Shea regards the woman sideways. “Are you with the watch?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you don’t look like a soldier.”
Eyes narrowing, the woman sits forward. “Why don’t you let me ask the questions, and you just focus on getting better?”
“Why?” asks Shea. “So I can help you kill him?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“No, thank you.”
The woman’s smile flickers. She taps her fingers together in a loose steeple. “The pattern of the bites on your wrist seem to denote a parasitic symbiotic relationship with Keeling, while the bite at your throat is analogous with an attack. Now, our team doesn’t have access to what transpired inside St. Mary’s Church, but we can guess. He’s dangerous. And I think you know it.”
“What about Asher?”
The woman’s mouth tightens. “Asher Thorley is not our concern.”
“Well, he’s mine,” says Shea.
“Ms. Parker—”
“You said if I want something, to ask for it. This is me asking. I want Asher.”
“He’s not on the table.”
“Then neither am I.” Shea pushes the poster toward her. “I’d like to see my friends.”
There’s a knock at the door, soft. The woman’s eye twitches.
“Excuse me a moment.”
Her chair scrapes back and she crosses the classroom, heels clicking across the linoleum. Shutting her eyes, Shea tips back in her chair and waits as the woman speaks with someone out in the hall. She can’t make out what it is they’re saying, but she can hear the tension in it. Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem friendly. Cracking one eye open, she peers over at the door. A boy stands there, startlingly familiar.
His name skids into her in a burst of awareness. Max Hansen.
His chestnut curls have been combed flat and his sunglasses are gone, but there’s no mistaking his face—it’s the same boy who gave her a ride to the revel. She feels a tiny stab of treason as his eyes flick to hers. If he’s surprised to see her, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he flashes her a smile, small and secretive, and ducks out of the room without a word. The door shuts. The woman returns, looking harried.
“I’m being called into a meeting,” she says, gathering up her papers. “We’ll continue this later.”
When she’s gone, a pair of unsmiling rangers escort Shea back to the infirmary where she’s been kept in recovery. It’s a glorified nurse’s room, cots thin and blankets thinner, posters about sexual health plastered across the concrete walls. The windows have been slung with blankets, stifling the sun. Poppy sits at a cluttered desk, rifling through an old medical textbook. On the cot farthest from the light sits Camellia, her knees hugged to her chest and Poppy’s scarf looped thrice around her throat. She doesn’t look up when Shea enters.
“Are you okay?” asks Poppy, the moment the door is shut.
“I’m fine,” says Shea, though she feels anything but. “Has she said anything yet?”
Poppy glances at Camellia. “No.”
“Has she fed?”
Poppy shakes her head.
“She can’t starve forever. She’ll come around.”
“Maybe.” The hollows of Poppy’s eyes are pronounced, dark with bruises. She hasn’t slept in days. Neither of them has. “What did she want? That woman?”
“She wants Lys.”
