We’d never met, and I’d never seen her face before tonight, but if Doctor Nagi had shown me her chromosomes instead of her image, I would’ve recognized her in a heartbeat.

Every Shadow Raven knew her story.

She was Doctor Nagi’s crowning achievement: the first and only genetically engineered clairvoyant. Lady Eva had abducted her and raised Quanta as her own, stabilizing her DNA and tweaking it through infancy and childhood. In return, Quanta had guided Eva with her glimpses into the future, leading the Ravens to countless victories before her tenth birthday.

It lasted until Doctor Nagi’s soldiers crashed the compound, destroying decades of Raven intelligence and taking Quanta back. Lady Eva and the other survivors had assumed she was dead. I’d pored over her records when I studied at Eva’s side, and I’d never questioned it.

She couldn’t be alive. Not after so long in captivity.

Red Helix girls were too dangerous to be kept.

But Quanta…

Had she paid for her life by selling information? Or had she been tortured for her secrets?

I ground my teeth together. Quanta might be alive, but how much of her was left?

Her gaze flicked around the room, and she moved her fingers like she directed some unseen traffic. She froze, her gray eyes widening, and her complexion paled as she stumbled against the wall.

Whatever she saw, she didn’t like it.

“Tell me what you see,” Doctor Nagi’s voice hardened.

“Can’t…” Quanta clapped her hands to her face, streaking charcoal over her cheeks. “This can’t…”

“Can’t what?” He asked.

Quanta slid to her knees and pressed her forehead to the floor, covering her ears. She muttered under her breath, rambling something too softly too make out.

My chest tightened with pity and concern. “Is it all right to leave her like this, Doctor?”

“No.” He tapped into the nearest wall screen, calling up a contact. A deferential voice answered through the line. “Send a team to the penthouse suite. I want the subject transported to the holo room.”

The tightness in my chest suddenly throbbed. So that was how the Seligo got their information.

From a broken girl, lying helpless on the carpet. In this weakened state, her stream of consciousness would be open for viewing on the big screen—it would’ve been illegal anywhere else in the Citadel, but laws didn’t mean much this deep under the senate.

I didn’t have hard evidence—not yet—but I couldn’t watch this scene and believe Quanta was anything but the victim.

She’d been exploited. Probably tortured.

The thought twisted in my belly like a sickness. Her captivity was wrong on more levels than I could count.

Quanta gasped. Then she shot up.

Everything about her pulled at me, and the truth hit me hard: I had to get her out.