Off to my right is movement. There they are. I push the hollow of my throat three times. The headache returns, worse than it was at the Verve lounge. I nearly throw up the scant meal I had a few hours earlier. I bend over, breathing hard, before I peer out around the crate. It’s a man, tall and muscle-bound, patrolling the perimeter. There’s Nazarin, standing next to other muscle-bound men. Waiting. The men begin to patrol. I press myself into the shadows.

I can see Ensi’s profile, his hair in disarray from the wind. He’s standing with just one or two other people. The lights of the ships pulse overhead as they slip into the Ferry Building. Ensi’s body language is impatient.

There it is.

A ship that looks almost identical to the supply ships that came once a month to Mana’s Hearth drops down, its engines flaring. The light illuminates Ensi’s face in the green fog. He’s smiling to himself.

I’m so focused on him that I don’t notice that a bodyguard by Ensi’s side has gone missing.

By the time I feel the prick of the needle in my neck, it’s too late.

All grows dark.

26. Taema

TWENTY-SIX

TAEMA

I wake up groggy and hurting. I’m strapped into a Chair, like the ones I’ve seen in the Ratel warehouse the last few days, unable to move.

Nazarin is in another Chair next to me, but he’s still out cold.

Unlike the bulky Chairs of the safe house and Zeal and Verve lounges, these have no wires. There are only little electrodes resting against my skin, like during the Test. The Chair is little more than a prop and a way to restrain me.

Ensi sits across from me, legs crossed, eyes staring into the distance as he reads something on his feed. When he sees me move my head, he gives me his full attention.

His face is smooth as still water, his gaze frigid. As if he’s never met me before, never danced with me, never unzipped that catsuit. I’m intensely grateful I didn’t end up needing to sleep with him, so there is not that extra layer of guilt and betrayal.

“Good evening,” Ensi says, as if we’re sitting across from each other at a dinner party. His mannerisms are similar to Malka’s. Unfailingly polite, even as they’re about to commit cold-blooded murder.

I say nothing.

“You and your sister are cute, you know that?” he says. “Thinking you’re so clever, sniffing around my business. That I wouldn’t know exactly what you’re doing at all times. You really think that notebook was left in my pocket by chance? Silly, silly girl.”