Late in the afternoon the next day, I find myself alone in the room with Elle and Sky while Delilah is away with Yana. Elle is awake, staring out the window at the city. Sky lays on the bed, one arm over his eyes, pretending to be asleep while I attempt to paint Elle's toenails with the indigo nail polish Yana left behind. She made it look so easy yesterday, but the sheer amount of precision it takes to get this stuff on only the nail is insane. Already there are drops of purple on the sheets and smears of it on the sides of Elle's toes. The brush is too tiny, and my hands shake too much. I'll have to practice some more, maybe Sky will let me do his.

"Hey, you want some nail polish?" I ask, not looking up. Sliding the brush across Elle's third toe, I silently rejoice when the polish leaves neither drip nor smear. Then a blob from the brush drips off and ruins the paint job.

When Sky doesn't answer, I glance up, the paintbrush poised over the next toe. "I know you're awake."

"You don't," is his muffled reply.

"Your hand is twitching," I say, turning back to the nail polish. I don't have to see him to know I'm right. The sound of his fingers snapping together rises above the beeps of the heart monitor, and he doesn't do that when he's asleep.

"Put the polish on my other hand then," he fires back, flopping his arm across the bed and tilting his head to look at me. "So how about that nurse?"

"Yana? What about her?"

"I think you have a crush on her."

This time the smear on Elle's toes doesn't come from shaky hands. I wipe at it with the pad of my thumb and only succeed in making it worse. "I don't know what that is."

"Oh, come on. You like her, admit it," he scoffs. I catch a glimpse of his conspiratorial grin out of the corner of my eye. I frown and shake my head, focusing harder on putting the paint where it's supposed to go.

"You have a concussion," I mutter.

"You have a crush," he repeats, sitting up.

"Stop saying that." I shoot a glare at him. Paint is glistening on Elle's toe. I stick the brush back in its bottle and give it a couple quick twists. The hard plastic cap cracks in two with a startling pop.

"Ice out mate, have some fun." He hops up to stand on the edge of the bed. His hair sticks up in all directions, almost hiding the bald spot. He snaps his fingers and points to Elle when she turns her head to look at him. He holds up his cupped hands. He has something, and he won't tell us what. He's been sneaking around with it in his pocket all day, only taking it out when he knows we can't see it. He's made a game of getting us guessing. I suspect he stole it, since there's no other way he could have gotten ahold of anything, but I don't know what he was stupid enough to steal.

"Is it a pencil or a pen?" Elle asks, propping herself up on her hoard of pillows. Her skin stays cool and her grip on reality is as solid as ever, it's all too easy to believe that she's improving. But there's a tray of food resting precariously on the bedside table, no different from when the nurse brought it in this morning, except that all of the foods have been mashed up and pushed around. She hasn't eaten a bite since she woke up yesterday and shows no interest in trying.

"Neither. Trick?"

"This is serious." I set the bottle of polish to the side and scoot off the bed so I don't accidentally smear more paint all over the place. There is a worldwide war going on right outside this hospital, no one has time for games or crushes, least of all us.

Sky shrugs teetering across the bed like it's a balance beam. "I agree. I mean, she's a bit older and way out of your league, but less possible things have happened."

"Es esto?" Elle holds out her hands, wiggling her fingers to show off the shiny indigo paint.

"Nah."

She stops wiggling her fingers but leaves her hands spread out in front of her. Light from the open window glints off the paint, the sheen is captivating. Elle tips her hands to get a better look at the paint, examining each nail with intense curiosity, as if she's noticing it for the first time. "What is this?" she asks, looking to me for answers. This is the second time she's asked, her memory hasn't been the best since she woke up.

"It's pintar," I answer, for lack of a better explanation. She scrunches her nose, looking closer at her nails.

"Like what they put on walls?"

"Kind of, but made for fingernails." It's not the most eloquent way to say it, but it works. Sort of.

"And toenails?" She tilts her head, laying her hands on the bed.

I nod, "Yeah, toenails too."

