A million dead. Innocent tiny babies. Sweet elderly grandmas. The First Horseman of the Apocalypse on a white steed.

“Oh, a bus too,” he said mildly.

“This one takes us to my car. Then you won’t have to walk anymore.”

“I don’t mind. I like walking with you.” He smiled down at her and his feet tangled on his way up the steps. She steadied him before he could fall, then maneuvered him into the closest seat on the mostly empty bus.

“Do you like foreign films?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

“Um, some of them, I guess.”

“There’s a good theater at the university. Maybe if the dinner goes well, we could try some subtitles the next time.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” she said. “If you still like me after one evening together, I will definitely see a movie I can’t understand with you.”

He smiled, his lids drooping. “I’ll still like you.”

This was totally ridiculous. There should have been some way to direct this conversation away from flirting. Why was she the one feeling like the monster here? Okay, she was a monster, but she’d come to terms with that, mostly, and she knew she was the kind of monster that needed to exist for the sake of the common good. In some ways, she was like a normal physician – she had to cause pain to save lives. Like cutting off a gangrenous limb to save the rest of the body, just disassociated. Pain here, savior elsewhere. And elsewhere was much more deserving of the save.

Rationalizing, as she always had, so that she could live with herself. She never outright lied to herself, though. She knew she didn’t exist in some moral gray area; she existed entirely in the black. But the only thing worse than Alex doing her job well was someone else doing it badly. Or no one doing it at all.

But even if she fully embraced the label monster, she was never the kind of monster who killed innocent people. She wasn’t even going to kill this very guilty one… who was still looking up at her from under his long curls with big hazel puppy-dog eyes.

Dead babies, she chanted to herself. Dead babies, dead babies, dead babies.

She’d never wanted to be a spy or work undercover, but now she saw that she was also emotionally unsuited for the job. Apparently she had too much gratuitous sympathy floating around inside her body, which was more than ironic. This is why you never talked to your subject before you talked to him.

“Okay, Daniel, off we go. Can you stand up?”

“Mm-hmm. Oh, here, let me take your bag.”

He lifted a hand weakly toward her briefcase.

“I got it.” Though in truth her fingers were pins and needles around the handle. “You need to focus on your balance right now.”

“I’m really tired.”

“I know, look, my car is right there. The silver one.”

“There are a lot of silver ones.”

Exactly the point. “It’s right here. Okay, let’s put you in the back so you can lie down. Why don’t you take off your coat, I don’t want you to get too warm. And the shoes, there we go.” Less for her to manage later. “Bend your knees up so your legs will fit. Perfect.”

He had his head pillowed on the backpack now, which surely wasn’t that comfortable, but he was past caring.

“You’re so nice, Alex,” he murmured, his eyes closed now. “You’re the nicest woman I ever met.”

“I think you’re nice, too, Daniel,” she admitted.

“Thanks,” he half articulated, and then he was asleep.

Quickly, she pulled the beige throw out of the trunk. It was the same color as the seats. She covered him with it. She pulled a syringe from her bag and inserted it into a vein in his ankle, hunching her body so it blocked any outside view of what she was doing. Follow the Leader would wear off in an hour or so, and she needed him to sleep longer than that.

Not an agent, she decided. An agent might have played along with her kidnap drug, but he would never have let himself get knocked out like this. Just a mass murderer for hire, then.

The temporary lab she had created was in rural West Virginia. She’d rented a nice little farmhouse with a milking barn that had been a very long time without cows. The exterior of the barn was a white composite siding that matched the house; inside, the walls and ceiling were lined in aluminum. The floors were sealed concrete with conveniently spaced drains. There was a little bunk room in the back; it had been advertised as extra space for visiting guests, delightfully rustic. She was sure there were many naive travelers who would find the rusticity charming, but all she cared about was that the electricity and water were hooked up and running. The farmhouse and barn were situated in the middle of a 240-acre apple orchard, which was in turn surrounded by more acres of farmland. The closest neighbor was over a mile away. The owners of this orchard were making money during the off-season by renting out the space to city dwellers who wanted to pretend they were roughing it.

It was very expensive. She frowned every time she thought about the price, but it couldn’t be helped. She needed a secluded facility with a usable space.

She’d been working nights to get everything ready. During the day she had followed Daniel from a good distance, then caught up on what sleep she could in the car during school hours. She was completely exhausted at the moment, but she still had a lot to do before her workday was over.

First stop, a minor freeway exit more than an hour out of the city. A narrow dirt road that looked as if no one had used it in a decade took her deeper into the trees. It must have led somewhere, but she didn’t drive far enough to see where. She stopped under a thick patch of shade, cut the engine, and went to work.