Thomas looked at his knuckles, at the blood smeared like model paint across the veined back of his hand. Something—some kind of wave—crashed through him, splashing all the strength from his limbs. His heart bobbed in his chest. He staggered backward, collapsed against a wall. Gerard, his eyes round with concern, was shouting something at him. Then blood and tissue exploded from the side of the agent's head, and he was slumping forward, falling through a crimson mist, bearing Neil with him to the floor. They landed near Thomas's feet, locked like dead wrestlers.

Unable to scream, breathe, or think, Thomas looked to the lone figure still standing in the room.

Sam.

Sam hooked a toe beneath Gerard's body, rolled him off Neil.

'Hi, doc,' she said, heaving Neil to his knees.

'Jessica,' Neil replied, apparently unafraid.

Propped against pine wainscoting, Thomas watched. Some part of him wanted to move, to run, but his body seemed as heavy as Gerard's looked. Like dead weight, he thought inanely.

Sam scooped a chair from a decorative bureau and set it behind Neil. She hooked a finger beneath his jaw—apparently some kind of pressure point, because he grunted and hissed as she pulled and seated him. She smiled at Thomas.

'Well, professor?'

'I do-don't…' Thomas paused, scowled. His mouth and tongue felt like clay. 'I d-don't understand what's happening.'

'No,' Sam said. 'I suppose you wouldn't. Disorientation is a common stress response. Especially when you're weak.'

What was she doing? Had Gerard been a threat? Some kind of plant?

Thomas watched as she hooked Neil's arms over the back of the chair and used Mia's duct tape to secure him. She then wrapped his ankles together. 'I was always proud of you,' Neil said to her as she worked. 'Back when those things mattered to me, I always regarded you as… well, my masterpiece.'

She replied with the distracted air of a mother dressing her son. 'You might not think so a few minutes from now.'

Neil smiled. 'I'm beyond anything you could do to me, Jess.'

'Are you?' Sam asked. 'We'll see about that.'

She swung her automatic toward Thomas. 'Your turn, lover boy. Stand up and turn around.'

'Sam?' Thomas said. He pressed a palm to his forehead. 'Wh-what's happening? You k-killed Gerard. I mean you really fucking killed him,'

Sam glanced at Gerard, slack and grey across the polished hardwood. 'I told the prick he should stay in New York. I had a feeling you were up to something.' She leveled the gun directly at Thomas's face. 'Now stand up, turn around, and cross your wrists behind your back. Otherwise it's beer and nachos with Jesus.'

Somehow, Thomas found himself doing as he was told. He understood none of it.