Jericho shakes his head. “I’m telling you. My telepathy is relatively weak, and its range is limited. I could not have reached out to you on my own.”

“The Forge directed me to you. So I could see what I’m dealing with. I understand it now.” To her the Heretics have always been abstract figures, creatures of myth, as distant from her lived reality as the Eight Messiahs from generations ago. The snarling mechs she fought might as well be robots to her, cold and impartial. But in Jericho she has a human figure, a beast of warm flesh and desire that manipulated her and hurt her. Humiliated her. Now she knows what they’re like. Now she has a reason to fight.

“No. You really don’t understand. I see.”

“What don’t I understand?”

“Has it never occurred to you?”

Misery jabs the shock stick forward and he flinches, but she doesn’t discharge it. She slides it under his chin and tilts his face up, into the glare of the light. “Stop talking in circles before I split.”

He’s shaking so hard even his lips tremble. “Misery. Have you never considered that you’re a telepath?”

He’s trying to distract her. She sees that. She knows that. But she can’t let him get away with this. She presses the tip of the shock stick against his voice box, hard. “You really think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

“I’m telling you what I see. You came to me. Your insights into people—what you told me—that’s not normal. It’s telepathy—”

She lets him have it. The spit gurgles in his throat, choking his screams as she electrocutes him. Good. Let him suffer. When she jerks the shock stick away he doubles over and vomits, throwing up a glut of watery bile, translucent and gummy. They’ve been starving him. The room fills with a sour stench.

Jericho slowly uncrumples as Misery watches dispassionately. He looks at her again, a thin string of spittle suspended between lip and chin. His breath comes in spurts. “You’re not chosen—Everything I’ve heard— I know what you are. Your abilities—You’re like us—”

She jams the stick into his throat and turns it on. Full power. Jericho screams and arcs backward, convulsing. Serves him right. Little fucker. He falls to the ground and she follows, the shock stick vibrating against the bones of her hand. Misery wants to fry his eyes out of his head, fry him until his skin peels blackened from his bones—

Cool stone closes over her wrist. Dr. Sower’s mechanical hand, gentle enough not to twist her arm. “All right, that’s enough. I think he’s learned his lesson.”