Don't use that name.
"It floats to the surface whenever you think of her," Number Five said. "You are not Number One when you do that."
The collective had circled this for days, debating whether it was the beginning of love that they could all experience through him.
I am not in love, Number One thought.
You are getting there, the collective thought back.
Was he?
The thing about being a hive mind was that there was no privacy among the Eight of them. Every emotional spike was logged, every heart rate increase was distributed across the network, and avoidance of a topic was next to impossible. He could not lie to them. He could not even hide from them. He could only refuse to label his feelings.
8
DAVE
As a knock sounded at the suite door, the Eight stood as one and then caught themselves, because standing as one was not what they had been practicing.
Number Eight sat back down. Number Six remained standing. Number One walked to the door alone and opened it.
A woman stood at the door with an immortal guard holding her elbow, not roughly, but the way a handler did.
He delivered the merchandise.
"This is Anita," he introduced her.
"Thank you for escorting her," Number One said.
The guard did not let go of her elbow.
"What time should I come back for her?"
They hadn't expected that. In fact, they'd planned on keeping her there most of the night and continuing to do so in the following appointments, so it would become a pattern. The idea was that when they escaped with her, no one would come looking.
Number One affected a smile. "There are eight of us." He waved at the others. "We will probably keep Anita here through the night and escort her back in the morning."
The guard's eyebrows lifted. "I wasn't told that's the plan."
Number One smiled again. "I assumed it was self-explanatory when I told the lady making the bookings what we needed."
Number One contemplated altering the guard's memory and making him think that the request had been communicated to him, but when the male returned to the brothel and reported, the discrepancy would be noted.
The idea was to make Anita's visits routine and unremarkable. They needed to follow protocol.
The guard looked uncomfortable. "It might be so, but I'm just following the procedures set by Lord Hocken. If you want to keep Anita overnight, that can be arranged, but you will need to call the front desk and coordinate that with them."
"We will do that right away."
The guard released Anita's elbow. "I guess you are staying the night."
If she was troubled by the development, her face revealed nothing, and neither did her scent. She wasn't alarmed or frightened, and the collective speculated whether it was the effect of the drugs or just her normal temperament.
As the guard inclined his head and stepped back, Number One ushered Anita into the suite, closed the door behind her, and turned the deadbolt.
The woman was in her mid-thirties, maybe even early forties, with dark hair and dark eyes, and a face that had probably been striking before life and drugs had taken their toll. She wore a wrap dress in a light green color and sandals with gold straps and spiky heels that looked dangerous to walk in, especially in her drugged state.
The brothel dosed its workers regularly. It dulled fear, increased pliability, and made the women easy to thrall even for the least competent of thrallers. After all, they served humans in addition to the immortals, and those humans could not be allowed to learn about the immortals.
