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I stare closer but it’s still a mass of murky white and spindly bones. Jax’s long finger trails to the bottom of the X-ray I’m studying and I follow it. There’s a mass of meaningless numbers and codes. Measurements of some sort, I assume, but it’s what’s underneath the gibberish that stands out:
SUBJECT: LEWYS, ADELICE
“This is me?” I ask aloud. I’m not really speaking to him, only trying to wrap my head around what I’m seeing.
“You aren’t the only one,” he murmurs. “You deserve to know what Kincaid had in store for you.”
I scan the next image. Valery. Erik. And the next. Jost.
“How did they get these?” I ask loudly. Jax shushes me.
“They don’t have surveillance in here, do they?”
“Would you keep records of your misdeeds on tape?” he asks. “But it’s still not a good idea to yell.”
Good point.
“I don’t understand where they came from,” I repeat, trying to fit the pieces together. “I never agreed to be mapped.”
“Do you think Kincaid’s the kind to ask? This isn’t the first time Kincaid ordered us to drug you.”
“And you did it? Before now?” My fingers jab at him.
“Dante wanted to see what Kincaid was up to.” Jax spreads his hands apologetically and backs a few steps away from me.
Of course Dante would risk me to learn more about Kincaid. It doesn’t even hurt anymore to realize that, not after his attitude about abandoning my mother. But how had I missed it? The dreamless nights, the world fading from awareness to black to light again. I thought I’d stopped dreaming because I felt safe, but now I realize more sinister machinations were at work. Did someone carry me down here at night without me knowing it? But when I stop to think, I remember the strange dots and scratches on my arm that Erik noticed in the speakeasy, and the silvery scar we discovered at the swimming pool. My torn dressing gown the morning after Jost and I broke up. The strange bruise on my leg that Valery pointed out when she dressed me for the play. The clues have been there. Kincaid’s men weren’t even careful enough to prevent them, and still I hadn’t seen them until now. That didn’t answer the most important question though.
“Why?”
“What?” Jax asks.
“Why would he do this? What’s his endgame?”
“Kincaid is twisted,” he says but there’s discomfort in his voice. He has no more idea than I do. Jax is another cog in Kincaid’s machine, but he feels the creepy, sinister implications in the X-rays, in this room. Whatever Kincaid is up to isn’t benign.
“What else do you do here?” I ask.
“We do the alterations,” Jax says, hesitating a moment. “And this is where Kincaid gets his renewal patch.”
“That’s how he’s still alive, isn’t it?” I ask. “What are these patches?”
“He uses donor threads to keep from aging,” Jax says. “We take the time strands from other people and insert them into Kincaid’s own thread.”
“Donor implies willingness,” I mutter.
“There’s nobody more willing than the dead,” Jax says.
I recall the bright time strand I spotted within Kincaid. Was it the one pulled from Deniel after he attacked me? It doesn’t matter. It is despicable and unjustifiable however Kincaid came by it. Is this how Cormac and the other Guild officials stay alive too?
“We need to tell Jost and Erik,” I say, heading to the door.
“First, we have to take care of something more important,” Jax says. He gestures to the privacy screen, and my heart sinks into my stomach. He pushes it to the side, revealing Dante, unconscious, lying on a table. An IV runs from his arm, and a mask regulates his breathing.
“What happened to him?” I breathe.
“He’s sedated,” Jax tells me.
“Wake him up,” I cry.
