“On your feet,” I said, pointing Mercy at the man with the bleeding arm. “You’re next.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Well, well, well . . .” I rubbed my hands together, eyeing Constance, Scott, and Gregory, who were all huddled at the far end of the table. The last of the nonessential board members had just passed through the gateway to Heru’s dungeon, and I was now free to focus all of my attention exactly where it was needed—on the three little piggies, making all that mischief under their roof. “I wonder which one of you has the straw house,” I pondered aloud.

They exchanged wary glances.

I fingered the vial of infected blood hanging around my neck as I wandered back to their side of the boardroom. All three tensed up visibly as I neared them. Ever so slowly, I made my way behind their chairs, watching them watch me out of the corners of their eyes. Letting the tension build. Letting the fear take over.

“Which of you will give in first?” I asked. “Who will collapse under the slightest pressure?”

I stopped behind Gregory’s chair and settled my hands on his shoulders. The top of his balding head was shiny, like he’d plucked any final straggling hairs. I could almost see my reflection in his bald spot, and I thought he might even oil that oh-so-shiny skin. His shoulders bunched up when I gave them a squeeze, and he held his breath when I leaned in, resting my chin on his right shoulder.

“Which of you has the most to lose?” I asked, looking across the table at baby-faced Scott. I blinked and shifted my attention to Constance. “Or the most to leave behind?”

The color drained from her tastefully made-up face.

I grinned, slow and sly. I didn’t have to actually kill her, but threatening to do it—to leave her precious children motherless—would be enough to loosen the tongue of any mother who gave two shits about her kids. And from what I’d seen of Constance, she gave way more shits than that.

“Did you and your kiddos enjoy the movie the other night?” I asked her, straightening and cocking my head to the side. “That’s a pretty fancy-schmancy home theater you’ve got there.”

I hadn’t thought it possible, but she blanched even further. After a rough swallow, she licked her lips, her focus darting around the room from me to Nik to the sealed-off windows behind him and the two impassable doors in the opposite wall.

“No way out, Constance,” I said, tapping my fingernail against the At vial—clink clink clink. I glanced at the gateway. “At least, not to anywhere that’s even remotely as pleasant as here.”

“W—what do you want?” she asked, tears spilling over the brim of her eyelids.

“The cure.”

Her eyes locked on me, her pupils so dilated by fear that the black drowned out the natural gray-blue of her irises. She shook her head slowly, her eyes rounding. A thin sheen of sweat coated her pale skin, giving her a sickly, pearlescent glow. “I—I can’t—”