Blast. She exhaled, her eyes snapping closed. She didn’t think she could do this. It was simply too terrifying, too risky. She’d spent the last day reading through the Professor’s journal pages—pages that contained lurid, visceral details of all the ways that experimenting with exotic matter could go wrong.

Skin burning off her body and hands, and feet left numb and useless. Not to mention death . . .

The Professor had come dangerously close to these complications himself, and he’d been using medical illustrations to find the exact location of his aorta, he’d had a special gun that he’d built using schematics from one of the most brilliant scientific minds of all time, while she had dagger that hadn’t even been sterilized properly.

And he’d still missed the first time he’d attempted the injection. She didn’t stand a chance.

“Hiding, little Fox?” Mac’s voice traveled from the other side of the bathroom door, making Dorothy twitch. She was losing her edge. She hadn’t even heard him enter the room. Hands shaking, she quickly replaced the top of the container of EM and stored it, along with Roman’s dagger, in the space underneath the bathroom sink. Mac was going to search her, she knew, and hiding these things in his personal bathroom might keep them away from him for long enough to give her time to form a plan. She hoped.

She’d only just closed the cupboard when the bathroom door burst open and two black-clad Cirkus Freaks appeared. She lifted her eyes to the mirror and saw Donovan and Eliza standing behind her.

Her shoulders tensed. She hadn’t seen Donovan since the night he’d betrayed her. According to Mac, he’d done it for a peach, of all things. Dorothy still couldn’t decide whether she was horribly offended by this or if she merely pitied him. How sad must a person’s life be if they would betray someone for a piece of fruit?

She fought as they each grabbed one of her arms (more for show than anything else, she couldn’t have these two telling the others that the great Quinn Fox had come along easily) but they were two and armed, and she was only one. Before long, they’d managed to drag her back into the main penthouse and shove her to the floor.

Her knees and the palms of her hands scraped against the hard wood, roughly enough that she felt certain she’d have bruises in the morning. From her position, she could see only Mac’s boots, which were black and freshly polished. A distorted version of her own face reflected back from the leather.

She pulled her gaze away and, gingerly, pushed herself to her knees. Then, in the most pleasant voice she could manage, she said, “Mac, darling. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”