"Oh, okay." She purses her lips, head still tilted. I can tell she still has a lot of questions, but instead of asking them she drums her fingers and watches the pattern of light across her purple nails shift. Her eyelids droop and her chin rests heavily on her shoulder. She's so tired for someone so young.

That's all right, I tell myself, she's got her whole life ahead of her to get up and go out and learn more about nail paint. As soon as she kicks this sickness we'll get out of here and find some way to live a normal life. I don't know how, but I'll find a way.

A disgruntled squawk from Sky shakes me out of my thoughts. I look over in time to see a newly returned Delilah scooting out of Sky's reach, his prized stolen item raised triumphantly in her hand.

"This is what you've been hiding? A toy?" She's tied her hair back into a tight braid, save for a few stray strands that float over her eyes and tickle her ears. She holds a tiny plastic man pinched between her finger and thumb, raising her eyebrows at it. The tiny man is orange and stands with both arms up by his face in a fighting stance, his paint is chipped in several places. Fortunately, Elle is distracted by a bird perched outside on the windowsill and misses the reveal.

"Give it back, you thieving mongrel." Sky jumps off the bed. He lands with a soft thud, snatching the plastic man away from Delilah. "Trick has a crush."

"On the nurse?" Delilah guesses, as if this is no news to her.

"I do not."

"He does."

"Skyelar." She sighs a full-body kind of sigh, and I can practically see her restraining herself from rolling her eyes. She catches me narrowing my eyes at her and lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

"Hey Trick, any chance you're going to tell her?"

"Shut up."

"Are you doing alright?" Delilah pauses at my side, her hand is on my elbow, the touch just light enough to stay on this side of bearable. I can feel the Savella seeping through my body, dulling the effects of the fibro. It's not enough yet for the sand between my joints to be gone, or the creaking of my bones to stop, but the worst of the pain is controlled.

"Fine," I say when I finally work the words up from my belly. "Elle is getting better, everything will be fine."

"Good," she says, her gaze lingering on me for a moment longer. I can see uncertainty swimming behind her eyes, but we both choose to ignore it. She retreats to her chair in the corner by the window, digging a newstab from her pants pocket. Looks like Sky's tiny plastic man isn't the only thing she's stolen today.

"Why did you lie to them?" Elle's whispery voice startles me. "Trick, ¿por que mentiste?"

She's sitting up in bed for the first time since she's woken up. The oxygen mask lays discarded at her side and her chapped lips press together in a thin line.

"I didn't," I answer. It's the truth, with all the advancements science has made, it should be no problem for the doctors to cure her. After all, look at what they turned us into. If they can give Elle the ability to change the pattern of her skin at will, they can sure as hell make her better.

Elle nibbles on the corner of her lip, looking unsure. I walk over and perch on the edge of her bed with one leg propped up and the other bouncing on the tile. "You'll get better," I promise, brushing a hair off of her narrow shoulder.

"¿Cómo?" she asks, hugging her knees to her chest. The indigo on her fingers has flushed up to her hands, I watch it creep farther up her arm.

"The doctors will help you," I answer.

"What if they hurt me instead?" the purple races up her arm, overflowing onto her neck and pooling in the crevices over her collarbones.

"I'll make sure they don't." I'll be there this time, I can ask questions and get Delilah to translate the labels on whatever medicine they give her. I won't leave her alone with any nurses or doctors. This time I'll get it right, this time she will get the treatment she needs.

Elle considers this for a moment, her chin dipping to rest on her kneecaps. Then her lower lip begins to tremble ever so faintly. She bites it hard enough to split her dry skin, bringing tears rushing to her eyes. It keeps trembling anyways, and she sniffles to hold back the tears.

"Woah, hey, what's wrong?" I lean forward, my forehead creasing. Delilah rises halfway but I shake my head at her. Nobody else can see Elle like this.

The colors come first. Thin lines of navy and black leak out the corners of her eyes, and spill down to her chin. Two swatches of soft yellow and pink streak either of her cheeks, swirling all the way up to her temples. She lifts her purple hands to wipe at her eyes and they come away wet.

