“What do you have there?” he asked with mild interest. Was he one of Liberty’s guards?

“Laundry.” I looked back at the room I just came from with the big “Laundry Room” sign over the door.

“Oh, yeah.” He waved me on.

I was grateful he didn’t ask me where I was going. There was no reason to take a laundry cart down this hall.

I continued on, rounding a corner, which took me out of view of the guard. Thankfully there were no more guards to be seen. Almost everyone in the Pit would be in the common rooms having dinner, so it was the time of evening the guards took a break, which was lucky for me.

I pulled open the door to the mineshaft and held it with my hip as I pushed the cart through. I gently closed the door behind me, trying not to make any noise, and stood for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Once I was able to see the edge clearly, I wheeled the cart closer. I thought about sending the whole thing over, but realized that would be a mistake. I might have a chance of getting away with this if I made it look like Madi had fallen down the shaft.

I dug all the clothes out of the cart and piled them by the door. Then I turned the cart on its side and tipped it until I felt the body slide out. It was difficult work. Madi was a large person. The drop to the bottom was just slightly over two miles so it took nearly a minute before I heard a distant thud. I put the clothes back in the cart and left the shaft.

The same guard was standing there when I returned. He gave me a questioning look when he saw I still had the cart full of clothes.

“I took the wrong cart,” I said.

Di was almost finished with the ironing when I got back. She was obviously experienced at it because she was a lot faster than either Crystal or me. I started loading a cart with the freshly laundered clothes.

“No problems?” Di asked.

“There’s a guard outside. You might want to mumble something about doing it yourself if you want it done right.”

Di finished the last shirt and put it on top of the pile.

“Don’t come back here when you’re finished. If anyone asks why you’re bringing the laundry, you just say we’re short staffed after hours and you worked late to help out. I’m going to leave and not come back until tomorrow morning. In the morning, we’ll all just stand outside waiting for Madi like we always do. Okay?”

“Got it,” Di said. She sucked in a deep breath, scanned out and wheeled the cart through the doors.

I tidied up the mess Madi and I had made when we were fighting and scanned out, too. I made my way to the fourth-level common room, which was thankfully in the opposite direction of the guard I had passed earlier. There was another guard standing by the door outside of the common room.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he said as he opened the door. I didn’t think I was ever going to get used to being treated that way. I thanked him awkwardly and walked through the door.

The training session was already in full swing. Three guards stood with their rifles gripped in their hands while people lined up to take their turn disarming them. I noticed with disappointment that there weren’t as many people as the night before. Jack was correcting someone when he looked up and saw me come into the room. He shot me a questioning look, but I had no answer for him. He went back to his task, and I took the opportunity to sit down. I think it was the first time I rested all day.

The shock of what I had just done was starting to set in. My hands were beginning to shake, so I tucked them under my legs to try and still them. Then my legs started shaking. Emotionally, I didn’t really feel anything at all, so I was angry that my body would betray me like that. Jack motioned for me to come over and help. Would my legs support me? I wasn’t sure. I shook my head. Jack would have to do this on his own.

The training session seemed to take forever, but finally Jack said it was time to wrap up. Everyone thanked him and filed out of the room. I stood up to leave, although I still wasn’t sure my legs would work. I took a few steps, ignoring the weakness in my knees.

“Where were you?” Jack asked in a low voice. “I’ve been going out of my mind! I sent a guard to look for you.”

“Was that an Alliance guard outside of the laundry room?”

“Is that where you’ve been? Working late? Was Madi on you again?”

“Can we talk about this at home?” My lack of sleep last night and current trauma of having just killed someone was starting to crash in on me.

Jack put his hand at the small of my back and steered me toward the door. “You’re shaking.” He gave me a sidelong glance, but didn’t ask any more questions until we were safely inside our apartment.

“What happened?” he asked as soon as he shut the door.

I sat down heavily in the chair. “I killed her.” There was no sense keeping it from Jack. He just stood staring at me, not saying a word. Maybe he didn’t hear me. “I killed Madi.”

“You mean you killed her for real? She’s dead?” I could tell by his shocked expression that he didn’t believe me.

“I didn’t mean to kill her. She was beating Crystal, and I knew she was going to kill her… and I just snapped. I went after her, and we got into a fight. She had me pinned on the floor at one point, but as soon as she let go of my arms, I punched her. I got her here.” I pointed to the base of my neck.

“You throat punched her? Didn’t you know you could kill someone that way?”

“Well, I do now!”

He gave me an apologetic look and sat down in the chair across from me. “What did you do with the body?” he asked. I could almost see his mind trying to work out a plan to cover it up.

“I put her in a laundry cart, wheeled her to the mineshaft, and threw her body down the shaft. There was one guard who saw me with the cart. I’m hoping he was the one you sent to look for me.”

“He didn’t see the body, though?”

“No. She was covered up with dirty clothes.”

“What about any mess in the laundry room? Any blood?”

“No blood, and I picked up anything we knocked over during our fight.”

“I’m impressed, Sunny. It sounds like you covered your tracks well.”

“I feel like I just made a mess of everything. My life was already complicated enough without adding murder to the list.”

“Defending yourself against a crazy person isn’t murder. It’s self-defense.”

The lights went out and left us in darkness. I was exhausted, but I didn’t want to go to sleep. My numbed brain was still processing the events of the evening. Jack stood up and held his hand out to me. I knew he couldn’t find his way to the bedroom in the dark, so I took his hand and led him there. He crawled onto the bed, and I took the heavy vest off before I laid down myself. He surprised me when he pulled me into the crook of his arm. I pulled back, but he firmly put my head on his shoulder.

“I’m not looking for anything, Sunny. I just think we could both use the human contact tonight. And besides, we both know you’re going to be all over me again as soon as you fall asleep.” He laughed softly.

I couldn’t help but laugh, too. He was probably right. And after the day I’d had, it did feel good to be pressed against the length of him and feel his arms holding me.

“There weren’t as many people there tonight,” I said.

“Some left when they saw you weren’t there. I almost cancelled the whole thing to go look for you myself. But I knew if I did that I would never get the few back that were interested in being there. You don’t know how worried I was.” His arm tightened around me, hugging me closer.

“Did you think Holt caught me?”

“That was one scenario I imagined. I also thought maybe you suffered heat stroke and died. Or your supervisor was beating you to within an inch of your life. I can honestly say it never crossed my mind you killed her and dumped her body.” He started shaking with laughter