Using his key, he let himself into the cell. Because she was used to him, she didn’t scream when he approached her. That was more welcome than she offered anyone else who worked down here. But she didn’t stop rocking, either. The sound of grinding teeth came to him over her muffled whimpers. From a distance, the cameras didn’t record the minute signs of her obvious pain. Tenderness overcame him.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s going to be all right. I’m here to make things right.”

He could never do that, of course.

Subject 34-Q gave no sign she understood him. Her face didn’t turn in his direction. Her teeth ground on, as if she wanted to chew through the fabric of her very existence. He couldn’t imagine the depth of her suffering, but it was better that way. A certain amount of human detritus was inevitable when you considered the progress they were making.

The way she rocked, it took coordination to get the needle into her arm. Within seconds, she slumped sideways, her movement stilled. Though it cost a bit more, he’d argued for the inclusion of a powerful sedative in the cocktail that would stop her heart.

There was no need to be cruel, after all.

Dr. Rowan stepped out of the cell and closed the door behind him. His heart felt lighter as he retraced his steps back to his office. Once there, he rang for an orderly, a big guy with a set expression everyone called Simple Silas, although not within his hearing. The first-and last-person unwise enough to use the nickname in front of Silas needed seventeen stitches where his forehead met the wall. Dumb as he looked, he never missed an insult. So perhaps he wasn’t simple after all-merely silent.

Five minutes passed before Silas turned up, towing a mop bucket behind him. “What’s up, Doc?”

No matter how many times Rowan told him that wasn’t funny, the man persisted in the greeting. This time, the doctor ignored it, and handed off the clipboard. “I have a cleanup job for you.”

Silas left the mop bucket beside Rowan’s office door. He knew the procedure well enough. Inside ten minutes, 34-Q would be in the incinerator. Idly, Rowan wondered whether Silas said a few words for their dead, offered a moment of silence, or simply chucked the bodies away. It was hard to know what passed behind those dead, black eyes.

Dr. Rowan sat down at his desk and turned on the computer. They weren’t networked to the rest of the facility. The work they did upstairs was just for show. If anyone managed to get past security, they’d find worthless research on the long-term effects of sugar and caffeine on chimpanzees, among other such red herrings. He was amused at the idea of anyone finding an application for that information. A monkey could tell you that stuff was bad for you.

It was all smoke and mirrors, and it was too entertaining that the faux-scientists upstairs thought they were doing serious research for the Food and Drug Administration. They thought they had been commissioned to find more healthful alternatives to foods containing sugar and caffeine, like anyone would pay for that.

With a faint sigh of regret at 34-Q’s ruined potential, Rowan began to type up his report.

Gillie hated the nights most of all.

Oh, it meant a respite from the endless tests, no poking and prodding and being hooked up to the machines, but it also meant Dr. Rowan lurked around the hallways, watching on the monitors. Her bathroom had a door, but it didn’t lock. The privacy was never quite enough, and sometimes she went in there and sat in the shower stall just to feel like she was alone. If she lingered too long, an orderly came to check on her.

Things were better than they had been. The suite she occupied was equivalent to a studio apartment, and they’d allowed her to choose a few colors and furnishings so she felt less imprisoned, not that the illusion changed the reality.

At least she no longer had two-way mirrors in her apartment. There used to be an observation area, where anyone could come and watch her, as if she were an animal in a zoo. If she were ever lucky enough to escape this place, she’d immediately join an animal rights group. But the prospect of freedom seemed ever more remote.

Bits she remembered from the outside world were fading. On television, people dressed differently than she recalled; they drove different cars. The automobiles were sleeker now, more aerodynamic, and they had more fiberglass, less metal. She knew these things in the abstract sense, gleaned from books, magazines, and various TV programs. Vicariously, she’d lived a thousand lives and never one of her own.

In here she’d lost track of time, and she was no longer even sure how old she was. Things never changed. They stocked her kitchenette on Wednesday, allowing her to pretend she had some control over her environment. But they regulated her recipes. They wouldn’t let her cook a big, greasy bacon sandwich if she wanted one, or biscuits in gravy. She had no friends, only staff who supervised her.

Shortly after they had first taken her for “treatments,” she wondered what she’d done to deserve this. As a kid, she’d asked God about it, but she’d long ago stopped expecting any answers. Bad people did bad things, and they got away with it.

Except on TV.

The drone of the machine comforted her, and she found it easier to relax with noise in the background. Overall, she slept better during the day. Nights like this one left her tense and fearful, as if she could sense the ill at work in the very air.

There was something about Rowan she didn’t trust, a proprietary gleam in his eye when he examined her, perhaps. She’d grown used to doctors who came and went; it was par for the course. Unfortunately, Rowan seemed to be staying.

He knocked on her door at 5:45 A.M. It was a perfunctory courtesy. There was no lock; she had no way to dissuade him from entering. As king of this underworld, he could do as he pleased, and so, though she didn’t know his first name, she mentally called him Hades. She didn’t like the notion of herself as Persephone, but it wasn’t like she could keep from eating what they gave her.

“You aren’t asleep,” he said by way of greeting. “Would you like me to prescribe something for you?”

Yeah, I need more meds like a hole in the head.

She shook her head quickly. “No, I just woke up to use the bathroom. I’m fine.”

Rowan couldn’t read her mind; he didn’t know when she lied, unless he had evidence to the contrary. She didn’t think he’d devoted his whole night to watching her, though he sometimes did. His intensity set off all kinds of alarms in her, but nobody would come if she called for help.

This morning, there was an obscene sparkle in his eyes that said he’d killed again. Gillie doubted anyone else would notice the outward signs. Rowan kept his euphoria tightly leashed, but she had no doubt the power was singing through his blood as he studied her.

Was he imagining what it would be like to sink his hypodermic needle into her skin and hold her while she trembled through her death throes in his arms? Unlike the others, Silas answered her questions directly when she asked, so she knew what went on in those dark and silent halls. She knew about the women who screamed-and those who didn’t. She knew about the man who wept and tried to gouge out his own eyes if he wasn’t tied.

Dr. Rowan ruled them all.

He might have been attractive if not for the coldness of his hazel eyes. Like hers, his skin was pale; he seldom saw the sun. In other aspects, he looked normal-a man you would never glance at a second time if you didn’t know of his taste for death. For Gillie, he was the bogeyman made real.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He smiled, and it was horrid, all teeth and gums-like a bloodred rose laid across the gaping mouth of a desiccated skull.

Doubtless he fancied he had a charming smile and that she enjoyed his visits.