I never want to see the inside of an institution again. I was only at the one in Seattle for three soul-breaking days, trying to explain that I was fine, that Marcus had lied, that I wouldn’t hurt myself or him.

Just the thought of being ignored while I screamed the truth, again, makes me want to vomit. It took months to assure myself I wasn’t actually crazy after Marcus’s final act of humiliation, and all of this is making me start to doubt again.

“What am I supposed to do?” I get up and pace. “I’m not walking into a police station and announcing there’s an organized movement to kill Black people and steal our land. Even though it’s been happening in this country for generations and it shouldn’t be hard to believe. Can we even call this a conspiracy theory? I mean . . . that’s why the police exist in the first place. Of course they won’t help!”

The last of my good nerves fray, so that I’m hanging on by a thread. Theo stands and steps in front of me, blocking my restless stride and forcing me to look up at him.

“We’ll figure this out, okay?” He runs his knuckles over my jawline, gently, and I take a deep breath.

“How?” I want to believe him. So bad. But at this point I don’t see any way this ends well.

“Sydney.” Theo is grinning as he calls my attention back to him, though his eyes are somber. “I need you to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. I’ll give you mine. We’ll figure it out because we don’t have any other choice.”

“Right. Right.” I take a deep breath, steady myself a bit. “Do you have chamomile tea or something? I prefer scotch, but I need something that won’t affect my thinking.”

“Let me see,” he says, then heads down the hallway to the kitchen. I hear the hiss and catch of a stove being lit, and jump out of my seat ready to fight when it’s followed by a curse and a metallic crash.

“I’m okay!” he calls out.

I drop back onto the couch pillows and take a deep breath. There’s no chance in hell that I can actually relax, but I try to collect my thoughts, which have scattered like fish in the koi pond at Prospect Park running from an off-leash dog.

My gaze darts back and forth around the living room, really absorbing the differences between my house and this one. The paint is new, and looks like the thousand-thread-count sheets of paint. There are little glass terrariums everywhere—when I stopped in one of the new boutiques that’s opened up, the smallest one with a tiny succulent was fifty bucks.

An eight-by-ten of Michelle Obama sits on the mantelpiece, and a giant painting of an old white dude hangs above it, the kind you see in the lobbies of banks and government buildings. It’s one of those paintings where the beady eyes follow you anywhere you move in a room.

It jump-starts my nervousness and I get up, creep over to the window, and peek through the curtains, the icy breeze of the air conditioner blowing over my face and calming me a bit. The moving truck is still parked there but appears to be empty, and no one is outside Mr. Perkins’s place.

When I lean closer to the window so I can see a little farther down the street, my thumb rests against the air conditioner and comes away sticky.

I bend down, blink against the cold air hitting my eyes, and then freeze in my crouched position.

There’s a tacky spot in the shape of a heart on the front of the air conditioner. And when I check the make and model . . . it’s the same as Drea’s.

I remember her purple-tipped fingers pressing the sticker onto the air conditioner after I’d helped her install it.

“Now it’ll spread the love. Get it? Get it?”

My brain refuses to process the importance of the heart-shaped glue mark, or the fact that the air conditioner that’s gone from Drea’s room is now here at Theo’s house. Fyodor, who worked for the Russian mob at some point. Who tried to grift a major corporation. Who offered to pick the lock to get into Mr. Perkins’s house.

Who clearly would do anything for money.

Theo, who helpfully pointed out that all of this shit had started up when the VerenTech deal went through, who found the perfect pieces of evidence to support my conspiracy theories, but who’d left out the fact that he’d elbowed his way into my research and my life at the exact same time.

Dammit.

I’d watched Theo through his window sometimes—had he been watching me? These real estate companies would do seemingly anything to get their hands on people’s properties. If I thought a company would murder, it wasn’t that far of a stretch to believe they could hire a moderately attractive man to spend a few days seducing a lonely, broken woman before finishing the job.

Nausea roils my stomach at the thought, but it’s as possible as anything else in this trash fire of a world.

Something lights up to my left, drawing my attention from the internal scream I’m swallowing, and I glance over to see an iPad on the lower level of the perfectly distressed couch-side table. I don’t even pretend not to be interested—that was what I did with Marcus at first, averting my eyes when a message popped up on his screen. It’s supposedly bad to snoop, but Theo’s own admission plays in my head.

“I . . . am a liar.”

I lean over the arm of the couch and tilt the iPad so I can see the messages coming in under a conversation labeled Honeycheeks.

They’re getting settled into the Perkins place. I still think we’re moving too quickly. People are going to notice.

Sydney is too unreliable to pose a real threat, but I’m taking care of her today. I was going to earlier, but they just had to bring that damned dog with them. Charlie said they wanted the house AND the dog, but I thought his wife would wait until after we were done to trot it out.

You know how she is with dogs.

I hate rushing things too, but I’m not in charge here. Besides, my father is pretty sure even if they all notice, it won’t matter. Other corps have razed entire towns. In the past, they’ve dropped bombs, polluted water. No one cares, lmao.

True. I could record myself shooting one of them in the face and get off scot-free, lmfao. No one will pay any attention to this.

I hate that she’s in my house. Gross.

Sorry. I had to make a decision after she ran into the street. She’ll be handled ASAP.

Good. She was so mean to me!

Hurry up. Your little cowgirl wants to ride and if you finish fast enough we can fit it in before the meeting.

I’ll try, tonight’s revitalization is going to be pretty intense—we have to get everything contained so it lines up with the parade. Everyone already associates it with violence so it’ll provide even more cover.

You’ll have to wait a few hours for this . Keep yourself entertained—and send pictures.

A picture comes through almost immediately: Ponytail Lululemon, Theo’s supposed ex-girlfriend, half-naked in a nasty-looking public bathroom mirror with her hip jutting out to give the illusion of ass where there is none.

The clanking of cups in the kitchen signals that I’ve read enough. I tiptoe toward the living room door. Luckily, the house adheres to the rules of New Brooklyn; the flooring is new and doesn’t squeak like at my place, and there’s one of those big-ass mirrors in the hallway so I can see what that traitorous motherfucker is doing in the kitchen.

Theo has a box of tea in one hand and his phone in the other, tapping with his thumb.

I’ve panicked a lot over the last few weeks, and the last few hours. I’ve relived past betrayals and uncovered one and now two more. Mommy and many of my neighbors are gone, directly or indirectly thanks to this company, and if the word rejuvenation means what I think it means, more of us will be gone soon.

Right now, if I cry one more tear, or give in to panic, I might as well just let Theo kill me right here and leave my neighbors and friends for dead.

My last fuck disintegrates uneventfully, but in its wake it leaves the knowledge of what I have to do. Of what Mommy would want me to do.

“Don’t let them take my house.”

I head back to the duffel and grab it—it’s his, but it contains what little evidence I have and also: Fuck him. If I can inconvenience him a little bit, good.

A sharp white edge of paper sticks out of the side pocket and I push it in more deeply, then quickly tug it out to peek at it. It’s a business card. Motherfucking Bill Bil, for BVT Realty.

The same company Theo just acted surprised to learn was part of VerenTech.

Okay.

I’m not being paranoid. The one person I thought was on my side is not. Again. I refuse to feel upset—this is what I get for depending on everyone else to help me. This is what I get for not being strong enough to do things on my own.

That ends now.

I grab the duffel and quietly jog to the door.

“You want honey?” Theo calls out.

I don’t know if he repeats himself because my response is the quiet click of the door closing after me.

Gifford Place OurHood/privateusergroup/Rejuvenation