I sit up, managing to unplug myself. Again, it looks as though Nazarin turned it off for me a few hours ago, so I could have at least some proper sleep. It’s, as ever, not enough.

It’s another day of training. Of fighting Nazarin, a quick pause to eat, and then training some more. My muscle mods have responded well to the extra stimuli, and already I can feel that I’m the fastest and strongest I’ve ever been. After another shower and a giant meal to replenish my energy reserves, I ask Nazarin what we’ll be doing today. I crunched the numbers. Tila was arrested Thursday, I agreed to go undercover on Friday, I told the Ratel I’d be missing two shifts on Saturday and I went to Zenith on Sunday. Tila’s shifts are Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for two weeks, and then Mondays and Wednesdays the next two. She went to her last Thursday shift before she went to Zenith and everything went to shit. My next shift is next Monday. One week until I’ll have to go in as my sister. It doesn’t feel like anywhere near enough time, despite how much information I’ve had crammed into my brain already.

“Today I’m to show you the crime scene,” Nazarin says.

That brings me up short. “What?”

“Forensics have finished with it, along with the autopsy. I had them make a re-creation holograph here. We can view it upstairs.”

My eyes rise to the ceiling of their own volition. “Now?”

“Now. If you’re ready.”

I feel like he’s testing me. “All right.”

He starts up the stairs and I follow hesitantly. The old wood creaks beneath my feet. At the top, he turns to the right and opens the first door.

“Wait,” I say. I suppose I’m not ready. I need a moment. I’m about to see a re-creation of a gruesome crime scene. One that my sister might have created. I’ve never seen large amounts of blood before. “Will it look … real?”

“At first glance, it’ll look exactly like the crime scene, down to every last angle and splash, but remember: it’s not. It’s only a hologram.”

A flash of Tila gripping my shirt. Not my blood. I rub a hand over my new face, composing myself. “Right. OK.” I push open the door and step inside, Nazarin following me.

A transparent plastic bubble lies over most of the open floor, mirroring the one that would have been put over the real scene as soon as the authorities arrived, and just after Tila had apparently fled the scene. A huge bloodstain lies within, wet and glistening, as if it’s just been spilled.

I fight down my gag reflex. It is so much blood.