"You're a good brother," she mumbles, red bleeding out of her mouth. I can't tell if it's blood from her cracked lip or a new shade from her shifting skin.

"Is that a bad thing?" I ask, forcing a smile onto my face in a poor attempt to lighten the mood. I have never seen her act this way before. She holds her hands out to me, flattening her legs to make way for my hug. I scoop her up, doing my best to avoid the IV lines, and hold her as tightly as I dare. She weighs nothing, I could crush her as easily as I snapped the lid of that nail polish, I could never forgive myself if I did. She burrows her face in my shirt, her arms pulsing red and gold and purple. A choked sob escapes her, followed by her muffled, barely coherent reply.

"I'll miss you."

The floodgates open for real now, she cries so hard she shakes. The colors are frantic, taking on forms, running into each other, bumping around between her tendons and veins like madmen. Her breaths begin to rasp and wheeze on their way through her lungs. It sounds like she's sucking air from a leaky straw, I think she should put her oxygen mask on before she drowns in her tears.

When I reach for it, she clutches me harder and shakes her head. A string of mumbly noises comes from her open mouth, but she's sobbing too hard for the words to form. Okay, she doesn't need it right away. I settle back, resting my cheek on her head, and rubbing circles on her back. The ridge of her spine juts out too far, and I can feel each individual rib my hand passes over.

The minutes pass marked only by the heart monitor and her dwindling sobs. Her shivering muscles relax as she loses energy, and she sags against me. Delilah watches us out of the corners of her eyes. Sky perches like a bird on the chair, his sneakers on the floor and his bare toes dig into the worn cushion for balance. He doesn't seem to be doing anything, just staring at the floor with the knuckles of his left hand pressed to his teeth. We all watch the door, strung on a razor-thin trip wire. I don't know how long it is before I suggest she lays down. She tenses at that, shakes her head again, but it's obvious she's barely holding on.

"Just for a while, you don't have to sleep, just lay down," I bargain, staring at the tendril of green that loops lazily around a shock of blue on her wrist.

"No, I don't want you to leave." She sniffles into my chest.

"If I lay down, will you?"

There is a beat of silence, save for her congested breathing, then she nods. Okay then, that will work. I heft myself the rest of the way onto the bed and ease onto my back. Her head now rests on my shoulder, my arm is hooked under her, and she finally relaxes. It's ages before she calms down enough to sleep, but eventually, she gets there. The last of the tears ebb, and not long after a quiet snore squeezes out.

Good. After all that, it's no wonder she's exhausted.

This isn't the first time she's cried herself to sleep. There were nights when the Whitecoats came banging on my cell door and dragged me off to stay with her because it was the only way to calm her down. There were nights when the Whitecoats had to do the same for me, a snotty thirteen-year-old screaming until they brought Elle to me.

"Tengo miedo," she whispers, startling me.

"You're supposed to be asleep," I remind her. Her eyes are barely open, swollen and red from all the crying.

"I'm scared," she repeats in English, quieter.

"You don't need to be," I say reassuringly, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze. She tilts her head to see my face.

"¿Promesa?" she breathes. The blue and navy streaks from earlier are stained to her face, pools of the colors rest stationary all along her jaw and chin.

"Prometa."

She settles down again, but not for long. Right when I think she's fallen asleep for good, she speaks up.

"Trick," she murmurs, sleep making her words slow and heavy, "Te amo."

"Yo también te amo, Elle," I say, planting a kiss on the top of her head. A minute passes, then another, and ten more. After fifteen, I know she's asleep for real.

"Trick."

"Hm?" I blink, and for a moment I forget where I am. This is not the infirmary, the walls are the wrong color, the machines make the wrong noise. I blink again, and the pieces fall back into place. Yana stands in the doorway. A gentle smile lifts the corners of her lips, and a dimple appears on her chin that I hadn't noticed before. A ray of dying light from the window catches her across the face, shining over her left eye and rendering it a lighter shade of blue than the other. For a brief moment before everything collapses, all I can think is; if things change, could we be friends?

