“Do take care of yourself,” Mother said, already heading toward the door. “We’ll need you in full form.”

“As soon as you remember,” Father reiterated. “Come to my office and we’ll strategize.”

The door shut behind him.

“So nice to see you guys.” Cass squeezed the bag in her hands, crinkling the material.

“Should we trade?” I eased the bag away from her tight fingers and set it on the bedspread. “I’ll get ignored and you can get manipulated?”

“If we’re trading, let’s trade for new parents.” She stood and offered me a hand. “Come on. I’ll make sure you get to the bathroom without eating the tile.”

“I can walk.” Still, I took her hand. The one person in my life with no ulterior motives. “Thanks, Cass.”

She patted my shoulder as we headed across the room. “Get yourself cleaned up and then I’m collecting my debt.”

I smiled. “What do you want?”

“Need you to QA a game for me.” She stopped me at the bathroom doorway and pinched my arm hard. “You popped home to look at it after you started the new job, but I think you missed some bugs in the gameplay.”

Some bugs in the gameplay…?

I didn’t need my memories to appreciate the subtext. If I’d been drafted into a classified program, I would’ve needed a pressing reason to come home and risk tangling Cass in my exploits.

A very pressing reason.

I could only think of one: a secure line to Eva.

I hadn’t talked to her in ages—at least that I remembered—but I needed to phone in now. Her network might’ve picked up chatter on this supposed accident and I needed any insight I could get.

Flying blind wasn’t acceptable.

“As soon as this headache is gone,” I said, trying not to appear too eager to Darren Waldman and whoever else was listening.

“Get some drugs in you.” Cass left me at the doorframe and headed toward her workroom. “I’ll be in my cave.”

I took her advice and grabbed a pain patch from the cabinet. It might fix the headache, but it wouldn’t touch the deep sense of unease that I couldn’t explain. Something more was happening here.

Something bigger than I could fathom with so little intel.

I had to find out what I was missing as soon as possible.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

QUANTA

I couldn’t wake up from the nightmare.

Between all the timewinding and my crazy direct-to-brain timeghost projections, my own mind needed a vacation. I stayed lucid just long enough to remember sending Tair away. By the time I started regretting it, the drugs knocked me back to black.

Now that I was dangerous, my cozy little prison apartment was a dream of the past. That was what happened when Red Helix girls went and weaponized their powers.