“So, Dr. Hill?”
“What about him?” I stared at the cold, rough sidewalk as we stepped onto it, headed down a curving path toward the isolated building where my cell was.
“Will he survive?”
“Rommily says he won’t.” I shrugged. “They don’t typically give me updates on those who draw thefuriae’s wrath, but I’m guessing it won’t do them any good to stuff his guts back in and sew him shut unless they figure out how to stop him from slicing himself open again.”
Pagano seemed to think about that in silence until we got to my building. “How does it work?” he asked as he pulled the door open. “I mean how do you decide who...deserves it?”
“I don’t.” I stood still while he programmed my collar to stop me from leaving the building. “No knife chooses its own target.”
“You’re saying someone else is wielding you?”
“Somethingelse. Something bigger. Something wiser.”
“So...how can I stay on the good side of this something bigger?”
I stopped to look up at him as he led me down the hall toward my cell. “If you keep working here, you can’t. Eventually Vandekamp will ask you to do something horrible. If you do it, thefuriaewill come for you. If you don’t, you’ll lose your job.”
He opened his mouth, and I could see the protest coming.
Instead of listening to how unfair a choice that was, I walked down the hall and into my cell, leaving him staring after me.
A second later, the light over the door flashed red.
* * *
I sat with my back to the window, watching the square of fading daylight shift across the floor with the sun’s slow descent. Trying not to obsess over answers I didn’t have. Footsteps clomped in the hall, and my cell door opened. Gallagher stepped inside, wearing only a pair of threadbare pants and his traditional red cap. Behind him, Pagano was already programming his collar to lock him in my cell.
The door closed, and Gallagher studied my face. “They said you asked for me. Why would they oblige?”
“I have something they want.” That wouldn’t buy me endless requests, but it would apparently get me this one, at least.
“What’s wrong?” Gallagher tried to pull me into a hug, but I backed away from him. I didn’t know how to be touched by him anymore.
Hurt flitted across his normally unreadable features.
“Sit down.” I glanced at the stack of mats, my only furnishing, other than the toilet. “Please.”
“You remember.” The pain in his voice seemed to bring the earth to a grinding halt beneath us. As hard as this was for me, it was hard for him too.
“No. But I’ve heard.”
“That’s worse,” he growled. “I’m so sorry. It was difficult enough the first time around, but to have to hear about it...” His brow furrowed and his fists clenched. “Who told you?”
“The Vandekamps.”
“So, they know about your memory?”
I nodded. “So does Pagano.”
“Did you figure out what happened? How you lost the memories?”
Another nod. I sank onto the mats with my back against the wall, but still he stood. “Gallagher, I need to know what happened that night.”
“You’re better off without the memory.”
“That’s not your choice to make.” He flinched, and I exhaled slowly. “I know you were trying to protect me. I know you wouldn’t have... Unless the alternative would have been worse. For me.”
