We are already moving.
Chapter two
Jen
Beyond the north door, power is out in sections and the alarm throws everything red and then black and then red again. Thaw moves through it like he has a map behind his eyes.
Maybe he does. He worked for them once. Before.
I do not ask. I keep my fingers fisted in the back of his waistband and my feet moving.
I am supposed to keep my eyes down.
I look at things anyway.
We come through a set of double doors and the walls change — concrete to drywall, the floor going from raw slab to something sealed and pale.
Then the smell hits.
Rubbing alcohol. Laundered fabric. That cold, clean nothing-smell that means scent has been scrubbed out on purpose.
The medical section.
Crull's hand settles at the base of my spine. I keep moving.
We pass an open door and I catch a glimpse before I can stop myself.
An exam room. Not mine — there were others, of course there were others. But here is the proof of it, lit in red strobe: a table like the one they put me on, vinyl, paper-draped, the straps hanging off the vertical supports. And past it a second table. And the second table is bigger. Longer. The straps on it are wider and set farther apart, sized for a body with the proportions of the men around me, and the sight of it puts a cold straight line down through the center of me.
They have a table built for Crull.
For Thaw. For all of them. For whatever comes next when the breeding line gives them something new to strap down.
Don't look at anything, Thaw said.
Now I understand it was not about my safety. It was about this. He has walked this corridor before restrained, or escorting, or worse and he knew what was hanging on the walls of it and he did not want me to have to carry it out.
Too late.
We keep moving.
Then something shifts.
The bonds stop feeling separate.
Thaw ahead of me.
Crull behind me.
Harek at my side.
The twins at both ends of the formation.
For the last few weeks I have felt them one at a time.
Now they hit all at once. Focus. Protection. Warmth.
The two new raw threads pulling from opposite directions.
