“My sister comes off the program. Whole. That was the price. I want to hear you say it’s done.”
Her thumb stops on the screen. A second, not much more. Then it moves again.
“The terms were received.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
Mild. No push in it, and no lie in it either. That’s the part that worries me. A lie would mean the question still mattered.She sounds like a woman answering something that’s already settled.
I don’t ask again. Asking twice never made a difference in all the time I ran for her, and I’m not going to beg. I put my hands flat on my thighs and stare out the window. Wherever this car stops, Serenity is somewhere past it, and every mile is a mile closer to her.
Hours drag by. I shut my eyes, hoping to sleep through some of it.
I don’t.
The place, when we reach it, is nothing much. A chain-link gate with green slats woven through it. A low tan building with loading doors down one side. A man in a safety vest steps out of a booth, looks at the driver, and waves us through without a word.
The handler is out before the engine stops ticking. I open my own door and put my own boots on the ground before anyone can do it for me. If I’m walking into this place, I’m doing it on my own steam.
Inside is a gray hallway with fire doors and a desk. The man behind it doesn’t ask my name. He reads it off his screen.
“Sangrey.” He doesn’t make it a question. “Right arm.” His eyes raise to mine. “Don’t waste your time shifting. We have wards in place for that.”
I give him my arm, because the two men who came in behind me have gone still, waiting to see if I won’t. He closes a plastic band around my wrist. A number, printed. No name on it anywhere.
“Where’s my sister?”
I say it to the handler, because she’s the one I dealt with, first call to last. She’s already half turned away, coat over her arm, a woman with the rest of her day waiting.
“Serenity was transferred,” she says.
For a second I just stand there, waiting for the words to mean something else.
“Transferred where?”
“That isn’t information I have.”
“You said—” It comes out too high. I stop and start over. “The deal was her. Off the program. Whole. That was—”
“We had another deal.”
“Another—” The word won’t finish. “What does that mean, another deal?”
“We had an offer too good to refuse.” A small tilt of her head, almost polite. “It happens.”
“When?”
“Before your first message.” She glances at her screen to be sure. “She was gone before you ever reached out.”
The floor doesn’t move. It only feels like it does. My hand goes out and finds the edge of the desk.
Gone before I typed a word. Before I sat in my dark room and traded myself for her. There was never anything on the other side of it, and I walked in anyway.
He told me. Standing in his room with his hands opening and closing, he told me exactly how this ends, and I called him cold and came down the mountain to prove him wrong.
He was right. Of course he was.
