“You think the medicines will be on your side? Our blood isn’t like Tylenol, asshole. It’s not gonna help you and your sick concubines. You’re done for. Sooner or later, you’re all done for!” He slammed the door on his way out, but Rose’s laughter followed him down the hall.

So he started sending Nam to do his dirty work. Rose preferred it this way. Sure, it hurt to have someone you considered decent slowly killing you, but at least she could talk to Nam. Every day, she tried to get more information about the house and the inhabitants and made desperate attempts to get them on her side. And Nam seemed to like being with her, taking their time to do the extraction, then hanging around after, fiddling with the vials and the sheets—any excuse to stay a bit longer.

“We can leave together. We can be your family, a real family.” Rose teared up thinking about her own group, but she told Nam all about them anyway. About Wab and the baby on the way; about Miig and his husband Isaac, how they’d found each other after years apart; about the language Slopper had been collecting like beads on a string.

“You don’t need a house, Nam. You need a home. I have a home. I can take you there.” She wasn’t used to pleading, and it was hard to know if it was even having an effect.

“I tried before, to leave.” They got a look in their eye that Rose recognized. It was the look a deer got when it smelled you close by, knowing your intention before you raised the rifle. It was an understanding of menace. “He’s always watching. He’s got a lot of eyes to watch with, all those Wives jumping at any chance to be his number one.” Nam removed the syringe and pressed down on the puncture spot on Rose’s arm with a small piece of cotton. They tried to be gentle, but every touch was unbearable pressure at this point.

“I took less than before,” they whispered. “I’ll add some water to the vial before I hand it over so neither of us hears about it.”

Rose rolled her eyes to Nam’s face, trying to push gratitude into her look. She was sure she just looked nauseated. But she really was grateful. This was the only spark of hope she’d had in days.

“I’ll start weaning them onto the watered-down shit.” Nam checked the door before digging in the pocket of their velvet dinner jacket. “And take these. I got some to Derrick, too.”

They pushed a couple of pills into Rose’s hand. One was a huge oblong horse pill that looked physically impossible to swallow. Then they picked them back up and popped them in Rose’s mouth before feeding her the water to swallow them with.

Rose had tears in her eyes, but not the strength to shed them. “This is exactly it—you get it. It’s exactly the thing you do for family…anything…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.