After that . . . Well, there wasn’t an after that. Nita couldn’t envision it. She knew it wouldn’t bring back the color, knew it wouldn’t fix what was already broken. But she’d feel goddam good doing it.

“Señorita?” The policeman sounded worried.

Nita forced her hands to unclench, forced her mind away from the switchblade and her mother. If Kovit did survive, she wanted him to have a chance. On that slim possibility the world would be good to her, she needed to cover for him. She needed to protect him.

So she nodded and forced herself to reply with, “Yes. We can talk.”

The policeman led her back to the waiting room chairs, giving her worried glances. She seated herself on a black plastic chair, and he brought her a cup of water. She didn’t drink.

“Am I correct in assuming that’s Kovit Sangwaraporn in surgery right now, the zannie all over the news the past couple of days?”

There was no point denying it. “Yes.”

“And you are?”

“Nita.”

“Nita . . . ?”

Nita tried to remember what name she was using with INHUP. She had so many aliases, it felt weird to actually use her real birth name. “Anita Sánchez.”

He waited a moment for her to give the rest of her name, but she didn’t have more. They’d used American naming customs, so she only had her father’s surname.

“And what’s your relation to Kovit Sangwaraporn?”

“He’s . . .” Nita chose her words with care. “He’s my friend.”

The officer nodded slowly. “How did you meet?”

“On the black market. We’d both been kidnapped and were up for sale.”

The policeman was taking notes. “And you’re . . .”

“I’m harmless,” Nita lied.

“How did you two end up for sale on the black market?”

“I was kidnapped. Wrong place, wrong time,” Nita whispered. “Kovit had been a prisoner of a mafia group for years. They finally got tired of him resisting their demands and decided to sell him.”

“Demands?”

Nita met his eyes. “You’ve seen the videos.”

The policeman stilled. “I have.”

“I don’t really need to explain what his life was like, then, do I?”

“No.” The man sighed softly. “No, I got it.” He cleared his throat. “So what happened next?”

“We escaped, and we both made our way to INHUP.”

“Both of you?”

“Yes,” Nita lied, weaving her story to match as closely to the truth as possible but adding her own flavor to it. “He had a lot of information on that mafia group in the States. The one recently arrested after the videos came out. They were . . . bad. Really bad. I think he knew INHUP would probably kill him anyway, but I think he also felt like he had to stop the people who’d hurt him for so long, who’d made him hurt others.”