"She's been shot!" I exclaim, terror rising in my throat as I try to get her to stand, but her knees almost give out. Skye and Breanne quickly dismount with Phillip, who strides over to us and helps me get Dani to her feet.

"We'll take her inside and assess the damage," Phillip says. "Our doctor was one of the best here."

I let him lead the way, one of Dani's arms around my shoulder and her other one braced on Phillip's arm as we quickly walk her down a hall full of gawking Valkyrie. We're ushered into one of the hospital rooms where Phillip and I lay Dani down on the bed inside, but Dani refuses to lie still.

"Cass," she groans, her face twisting in pain as she attempts to sit up.

I press my hands on her back, careful of her injury as I try to get her to remain lying down. "Shhh, it's okay, they're gonna help you!"

Phillip orders Skye to find the doctor, and she quickly darts back into the hall.

"No," Dani mumbles, attempting to resist my restraints. "Please..."

"It's going to be okay," I soothe, firm as I keep her in bed.

"Who's this?" A stranger's voice calls from the door. "What happened here?"

"They're a couple of survivors we picked up," Phillip answers quickly. "This one was shot on the way in.

"I see," the stranger says. He's older than Phillip is, with his short white hair neatly kept and his clothes looking fresh and clean, almost as though he's just a normal doctor and there's no apocalypse going on outside. "Let me see what I can do, the rest of you will have to clear out and give me some space."

He manages to shoo away Breanne, and Phillip, but I stand my ground, and Skye remains in the doorway, waiting for me to leave too, and shooing away the other Valkyrie who are beginning to crowd the door and get a look at the chaos inside. "I'm not going anywhere," I tell him, my hand firmly on Dani's back.

He sighs, then quickly folds out a surgery kit from one of the cabinets, douses his hands in rubbing alcohol, slaps on gloves, and pulls out a large pair of scissors. "Very well, if you won't leave, then you're going to help. I'll need to cut away her shirt to examine the wound."

Dani nearly loses her mind at the statement, her body tensing as she attempts to turn over and sit up, to get away from the hands holding her down.

"Dani," I pleaded. "He needs to remove it so he can see how bad the damage is! It's going to be okay, I promise!"

"No... Cass..." Her voice is strained as she makes a weak attempt to wiggle out of my hands, and Skye bolts back inside to help me hold her down. The measure of guilt I feel in having to hold her down while she panics under my touch eats away at me, but I refuse to let go.

"Hold her down!" The doctor orders, grabbing something from a cabinet.

I force Dani back onto the bed with Skye's help, and Dani's face is pale, her eyes red as tears very quickly begin to streak her face. "Please... don't..."

"Dani, look at me!" I beg. "Please, I promise, it'll be okay! It'll be over before you know it!"

She's shaking her head as her body shivers, and I can feel her start to sweat. She gives a hard tug, her arm slipping from Skye's hold, but before she can take the chance to sit up, the doctor quickly injects something into her arm. Dani yelps at being stabbed and her movement quickly grows sluggish, the fight in her dying.

"Please..." Dani mutters as her body goes limp. "I'm sorry... Cass... I'm... sorry..." Her ragged breathing evens out, and her body is entirely limp now, though her expression is frozen with fear.

"Wha-what'd you inject her with?" I ask the doctor.

"Just a sedative," he says, adjusting his vest. "She'll wake in a few hours, but I need to get her on an IV and monitor her vitals. I hope she doesn't have any allergies to medications..."

I glance down at Dani, the pained look on her face as she passed out forever burned into my brain. I know she has an aversion to her shirt being removed in front of others, but I never imagined the extent of that fear until now. I begin to wonder what must have happened to her that made her react so violently to having to need her shirt removed as the doctor quickly cuts up the middle of her shirt and slowly peels it away from her. My thoughts come to a screaming halt, however, once the shirt is removed.

It's situated between her shoulder blades, under the straps of her sports bra, pale on her otherwise tanned skin, and as long as my forearm, just like it would be on anyone else. The doctor gets a severe look on his face as he wipes the blood away from the mark as if he wants to confirm that what he is seeing is true.

"Did you know about this?" His voice is dangerously calm, his eyes fixated on the mark.

My voice fails me, the only sound coming from me being a croak.

The only thing that forces me to look away from the mark branded into Dani's flesh is Skye's fist rocking the side of my face. She wastes no time pinning me to the wall, her forearm braced against my neck as I make a weak attempt to fend her off.

"You lied to us!" She roars, her weight forcing my throat closed.

"Didn't..." I try, gasping. "Didn't know..."

"Bullshit! You've been playing us this whole time, with your sob story of your group!"

"Didn't tell... me..!" I try to pry her off of me, attempting to wedge my hands between her and my throat while using the wall as an anchor, but my vision quickly fades as I helplessly claw at her arm.

"We should have killed you back at the outpost, you lying sack of shit!"

The weight of Skye's body is removed from my throat as Phillip and Breanne quickly come in and haul Skye off of me, and I collapse on the ground, gasping for air as Skye shouts profanities.

Even now, as I stare at Dani, I can't believe what I saw. I don't want to believe it, but the proof is there, branded into Dani's skin. Of course, she never wanted to take her shirt off when she got bit, it would have been there clear as day for the whole world to see.

No matter how much I want to rationalize it, to explain it away, the mark of the Widows burned into her skin won't disappear. Of course, that's how she knows Jessica so well. They were both with the Widows.

My heart sinks.

And so was Josh.

And Leon…

A pair of strong arms forcefully hauls me to my feet, and I'm quickly restrained. "You have a lot of explaining to do, Cassandra," Phillip growls as he all but drags me out of Dani's room. "And you better have a damn good explanation, too."