The dry dock at the Orca’s Gate Marina was as big as an airplane hangar, boats tucked into cubbies made by metal shelves like a giant version of Jamey’s shoe rack. The dry dock’s main overhead lights were off and the yellow night-lights shone on the boats, which cast strange, oversized shadows across the concrete floor.
Reece walked straight up the center of the dry dock, past a giant forklift big enough to lift boats. The soft padding of his sneakers was achingly loud in the silence, but there was no point in hiding. Cora knew he was coming.
At the middle of the dry dock, he heard a soft whimper. He was running before he knew it. “Dr. Whitman!”
Just ahead, huddled on the bow of a small skiff, was Vanessa Whitman. Her vacant eyes stared into space, and while she wasn’t bound, she wasn’t moving to escape.
He dropped to his knees at the side of the boat. “Dr. Whitman?”
She didn’t react.
“Vanessa, it’s Reece.” He was reaching for her before he could stop himself. Maybe he wasn’t useless, maybe his empathy could reach her, maybe he could help—
“Hands to yourself, Reece.”
He froze with hands outstretched.
Thatvoice—
Reece had been so intent on Whitman that he hadn’t noticed, but he saw Cora now in the shadows, leaning on the next boat. Her hair was in a long braid over one shoulder, and she was still in the pink scrubs she’d been wearing when he saw her yesterday.
“Back up,” said Cora. “Hands where I can see them. Make one funny move, I’ll take it out on Vanessa.”
Reece bit his lip. Hands up, he stood, and took several steps backward, his gaze on Cora. He didn’t know what he’d expected to see. Bleeding nose, bleeding eyes? But there was none of that. The changes were so much more subtle; the once-kind eyes now shuttered at the edges, mouth hard instead of smiling. And her voice, all wrong, the sweetness gone and replaced with something cruel.
This wasn’t the Cora he’d seen yesterday.
Corruption, his mind supplied.
Maybe, but how? Never in a million years would Cora have willingly corrupted herself.
Back on the boat, Whitman made a choked cry. Reece flinched. Cora huffed, almost a laugh, and held up one bare hand. “If you don’t like her crying, I can change the channel.”
He swallowed, angry and sick at once. “That’s horrible.”
“Don’t knock it ’til you try it.” She pushed off the boat. “I knew you’d come.”
“You would have done the same once.” The lights caught the stains on Cora’s scrubs. Was that—blood? Hathaway’s, maybe, or others’? “What happened to you?”
The corner of Cora’s mouth curled up in a mockery of a smile. “They call it corruption.” She gestured in Whitman’s direction. “But that’s a word dreamed up by frightened scientists. I’m not corrupted, I’mevolved.” Cora cocked her head. “Do you know how it happens? Or are you still sheltered from your real nature?”
“You think this is your real nature?” Reece demanded. “Scaring people, hurting them, mur—” Despite everything, the word still stuck in his throat.
Cora laughed.“Murder,”she said, drawing it out. “The word ismurder, as in, I didn’t murder anyone, I made them murder themselves and each other.”
“That’s not what empathy is for!”
“What’s it for then, Reece?” she baited. “Nightmares?”
Reece flushed. “I told you about those as your patient. I came to you for help.”
“And now you’re back for more,” she said, and he flinched. “Oh, I bet you told yourself you were rushing here to help Vanessa here, or maybe even to help me. But you’re here for yourself. You want the truth. You want to know how this happens, because you want to know if it’s going to happen to you.”
“That’s not true.” He winced at the sour sound of his lie. Cora was a far more intuitive empath than he’d ever been.
Cora grinned like he’d told her a secret. “Whatever you say.” She hopped up to sit on the deck of the boat, within arm’s reach of Whitman.
“What are you doing to her?” he said warily.
