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“Does Holo know why we can’t read her yet?” Black asked.

“That’s what some of the tests are about. Hedidtell me he thinks you’re right… that she’s got some kind of implant. No clue if Rucker put it there, or if it’s something someone else did to keep her from running away, but I’d guess Rucker, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Black said, cold.

“Well, Holo took a bunch of brain scans, but he’s already told me there’s definitelysomethingthere. Whether or not he can remove it, he doesn’t know.”

Black grimaced. “Keep me updated on that. If I have to, I’ll push someone from Prometharis to do it.”

“Right. I’ll tell Holo that might be an option.” She hesitated. “It’s odd though, isn’t it? Even with the block on her light, there’ssomethingabout her. Isn’t there?”

Black felt his shoulders stiffen.

He opened his mouth, closed it.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, gruff. “But if you’re feeling things for her, doc, that’s pretty fucking understandable. All of us are feeling that, especially since––”

“No,” Miri cut in. “No, Black. I don’t mean only that. I was talking about something else. Something other than what Lucian did. There’s just…” She trailed, as if frustrated, like she was grasping for meaning. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. But I feel like it’s something more than just empathy or sympathy or grief. It’s something else.”

Black felt that hardness in his chest grow painful.

“Like what?” he asked. “I don’t understand, doc.”

“I’m not sure I do either,” she admitted with a sigh. “I wish I did.”

He could feel his own avoidance, his unwillingness to probe her.

“There’s justsomethingthere,” Miri said, trying again. “Something, I don’t know,familiarabout her… or resonant in some way. Like we’re all connected. You. Me. Nick… the girl. I can’t put my finger on what that connection is, and I can’t read Nick, but I know I’m not imagining this. Am I, Black?”

Black frowned, staring out over the tree-covered grounds, the distant iron gate. He thought about Nick ripping that door apart inside Rucker’s playroom.

He thought about the look on the vampire’s face.

Nick had been pale as chalk, eyes blood-red with the contacts gone after he’d taken them out for the girl. His fangs had been extended.

Yeah, he felt it.

For some reason, he didn’t want to.

Miri waited at his silence, maybe letting him think, or maybe waiting for him to speak.

When he finally did, he felt like a coward.

“How long will she be asleep?” he asked.

There was a pause. He felt it, the instant his wife decided to let it go.

“I don’t know,” Miri said. “A few hours?”

“And you plan to just keep her there?” Black asked. “In our apartment? Is that the plan for where she’ll be staying from now on?”

There was a silence.

“Where else do you suggest we put her, Black?” Miri asked, a touch more prickly. “Should we build a new cage for her inone of the empty offices? Something with comfier chairs and less rape?”

“Miriam––”

“This is where she wanted to come. We didn’t have anywhere else for her that would have been better. What do you suggest?”