Footsteps above.
Jack lifted his head as dust sifted from the rafters. Chains clinked. A door creaked open.
Two bodies were dragged down the cellar stairs—bound, gagged, and terrified.
Lana. Kyle.
Vesper descended last, graceful as a judge at sentencing. She dropped the gag from Lana's mouth first.
Lana gasped, hoarse. “Jack?!"
“Yeah," he muttered. “Welcome to the fallout."
Vesper cut Kyle's gag with surgical precision. “He screamed more in the van. Got quiet when I mentioned IVs."
Kyle trembled. “You're insane."
Vesper smiled. “A clinical term. Not inaccurate."
Jack twisted in his restraints. “This wasn't part of your thesis."
Vesper turned to him. “On the contrary. This is the final variable—*relational betrayal under duress*."
She inserted IV lines into both of them with swi
