Telling herself to get over it, she went around the twenty-by-twenty room.

Sarah found the keypad on the far side of the workstations, and at first, she almost overlooked it, as the thing didn’t seem tied to any portal. But then she saw the ever-so-faint seam in the wall.

It was a door.

John was used to the seizures. He’d been getting them on and off ever since he’d entered the vampire world. His first one, that he had a concrete memory of at any rate, had happened when he’d seen Beth. There had been others, of course, but the one that had occurred when he’d first met his sister, the King’s shellan, had been truly significant.

This particular shake-and-shimmy, now that he was coming out of it, rang that highly important bell again—although he couldn’t understand why.

The electrical storm in his nervous system retreated much like any thunder or snow front, the intensity diminishing, calm returning, a damage assessment the first stop on the back-to-normal road. As John’s eyes opened, he didn’t immediately record what was around him. He was too busy performing an internal check-in, and when the all-good got sounded, his vision provided him with the details of the two people leaning over him.

Xhex was a relief. The male with the long red-and-black hair? Not so much—and not just because John wanted to go for the guy’s jugular as a matter of principle: The mere sight of Murhder’s unusual hair, his gleaming peach eyes, the cut of his jaw and the heft of his shoulders, was enough to make the buzz come back, all kinds of nerve endings firing.

But John was able to beat that shit back.

Even as Murhder’s voice, which sounded strangely familiar, said, “You remind me of an old friend.”

John sat up and studied everything about the male. Then he signed, Have we met before?

Murhder’s dark brows lifted at the ASL. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand—”

Xhex, who had been staring at John as if she’d seen a ghost, seemed to shake herself back into focus.

“My hellren is mute.” She repositioned herself on her knees with a wince. “And, ah, he wants to know if you’ve met before.”

Murhder narrowed his eyes. “Sure feels like it.”

Okay … weird. Even though it didn’t make sense, John felt his bonded male ease off. It was rare for him to trust anybody at first blush, but this former Brother, crazy though he was rumored to be, felt like someone he could put his faith in.

But maybe that was just the seizure talking. Maybe his self-preservation sectors weren’t back on line yet.

“I wanted John to be able to …” Xhex said roughly. “Shit.”

John was about to ask her what was wrong, except there was so much to choose from. And on that note, he focused on the former Brother—and reminded himself that instincts about other people were all well and good, but the reality of the situation was that he didn’t actually know the guy.

I don’t want to have to kill you, he signed.

Murhder looked at Xhex. “What did he say?”

“He doesn’t want to kill you,” she muttered.

John didn’t give a crap that he was only halfway back online. If the other male had an aggressive response to that translation, in any way whatsoever, he was going to go for the fucker’s throat and chainsaw the goddamn thing with his fangs—

The smile that slowly came over Murhder’s face was a bittersweet one. “I’m really glad you feel like that.” He looked at Xhex. “You deserve nothing less and I’m happy for you. It’s been a really long … hard road, and you’re more than due a good life.”

John turned to his mate. Her eyes were watering as she stared across at the other male. But there was no regret in her face; he had no sense that she wished she’d ended up with the former Brother.

They were more like two family members who’d survived a house fire that had destroyed everything.

John lifted his hands to sign. But then he just extended his dagger palm, offering it to the other male.

Murhder’s shake was firm. “Good. Thank you.”

Xhex cleared her throat. “Okay, enough of this. You’re not going to that site by yourself. The two of us are coming with you—and don’t waste our time trying to argue.”

John squeezed the other male’s hand, trying to communicate that he was in. Whoever that female had been, wherever her son was, if Xhex was going, John was coming with.

Murhder looked to the closed bedroom door.

“You know it’s safer this way,” Xhex said. “And you’re more likely to succeed.”

“Do the Brothers know?”

John shook his head, and mouthed, It’s just us. Promise.

Sarah stood in front of the keypad in the isolation unit, aware of seconds passing. She could try a bunch of numerical codes, but what were the chances of getting the correct one when she didn’t even know how long the sequence could be? And then she could get locked out if she got too many wrong in a row.

“Shit,” she breathed, looking around through the hazmat suit’s plastic visor.

