Sebastian nodded. “In a couple of weeks, you’ll be as good as new.”

Ellie felt as though she were stuck at the bottom of a deep well, Sebastian’s words somewhere miles above her. He gave me Pandora. Her mind seized on that fact, couldn’t accept it, and yet she knew she had to accept it, was struggling to accept it.

“You’ll experience all the other benefits as well,” Sebastian said. “Your skin will look tighter and fresher, and you’ll have firmer muscle tone. Not that you need any of those things.” He offered up a weak smile. “How old are you, again?”

“Twenty-six.” Ellie felt very, very still. The prized blood product that she had read about on dark web forums was now coursing through her veins, healing her body. It had been given to her without her permission, which, oddly, made her feel somehow violated, even though it had saved her life.

“Twenty-six,” Sebastian repeated softly. He stared at the wall behind her, lost in some private memory, his face drawn with grief. Right. He had seen Frank die.

And Sebastian had survived. That’s the important thing, Ellie thought as she snapped her attention back to the room, to the present. She went to work on her second croissant, thinking strategy. She had risked her life for him and saved him. Figure out a way to use that.

Ellie swallowed, then said, “Paul gave Anton these blood pills. I have one. It’s in my purse.”

“Why do you have it?”

She told Sebastian about her conversation in the car with Anton, how Anton wanted her to try the pills out with her boyfriend. She told him everything, Sebastian listening attentively, nodding, encouraging her to keep talking. She couldn’t get a read on him. It’s probably grief over Frank, she thought.

Sebastian turned back to her.

“How much do you remember?”

“You mean after we drove away from the house?” Ellie asked. She took another bite.

Sebastian nodded.

“I remember you on the phone, talking to someone about a checkpoint, making sure everything was ready. After that? Nothing.”

“You were bleeding pretty bad.”

“And you decided to save my life.”

“Not me. A doctor.”

“You always travel around with your own personal physician?”

“I keep her close by when I have to engage in certain . . . activities.”

“You mean torturing someone with a cordless drill. How’d that work out for you, by the way?”

Sebastian didn’t answer. Ellie held his eyes with her own, wondering where this sudden newfound confidence had come from. Then she remembered what she had read online from users who said Pandora made you feel on top of the world, invincible. Apparently, Pandora loosened one’s tongue, too, made one speak frankly and directly and truthfully, regardless of the consequences.

Ellie finished the last bite of her croissant. She wanted another one but thought it would be better to give the food a chance to settle, ride out the inevitable sugar rush and crash. “You could have let me die,” she said, reaching with her good arm for the coffee. “Why didn’t you?”