The sedative was a tide of liquid lead, pulling me down into a thick, syrupy darkness. But beneath it, the diamond of my hate remained, sharp and cold. Camilla thought she was burying me in a drugged, dreamless sleep. She was wrong. She was giving me cover.
My mind clung to the sliver of metal stitched into the hem of my trousers. A key. A weapon. A beginning.
I let the drug do its work, my breathing evening out, my body going limp against the wooden rack. The guard, a thick-necked brute with dead eyes, did a final check, his prodding fingers clinical and rough. Satisfied, he turned and left, the heavy steel door hissing shut behind him. The click of the magnetic lock was the starting pistol for a race I could not afford to lose.
Silence. I counted to one hundred, each number a slow, de
