Gently, he placed a hand on her chin, turned her to look into his eyes. “I remember us being happy. But not what came after. Tell me, please.”

“No.”

“What if it’s related to what’s happening right now?”

“It’s not.”

“Did I hurt you?”

Peyton closed her eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened… hurt both of us.”

What does that mean? He was about to ask when Avery glanced back from the pilot’s seat and pointed to the headset.

To Desmond’s dismay, Peyton pulled her headset on quickly. He reluctantly followed suit.

“Let’s talk about what happens when we land,” Avery said.

Peyton methodically laid out her plan. Avery made a few suggestions. Demands, really, but they were all in agreement about the course of action.

With that out of the way, Desmond focused on Avery, asking the first question among so many he wanted answered.

“The people on the ship, in the hospital ward. What were they infected with?”

“I don’t know. I was part of the IT group.” She glanced back at him, a curious, unreadable expression on her face.

“What?”

“It was… It was your experiment, Des.”

“I did that to them?” Desmond felt sick at the idea.

“It was part of the Rendition project.”

“What is Rendition?”

“I don’t know.”

Peyton spoke up. “What do you know, Avery? Why did you rescue us?”

“I wasn’t aware I needed a formal invitation to rescue you.”

They started snapping at each other then, voices escalating. Desmond waited for an opening that never came. With forced calm in his voice, he interrupted.

“Let’s just… back up here. Okay?”

A pause.

“Look, if we keep fighting each other, we have no chance of stopping what’s happening.”

He let another few seconds pass, hoping everyone’s nerves would settle. Then he suggested that each of them share what they knew and see if the pieces fit together somehow.

Taking their silence as agreement, he went first.

The two women sat quietly while Desmond recounted his story, beginning with how he had woken up in a hotel room in Berlin with a dead man on his floor—a security employee with Rapture Therapeutics. How he’d had no memories and no idea what had happened to him. How his only clue had been a cryptic code, a Caesar cipher that, when decoded, read, Warn Her and listed Peyton’s phone number.

“Was the warning about the pandemic or warning me not to go to Kenya?”

“I’ve thought about that. I think the warning was meant to keep you from going to Kenya. I think I knew they would abduct you, that you were personally connected to this somehow. On the ship, did they ask you personal questions—not related to the outbreak?”

Peyton thought for a moment. “Conner asked me when was the last time I spoke with my father and brother.”