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pushed Zoe forward with his other hand, and Gaby woke up to him in mid-sentence saying, “—it’ll be over soon. All you have to do is not get in the way.”
    “Why are you doing this?” Zoe asked.
    “We don’t have a choice,” the man said.
    “Need-to-know, Bray, remember?” a voice said.
    Gaby turned her head slightly to look at the silhouette that had spoken. He was shorter and thinner than the first, and holding a pistol on a fourth figure—
    Nate.
    He was standing at the foot of a bed, hands folded behind the back of his head, and he was looking directly at her . When he saw that she had seen him, Nate shook his head—just barely. The man with the gun behind him wouldn’t have picked it up, and she wouldn’t have either, if she hadn’t been staring right at him.
    No? Why is he telling me no?
    She understood as soon as the second man leaned out from behind Nate and zeroed in on her. Gaby closed her eyes and lay perfectly still, and though she didn’t do it on purpose (or, at least, she wasn’t aware of having done it on purpose), her heartbeat slowed down and she slipped back into a relaxed state, the kind that someone sleeping would be in.
    “What’s wrong with her?” the second man asked.
    “She was shot,” Nate said. “She’s not going to give you any trouble. Zoe’s got her all doped up.”
    “Is that true?” the man named Bray asked.
    “Yes,” Zoe said. “She’s unconscious. Just leave her alone.”
    “Check her, just to be sure,” Bray said.
    “Stay here,” the second man said, though Gaby didn’t know whom he was talking to. It was probably Nate.
    Quick footsteps as someone approached her bed; then the heat of a body leaning over her, along with the strong aroma of fried fish on the man’s clothes and breath. A (cold) pair of fingers pressed against the side of her neck, then gripped her chin and turned her head from side to side.
    “Well?” the first man said.
    “She looks asleep,” the second one said.
    “Maybe she’s faking it.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    Fingers pried open the lid over her right eye, and Gaby stared back at a man with short blond hair. He looked to be in his late twenties and may or may not have been sporting facial hair; it was difficult to see a lot of details with only the moonlight splashing across different parts of the room for light.
    Gaby willed her eye not to blink, or move, or for her pupil to dilate. Was that possible? Could you even force something like that?
    The man tapped lightly on one of her cheeks, and she let out a soft, annoyed groan and opened her other eye.
    “She’s awake,” the man said. “But she looks pretty out of it, like the kid said. Shouldn’t be any trouble.”
    “You gotta make sure,” Bray said.
    “I’m sure.”
    The man let go of her eyelid, and she let it slide shut and turned her head slightly while continuing to lie still.
    “What did you give her?” she heard Bray asking.
    “Sedatives for the pain,” Zoe said. “I had to take a bullet out of her. She’ll sleep through this whole thing and wake up tomorrow thinking it was all just a bad dream.”
    Gaby didn’t know if that was true, but Zoe must have sold it well enough, because Bray said, “Let’s keep an eye on her anyway.”
    “Yeah,” the other man said.
    Nice work, doc.
    “You’re making a mistake,” Zoe said. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”
    “No, you made a mistake when you brought that thing onboard,” Bray snapped back.
    “Thing?” Gaby thought.
    Will. They’re talking about Will.
    How did they know?
    “We have to keep this between us,” Lara had said when she was here earlier. “Understand? No one can know about what’s down there. Especially Riley’s people.”
    So how did these two know? They had to be a part of Riley’s group, because she didn’t recognize either one of them. It didn’t help that there were a lot of new faces onboard the Trident these days.
    “What now?” she heard Nate asking.
    “Sit