Then she catches sight of Elle and all the brilliant swaths of colors drenching her, and the moment shatters. Yana stops dead, the smile dropping off her face, replaced by a string of Russian that sounds suspiciously like cuss words. A file folder that I hadn't seen falls from her hand and explodes all over the floor with a startling bang.

Damn it. Before she can even begin to form the right questions, I know that this is the end of whatever safety we had here.

My heart is in my throat as I realize that after all that's happened, after all the running, and the fighting, and the death, we're getting dragged back down by a little bad timing.

"What this is?" Yana demands, the file folder and its contents lay forgotten on the floor. She reaches to touch Elle, and on instinct I lurch to stop her. My fingers close around Yana's wrist too tight, wrenching a startled cry from her. I let go as soon as I realize what's happening, but not soon enough to take back the damage.

She staggers back, holding her injured wrist gingerly. Pain contorts her face for a brief moment, and ugly red marks are rising in stark contrast to her smooth skin.

"I'm sorry." The apology tumbles out, I'm already rising, untangling myself from Elle. "Did I hurt you?"

"It's fine," she lies, tugging the sleeve of her scrubs up to hide the bruise. A neutral mask replaces her pain as she blinks away any tears that may have welled up. "You must tell me where you are from."

There are alarms going off in my head and a sinking pit in my stomach. That was wrong, she was defenseless, I shouldn't have squeezed so hard. There is something wrong with me. I find my feet, ignoring the pins and needles that all-too-happily dig into my calves, but I don't dare get closer to her.

"Puerto Rico, I told you," I answer.

"No, where you were before you came to hospital," she snaps, but there's no edge to it. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out and I can't find a voice to fill in the blank. There's no good way to put this, and certainly not one that will convince her to keep this all to herself. When the silence stretches on for too long, Yana decides to ask a different question.

"There were reports last week of America attacking a private warehouse near here, was that you?"

The fear in her is a raw and powerful thing, spitting from her mouth like acid. The pit in my stomach grows too fast to hold, the fear in me could squash a mountain if it could escape. Bands tighten around my chest, choking away my ability to speak, but that's okay because I can't get my brain unstuck anyways.

She spins on her squeaky sneakers and storms out the door to go report us to the authorities. To tell them we're secret American spies. To tell them to throw us in jail and take away Elle's medical care.

Skyelar slams the door, in front of her in a heartbeat. The doorframe bends from the force. She stumbles back, smacking into Delilah, who pins her arms behind her.

"Wait, wait!" My voice rams back into me, "let her go."

Instead Delilah drags her farther from the door. "She'll tell someone."

"There's a security guard coming," Sky hisses from the doorway. We're done if a guard catches us manhandling Yana. She watches us with wide eyes, body taut, her breath caught in her chest. She has the look of a trapped animal ready to bolt. The guard is getting closer, and my chest is heaving, and my toes are going numb. It's too late for secrets now.

I catch Yana's eyes and blurt, "the warehouse the Americans attacked was a laboratory full of kidnapped kids and if you tell anyone they're going to come and drag us back and kill us!"

The guard knocks on the door once. Opening it, he pokes his head into take in the scene. There's Sky perched on a chair, bracing to keep it from slamming back down on all four legs. Delilah with her hands locked behind her back. And Yana, standing over the scattered papers of the file she dropped. One word, and she could kill us.

The guard asks a question, she answers, and I swear the room turns into a vacuum.

How long do we have until the Compound comes for us? Days? Hours? I'm well and truly hyperventilating now, shaking, images of Dieter and his broken teeth and bubbled skin burn my retinas every time I blink. That's what the Whitecoats will do to me. That's what they'll do to Elle.

"Us?" Yana's question squeezes past the white noise. I look up, sometime in the last few seconds I ducked my head and pressed both hands to the back of my neck. She stands with her back to the door, staring at me.

"Experiments." Is all I manage to get out on the first try. I clear my throat, work my jaw, and try again. "Elle, and Sky, and Delilah, and I, were all taken to be experiments. There were a lot more of us but..." I trail off, unable and unwilling to finish the sentence. "When the attack happened, some of us escaped and came here. I don't know who caused the attack, but it wasn't us, and if you tell anyone we're here the Whitecoats will come and take us back."

