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Jason leans forward, pus.h.i.+ng their plates out of the way so he can hold both of her hands across the table.

“If there are a million ponds out there, with versions of you and me living similar and different lives, there’s none better than right here, right now. I’m more sure of that than anything in the world.”

The bare lightbulb in the ceiling rains down a naked and flickering illumination on the tiny cell. I’m strapped to a steel-frame bed, ankles and wrists chained together with restraints and connected, via locking carabiners, to eyebolts in the concrete wall.

Three locks retract in the door, but I’m too sedated to even startle.

It swings open.

Leighton wears a tux.

Wire-rim gla.s.ses.

As he approaches, I catch a whiff of cologne, and then alcohol on his breath. Champagne? I wonder where he’s just come from. A party? A benefit? There’s a pink ribbon still pinned to the satin breast of his jacket.

Leighton eases down onto the edge of the paper-thin mattress.

He looks grave.

And unbelievably sad.

“I’m sure you have some things you want to say, Jason, but I hope you’ll let me go first. I take a lot of blame for what happened. You came back, and we weren’t prepared for you to be as…unwell as you were. As you are. We failed you, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I just…I hate everything that’s happened. Your return should have been a celebration.”

Even through the heavy sedation, I’m shaking with grief.

With rage.

“The man who came to Daniela’s apartment—did you send him after me?” I ask.

“You left me no choice. Even the possibility you had told her about this place—”

“Did you tell him to kill her?”

“Jason—”

“Did you?”

He doesn’t answer, but it is an answer.

I stare into Leighton’s eyes, and all I can think about is ripping his face off down to his skull.

“You f.u.c.king…”

I break down.

Sobbing.

I cannot exile from my brain the image of blood running down Daniela’s bare foot.

“I’m so sorry, brother.” Leighton reaches out, puts his hand on my arm, and I nearly dislocate my shoulder trying to pull away.

“Don’t touch me!”

“You’ve been in this cell almost twenty-four hours. It gives me no pleasure to keep you restrained and sedated, but as long as you’re a danger to yourself or others, this situation can’t change. You need to eat and drink something. Are you willing to do that?”

I focus on a crack in the wall.

I imagine using Leighton’s head to open another one.

Driving it into the concrete again and again and again until there’s nothing left but red paste.

“Jason, it’s either you let them feed you, or I run a G-tube into your stomach.”

I want to tell him that I’m going to kill him. Him and everyone in this lab. I can feel the words coming up my throat, but better judgment prevails—I’m completely at this man’s mercy.

“I know what you saw in that apartment was horrible, and I’m sorry for that. I wish it had never happened, but sometimes, a situation is so far gone…Look, please know that I am so, so sorry you had to see that.”

Leighton rises, moves toward the door, pulls it open.

Standing in the threshold, he looks back at me, his face half in light, half in shadow.