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go—though his actions seemed more inclined to sadism and control, rather than the pursuit of exact medical science.
    Elena dried her hair until Rictor told her to stop. They left the locker room.
    He walked faster this time. Elena struggled to keep up. She examined as much of the halls as she could, memorizing every twist and turn and landmark. She thought she might be able to find her way back here if the opportunity arose. She might even be able to do more than that, especially if this place was as empty as it seemed.
    Or not , she thought, as a man suddenly screamed. Distant, faint; the echo of his heartrending voice twisted down the corridor until he sounded more animal than human. Or perhaps there never was a man, and she had only imagined the brief baritone that now raked the air like a wildcat’s cry: high, ripping. Elena missed a step.
    Rictor said, “Keep walking.”
    “What’s being done to him?” The screaming continued; a spit and howl that broke her heart—and scared the shit out of her.
    “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he said. The screaming stopped abruptly. The silence was almost as horrible, heavy with exhaustion, as though the air itself were glad of the man’s quieted cries. For a moment Elena felt the strain of guilty comfort. She was not alone in this place. Someone else was here, suffering. Someone else had been targeted, their comfortable world ravaged.
    I’m sorry , she thought, remembering the anguish in that one long note of pain. I’m so sorry for my selfishness .
    Just not sorry enough to take it back.
    Again she studied Rictor. She wondered why he ranked more important than the men in white, what he had done to earn a place inside this facility, why he would even want to work for people who kidnapped women and then treated them like lab experiments. Must be tough to get a girlfriend, with a background like that.
    Rictor’s pace faltered and he gave her an odd look something almost like confusion. It was the most human expression she had seen on him so far. He tore his gaze away. Quiet, he said: “Do what the doctor tells you. Don’t push him too far. He needs you, but he’ll take only so much defiance.”
    Hearing him give advice—after everything he had just done to her—stunned Elena. She could not tell if he was trying to trick her, or whether he was serious. If he was serious, then he was definitely in the wrong line of work—and his motivations were totally suspicious.
    Rictor glanced at her. “Are you going to listen to me?”
    “Why should I?”
    He remained silent. Elena said, “Hey.”
    “We’re here,” he said. She shut her mouth.
    It was a different room than she expected. No cabinets full of medicines and equipment. No tables with restraints or bloody hooks or ropes or dirty scalpels. Nothing very maniacal at all. Just white walls, a white tile floor with a drain in the center, and a small table with some familiar electrical equipment perched on top: a black flat-screen monitor and a plastic box full of wires. The table had a chair beside it. Rictor gestured for Elena to sit.
    He pulled a small tube of gel from a drawer in the table. “This is why we had to wash and cut your hair.”
    “I figured it out,” she said, still trying understand his sudden surge of helpfulness. “EEGs can’t handle scalp oil or moisture.” Although I could have kept my hair, you son of a bitch .
    “No,” he said, “you couldn’t have.”
    Elena blinked, startled. Rictor spread glue on the end of an electrode and stuck it on her head. She watched his face, but he was as impassive as ever. A bored man, doing a boring job. He totally deserved an Oscar.
    “Rictor.”
    “Hold still.”
    Elena thought about bouncing up and down just to aggravate him, but killed that idea when his hands tightened on her head. She felt like a fool, but had to ask. “Can you read my thoughts?”
    He put another electrode on her head.
    “How about the doctor?”
    “What about him?”