And that can't happen.

"What you mean, experiments?"

"You saw Elle's skin," I say. She tucks a curl behind her ear and smooths it down, a motion that seems like it's meant for herself, her hand hovering even after her hair is set perfectly in place.

"How do I know you are not lying?" she says at last. "You all could be experiments made by the Americans to destroy our country."

Sky makes a rude noise.

"Elle is thirteen, and she can barely stand on her own."

"You could have kidnapped her," Yana argues, but she's sounding less and less convinced. Her anger is petering out, leaving room for the gears in her head to turn.

"For what?"

She folds her arms over her chest, being careful not to bump her bruised wrist. "Ladno, I believe you, but I want to know more."

We close the door again, shutting the rest of the hospital out, and settle down for what I know is going to be an awful talk. Yana on the chair, and me and Sky and Delilah on the edge of the empty bed. We talk for hours. Sometimes I stop because the words vanish and my head spins, and when that happens Delilah fills in, or Sky. She doesn't get the entire story, but she gets enough that she can fill in all the gaps on her own.

At the end, none of us say anything, and Yana can't look me in the eye. She stands, smooths the wrinkles out of the front of her shirt, looks at Elle. The expression on her face is indecipherable, some cross between thoughtful and deeply sad and a fight not to show either.

"You should go to the news with this, tell them this that you told me," she says, still staring at Elle.

"What?" Shock ripples through me, kicking me to my feet.

"The people of Russia do not want this fight, but there are not enough of us standing against the government to do anything. You could get more people to rise up, you could help end the war."

"That would expose us to the Whitecoats." I nix the idea. This is not my war to fight, the only thing I can afford to focus on is keeping Elle and the others safe. Nothing can put that in jeopardy.

"We give you safety, keep you guarded here at the hospital," Yana pushes. She's drawn herself up straight and squared her shoulders. She reminds me of Delilah like this; determined and fierce. Of course, considering King could floor this entire hospital on his own, her offer isn't very convincing.

Sky tilts his head, considering her suggestion. She takes this as a sign to press on. "They have tools to spread the word across the nation, a story like this would rally the people against the Bloody Brigade."

"It's also dangerous." I interject.

"For you," Sky says, "I could go to the reporters, agree to meet them somewhere else. Hell, I could meet reporters all over the place, take the Whitecoats on a goose chase and keep them away from the hospital."

"And if they catch up to you?" I argue, but I'm grasping at straws. Sky bursts out laughing, it sounds a touch deranged.

"Right, they're going to catch me," he scoffs, then he catches the genuine concern on Yana's face. Clearing his throat, he sticks his hand out to her, "Skyelar Jones, Enhanced speed," he says, cracking a grin.

"Oh." Yana shakes his hand, the crease over her nose smoothing out. "Yana Karusev, normal nurse."

"Trick thinks you're a bit better than normal." He wiggles his eyebrows, the grin on his face turning mischievous.

"Sky." The only thing preventing me from smacking him is the idea that it might send him into the wall. And even that doesn't seem too bad at the moment. The growl works well enough though, and Sky has the good sense to duck his head and look the slightest bit sorry when he slides out of reach.

Delilah speaks up then, "what if it was just one reporter, and we knew that we could trust her."

"Yeah, right, let me pull one out my arse," Sky laughs, Delilah doesn't. The laughter fades from the air, "you mean it?"

Delilah takes her stolen newstab out. Casting a semi-guilty glance at Yana she says, "I was going to give it back."

Then she clicks it on and swipes the screen. An image capture zoomed-in on the article Yana showed us the first day we were here comes up. Delilah lingers on it. She clears her throat before speaking.

"I thought it was a coincidence, but Yana helped me do some research," she starts, flicking to a capture of a news site. The room waits, breath held. "My sister wrote that article. She's a political journalist and she lives here."

Sky flings his hands in the air, a huge smile cracks his face, "Dels, you found her!" He throws his arms around her, crushing her in a hug. A weak smile lifts the corners of her mouth.

