousin might not have actually died? I don't understand why any of this matters.'

'Neither do we.' Emilio says, trying to keep him calm, 'But doesn't it seem a little odd that every Thorne heir died, except for you, and well, this kid who applied for his title without even so much as a birth certificate backing him?'

'There's no record of him at all?' Asher asks.

'There's records of you, your parents, your aunts, there's even a note about a child your grandparents housed for the summer when they were younger. Nothing on this kid.' Emilio says, showing him the family tree that's still got loaded on his phone.

'I don't know what you want me to say.' Asher says, looking over at me, 'I don't know.'

'I'm sorry.' I say, shuffling closer to him, 'I shouldn't have said anything.'

'I'll give you two a minute.' Emilio says, tucking the book under his arm and leaving the room, still fiddling around with his phone quietly.

'Are you okay?' I ask him and he looks at me with fear in his eyes.

'I really don't know anything about my family do I?' He says, and I loop my arm around his neck so I can hug him as best as I can with my broken back, 'How many more family members need to die before I can find one who's honest with me?'

'Is it possible this guy is your family?' I mutter into his shoulder as he reaches around to gently stroke my hair away from my back.

'Kiel could be my cousin, a classmate or my imaginary friend for all I know.' He says, 'I never thought about him much after he died, I was only small. Now I'm supposed to accept that someone thought he was alive years later?'

'Should I not have said anything?' I ask.

'No.' He leans back, putting one of his hands on my cheek, 'No, I'm glad you did. It's not your fault that my family can't seem to keep a heartbeat.'

'Try your best to keep yours, okay?' I say putting a hand on his chest, and he chuckles.

'Cross my heart.' He says, making the motion over my hand, 'How are you feeling?'

I wave my morphine drip around and he smiles, 'I'm feeling on top of the world.'

'Maybe you could share, my back must be worse than yours after that meeting.' He jokes, 'My first order of business is comfier chairs for the-'

I notice the loud noise before I notice the room shaking. There's dust raining from the ceiling that catches in Asher's hair and pools on the creases of the bedsheets. The lights flicker twice before they cut out completely, and sirens sound as the room buzzes with the energy of a backup generator.

I look straight over at Asher whose eyes are wide and within seconds, he's stood up beside the bed, looking around. He clocks the windows, and the exits and as soon as there's a following pop from downstairs, he rushes over to the door and puts his back against it. The agents that have been stationed outside my room all night immediately duck and disperse, trying to locate the source of the noise.

It takes me a minute to understand why he tightens the blinds and ducks himself down to peek through the window. I recognise that pop. That's the pop of a gun. That blast was what put me in this hospital in the first place. Asher's trying to secure us in the room the way he was trained.

The way he was trained when he's under attack.

I'm under attack.

My head whips around and I try to pin the exact location of the gunshot in a hospital I've not visited in six years. The blood drains from my body and it wouldn't surprise me to see the entire contents on the floor. Asher tries to hide it, but he's completely white and I wonder if he's been like this on every mission. I watch as he becomes less like the kind Asher that I recognise, and more like just another agent deployed to save my life.

'Asher!' Emilio shouts from behind the door, and Asher opens it enough to let him in, and pulls him down to his level and blocks the door with his back once more, 'What the fuck is going on?'

'I don't know.' Asher reports back, 'Do you have a gun?'

'Why would I bring a gun to a hospital?' Emilio hisses, 'The point here is to try not to kill people!'

'Alright, well do you have a radio?' Asher asks.

'Hospital, we're at a hospital!' Emilio says loudly over the sirens, clearly having not got a radio, but his voice is interrupted by two more pops from downstairs, 'We need to get her out of here, it's not secure. If we can make it downstairs into a car, we can get her to safety.'

'There won't be agency cars downstairs, no one's meant to know that she's here!' Asher shouts back, as he locks the door and both boys come to crouch beside me.

'Yeah, well some fucker talked.' Emilio cusses, 'You get her downstairs, I'll sort the car.'

