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them. My head turns anxiously, taking it all in, helpless but still searching, scanning for a way out of this.
    I look up at the lab coat examining me. He’s old. Older than any other enkros I’ve seen. The hair is so white and sparse on his head that I can see the paper-thin skin of his scalp.
    His touch on my arm is cold. He squeezes a bit as though testing the texture and density of me.
    Terror holds me, twists around my heart, and … and then something else intrudes. A growing thread of emotion weaves through me. The emotion spirals from a gnawing ache nibbling at my mind to a powerful wrench in my gut. It’s worry. Plain and simple. Only it’s not coming from me … it’s not me at all .
    My every nerve bursts, overcome and slammed with a sudden onslaught of emotions.
    His name shudders through me in a sigh. Cassian . He’s close. His worry and anxiety wash over me in prickles that flash cold and hot. Are they coming? I come alive with this possibility. Suddenly I don’t feel so wretchedly alone strapped down to this table.
    With a new burst of energy, I focus on the old man above me and the way the scalpel glints with menace in the unforgiving light. His gloved hand trails up my neck, leaving a wake of gooseflesh.
    “Now,” he murmurs, “let’s see.” His fingers turn my head and feel their way through my hair, stopping above my ear.
    I struggle, turning in the opposite direction. My head is forced back into place with hard hands as a thick leather strap is pulled tight across my forehead, cutting into my skin.
    The old man’s touch grows firmer as he delves between my strands of hair … looking for something, it seems, on my scalp. “This spot looks perfect,” he announces.
    Two other lab coats peer behind him, observing his ministrations. The old man glances over his shoulder, his every motion impatient and annoyed. “Jenkins?”
    “Yes, Doctor,” a voice replies in absolute deference.
    A loud whirring fills the air. It’s an angry sound, alive and threatening. I can’t move my head. My eyes roll wildly, trying to see what it is.
    Jenkins appears next to the doctor, a shaver in his hand.
    I moan against the tape as the cold teeth of the shaver are pressed to my scalp, just above my ear. In a mere moment, a small place is shaved clean. A tuft of red-gold hair floats before my eyes. Then there is silence as the device is shut off.
    “There we go.” The doctor slides his spectacles farther up his thin nose.
    Jenkins takes the shaver and steps hurriedly to the side, just out of my vision. He returns with a pair of tongs that hold a patch of gauze. The cotton is stained a yellow-orange with some kind of ointment. “Here you go, Doctor.”
    He takes the tongs and lowers the gauze to my head.
    I cringe, unsure what it is, but brace for discomfort. The gauze hits me, cold and wet, but painless. He brushes it against the naked flesh of my scalp in several sweeps.
    “Almost ready.” The doctor hands the tongs back and returns into my line of sight with a scalpel in his hand. I inhale a sharp breath through my nose. He doesn’t speak, simply frowns as he concentrates on my head.
    “This will just hurt a pinch.” His gaze cuts to mine and fixes for a moment, and I wonder if he suspects that I can understand him.
    I jerk against the strap holding my head down, straining my neck.
    “It will hurt more if you move.” He holds my stare with those chilly eyes of his for a long moment, and there’s no wondering. He doesn’t think I understand him. He knows . And this only makes him more of a monster. Defeat spreads through me.
    He gives a nod, satisfied I won’t jerk around on the gurney anymore. And I won’t. The last thing I want is for him to slit my throat or lop off my ear.
    The blade lowers.
    This is the part where I hold my breath and tell myself those swinging doors will fling open with Will and Cassian and Tamra. That they’ll charge inside the room and cut me free of the straps restraining