“This good enough?” the man asked. His voice came clear despite the gas mask.

Another man in a similar suit stood behind him and tapped at a phone.

A third hazard suit carried a black bag by the door. “It’s fine,” she said, her tone pert.

Yaya knew that voice. She’d heard it honey-coated inside Pandora’s Aquarium on Friday night. She’d heard it sink into moans.

“Doc?”

5

Doc froze, as if trying to avoid being seen, and then pulled her gas mask off and let the yellow hood down. Her eyes were so pale blue that they bordered white, and a thin grimace crossed her ashen face. She looked so alien in this disgusting yellow shade, Yaya might have blamed any resemblance on Friday’s tipsy fog if not for those pale eyes.

“It’s fine,” Doc said, her voice like taut sinew. She turned to the gas mask man who was still playing on his phone. “Confirm subject’s identity.” As if she didn’t already know. Maybe she’d had enough to drink Friday that she couldn’t remember.

Except Yaya had that text message.

“Pulling the East Newark Medical Station record now, Doc,” Phone Boy said.

Yaya’s Sibs station. That meant these goons worked for AlphaBeta Pharmaceutical. Doc was one of them.

Yaya settled into the loveseat cushion and turned to Doc. They knew each other; Yaya could charm her way out. “Okay, I get it,” she said. “I missed my appointment. You could’ve called.”

Doc glanced at the other goons as if she knew a secret.

Phone Boy tapped his screen, and it flashed blue beneath his mask. “One hundred percent match. Yolanda Betancourt, born on Long Island, New York, white female, black hair, complete heterochromia with one blue, one hazel, five feet, five inches, one hundred and fifty pounds—”

“Write me up an online dating profile, why don’t you?” Yaya snapped.

“I’ve heard enough. Let’s not make this more awkward than it has to be.”

Doc snapped her fingers. “Strip from the waist down.”

Yaya blinked. “What the hell for?”

“Pelvic exam.”

“That won’t make this less awkward.” Yaya didn’t move. “You examined my pelvis pretty thoroughly Friday night.”

Phone Boy and Tough Guy glanced at Doc, whose scowl sank into her face. She rooted inside her bag and drew out a pair of narrow silver scissors, the blades pinched into a mean point. “Hold her down,” she said.

Tough Guy stepped around the loveseat, grabbed Yaya’s arms, and pulled them back. She strained against his grip, but he was stronger.

Doc slipped between bed and loveseat, scissors gleaming in the gray light.

Tough Guy’s breath chugged through his gas mask. “Kid, quit fighting.

You’ve been seeing us your entire life—”

“Since I was a tween,” Yaya cut in.

“—and we know you better than you know yourself.”

“Doing anything fun with that?”

Doc opened the scissors. “We’re making your world a better place. Just try to relax. Tell me the last dream you remember.”

The squirming tore through Yaya’s middle, same as at Sunnyside Fertility.