'How? She can't walk!' Asher gestures to me.

'I'll try!' I shout, and slide myself off the bed.

Emilio yanks a bag from over in the corner and throws it to me. I open it to find a change of clothes for him in case he spent another night. He gestures at me to put them on and while Asher and Emilio scramble around the room to try secure us a safe way out, I pull on Emilio's grey tracksuit bottoms and an oversized black hoodie, both of which I turn up at the cuffs so I can move easier.

My body moves with muscle memory, running and hiding isn't new to me, and by the time I rip the last remnants of hospital gown and abandon it onto the floor, I've mostly forgotten that there's anything wrong with me in the first place. I find some trainers in the bottom of Emilio's bag and even though they're many sizes too big like everything else, I knot them as tightly as possible to keep them in place. I don't have the time to ask Asher to help me with the bows like before.

'You'll just be too slow if you try to walk, get her in that.' Emilio points to a folded up wheelchair in the corner that I hadn't noticed, 'It sounds like the bomb went off in the lobby, there's a back way down the corridor, but you have to hurry.'

'What about the other agents?' Asher asks, looking around the corridor, trying to find anyone who hadn't run towards the danger for me.

'No time, and too many agents will give her away.' Emilio shakes his head, and I notice how afraid it makes me to see anything worry Emilio. I've never seen fear in his face like this, 'They'll be looking for a girl in a hospital bed, in a hospital gown, with a security detail. Keep your heads down and don't act like ACS, that's our best bet. I'm going to go find out what's happening.'

'Emilio, please don't go.' I say, panicking more like I'd like to admit. He walks over to me, taking my face in his hands as Asher opens the wheelchair.

'Go with Asher, I'll see you downstairs.' He kisses the top of my head, 'Put your hood up, keep your head down. I love you.'

'I love you.' I say desperately as Asher puts a hand on my shoulder and sits me in the wheelchair. Emilio runs over to the door once more, keeping himself ducked down, 'Please be careful.'

'Asher, do you remember what we discussed?' Emilio says. Behind me, Asher nods.

'I remember.' He confirms, and without any further explanation, the conversation is over. I don't have time to ask what they're talking about before Emilio takes off.

When he opens the door, the sound intensifies and I notice how many shots are being fired that I couldn't hear from my hospital bed. It sounds like a film, and I shake my head, forcing myself to pay attention to every little detail, the way I was trained to. I haven't been shot at in years, but it's surprisingly easy to slip myself back into survival mode.

Asher begins to push the wheelchair towards the door, but it's pulled too tightly against the IV drip that is still attached to my bed. Asher runs over to try and find a way to detangle the metal to take it with us, but it's large and clanky, and it'll make far too much noise, so I grab the squidgy bag filled with clear liquid and tuck in into the front pocket of my jumper like a kangaroo pouch.

'It won't administer properly, it'll give you far too little morphine if it isn't upright!' He shouts, 'You'll be in too much pain!'

'If I'm dead, that'll hurt more.' I reply, before I realise that I truly might be right.

He grabs the handles of the wheelchair and we burst out into the corridor. I crane my neck to see Emilio disappearing through some double doors as Asher begins to run us the other way. I duck my head down the way that Emilio told me to and grip my hands tightly onto the metal of the chair to keep myself in while Asher charges us down corridors.

I try not to think of the possibility that this is the last time I'll ever see Emilio. He's taken care of me for so long, but we've never been in danger, and I've never had to watch him walk away from me towards a bullet that's destined for my head. I want to jump up and grab him but he'd never let me near a danger that he could take in my place.

Asher stops just short of a pair of metal doors and curses quietly at the paper sign demonstrating that the elevator is out of order. I look around and see a sign for stairs and point him desperately in that direction, trying to make as little noise as possible. His eyes are flying around furiously, and I can tell he's taking in every possibility. It worries me that he takes a few more seconds to consider the window.

