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Then my knees cramp and I go down hard. I can feel my body start to spread, my fingers branching out into dozens of iron nails. My back spasms and my skin feels like it’s sloughing off me. I can hear a sound coming out of me, more a moan than a scream.
“What’s wrong with him?” Emil yells.
“It’s the blowback,” Zacharov says. “Give him some space.”
I hear the table being dragged back as I flop around on the floor.
“Is he going to bite his tongue?” That’s Stanley’s voice. “I don’t think that looks right. He’s going to give himself a concussion. We should at least put something under his head.”
“Which one?” asks someone else. Emil? The guy by the door? I no longer know.
It hurts. It really, really hurts. Blackness rises up, looming and terrible, before breaking over me like a wave, dragging me down to the bottom of the dreamless sea.
When I wake, I’m on the cot, swaddled in Emil’s stinking blanket, and only Zacharov and Stanley remain. They’re sitting on the folding chairs, playing cards. The boarded-up windows have a halo of light around their edges. It’s still daytime. I can’t have been out for that long.
“Hey,” says Stanley, spotting me shifting. “Kid’s awake.”
“You did good, Cassel,” Zacharov says, turning his chair to face me. “You want to sleep some more?”
“No,” I say, pushing myself up. It’s a little awkward, like I’ve been sick or something. The mask is gone. They must have taken it off me while I was sleeping.
“You hungry?” he asks.
I shake my head again. I feel a little queasy after the change, like I’m not sure where my stomach is. The last thing I want is food.
“You will be hungry later,” he says, with such certainty that it seems impossible to contradict him. I’m too tired to bother, anyway.
I let Stanley help me up, and he half-carries me out to the car.
We ride for a while, with my head resting against the window. I think I fall asleep again. I drool on the glass.
“Time to wake up.” Someone is shaking my shoulder. I groan. Everything is stiff, but otherwise I feel okay.
Zacharov is grinning at me from the other side of the car. His silver hair is bright against the blackness of his wool coat and the leather seats. “Give me your hands,” he says.
I do. One is gloved; the other one isn’t.
He takes off my remaining glove and holds my bare hands in his gloved ones, palms up. I feel uncomfortably vulnerable, even though he’s the one who’s in danger of being worked. “With these hands,” he says, “you will make the future. Be sure it is a future in which you want to live.”
I swallow. I have no idea what he means. He lets go, and I fish in my pocket for the other glove, avoiding his gaze.
A moment later the car door opens on my side. Stanley’s there, holding it wide. We’re in Manhattan, skyscrapers looming over us and traffic streaming past.
I shuffle out, breathing the car exhaust and roasting-peanut-scented air. I’m still blinking the sleep out of my eyes, but I realize that not being in New Jersey means that whatever I’ve been brought to do isn’t over.
“Oh, come on,” I say to Zacharov. “I can’t. Not again. Not today.”
But he just laughs. “I only want to give you some dinner. Lila would never forgive me if I sent you back on an empty stomach.”
I’m surprised. I must have really looked in bad shape back at the warehouse, because I am sure he’s got better things to do than feed me.
“This way,” Zacharov says, and walks toward a large bronze door with a raised relief of a bear. There’s no sign on the building; I have no idea what to expect when we go in. It doesn’t look like a restaurant. I glance back at Stanley, but he’s getting back into the driver’s seat of the Cadillac.
Zacharov and I walk into a small mirrored entranceway with a polished brass elevator. There’s no furniture other than a gilt and black bench and, from what I can see, no intercom or bell. Zacharov fishes around in his pocket and removes a set of keys. He puts one into a hole on an otherwise blank panel and twists. The doors open.
The inside of the elevator is richly burled wood. A video screen above the doors is showing a black-and-white movie without any sound. I don’t recognize the film.
“What’s this place?” I ask finally as the doors slide shut.