"She doesn't know yet," she says.

"Well let's go meet her, tonight!"

Delilah hesitates, the smile fading into a ghost as she shrinks into herself. "I don't know, it's been so long, and so much has happened..."

"So?" Sky peels himself away from her, bright with excitement.

"So, what if I'm a monster to her now?"

There's a beat of silence, and Delilah blinks fast, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. In the dim light of the outside fluorescents, it's hard to see her as the woman who crushed a man to death. As Delilah the Wind Witch rather than Delilah my friend. I glance at Elle, skin rippling on the hospital bed. I can't imagine seeing her as a monster.

"Then you come back, and we figure it out from there," I say. It's not comforting, but I'm not a comforting person and Delilah isn't the type to want coddling.

She exhales. One more breath, and the moment of fragility is gone. "Okay, okay. Let's go."

Sky loops his arm through hers. "Right now?"

"Right now." She takes the newstab again, and flicks to a capture of a map.

"Perfect,"' he pauses just long enough to skim the map and glance between me and Yana. "You'll be right?"

"We're fine," I say, "go."

"Be right back." And he's gone with Delilah in the blink of an eye.

Yana lingers a few moments longer. She takes the time to adjust one of Elle's IV bags and check her heart monitor. In all the commotion of the past few hours, the hair that she so carefully tucked into place earlier is loose again. I realize I'm staring, and occupy my eyes and hands with retrieving Savella from my new prescription bottle to keep from giving in. This dose is a few minutes late, but that won't screw with my insides too much. I hope.

Two little pills go down the hatch. The pills themselves are a lower dose than the ones from the Compound, at least, according to the tiny number stamped on their sides. But with two together it makes for a higher dose than before, and it's working well.

I set the pill bottle down and turn in time to catch Yana watching me. It is inconveniently then that I remember I'm only meant to take two per day, not two per dose. Yana doesn't comment, and she looks away so fast I'm almost worried she's going to give herself whiplash.

"I will go now." She brushes that loose strand of hair back and hurries towards the exit, when she reaches the door she pauses, delicate hand resting on the dent in the metal frame. She doesn't look up. "I will come back and help. Whatever you choose, tell or not tell, I am on your side."

And with that, she's gone. The tip of her heel vanishes around the corner leaving the space she occupied empty.

"Thank you," I say to the sound of her receding footsteps.

Then it's just me and Elle. She's out cold, snoring faintly. The hospital could be collapsing and she would keep on snoring. I grimace, reaching out to pull the blankets up around her chin. That isn't the most comforting thought to have at the moment. Her hair is tousled, tears from earlier dried a few dark curls to her cheek, and the wild colors have faded out completely. But the dark circles around her eyes look lighter, and for the first time in ages, the tint of her dreams is soaking into her skin.

Grey. I lift her arm to get a closer look at the faint dappling of color. It doesn't match the sheets or the pillow, and while it could come from the silvery needles in her veins, I prefer to imagine it's from her dreams. Grey isn't what I would call a dreamy color, it's not even particularly pretty, but it is calming.

I sigh and turn away. Taking the chair, I amble over to the door and set up what will be my guard station for the rest of the night. As I curl myself into the chair to wait, an old, old tune worms its way out of the caverns of my memory. I can't place where it's from.

The sun is set by now, the night is well on its way and the hospital is settling down. This floor is never busy, at least, not as busy as the ground floor, and at night it is even quieter. I can hear a machine beeping somewhere down the hall and the soft patter of a nurse's shoes before she passes the door. She tips her head in acknowledgement as she strolls past, I wave back.

At some point, as time lumbers on, I start to hum the tune. It's a lullaby, I think, an old one. Something our abuela sang to put us to sleep, and something I sang to Elle during our first nights at the Compound. I can't remember the words anymore, but the melody is there.

I tilt my head to look at Elle, her chest rises and falls, her breath fogs the oxygen mask and her heartbeat pulsing from the monitor creates a matching tempo with the lullaby. I wonder why it's stuck in my head after all this time. I'll have to hum it to her when she wakes up and see if she remembers how it goes.