Chicago General Hospital looked the same as it had two years ago, when Scarlett had visited her fence Jimmy after he got shot during a job gone wrong. Same sterile white halls, same smell of disinfectant and coffee, same tired-looking nurses walking around like they hadn't slept in days.
What was different was the woman standing at the information desk, arguing with the receptionist about visiting hours.
She had Scarlett's face.
Not similar features. Not a family resemblance. The exact same face, down to the small scar above her left eyebrow that Scarlett had gotten falling off her bike when she was seven. The woman was wearing scrubs like she worked there, and her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail that Scarlett had worn a hundred times.
It was like looking in a mirror, except the reflection was moving independently.
*Target identified: Victoria Blackwood. Blood Queen designation: Number Three. Status: Active. Threat level: Unknown.*
Scarlett walked closer, trying to hear what Victoria was saying to the receptionist. Her voice was different, though. A little deeper than Scarlett's, with an accent she couldn't place.
"I don't care what the computer says," Victoria was saying. "I've been working in the ICU for six months. My badge should get me into any patient room in this hospital."
"Ma'am, I understand your frustration, but the system shows your access was revoked three days ago. You'll need to speak with Human Resources about getting it reinstated."
Victoria slammed her hand down on the desk, and the receptionist jumped. "Three days ago, I was pulling a double shift saving lives. Now you're telling me I can't do my job because of some computer glitch?"
*Recommendation: Approach target cautiously. Unknown if she is aware of her Blood Queen status.*
Scarlett walked up to the information desk and stood next to Victoria. Up close, the resemblance was even more unsettling. They were the same height, same build, same everything. Except Victoria had a small tattoo behind her right ear that Scarlett had never seen before.
"Excuse me," Scarlett said to the receptionist. "I'm looking for Victoria Blackwood. I was told she works here."
Victoria turned to look at her, and Scarlett watched her face go through a series of expressions. Confusion, recognition, shock, and then something that looked almost like relief.
"Holy shit," Victoria said. "You're real."
"You know me?"
"I've been dreaming about you for two years. Every night, the same dream. A woman who looked exactly like me, lying in a warehouse with a bullet in her head." Victoria grabbed Scarlett's arm. "You're Scarlett, aren't you? Scarlett Blackwood?"
The receptionist was staring at both of them now, probably wondering if she was seeing double.
"We need to talk," Scarlett said. "Somewhere private."
Victoria nodded and led her away from the information desk, down a hallway toward the hospital cafeteria. They found a table in the corner, away from the other people eating lunch.
"I thought I was going crazy," Victoria said. "For two years, I've been having dreams about someone else's life. Someone else's death. I saw you get married. I saw you on jobs I never took. I saw Sarah shoot you." She leaned forward. "How are you alive?"
"I could ask you the same thing. I grew up in foster care after my parents died. I never had a sister."
"Neither did I. But three days ago, I started getting these messages in my head. This voice telling me I was something called a Blood Queen. That there were others like me." Victoria looked around the cafeteria to make sure no one was listening. "Do you have the system too?"
*Another Blood Queen confirmed. Initiating connection protocol.*
Suddenly, Scarlett could see two screens in her vision instead of one. The second screen showed information about Victoria.
NAME: Victoria Blackwood
STATUS: Active
LEVEL: 3
TARGETS ELIMINATED: 4
REVENGE PROGRESS: 23%
"Level three?" Scarlett said. "You've been doing this longer than me."
"I've been awake for six months. The system activated right after I died in a car accident. Brakes failed on my way home from work." Victoria's expression darkened. "Except it wasn't an accident. Someone cut the brake lines. I just haven't figured out who yet."
*Connection established. Information sharing enabled.*
New data started flowing across Scarlett's screen. Victoria had been working as a trauma nurse, but before that, she'd been a different kind of professional entirely. Military contractor. Private security. The same kind of work Scarlett had been doing, but on the opposite side of the law.
"You were working for the government," Scarlett said.
"Black ops stuff. Officially, I never existed. Unofficially, I was cleaning up messes that couldn't be handled through normal channels." Victoria leaned back in her chair. "What about you? The dreams showed me some of what you did, but I never understood exactly what your job was."
"I was an assassin. Private contracts, mostly organized crime stuff. Nothing political."
"Until the Montenegro job."
Scarlett nodded. "You saw that too?"
"I saw you walk into that warehouse expecting to find weapons and finding dead bodies instead. That's when someone decided you were a problem that needed to be solved." Victoria paused. "The system told me something interesting yesterday. Want to know what it was?"
*Warning: Information sharing may compromise mission security.*
"Tell me."
"We're not the only ones. There are twelve of us total, but most of the others are still dead. The system can only resurrect us under specific conditions." Victoria pulled out her phone and showed Scarlett a photo. "This was taken three days ago at a crime scene downtown."
The photo showed a warehouse that had been burned to the ground. In the foreground, there were three bodies that had been arranged in a very specific pattern.
"Those bodies," Victoria said, "were all people connected to the Montenegro job. Someone's been cleaning house, eliminating everyone who might have known what really happened there."
Scarlett studied the photo more carefully. She recognized one of the faces. Tommy Castellano, the arms dealer who was supposed to have been at that warehouse the night she walked into a trap.
"Who's killing them?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out. But here's the interesting part." Victoria swiped to the next photo. "The person who called in the fire wasn't a witness. It was another Blood Queen."
The second photo showed a woman walking away from the burning warehouse. She was too far away to see her face clearly, but her build and the way she moved looked familiar.
"Do you recognize her?" Victoria asked.
Scarlett looked more closely at the photo, and something cold settled in her stomach.
"Yeah," she said. "That's Sarah."