Asher pushes us over to the stairs and stops short at the sheer number of flights that we didn't anticipate. Without asking him, and adrenaline pumping the slowly fading morphine through my body, I jump up and begin running down the stairs as fast as I can, which is hard with both a broken back and shoes that are seven sizes too big. Asher kicks the wheelchair back into the corridor to disrupt our trail, before slamming closed the locks on the double doors and following me, grabbing around my waist to support me and protect my body with his.

I don't have time to notice the way that my fingers turn completely pink and cold, and the blood rushes to my legs which are still too weak to successfully keep me upright at all times. I refuse to look at the numbers on the walls beside us that indicate just how far we still have to run. All I pay attention to is my feet and trying to keep them on the stone instead of out from under me.

We run past nurses and doctors sprinting up and down to the patients, but Asher refuses to speak to any of them who shout at us to go back to our rooms. It's sensible of him, someone in this hospital talked, and we don't know who we can trust.

When we reach the bottom flight, I can't deny that the pain on my back is so blinding that despite the still full bag, the morphine seems to have already bled out of my veins and my stitches feel like they were left somewhere on floor four. I'm breathing so heavily that it's making my brain swim and I can't seem to make myself focus.

'Exit!' Asher says, pointing to some doors at the opposite end of the corridor, 'Are you okay?'

I can't catch enough breath to talk, so I nod and keep tight hold of his arm. He begins pulling our combined bodies towards the exit, when even over the sounds of our feet slapping against the tile floor and our panicked breaths, we hear a gunshot unbelievably close. Asher slams our bodies up against a door in retaliation and we stumble through into an office.

I roll onto the floor, onto my back which is not cushioned by Emilio's jumper at all. He locks the door behind us and pulls down the blinds as fast as he can. He pulls my body so it's tucked in close to his and holds us both in the corner. There's a shadow on the window from the fluorescent lights as Asher plunges us into darkness and I can see a door opening in the corridor.

There's footsteps on the floor two inches behind us and I hold my breath and close my eyes, clinging tightly on Asher to try and ease the pain in my back and the panic in my chest. Asher gently shushes me and I can feel his heart beating fast as he tries to slow down his breathing for when we're ready to run again.

All of a sudden, there's a clatter in the hallway and a woman screams. I tilt my head to try to see what's going on through the shadows, but all I can see is the familiar long barrel of an automatic rifle before Asher pulls me back into hiding. He pushes me further under the desk and silently, covers the gap with his own body.

I don't realise why he's doing it for a second, and when I try to pull him in closer to protect himself too, his body stays stiff and he looks at me. I know that look, he's trying to be stupid and selfless, and I'm to kill him if we survive this.

'Where is the princess?' Comes a shout from the corridor and I can hear from his voice that the sound is muffled by a mask covering his face. There's a crackle of static from a walkie talkie and Asher and I exchange a look.

'ACS?' I whisper and point at the shadow, whose body is shown through a slit in the blinds.

His uniform is similar to our SWAT team, and I don't remember a radio coordinated attack from The Court before. Asher moves a little more into the line of sight of the shadow and I watch as his eyes study the uniform that he's worn so many times, looking for any difference. When he moves again, he must not have found any.

'I don't know!' A woman babbles, holding up her hands. The man lowers his gun and reports no sight of the princess in this corridor into his walkie talkie. Asher stands up, hand inching closer to the door to turn it and report that the princess is safe, and for the team to come in and extract her.

Bang!

The shot rings out, and the woman in the corridor falls to the floor. Asher throws his body back into its place and wraps one arm around my head to cover me. We watch breathlessly as the man leans over the woman's body, before pulling his gun back to his chest and setting off further down the corridor.

Definitely not ACS then.

There's no sound clearer than that of the woman choking on her own blood in the middle of a corridor. There's sirens and more gunshots, and after a few more seconds, the sprinkler systems begin and water comes raining down on us. Asher tries to say something to me, but his voice is drowned out by the sound of a woman dying alone in a hallway because of me.

I look back up, and the shadow has gone. Asher points up to a window and stands up to begin pushing it open. I crawl on hands and knees that feel like ice and pull open the door. Asher flies across the room and slams his body against the wood so it closes again, causing a painfully loud slam to echo through the empty corridor.

