The pain in my knee was excruciating, a throbbing declaration that I would not be getting up from where I collapsed, let alone make it out of the lab. I tried not to look at the awkward angle at which my leg limply rested. Sam knelt over me, her hands moving skillfully over my knee as she assessed the damage. Red and white lights flashed in alarm around us, illuminating the bruises blotching Sam’s face.

I couldn’t let her get caught.

Sam was the only source of intel we had on the BioDrone Project. A high-ranking officer on the security force, she was our eyes and ears inside Romclov Laboratories; and recently, she had become my world.

“You have to go,” I said, biting back the pain. “Loop back so they don’t suspect you were in the area.”

She shook her head, still fussing over my twisted knee. “You can’t walk on your own. If I leave, you’ll be captured.” Her voice was even, calm, but I could sense the panic building at the edges.

“And if you’re caught, you’ll be killed.” I gripped her arm. “I have information; they’re not going to kill me. At least not right away. When I don’t show up to the rendezvous point, Magnus will know we’ve been compromised, he’ll figure out a way to get me out but he’ll need you.”

Shouts and the sound of running footsteps echoed in the sterile halls, stealing Sam’s attention.

“Look at me.” I touched my hand to her cheek, gently coaxing her gaze away from the approaching threat. “If you won’t leave, then you have to turn me in.”

Her jaw tensed as she thought over my words. “I can convince them that you’re an asset.” I nodded, glad that she understood. “But once you’re handed over, they’ll take you off site, I won’t be able to watch over you.”

I moved my hand to her waist. “I don’t need you to watch over me, I need you to stay alive.”

“I’ll call them over, tell them I found you here collapsed...” Sam started, but I shook my head, my hand moving to her hip.

“We have to make it convincing: you confronted me, we fought,” I slipped Sam’s Bowie knife from her belt and pressed the handle into her palm, pointing the blade to my abdomen, “and you took me down.”

“No.” The word was hard and final.

“Sam, you can’t see yourself,” I said, trying not to show my pain and urgency. Her lip was bleeding, a bruise coloring her cheek from our failed extraction. I slid my hand up slightly to encircle her wrist, and guided it, positioning the blade just below my rib cage, praying that it was close enough to midline to miss my lung. “They need to believe you took me down.”

I knew she was still trying to think up another way out of this situation, I also knew that there wasn’t one. We had messed up, miscalculated, and Magnus needed to know. We couldn’t leave him to speculate what had happened, Sam needed to report back to him. She knew that, which is why her hand didn’t shake when she gripped the knife more tightly.

She stared at me for a moment, then plunged the knife into my stomach.

The force stole my breath more than the pain. I gasped, my body convulsing slightly as Sam carefully pulled out her knife. She took my hand, placing it over the wound and applying pressure, before standing.

My vision blurred alarmingly fast. I blinked, trying to focus on her. She was shouting, calling for back up and someone from the med staff. More shadows appeared in the red and white strobes, swarming me. Their voices were muddled by the wailing alarm as if my head was submerged in water. But I could hear Sam, her commanding voice still shouting orders to have “the intruder” taken to the medical unit and patched up for questioning.

Hands gripped my arms, turned me, pushed my face to the floor. Wet heat spread along my midsection, making the floor slick. Someone was restraining me, though I thought that was unnecessary given my current state. My breathing was already growing shallower.

I strained my neck to look through the crowd of bodies but Sam was no longer among them.

‘Good,’ I thought as the world darkened around me. ‘Good.’