“You think it’s that easy?” Darren let out a sadistic chuckle as we stepped from the lift. “That girl’s going to run through you faster than a printed burrito.”

“How so?” I followed him down an immaculate white hallway. The glass windows looked in on gyms, hair salons, cafeterias, and the dozens of other facilities needed to support the underground city.

No one left the nest. For any reason. I had to respect the commitment to security, but it was going to make my task hell.

“She already knows your secrets and going by the hate she already dished at you, you’re on her shit list.” He tapped his temple. “Hope you can resist telepathy.”

“You seem to have managed.” And I didn’t appreciate the attempt to scare me off.

“Quanta and I have a special relationship.” Darren’s smirk made my fingers twitch, aching to knock the expression from his face. “Been with her all seven years she’s been at the facility.”

Calm. Level.

Either his math was wrong, or a few years of Quanta’s history were off the books; she’d been abducted from Eva at ten. Now she was twenty. Not seventeen.

After a short tour of the facilities, Darren led us down a less-traveled hallway. “You can use the shared spaces on the purple floor, but our team ranks high enough to have private rooms. Our lounge is on the red floor near Quanta’s suite.” He took us up a smaller lift that required a retinal scan before the door opened. “The Doc wants you to review her case history before we put you in the same room again. You and I will talk strategy once you’re up to speed.”

“Strategy?”

“You can’t go against Quanta without an angle. What’s your persona? The dedicated researcher? Rich boy just rolling through on a nepotism spree? Or maybe you were sent in to seduce her.”

All I could picture were her defiant gray eyes. Quanta would rather stab me than kiss me. “Wouldn’t she see that coming?” She wasn’t clairvoyant for nothing.

“She might.” Darren led to another door. “Then again, she might not.”

My fingers bunched in the lapels of my crisp, new lab coat. If he was implying that he had…

But it had to be head games. I couldn’t believe he’d crossed that line.

“The common room. You junior staffers have workrooms through here.” Utilitarian couches and worktables occupied the center of the room. The wall parallel to the kitchenette was broken by doors to private offices. One door’s nameplate was blank, one read Akua Dowling, and the third was in the process of being stripped of the name Marco Vidal.

Interesting. The team wasn’t full and one member had recently left. I’d have to find out the circumstances. The door marked Altair Orpheus beckoned at my right, but my gaze kept drifting. “Where’s your workroom?”