'What are you doing?' He hisses.

'We can't leave her.' I whisper back and he shakes his head.

'That is not my job.' He pushes, trying to keep me away from the door handle, 'My job is to get you out safely, the ACS will have a team ready to extract everybody else.'

'Asher, that woman just got shot. She came to work today to help people and someone shot her because she didn't know where I was.' I say, painfully aware of how much more voice wobbles at the realisation that every death today will be on my hands, 'It's your job to protect me, it's my job to protect my people.'

'Marzia please-' He says, trying to guide me back over to the window.

'I will never forgive myself.' I tell him, but the impact doesn't hit him the way I hope it will, so I grip his arm and stare him down, 'I will never forgive you.'

He looks across to the door, and then back to me. I can tell he's going to give in before he does, when his eyebrows bunch up and the cogs in his brain start trying to work out logistics. He glances out of the window again to check the coast is clear before he lifts me up onto the desk to climb out and turns back.

He opens the door inch by inch and then disappears into the hall. I hold my breath, not moving a muscle, until he returns, carrying the nurse in his arms. She's bleeding heavily from her abdomen and I try not to remember the statistics on gunshot wounds to the stomach. I climb back down from the window and reach into my jumper, pulling my bandage out from my back.

Asher looks at me, even more furious than I thought possible, but lifts up the woman's shirt and to pack the bleed with the bandage, leaving a little to knot tightly around her to hold it in place. When I stand up, I look down at my hands and see them covered in blood, and all of a sudden I'm right back in the alleyway.

Christopher lies on the ground, his eyes open, with a glaze over them as he looks up emptily at the night sky that waits to accept him. His white shirt is covered with blood and there's a hundred different places on his body where his soul seeps out and escapes him.

I let out a sob as I grip back at his chest, noticing how it's too cold, even for a raining December evening. I scream at him to wake back up, plead for him not to leave me, even though he already has. There's no one here but the two of us, no one to help me try and save my big brother.

I can't look at his face without seeing mums, or dads, or Charlie's. They're looking at me like I didn't do enough to save him, like they hate me for having been too small, or not strong enough to beat his heart for him. I know that his lungs are filling with blood, but how am I meant to stop it?

I have the chance all over again, and yet I still can't save him.

I claw at his shirt, ripping it open and finding his chest is deathly still. I push on it, I thump it with my little fists and try my best, but nothing I can do will get rid of the blood that is all over the two of us, but somehow still entirely engulfing his lungs. I try shaking his shoulders to wake him up, but his hands lay pathetically at his sides as he slips away.

There's black smoke billowing from the wrecked car and I choke on the inescapable reality that I will wake up from this miserable nightmare, still completely broken, with a brother that still calls a patch of dirt six feet under his home. I will wake up, but the body at my feet won't, no matter how many times I remember this moment.

He's dying right in front of me, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

'Marzia!' Asher shouts and I snap my eyes away to look at him. He's watching me with concern and I can tell from the stiff way that I hold my body that he knows I wasn't in this room with him. 'We have to keep going.'

I nod numbly, climbing up onto the desk to push myself out as Asher drapes the woman's arms around his neck and lifts her. I don't stop to notice the way that the woman's blood covers every square inch of my skin, spreading up and down my arms and staining my clothes. I can feel the jumper sticking uncomfortably to me with the intensity of the density of her blood.

I don't remember touching her, how could I get so covered so fast?

'Marzia.' Asher breathes from behind me and I turn around, noticing the way his face has turned more pale than I've yet to see it, 'Your back.'

I wipe my hands as clean as I can on my legs and reach behind me. Oh, that's why he looks like his soul has lost his body.

It's not her blood. It's mine.

'Please let me help you.' He begs, looking down at the woman he's holding and the way that she's become deathly still. I refuse to look at her, I can't see another body without a person inside.

