“So well,” the girls harmonized, from her right and left. And she felt the truth of it from them, how they loved this life and all that came with it…

Slaves. Not her. Never again.

“No,” Sam said louder. “No deal.”

Lo Prang leaned forward, put his elbows on the desk, folded his fingers together. “There’s another way, then.”

“Tell me,” Sam said, her stomach turning as the girls continued to caress her.

“Your genes, Sunee.” Lo Prang’s eyes burrowed into hers. “Muscle biopsies. Bone biopsies. Tissue samples. I want what makes you you.”

Sam closed her eyes. She’d feared it would come to this. She could trade the most valuable thing about herself, in exchange for a chance to get back the most precious. But if she did... She’d be selling out others, signing death sentences for people she didn’t know.

“No,” she said, eyes closed.

And she knew what came next.

“Then we’ll just take it,” Lo Prang said.

She heard the snick as the girls’ fake nails extended into two-inch-long finger blades. One set raked across her back, leaving painful bloody furrows through her blouse. But by then she was dropping, one leg extended, then coming around in a blurringly fast straight-leg spin that swept the girl on her left from her feet.

Chaos exploded through the minds in the room. She saw Lo Prang reaching for the pistol on his desk, his two bodyguards reaching into their jackets for their guns.

Sam rolled away from the other razor-fingered girl, came up with a high-heeled shoe in each hand, her thumbs toggling the hidden switches as she rose. The guards had their submachine guns out, were raising them, bringing them to bear…

She spun, loosed the heels up and towards the sides of the room, felt her left shoulder groan as she did, closed her eyes tight, and let her momentum carry her back down into a right-shoulder roll towards the relative safety of the desk. More pain jolted up from her abused shoulder. Automatic gunfire exploded through the room.

Then she heard the crackle, saw her world turn red even through closed eyes, as the flash charges in her heels went off at maximum intensity, discharging all the energy of their fuel cells in an instant, burning out all their LEDs in the process. She heard a man yell as she came up and around the desk, opening her eyes to take in the scene. The guards had their hands to their faces, blinded for a few critical seconds, waving their guns around, but no longer daring to let loose without their sight. Lo Prang was in front of her, his pistol on her, she couldn’t tell if he was blinded or not.