“Public executions have been popular all throughout human history, Agent Bowers. They’re still held in eight countries today. There’s nothing abnormal about wanting to watch others expire. It reminds us of our own mortality. Helps us treasure each precious moment that we have.”

As long as he’s talking, get as much out of him as you can.

“Have you had a tall Englishman down here? Dr. Werjonic?”

“You’re our first visitor tonight, I’m afraid.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have believed him, but I did.

“What do you know about the Selzucaine?”

“Sometimes people want something to take the edge off when faced with a stressful and irreversible decision. That’s all.”

By his tone, I could tell this guy treated death as trite, and that didn’t sit well with me. “I want to know about the man who was there when Jon Murray died.”

“Everything we do is confidential.”

“How much do I have to pay to be present when someone else dies?”

He was quiet.

I cursed. Couldn’t help it.

“The man on the roof,” I said. “The grandfather and the bleach. The mom who overdosed. Who was present when those people took their own lives?”

He shook his head. “This is a can of worms you do not want to open. You have no—”

Losing my temper, I grabbed him by the collar. “Who was there when they died?”

“Joe,” the woman who was seated in front of one of the computers blurted, “it’s happening. She’s going to do it.”

I looked at the screens throughout the room.

Every one of them contained the same image—Sasha MacIntyre, seated on a chair in a nondescript office. She had a plastic bag and a roll of duct tape in her hands.

I couldn’t imagine this ending well. “Shut it down.”

“We can’t.”

She’d tightened a zip-tie around her belt and then attached two more ties to it and threaded the free ends through the hole just far enough to get the loops started.

For her wrists. For when it happens. So she can’t stop it once it’s started.

“I said shut it down!”

“We have no way of contacting them.” Joe didn’t sound concerned for Sasha at all. “Look at the counter!” he exclaimed excitedly. “We’re up to almost four thousand viewers!”

++++

Sasha took a deep breath, then drew the plastic bag over her head.

Through the transparent plastic, the world became crinkled and blurred. Wrinkles of reality folding in around her.

Backup is coming.

She reassured herself that they were going to get there in time.

But even if they don’t, you can save Greer.

She kicked off her heels.

You might have to do this. You might actually have to go through with it.

++++

Behind me, I heard the noseless man exclaim, “Got another one back here.”