Yaya looked Doc over, and for once really looked. She never asked about other people’s appearances, never questioned brown-skinned women at the bars where they were from, wasn’t that kind of white lady. Doc had been a pretty face and a stern personality that first night. Most women Yaya looked at were beautiful; she didn’t know how to see otherwise. Yes, Doc was paler than normal. Sure, her eyes were different. Everyone was different, everyone gorgeous.

It really didn’t matter what had happened to Doc after all that. “You’re still alive,” Yaya said. “But that girl from Kentucky? She’s dead. You killed that chimera.”

Doc glanced at the tub, where Connie’s hair now draped the rim, and then steeled her eyes back at Yaya. “Well, now you get to decide if we’ll have that in common.” She turned and left the bathroom.

Yaya followed. “Where are you headed?”

“If you’re going through with this, I’m not watching.” Doc grabbed her

purse and opened the apartment door.

Yaya didn’t try to cover her cleft. “You don’t have to leave though. Hide in the kitchen with headphones and music or something. Run the TV up. After I’m done, we can—”

“What am I to you?” Doc asked. Her eyes had turned from steel to the coldest ice.

Yaya couldn’t pierce them. She could only ice her voice to match. “You’re the one who said not to make this more than it is, right?”

“Right. I’ve been wondering, do you even enjoy me? Or is it just Magenta?” Doc didn’t wait for an answer. She shut the door, soft but firm, and her footsteps disappeared down the hall.

Magenta’s tentacles lashed across the living room, but Yaya stepped back to keep them from reaching the door. “Let her go,” she said. “She wants to go.”

Leaving had been Yaya’s usual since long before Doc came into the picture. She didn’t chase. She ran.

And sometimes she staggered, back to the bathroom in this case, to Connie.

Soft breath whistled in and out from her parted lips. A chip cut a slender triangle from one of her front teeth, and Yaya thought that was cute, and then she shook the thought away.

“We can do this,” she whispered. “A little off the top, that’s all. Doc’s right. We don’t have to go all the way.”

But it wouldn’t last. The only way to keep the stones off her mind was to make some permanent changes to Connie’s skull, same as Magenta had done to Bryant’s.