The true number was closer to fifty, but Eli didn’t say so. Instead, he

turned, surveying his cell. “And what did I do to deserve such accommodation?”

Stell produced a simple manila folder and slid it through the slot in the fiberglass. Eli turned back and took it up, flicking through the pages. It was a profile, much like the ones the Merit PD had developed under Eli’s instruction.

“You possess a unique and proven skill set,” said Stell. “You are here to assist in the tracking and capture of other—”

Eli laughed, short and humorless. “If you wanted me to help you hunt EOs,” he sneered, tossing the file onto the table, “you shouldn’t have put me in a cell.”

“Unlike you, we treat execution as a last resort.”

“Half measures, then.”

“Humane ones.”

“Hypocrisy in action.” Eli shook his head. “What you’re doing, what EON is doing, is nothing but a pale version of my own work. So why am I the one in the cell?” Eli stepped as close as the fiberglass would allow. “Disagree with my methods, Stell. Doubt my motives. But you’re a fool if you think what you’re doing is different. The only difference between us is that you naively insist on preserving what I know should be destroyed. You want to pretend that capturing EOs is a mercy. To what end? So you can sleep easier without their blood on your hands?

Or so that you can grow your collection of specimens and play God with their bodies? Because I played God once, Stell, and it did not end well.” Eli rocked back on his heels. “I spent ten years trying to make amends for that, to undo the damage I wrought. Yes, I killed a great many EOs, but it wasn’t out of cruelty or violence, or spite. I did it to protect people—living, innocent humans—from the monsters I’d found in the dark.”

“Are you so sure they’re all monsters?” challenged Stell.

“Yes,” he said forcefully. There had been a time when Eli thought himself exempt from that label. Now he knew better. “EOs may look like humans, Stell, but they don’t think or act like them.”

Victor would have enumerated any number of symptoms—

diminished sense of consequence, lack of remorse, self-absorption, amplification of demeanor and aspect—but Eli said only, “They have

no soul.” He shook his head. “You want to save EOs? Save them from themselves. Put them in the ground, where they belong. Unless that’s your plan, I have no intention of helping.”

In answer, Stell set another folder in the fiberglass slot between, this one black.

Eli cut a glance at the file. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“This isn’t another dossier,” said Stell. “It’s your other option.”