But like they’d put a sticky note with the combination on the side of a cabinet?

If she turned around now and left, at least she had a chance of not getting into trouble. No alarms were going off, and maybe if security saw her on any of their monitors, they’d assume she had proper clearance—

Sarah looked down at the credentials. Then turned the laminated card over.

On the back, written in permanent marker, were those seven digits she’d assumed were a telephone number.

Leaning down to the keypad, she entered them one by one, the bulky glove camouflaging how badly her hand was trembling.

Nothing happened.

As she waited, heart pounding and throat choked, sweat dripped into her eye, and she went to wipe it away, batting at the hood with the glove, making things worse—

Pound key.

When she punched the pound key, the little light turned from red to green and an air lock released.

A door-sized panel disappeared into the wall itself, revealing a shallow stainless steel room that was about ten feet long and five feet wide. Egg crates lined the floor and they were full of a disorderly supply of nonperishables: canned soup, boxes of pasta, cereals, bags of Doritos and pretzels. Shallow shelves mounted on the vertical held shampoo, soap, toilet paper, Kleenex.

The sliding door began to shut behind her and she caught it with her hand. There was another keypad on the inside, and although she considered propping things open, she was worried that an alarm would go off. She just had to take the chance the code would work on the exit.

Releasing the air intake connected at the back of the hazmat suit, she let the hose fall free and then she was closed in.

The second the door she’d come through relocked, another panel opposite from it slid back, revealing a bright white light.

Swallowing hard, she took two steps forward and then stopped in the doorway.

The wave of revulsion and indignation was so great, she nearly vomited.

Across a clinical space, in a large cage that had some kind of mesh around it, there was a figure dressed in what appeared to be a hospital johnny, lying on a pallet facing away from her. Some kind of water source was off to the side, hanging from a hook, and a tray of empty plates had been pushed out onto the floor through a trapdoor. Behind the cage, medical monitoring equipment beeped and whirred.

Sarah reached out blindly for the wall as the world listed on her—

What the hell? The walls and ceiling were covered by the same mesh as the cage. And the floor … oddly, the floor was stainless steel.

The patient in the cage sat up and turned toward her—and Sarah lost her breath as if struck in the chest.

It was a child. A frail, thin little boy.

Overcome with horror, Sarah stumbled forward. Fell to her knees. Slumped as the inner door slid back into place and locked them in together.

With hands that shook so badly it was as if she were having a seizure, she tore off the gloves. Ripped the hazmat suit’s hood off. Gasped for air.

As she looked up, she found that the child was staring across at her with wary eyes. But he didn’t make any sounds of protest, and he didn’t move from his spot on that pallet.

He had obviously learned that nothing he could do would stop what was being done to him. He was helpless. Trapped. At the mercy of those who had so much more power than he.

Minutes ticked by and the two of them continued to stare at each other, though the mesh made it hard to see him with total clarity.

“Are you here to give me my next shot?” he finally asked in a thin voice. “They said it would be at midnight. But it’s only ten.”

Two years since Gerry died. And they’d been experimenting back then. How long had they been torturing this child?

“Hello?” he said. “Are you okay? You’re not my normal technician.”

Sarah swallowed hard. The implications were so enormous they were incomprehensible. But rather than waste time sorting through the morass, she focused on the immediate issue.

“Sweetheart, I … I need to get you out of here. Right now.”

The child bolted to his feet. “Did my mother send you? Is she alive?”

At that moment, alarms started going off.

Murhder had done this mission before, and he was glad his practice run from twenty years ago had stuck with him even though two decades had passed between the infiltrations. He also had some serious backup this time: He, Xhex, and John had suited up with weapons and Kevlar that the couple had brought with them to her cabin in an SUV. And then they’d dematerialized, one by one, out of Caldwell, to this remote site in Ithaca.

Entry through the rooftop vents of the sprawling facility. Just like before. Interception of a security guard. Just like before.

It was then that he began deviating from the past. This time, he compelled the guard to take them down to the top secret part of the facility, a tour guide who had no will of his own.

So many unadorned corridors. So many unmarked doors in walls made of frosted glass.

So many security cameras.