Jada stood motionless a moment, not liking anything about what Mac had just told her. Alina was dead. And if there was something out there masquerading as her, it would only bring trouble. “Do me a favor,” she said coolly.

“Anything.”

“Stay the fuck off my water tower in the future.”

As she slid up into the slipstream, she heard Mac say, “When I look at you, Jada, I don’t see a woman who killed my sister. I see a woman who got hurt that night in the alley every bit as badly as Alina did.”

Jada shoved herself up into the beauty of the slipstream and vanished into the morning.

—

“Breakfast?” Ryodan said when Jada entered his office.

“Why is everyone trying to feed me this morning?”

“Who else tried to feed you?”

“We’re not friends,” Jada said. “Don’t pretend we are.”

“Who shit in your coffee this morning?”

“And you don’t say things like that. You’re Ryodan.”

“I know who I am.”

“What is with everyone this morning?” she said, exasperated.

“How would I know. You haven’t told me who everyone is.”

“Don’t talk to me. Just finish the tattoo.”

“After you eat.” He took a silver lid off a tray and shoved a platter toward her.

She stared at it. “Eggs,” she murmured. She hadn’t seen them in such a long time.

And bacon and sausage and potatoes. Oh, my.

“Try the yogurt. It has something extra in it,” he said.

“Poison?”

“A protein mix.”

She gave him a cool look and shook her head.

“Food is energy. Energy is a weapon. It would be illogical to refuse it.”

Jada dropped into a chair across the desk from him and picked up the fork. He had a valid point. Besides, eggs. Bacon. Yogurt. There was even an orange. The aroma of it all was incredible.

She ate quickly, efficiently, shoveling it down in silence, barely chewing. He was finishing her tattoo today. She was vibrating with energy, afraid he might change his mind for some reason. When she’d polished off the last crumb, she shoved the platter out of the way, yanked her shirt over her head, unbuttoned the top two buttons of her jeans and looked at him expectantly.

He didn’t move.

“What?” she demanded.

“Turn around,” he said. “I’m working on your back, not your front.” His silver eyes were ice.

She turned around backward in the chair, hooking her ankles around the rear legs, resting her arms on the slatted back.

“Relax,” he murmured as he settled into a chair behind her.

“I’m not tense,” she said coolly.

He ran his fingers along the two tight ridges of muscle along her spine. “This is your idea of supple. It’s a bloody rock. It’ll hurt more if you don’t relax.”

Closing her eyes, she willed herself smooth, long, lithe. “Pain doesn’t compute.”

“It should. It’s a warning your body needs to recognize.”

After a few minutes of his hands at the base of her spine, she felt that peculiar languor spreading through her body and snapped, “Stop doing that.”

“You keep tensing.”

“I do not.”

He traced his fingers along her spine again, delineating the hard ridges. “You want to have this argument.”

“You’re tattooing my skin, not my muscles.” She breathed easy and slow, relaxed again. It was merely her eagerness to see the ink done, nothing more.

“You’re wrong about that.”

She wasn’t sure if he was skimming her mind or not, if he meant her muscles or her eagerness. “I can relax my own muscles.”

“Keep bitching, I stop working.”

“You like that, don’t you—having the power to push people around?”

“That’s why I’m giving it away.”

She closed her eyes and said nothing. Was that how he thought of the tattoo he was etching into her skin? That he was giving his power to her? She wondered again what would happen when she called IISS. Precisely how much of a leash she would have him on, exactly how smart and powerful the great Ryodan really was.

She hoped enormously.

“Did you ever see anything like the black holes while you were in the Silvers?” he said after a time.

She shook her head.

“Talk, don’t move. This must be precise.”

“I saw many things. Nothing like those holes.”

“How many worlds?”

“We’re not friends.”

“What are we?”

“You asked me that before. I don’t repeat myself.”

He laughed softly. Then, “Stretch long. There’s a hollow at the base of your spine. I need it flattened.”

She did, then one of his hands was on her hip, stretching her out even more.

Then she felt the tip of a knife at her back, followed by a deep burn of a slice, and a sudden warm gush of blood.

“Nearly there,” he murmured.

Prick after prick of needles in a rapid dance across her skin.

Time spun out in a strange, dreamy way, and she relaxed more deeply than even she was capable of achieving on her own lately. It wasn’t entirely bad, she decided. What he did to her was nearly as good as sleep. Rebooted her engines, took her down to ground zero and fueled her up again.