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I took that deep breath and stepped tentatively into room 4007

Josh's eyes instantly ht out ofof the heartlines on the screen, the dripping IV But for a moment, just one uish, the longing, the fear Everything I felt was right there in his eyes He knew He understood But then he broke eye contact, and I dropped back to reality

Reality, where Ivy Slade lay on a hospital bed, unconscious and pale, her eyelids appearing purple under the fluorescent lights Tubes and wires and sensors were stuck to her temples and wrists, and her black hair was shoved back from her face in a haphazard, un-parted way that she would have loathed if she could have seen it The white hospital sheets were tightly tucked in all around her, giving her the look of a half-wrappedher hand Her delicate, seely lifeless hand My throat went completely dry

Why hadn't she stayed outside like the police had told her to do? Why had she run back into the solarium? In all the panic, I hadn't even realized that she had come up behind me She didn't have to be

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there Didn't have to come with , but she obviously orried aboutthe express train to confrontation with a homicidal maniac

It was my fault that she was here All my fault

"Is she going to be okay?" I whispered

Please say yes Please, please say yes I wasn't sure I could handle another death Another funeral Another good-bye I wasn't sure if any of us could handle it

"They think so," Josh replied He looked hopefully over at her "The bullet went through her upper shoulder and justIf it had been half an inch lowerShe lost a lot of blood, though, which is why she's unconscious right now But yeah, they expect her to make a full recovery"

My eyes ht was lifted fro to be okay Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ivy and I had just started to becoured out that it was Sabine as after me That Sabine was the person who had killed Cheyenne Martin and had tried to make me believe it was my fault

If it weren't for Ivy, I one to Kiran's party with Sabine and ended up shot dead in an alley in Boston soirl's plan had been? It see as it had ended with me dead, Sabine would have deemed it a success

Josh placed Ivy's hand on the bed next to her hip and slowly got up to usher me out the door As we left the room, I turned to him,

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