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“You know the faction did this to you, right?”

“Who cares? They’re being dealt with right now.”

“You mean what’s on the news? The faction’s pretty big. I wouldn’t count on them catching everyone, at least not tonight. But there’s something more important you ought to be thinking about.”

“What’s that?” Barron says.

“How did the faction get to you? I mean, you’re part of the team working with the rebel angels. You’re a Mafia made man. And yet, somehow they got to you. How do you think that happened?”

“What makes you think the faction did this to me? You have no proof.”

“Sure I do. It’s a kill list. A friend translated it for me. All of your dead Wormwood friends are there, and in order. Pieter Holden, Megan Bradbury, Franz Landschoff, Jared Glanton. I guess they didn’t rate the immortality serum, did they? Just you and Eva and who else? That’s the funny thing about immortality, though. Being alive doesn’t necessarily mean walking around eating tamales. How does spending eternity in a coma sound? It’s still immortality, but probably not the kind you were hoping for.”

Barron looks at me.

“Do you have the list?”

“In English? Just the interesting parts.”

I hand him the piece of paper. He looks it over.

He says, “Do you know anything about this, Eva?”

Sandoval looks at me like she wishes her eyes were jackhammers and I was a chocolate Easter bunny.

“Let me see it,” she says.

She reads it over. Wads up the paper and throws it on the floor.

“It’s a list of names. He probably made it up himself. Nothing that comes out of this animal’s mouth is the truth.”

“That girl’s name,” says Barron. “Alessa Graves. How would he possibly know about her? We were looking at her father ourselves. And there was an incident outside of the store where she works.”

“He could have added her name because he knew about her father. He could have staged the incident himself.”

I go and stand next to Barron.

I tell him, “She’s never going to give anything up. Any questions you have, she’ll have a quick answer. Eva worked this all out ahead of time. When she decided to feed some of you to the faction and run Wormwood herself.”

Barron gives me a dirty look, but when he turns to Sandoval his hands flex nervously.

It should be noted that everything I’m saying is absolute bullshit. I’m completely winging it. I don’t know who poisoned Barron or why. But I know these Wormwood pricks are paranoid, which makes them easy to fuck with.

“Hey, Barron. When’s the last time you checked your pills? I hate to think that someone might be keeping you sick on purpose.”

“Eva …,” he starts.

“Stop listening to this idiot,” shouts Sandoval. “You’re ill and he’s manipulating you.”

“But how did the faction get to so many of our people?”

“You know as well as I do that they got some of their spies among us.”

“And who let that happen?” I say.

Sandoval looks at me.

“I was stabbed, for Heaven’s sake,” Eva says.