Mehrbano lifted him, threw him over the table. He crashed into the side of the couch, sent it sliding while he hit the ground. He looked up in time to see her striding to him, but too late to stop the kick that blasted the air from his lungs.

“Awww, mann …” he wheezed, as she took hold of his shirt and hauled him up.

“You think you can walk back in here?” Mehrbano said, hurling him into the wall. “After what you did? After you betrayed us like that? You are full of it.”

He held up a hand while he tried to breathe. “In … my defence …”

She hit him. She didn’t use her full strength, but it still sent him careening off the wall like he was a stainless-steel ball in a pinball machine, sent him stumbling the length of the apartment. His knees buckled and he went down for a moment, but kept crawling until he was back up on his feet.

“In your defence what?” she asked, coming after him. “We were tight, Temper. We were family.”

“Weird family,” he mumbled, backing off.

“You were one of us,” she said. “You were a believer.”

“They tried to kill me, Tessa.”

“Bull.”

His head wouldn’t stop spinning. “Now who’s full of it? You know what they did to the others.”

“They were blessed.”

“That what you call it? When was the last you spoke to them, huh? When was the last time they held a conversation with anyone?”

Mehrbano didn’t have an answer for that. Temper pressed on.

“Is that what you wanted to happen to me? You wanted me to be blessed like that? To be turned into one of those … things?”

“Not everyone gets chosen. You were lucky.”

“And, if they had come for you, what would you have done?”

“For a chance to be closer to the gods?” Mehrbano asked. “I would have given up everything.” Her posture changed. She wasn’t going to hit him again.

“Well, I wouldn’t have let you,” he said. “I couldn’t stand to watch you lose the parts of yourself that make you you. The others, the ones they took, they aren’t blessed, Tessa. They’re not communing with the gods. They’re standing somewhere, staring into space. Not moving, not talking. Not thinking. They’re failed experiments. And I’d have been on that list. Just another failed experiment.”

“Or you could have been the one to change everything,” she responded. “There might have been something in your blood to unlock all the secrets.”

“You can’t justify it. I don’t know why you’re trying.”

“It’s the sacrifice, Temper. It’s the sacrifice we all must be willing to make. It’s not about us. We don’t matter. We’re insignificant.”

“You were never insignificant to me.”