My throat is like sandpaper, thirst starting to make my head throb in time with my heartbeat. It’s been hours—at least, I think it has. The holosuite, without programming, is a barren, white nothingness. Only the security cameras and projectors punctuate the vaulted white ceiling, and the cameras are dark—not a single one glows. They’ve shut off surveillance in this room. They don’t bother to turn on most of the lights, choosing instead to use only one set, leaving the rest of the room shrouded. It gives the impression of infinite space—and yet here I am, in this chair they’ve brought in for me, unable to move.

The metal ring, the one that had started to glow right before everyone’s eyes went blank, is silent and dark. But I feel its presence just beyond the circle of light like a towering monster, some terrible creature lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to be left alone so it can strike. I know why they’ve brought me here—if I don’t tell them what they want, they’ll use that ring, and the creatures Flynn talked about in his broadcast, and take whatever they want from my mind.

Whenever my eyes close for more than a breath, one of them rams the toe of his boot against a chair leg, sending vibrations screaming up through my body and setting my bruised, aching bones on fire. It’s all I can do not to groan, but I refuse to give them the satisfaction of seeing me in pain.

“You must be getting tired.” It’s the big guy, the one who threw me onto the bed, the one I’d been planning to shoot. His voice sounds almost sympathetic. “Just give us something we can use to track him down, and this will all be over, I promise.”

Almost sympathetic.

“I swear to you,” I whisper, not bothering to conceal the weariness in my voice, “I’ve told you everything I know. I have no idea how to find him. I was a hostage, nothing more.”

At first I’d tried to get information out of them—overconfident stooges like these often give away more than they realize, because they’re so focused on extracting what they want. I did learn that it’s the Knave they want, not Gideon. And they’ve been after him for some time.

I’m positive the Knave has worked with them in the past—I can only assume that he’s gone rogue now and is no longer taking orders from LRI, or perhaps he simply knows too much and LaRoux wants him erased. These men aren’t aware of my identity, as far as I can tell—and they don’t know I’m from Avon. If I hadn’t chosen Gideon to be my unwitting partner in escaping LRI Headquarters, I wouldn’t even be here.

They don’t know I was at LaRoux Industries to try to kill Roderick LaRoux.

I stop myself before I can lean forward and let my head droop. Slumped body language is a sign of defeat, and if these guys know anything about nonverbal communication at all, they’ll take it as a sign to push even harder. I fight to keep my eyes wide to signal fear, but moving from face to face; too much direct eye contact suggests you’re hiding something and trying to counteract the natural tendency to look away. I need to be scared—because innocent bystander Alexis would be terrified—but I can’t look guilty.

But the truth is that even if I told them what really happened, even if I gave them his name and the icon on my computer I used to send that desperate distress signal, they wouldn’t have anything they could use to track him down. I doubt “Gideon” is the hacker’s real name, and even if it were, one first name on a planet of twenty billion people wouldn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know.

So why don’t you just give it to them?

I swallow hard as the man sighs, straightening up and moving away to speak to one of his partners in a low voice. I want to strain to listen, but I can’t make myself focus. It’s all I can do to remember the story I gave them well enough to stick to it.

Ordinarily, I’d know what happens next. With no witnesses and no record of this interrogation, they’d take me someplace quiet and have me killed, and I’d simply vanish. If it were any other company, any other organization—I’d die. But this is LaRoux Industries, and the things they could do to me are far, far worse.

I can see my father’s face in the gloom, exhaustion making the shadows swim and wriggle into familiar patterns before my eyes. I can see him in the moments before he turned and walked into the barracks on Avon—I can see his pupils dilate, swallowing the clear blue of his irises, I can hear his voice go cold, I can see his muscles seize up and propel him away from me. It’s always that moment that I relive, not the explosion itself. I see my father’s soul vanish again and again. I see the moment he died, seconds before he was blown to pieces.

I force my terror down away from my heart, force myself to breathe. Panic will only make me slip. My eyes search the perimeter of the room, difficult to make out past the lights blinding me. I know what’s through a couple of these doors, from the floor plan I memorized. But I’m betting I can’t use the same escape route twice, even if I could get past these guys. Even if, after hours of sitting here, I could manage to run faster than my captors.

Maybe if I were braver, I could do it. Maybe if there was any part of myself worth saving, beyond the need for vengeance. But…I don’t want to die. I can’t die. Not when I’m so, so close to reaching Roderick LaRoux.

One of the men—the one who fought me—pauses abruptly, signaling for the others to quiet. He presses one finger to his ear, and I realize someone’s giving him orders through a micro-earpiece. “Yes, sir,” he says, spine stiffening even though whoever he’s speaking to can’t see him. “I understand, sir.” There’s a long pause, in which the man listens. Then he nods to one of the others and gestures back into the shadows, in the direction of the ring. “Yes. Yes—understood. Thank you, monsieur.”

My body stiffens. Only one man’s arrogant enough to resurrect a dead language just to come up with a unique title for himself. This man’s orders are coming directly from Roderick LaRoux.

“It’s your lucky night, sweetheart,” the man says, pulling off his earpiece. “I’ve heard it doesn’t hurt a bit, and you don’t even know it’s happening. You just—pop,” he says, miming a tiny explosion with his fingers by his temple, “and you’re gone, replaced by something much easier to deal with. This is a much more humane way to get answers. Though much less fun.”

No. God, no. I can feel the ring’s vibrations through the floor, traveling up the chair legs, as the machinery begins to turn on. I can feel the floor moving the way the ground moved beneath me when my father turned himself into a bomb.

The man who was speaking to me replaces his comms device with something else, another bit of electronics that hooks over his ear. “Suit up,” he orders the others, who dutifully outfit themselves with similar devices with the air of workers donning their helmets or surgeons pulling on gloves.

As the men turn their attention to the metal ring dominating the middle of the room, I try to look around, try to see if there’s any way out. The exits will be locked, and even if I could get them open, I’d never make it there before they grabbed me. They’re too far for me to grab a weapon off them without them noticing me getting up from the chair. I’m rooted here, just as surely as if they’d bound me to it.