The Plan Shifts

She wasn't infertile. She was sick from the poison of them.

The nausea passed, leaving Elena cold and empty. She looked at Kai, slumped against the window. He wasn't asleep. He was drugged.

"You should really buckle up, Elena," Miller said, his eyes still on the road. "Accidents happen so fast."

He reached into his jacket. Elena tensed, expecting a gun.

He pulled out a syringe.

"It's just a mild sedative," he said, uncapping it with his teeth. "Same as your friend. It'll make the ride much more pleasant."

Elena looked at the syringe. The clear liquid.

It looked exactly like the one she had seen in Marcus's dopp kit.

The insulin.

"I'm not diabetic," she said.

"Neither was Seraphina's mother," Miller said. "But low blood sugar can happen to anyone. Especially under stress."

He wasn't taking her to a safe house. He was taking her to a morgue.

Elena looked at Kai. He was dead weight. Useless.

She looked at the door. Child lock.

She looked at Miller. He was confident. One hand on the wheel, one hand holding the needle. He thought she was cornered.

She was.

But cornered animals bite.

"You work for Julian," she said.

Miller paused. "I work for the trust."

"Same thing."

"Not exactly. Julian is a beneficiary. The trust is the entity."

"The entity that mandated incest?"

Miller laughed. "Old Nathaniel was a visionary. He knew that diluted blood leads to diluted assets. He built a closed loop."

"A closed loop of abuse."

"A closed loop of power," Miller corrected. "And you, my dear, are the leak."

He lunged.

Elena didn't pull away. She grabbed his wrist.

She didn't try to stop the needle. She guided it.

She slammed his hand down onto his own thigh.

Miller shouted, a sound of shock more than pain. He tried to pull back, but Elena held on, driving the needle deep into the muscle of his leg.

He depressed the plunger.

Reflex. Or panic.

The liquid emptied into his system.

"You bitch!" he screamed, backhanding her.

Elena's head snapped back, stars exploding in her vision. But she didn't let go. She twisted his wrist until she heard a snap.

Miller howled. The car swerved, drifting across the center line.

"Pull over!" Elena shouted.

Miller's eyes were already glazing over. The insulin was fast-acting. And he had taken a massive dose.

"Can't..." he slurred. "Can't feel my hands."

The car was doing eighty. The snow was a white tunnel.

Elena grabbed the wheel from the back seat. She yanked it to the right.

The car skidded. It spun.

The world turned into a blur of headlights and guardrails.

Then, impact.

Metal screamed. Glass shattered. The airbag deployed with a punch to Miller's face.

Silence.

Elena hung suspended by her seatbelt, the world tilted at a crazy angle. The car was in a ditch.

She gasped for air. Her chest hurt. Her head throbbed.

"Kai?" she whispered.

A groan from the seat next to her. He was alive.

She looked at the front seat.

Miller was slumped over the wheel. He wasn't moving.

She unbuckled her belt. She fell to the floor of the car, crawling over Kai's legs.

She pushed open the back door. It groaned but gave way.

She fell out into the snow.

The cold was shocking. It woke her up.

She reached back in and grabbed Kai's arm. "Kai! Wake up! We have to go!"

He mumbled something unintelligible.

She pulled. She dragged him out of the car, his heels leaving furrows in the snow.

She got him to the edge of the woods.

She looked back at the car.

Smoke was rising from the engine.

Miller was still motionless.

She checked his pockets.

She found his phone. And a wallet.

She opened the wallet.

Badge. *FBI.*

It was real.

He wasn't a cleaner. He was a corrupt agent.

Which meant the FBI wasn't coming to save her. The FBI was part of the problem.

She looked at Kai. He was shivering, his eyes fluttering open.

"Elena?" he croaked.

"We're alive," she said. "But we have to move."

"Where?"

She looked at Miller's phone. It was unlocked.

She opened his recent messages.

*To: M. Hawthorne*
*Message: Subject secured. Bringing her home.*

*From: M. Hawthorne*
*Message: Good. Seraphina is waiting. The 'accident' is prepared.*

Elena looked at the time. 4:30 AM.

She looked at Kai.

"Can you walk?"

"I think so."

"Good," she said. "Because we're not running anymore."

She helped him stand.

"What are we doing?" Kai asked, swaying.

"We're going to the wedding," Elena said.

"But... we have nothing," Kai said. "No car. No proof."

Elena reached into her pocket. She pulled out the burner phone she had used to hack the house.

It was cracked. But the screen still glowed.

And on the screen was a message.

Not from Marcus. Not from Seraphina.

From an unknown number.

*I saw what you did to the server. I have the files. Meet me at the boathouse. - J.*

Julian.

"We have something better than proof," Elena said. "We have a disgruntled landlord."

She looked at the smoke rising from the wreck.

"And I don't just want to know," she said, her voice cold as the ice beneath her feet. "I want to burn it down."