'I'm fine.' I say, ignoring the puddle of my blood that has collected at my feet and is pouring over the edge of the desk and dripping onto the tile floor.

The adrenaline mixed with the few drops of morphine that managed to get through mask most of the pain, but my arms are too weak to pull myself up properly, and I have to contort my knees unnaturally to free myself from the room. I use the bricks on the wall outside to pull myself up. Asher emerges a second later, still holding the nurse and breathing so heavily that I can see the veins exploding in his neck.

I look around and survey the back corner of the hospital we've escaped to. It's far from silent with the sound of sirens still bursting around us, and I can see smoke pouring out of the entrance over the roof, but luckily, it's empty. Asher runs us over to the garbage bins lined up against the wall and ducks us down out of sight.

I flinch at the sounds of gunshots that are muffled through the bricks of several walls between us. Asher looks down at the woman who is rapidly losing her ability to acknowledge us. He glances around him and curses, pushing his hair back out of his face, leaving a trail of blood across his forehead.

'We can't wait for Emilio.' He says, moving the woman around in his arms to better support her neck, 'We're going to have to make a run for it.'

'He'll be here.' I protest.

'Marzia, he thinks we'll have left the doors all to the way around the side, there's no way he'll find us here.' Asher argues.

'Take her to the road with the ambulances, someone can help her there.' I point to the nurse, and he immediately shakes his head.

'We can't be out in the open like that.' Asher bites.

'Not we, you.' I urge him, feeling my head begin to dip on my shoulders, 'Take her there, and I'll stay hidden here. Then we run together.'

'I'm not leaving you in the middle of a shootout.' Asher hisses, 'You've left a blood trail showing exactly where you are.'

'I swear on my brother's grave, if you let this woman die Asher, it'll be me next.' I snap, moving myself backwards to immerse myself into the bricks, 'I can't live with another death on my hands, please Asher.'

There's hesitation in his movements, even while he's pulling himself to his feet. His eyes dart around again, and with the lack of bullets or fire, he finally relents and swallows down the rules he's spent years learning that forbid him to do exactly this.

'Don't you dare fucking move.' He says, before he disappears.

Sorry Ash.

I watch as he runs around the corner, before I drag myself up. The pain shoots around my body and my knees buckle underneath me. I pause for a moment to throw up what little food still exists in my system before I flick my hair out of my face and set my eyes on the corridor that Emilio will recognise as our escape.

With unsteady feet, but more determination than I've felt in so long, I start running in the direction that my blurry vision tries to focus on. I told my mother earlier that she shouldn't underestimate me. I ran from her burning wedding reception with metal fused to my spine and a billion broken parts to save myself.

The pain reaches an intensity I never remember feeling, and suddenly, the gravel becomes hardwood floors, illuminated orange with the flames that spread from curtains to tablecloths to the piano which lets out a melodic scream. The dark night sky looks awfully similar to the crown moulding that decorated the grand hall that my mother spent months choosing with Lars for their wedding day.

There's complete confusion, guests and hospital staff running around, they're wearing lab coats and ball gowns and the smoke is suffocating. I can see double doors, but they're so far away that I doubt the faith in my legs to get me there. Then, out of the darkness and the revibertaing fear, stumbles a figure that's wearing a suit I had to persuade him to put on this morning.

'Marzia!' Christopher shouts, covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow and hacks up what sounds like one of his lungs, 'You see those doors? You need to run, you can do this.'

He coughs again, splashing red liquid all over the ballroom floor. His lungs, completely filled with blood.

No, not yet. He doesn't die in this hall, he dies in an alley.

Isn't this an alley? No, it's my mother's wedding reception.

'Marzia?' He repeats, gripping hold of my shoulders and shaking me.

'Christopher?' I say, reaching up to his face, 'Help me.'

'No Zia, it's me. It's Emilio.' A voice says, unfamiliar to my brother's face and loud enough to block out the flames, the screaming guests, the singed smell of my dress melted into my skin, 'Where's Asher?'

I blink, and Emilio's face returns to my environment. He looks down, and I can feel him tense at the sight of my body.

