“Close enough.” She attacked the hot fudge as if it were Crow. “Mmm. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“You surprise me, Lucy.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“You’re curiously unmoved by your mentor’s death.”

That was just like him, Lucy thought. Anyone else would say, You seem curiously unmoved, for how could they really know? Preach did know.

“He’s wasn’t my mentor—jailor, more like it.”

“Tell me.”

“He put me in his debt; he used me to get to my uncle Felix.”

“Why would he do that?” Preach seemed genuinely interested.

“He wanted to use Felix—for something, I don’t know what. I saw him inject something into Felix’s neck, then bundle him into an ambulance.”

Preach considered a moment. “He was using your uncle as a guinea pig in the wild.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The test subjects that have come here—that you’ve been … processing.”

“What about them?” Lucy didn’t bother to ask how he knew these things because she knew: Crow.

“They were in the same program your uncle is in.”

Lucy’s heart thumped painfully in her chest. “You mean he’s dead?”

Preach shook his head. “He’s not dead. In fact, he’s close by.”

“Why did St. Vincent—”

“Luther was running ahead of everyone else,” Preach said. “As usual.”

“Is Felix safe?”

“As safe as anyone can be in this life.”

She nodded, seeming to liquefy with relief. She could tell he wasn’t lying.

He studied her for a moment, leaned in. “Tell me something. Why did you run?”

Lucy just managed to stop a spit-take. “Make a guess.”

“Didn’t I treat you well?”

“Is that a joke?” She put her spoon down, her hands balled into fists. “In what universe does raping me repeatedly fall into the category of treating me well?”

“I never raped you, Lucy.”

“What was it then—” she snorted, “consensual sex?”

“I believe it was, yes.”

“Wow, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Go peddle that shit to your zonked-out followers, not here. I know what you did to me. It was my body you violated, over and over.”

“But you liked it.”

She reared back. “What the fuck?”

“I know you liked it, Lucy. Your body told me. I’m attuned to such things.”

“You’re attuned to getting what you want.” She did not bother to keep the disgust out of her voice.

“That’s neither here nor there,” he said. “You wanted what I gave you.”

“Now I know for sure you’re nuts.”

“You wanted power where you had none. You could feel it flowing into you with every thrust. You could feel the power over life and death spurt into you.”

“Completely bat-shit crazy.”

“You love the power I gave you—a power you never could have had, the power you longed for. It was why you ran away from home.”

“I ran away because I was abused.”