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When he doesn’t say more, she slaps the side of her thigh with her palm. “That’s it?” She shakes her head. “For someone who claims to be my savior, you weaponize your fake incompetence. That’s all you’re going to say?”

Whatever is happening leaves me feeling embarrassed. It feels personal. I turn my back to give them privacy, pretending to study the staff bulletin board. We are far enough away from the nurses’ station that no one has noticed them yet, but with Bouncer’s voice swinging toward hysteria, it won’t be long.

“You said we’d talk about—”

He cuts her off. “Caroline, you need to go home. You’re not yourself.”

When I look back, he’s leading her away, his arm around her shoulders.

Her response is muffled, but I hear the sniffling of tears. They’ve disappeared toward the bridge, where I assume he’s sending her to bed or to home. When I blink, he’s walking back toward me, impressively bored.

“You’re with me today, by the way. We’re conferencing.”

It takes me a few seconds to catch up, and then my eyes get big.

“With D?” I’m trying not to freak out. The big D—the only D I am interested in. This is happening faster than I thought. I didn’t have access to the lab yet, and—

“No. Not today.”

I have to work at keeping the disappointment off my face.

“Oh?”

He grins. “I think you’ll learn a lot from this patient, he’s a very interesting man. Marshal. He spent ten years in D.” For a moment I don’t think I’ve heard him correctly.

“Marshal Day Monterey?”

“Yep, that’s him…”

Marshal Day Monterey. It rolls right off the tongue. I’ve seen his photo online: vacant eyes, reddish-brown hair that melts over his head like a dead animal.

Dr. Grayson stops at the care station before I can ask questions. “Janiss, tell the other nurses to make sure to keep the art room locked. Someone’s been eating the paint again…”

“Oh no, I’m so sorry. I told him not to—I can’t believe—”

Her voice cuts off when she spots me.

“That sweater is not part of the uniform,” she says, tartly. “You have to wear white or cream.”

I look down at my cardigan, which is admittedly yellow.

“Noted,” I say. She raises her eyebrows before resuming her typing. He leads me toward D, walking briskly while pulling his key card from inside his collar.

“I have questions,” I say.

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, a little smile on his lips.

“Shoot.”

“Was it the painter who ate the paint—bunny-wolf guy?”

“Yep, he’s had to have his stomach pumped before. Luckily this time he only managed to eat a quarter tube of white paint before someone caught him.”

“My next question is… Marshal. He’s not…in D anymore?”

“You know about him?”

I nod.