But due to the mis-alignment in attention, or the fact that they’d run out of people to send, there was a pause, a gap. A chance to think and to talk. The door at the other end of the room banged shut as the pen carrier left.

“Ms. Matteson?” he asked.

He intimidated her, he could tell. That brief widening of the eyes, apprehension at just the idea of having to respond to something open ended.

“Call me Natalie, please.”

“I will. How are my girls doing?”

“Your—”

“I shouldn’t call them that,” he said. “Sveta and Ashley.”

“Oh,” Natalie said, dropping her eyes to her hands in her lap. “I have no earthly idea how to answer that.”

“Is it that bad?” he asked.

“No. I don’t know,” she said. She opened her mouth like she was trying to formulate a sentence, then partially closed it, her eyes widening instead. Like she’d glimpsed something too big to wrap her head around.

He’d seen that too, in his years with the PRT departments. A part of him was impatient, worried for a variety of reasons, and he didn’t want to waste their window of time, so he filled in, led her along. “You look after them.”

“I think of it less as looking after them and more like I’m clinging to the outside of a fast moving vehicle. Sometimes I reach through the window to grab the steering wheel, if I really think I have to. Mostly I shout and worry that the rush of wind is drowning me out.”

“Poetic.”

“I think that part of that whole culture has rubbed off on me.”

The door opened, and he felt frustration as a young girl, twelve or so, approached, ducking her head down before collecting some of the serving platters.

He controlled his emotions, working on the suspicion that they wanted him on edge. They wanted him in a state where he’d be too disorganized to counter them or challenge them.

Instead, he picked food from the platters that sat on the little table between them, and spent a moment eating and observing the situation. The room had large windows with wire running through them in an illustrative fashion, like stained glass windows without the staining. The light that shone through came in at an angle that made the windows seem to glow of their own accord, illuminating the otherwise lightless space. The room had a painted floor that looked like it could have been a pool of not-yet-congealed blood, smooth and uninterrupted by seam or tile from one corner of the room to the other. The walls were brighter, a foggy pink broken up by white.

The space was long and wide, in a way he suspected was designed to make them feel small.

Joke on them. This was nothing compared to some of the things he’d handled.