<Hold on, love.>

Cato was raving, lost to his programming. “Letum, Bel, Rem, Salutem, Phobos, Algea, and Soter. Letum, God of Death, I offer myself—”

Rhea clapped both of her hands over his cheeks and forced his head up. “Cato!” Her voice seemed to echo, as if from afar. “Sleep!”

The massive man dropped like a stone. His hands loosened around Ariadne’s neck, but his bulk was on her slight frame. “Still . . . can’t . . . breathe,” Ariadne rasped.

Rhea started pulling Cato off of her, and the door opened. Nyx and Eris rushed in. “What the flames?” Eris demanded.

“Help me,” Rhea urged.

Nyx and Eris grasped Cato under his arms, and all three of them managed to roll him off the smaller girl. Ariadne crawled to freedom and air, sucking deep breaths into her lungs. What had happened? Had Rhea . . .

Rhea caught her eye, gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. A plea.

Nyx snatched Ariadne by her arms. “Are you okay?” She stared at Ariadne’s neck where the red welts were starting to form from Cato’s grip. By tomorrow, they’d be bruises. “I’m going to kill that bastard.”

“No,” Ariadne managed. Her voice was hoarse. “He couldn’t help himself. I doubt he’ll even remember it.”

“I don’t give a damn—if we can’t even keep him bound—”

“Ari’s right, Nyx,” Rhea said. “We can keep him sedated. Even the thought of him having a choice triggered some programming. I didn’t realize it was embedded that deeply in some soldiers.”

Eris grunted in affirmation. “When we do deprogramming at Nova, a lot of them don’t survive the procedure.”

Rhea shut her eyes and nodded. “Even Nyx’s was . . . difficult.”

“Difficult,” Nyx said. “Nice word for it. Felt like being dragged through the fucking fires of Avern.” She gestured to Cato’s prone form. “Even just trying to cut the Oracle’s programming makes you feel like someone is stabbing you through the skull. If he makes it, I’ll be shocked.”

“Nyx,” Rhea chastised.

“What? Just being honest.”

Soldier cohorts were programmed more intimately to one another. Taking away that connection would be difficult for anyone, but Ariadne suspected that Cato’s coding was going to be different from what she’d seen before. He was from the Rigel cohort; like Nyx, they had been present at the Battle of the Garnet. The Oracle had been making upgrades to some in that group—especially ones who had shown signs of trauma from the battle.

He had medical training. His sleep mutterings had shown that clear enough. What had he done to get demoted to a cargo pilot?

Nyx still gripped Ariadne’s arms, her fingers trembling. “Nyx,” Ariadne whispered. “I’m okay.”

Nyx jerked away. “Right. Good.”

Ariadne opened her mouth but Eris spoke first. “How’d you knock him out, Rhea?” she asked. “I saw on the screens that the injection went under the cabinet.”