Nimec nodded thoughtfully.

“Waylon, you grab some men, take care of getting the guns remounted,” he said. Then he turned to Megan. “In the meantime we better see about getting those extra choppers from MacTown.”

Bull Pass

The cage door grated open, then shut with a dull clang.

Shevaun Bradley was startled. A while ago the echoing of the machines had stopped and left her in almost total silence. The sounds of the door seemed very loud against it.

Sitting on the cot that doubled as her chair and bed, her back against the wall of the enclosure, she lifted her eyes as the marked man came inside.

He was alone, unaccompanied by guards.

It was the first she had seen him since the time of the screaming in the black. The first instance in which he’d appeared without his guards.

He stepped over to the cot and stood watching her in silence.

She could see him easily now. The cage was no longer in darkness. Her conditions had improved after she’d talked to him, answered his questions. His men had returned to screw a bare lightbulb into an overhead socket and wheel in the cot. And the food had gotten better.

They hadn’t brought Scarborough back, though. She hadn’t heard anything from him.

Not since the time of those screams . . .

“You deceived me,” the marked man said at once.

She stared at him in tense silence, trying to pretend she didn’t know what he meant. Except she did, of course.

“It was an artful deception,” he said. “The dome’s outer cameras were precisely where you revealed they would be. But you neglected to mention the internal cameras.”

She felt her heart pound in her chest, but said nothing.

“It was what you call a lie of omission, nicht wahr?” he said. “Is that not true?”

Bradley said nothing.

The marked man came closer to her. His hand slowly lowering toward the pistol holstered at his waist, hovering inches above its grip.

“You were loyal to your own. You showed courage. But your guile killed four of my comrades,” he said. “Does the knowledge please you?”

She looked at him, but continued to say nothing.

“Does it please you?” he repeated with a vehemence that made her flinch.

“No,” she said, her voice trembling as she gave her answer. “I’m not happy that men died.”

The marked man scrutinized her features a moment, and then suddenly crouched in front of her.

His right hand still near his gun.

His face level with her face.

“I could kill you out of vengeance,” he said. “Without pity or moral constriction. Do you believe me?”

“I believe you.”

A pause.

He reached out his left hand, clamped her wrist in it, and forced her palm against the crescent birthmark on his cheek.

“Describe what you feel,” he said.

Her heart was knocking. “I don’t know—”

“Describe it to me,” he said.