'Whose blood is this?' He says, yanking at the material that rubs against the exposed skin.

'I don't know.' I tell him, and he throws an arm around my shoulders, ducking his other arm under my legs and sprinting towards a car with blacked out windows and the ignition running.

He pulls open the passenger door and lowers my body into the seat. I yelp and lean forwards at the resistance against my open wound and Emilio points to the front seat, shouting over the noise that I can no longer determine as real, or in my head.

'Lock the doors!'

'I have to leave!'

'If you drive off, I'll fucking kill you myself.' Emilio bellows, 'Stay the fuck here, and lock the doors.'

I look up to see my brother turned around in his seat, holding onto the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. He's wearing a hat so low on his head that it's difficult to see him in the darkness.

'Christopher?' I whisper, doubting my own eyes.

'Knock a couple of years off, kid.' Charlie grins.

There's a banging beside me and Charlie whips around, unlocking the car long enough for another figure to throw themselves beside me. Emilio swings shut the door behind Asher, and bashes on the side of Charlie's window to make him roll it down and listen to him. Asher busies himself by tucking us both into seatbelts and hooking my morphine up on Charlie's headrest so it can once again perform its duty.

'Don't take her to a hospital, they'll be looking for her injuries.' Emilio tells Charlie from the front, not hesitating for any conversation, 'I'll send Klaus to you, he'll help her. Call me as soon as you're safe and don't stop for anything until you are, not food, not gas, just fucking drive.'

'Don't you dare send Niklaus.' Charlie barks, 'I've got her Emilio.'

'Leo?' I whimper from my seat, 'What's happening?'

He runs around to me, taking my hand kissing it several times despite the blood that covers me. He brushes my hair away from my face and kisses me there too. There's worry in his face that I've never seen before and there's tears welling in his eyes.

'Stay with Asher, he's going to take care of you.' He says and I roll my head back around to find Asher searching around for something to stem my bleeding, 'I can't come with you, I'm so sorry. I'll see you as soon as it's safe to.'

'Don't go-'

'I have to, they won't believe that Asher and I couldn't protect you, I have to stay here.' He tells me, 'Charlie's going to take you somewhere, and he'll explain everything then.'

'Why can't I go home?' I ask him, and he lets out a stray tear, quickly rubbing his eyes and focusing again.

'You just need to be brave one more time for me, okay?' He tells me, 'If you don't want to do this, then you call me and you come right home, but we can end this Zia. I know you can be brave enough.'

'I can't.' I beg, 'I don't understand.'

'Asher, now.' Emilio says, looking over at him. Asher shakes his head and grimaces, 'Asher you need to. It's the only way.'

'I really don't want to do this.' Asher groans, pulling a newly acquired gun from his waistline and aims at Emilio's leg, 'I'm so sorry.'

He leans his arm over my head to cover my ears and a shot explodes around the three of us. Emilio immediately doubles over, clutching at the new hole in his shin.

'No!' I scream and he looks at me, steading himself to breathe through the pain.

'I believe in you.' He says holding my hand so tightly that he could break it if he tried, 'I love you, you're the strongest person I know. You can do this.'

He shuts the door, and Charlie immediately puts his foot down. I watch Emilio blow me a kiss sadly and clutch at his chest as if his pain is so intense that it doesn't even match the wound on his leg. I try to turn around in my seat, but the pain is already causing colours to run grey and sight to blur at the edges. Asher rips off his jumper and presses it firmly into my back.

'Why did you do that?' I sob, turning around and slamming my fists into Asher's chest, 'You hurt him!'

'He asked me to.' Asher says, avoiding looking at me and keeping a tight hold on my back as my body gives way to the pain, 'I had to Zia, he needed me to.'

'Charlie, what's happening?' I manage to whimper with my last bit of energy. He looks at me in the rear view mirror between his evasive maneuvers and illegal speeds.

'This is the plan Zia, my plan.' He tells me as my eyelids droop, 'This is how we finally end these fuckers.'