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statement. It didn’t make sense to him, but she knew she seemed convincingly resigned.
    “Tell us about that, Sara,” Mark suggested. “Why would they choose your husband over you? I’ve only known you for fifteen minutes and I’m already sure you’re a loving and gentle mother. I don’t know how old the girls are—”
    “I had the first one when I was fourteen.”
    “God dam mit it! I’m gonna kill this guy!”
    “Clay!” Mark’s growl was every bit as fierce as his brother’s. “I can talk to Sara alone if this is too much for you.”
    Sara bit her lip, wondering what Clay would think if he knew the truth. She hadn’t been fourteen, she’d been much younger. But she hadn’t been raped. Her eggs had been harmlessly removed from her body and had then been fertilized under a microscope with Ga’rag’s never-before-used sperm. Thereafter, he had also planted a chip in her face so that he could always find her and, more important, so that he could inflict massive pain on her whenever she got out of line.
    So yes, she had been molested and violated, but not in the way Clay meant.
    In a way, you’re lucky compared to the kind of abuse victim you’re describing to Mark, she told herself philosophically. They don’t have to participate in experiments, or suffer the fate you’re going to suffer in three years, but their lives are worse. It’s something to remember when you’re feeling sorry for yourself, Sara Kent. So just finish this story, get the journal, and get the hell out of here.
    Turning to Clay, she patted his arm. “It wasn’t what you think. I promise. I’ve never in my life been subjected to sexual violence against my person. My relationship with my husband might not be a loving one in the traditional sense, but it’s a partnership, and it’s based on mutual need and mutual respect. That’s more than some married couples can say. Right, Mark?”
    “Yes,” Mark murmured. “That’s more than some can say.” He cleared his throat, then leaned forward. “What about your parents?”
    “Mom died during childbirth. Dad died when I was eleven. Then I went to live with my grandparents. On my father’s side.”
    “Did your father abuse you?”
    “No. Of course not.”
    “Did you have any brothers and sisters?”
    “No. I’m an only child.” She licked her lips. “I’ve been honest, just like I promised. Can’t we stop? It’s getting us nowhere and it’s making me a little uncomfortable.”
    “Is it?” Mark pursed his lips. “Let’s go back to your father, shall we?”
    “Why?”
    “Your mother wasn’t around. He was lonely—”
    “Stop talking about him that way,” she warned. “You’re so far off base it isn’t even funny. He loved me so much, he would have done anything for me. Any thing. The irony being, if he really had come to my bedroom once in a while at night, maybe—” She stopped herself, horrified by what she had almost said.
    Maybe he would have seen the overlord . . .
    And then what? Gotten himself killed even earlier than he had?
    Just shut up, Sara! Ga’rag’s probably listening to every word of this, so be careful, please!
    “Interesting,” Mark murmured. “If he had come to your room, he would have seen the old family friend—your future husband—bothering you? And maybe stopped him? Doesn’t it seem more likely that he knew about it? And chose not to stop it?”
    Her gut twisted with guilt to hear her father maligned this way, and she longed to explain that he had been following her instructions. Ga’rag had warned her about what would happen if her father learned the truth, so she had insisted from an early age that a little girl needed her privacy. And her father had respected her wishes.
    Yet a part of her had hoped that he would burst in one night and slay Ga’rag like a dragon in a fairy tale. It couldn’t have happened, of course. Ga’rag would have just dissolved, then returned later to lace Robert Kent’s food with the drug