My eyes widen in something close to horror. “Holy shit,” I breathe. “Did you bring me in here to kill her?”
Warner looks instantly disgusted. “Ten years of living with me—learning from me—and you still resort to profanity. I blame Kent. He raised you to think it was okay to speak like a criminal.”
“And Kenji,” I point out. “Kenji inspires me on the daily.”
Warner’s jaw tightens. “You don’t have to kill her today,” he says, answering my question. “Today, I want you to go in there and talk to her. I’d like to observe your interactions.”
“Um.” I laugh, but it comes out strangled. “Why?”
“They’re using you, James,” he says, turning fully to face me. “They’ve already used you. She’s already manipulated you so seamlessly you can’t see the strings. You were naive enough to bring her here, and now we have to manage the situation. Rewrite the rules in our favor.”
“You really think it’s that bad?”
“Yes.”
I blow out a breath. “Okay. So you don’t want me to interrogate her? You just want me totalkto her?”
“She’s expecting an interrogation,” says Warner. “She’s expecting to be handled like a criminal, to be on the defensive.” He begins to pace slowly. “If she’s a mercenary of The Reestablishment, her threshold for suffering will be high. She’s likely been subjected to unspeakable cruelties, the likes of which we’d never implement in our own procedures. Whatever hardship she faces in our custody will be nothing to her. Easy, even.
“What she’s not expecting,” he says, absently spinning his wedding ring around his finger, “is to be treated with any kind of kindness. She’s not expecting anyone to look after her well-being. She’s not expecting to be treated with humanity.”
“Humanity?” I say with a smile. “You sound like Juliette right now.”
He stops to look through the window. “I know you meant that as an insult, so consider yourself lucky I like you enough not to murder you for disrespecting my wife.”
This makes me laugh out loud.
Warner holds my gaze a beat, his eyes light with muted humor. Sometimes I think Warner secretly loves having me around, because even though I probably annoy the shit out of him, I’m the only one who isn’t afraid of him. No matter what he says, I know he’d never hurt me. He’s my big brother, and I genuinely love the guy.
Warner’s face changes as I have this thought, emotion flickering across his features before he turns away.
“I often try to think the way Juliette does,” he says quietly. “She has a more thoughtful, holistic perspective on the world than I do.And right now, I’m weighing my options. We cannot proceed without a clearly defined plan. And before I decide on the best course of action, I’d like to know what kind of leverage you have over her.”
“What makes you think I have any leverage over her?”
“Because she’s been saying your name in her dreams.” A shock of pleasure moves through me. Automatic endorphin rush. “What? Really?”
“No.”
“Wow, okay, fuck you.”
Warner actually smiles.
It’s one of his rare grins, dimples appearing and disappearing just to mess with your head. He goes from murderer to boy next door to murderer in two seconds flat. “Look how disappointed you are,” he says softly. “How delighted you were when you thought a minion of The Reestablishment, sent here to kill you and your entire family, was having inappropriate dreams about you.”
“You know,” I say, crossing my arms, “I really,reallyhate that you can sense other people’s emotions.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for yourself.” Warner’s expression cools. “Imagine managing the unceasing psychic deluge of every person I encounter. You have no idea the emotional excrement I have to sift through every day. Sometimes I can’t hear myself think.” He turns away. “Living with you while you were going through puberty, for example, was a unique kind of hell. Sometimes I think you’re still going through puberty.”
I scowl. “I don’t like hearing you say the wordpuberty. In fact, I don’t think I need to hear you say that word ever again—”
Warner holds up a hand to silence me just as Rosabelle’s eyelids flutter.
Her hands twitch.
She blinks her eyes open slowly, studying the room in a squint. I watch as she sorts through disorientation, nearly sitting up in a sudden flare of panic. She appears to sort things out in phases, eventually coming back to herself, settling into her new surroundings. Then she turns her head, still blinking softly, and looks directly at me.
I stiffen.
