Chapter 23 · Soul Tether

"Don't touch her." Jesse shoved himself between Valerie and the girl on the core table, then nearly dropped when his shot-up knee folded.

Valerie caught him by the front of his coat before he hit the floor. Her good hand locked around his chest. The other hung stiff against her wounded shoulder.

"You can't stand," she said. "Stop pretending you can."

"You shot me."

"And you're alive because I did."

Behind them, the safe-room door shook under another impact. Metal screamed. Dust fell from the ceiling in thin gray lines.

Mara sat strapped to the broken core rig, her wrists free but her back still pressed against the black metal cradle. Her eyes had gone completely white. Not pale. Not glowing. White like a dead screen.

Then she smiled with someone else's mouth.

"Valerie Voss," Mara said. Her voice came out layered, two tones speaking at once. "Your father's execution order is inside my Sanctuary core. Why?"

Valerie's fingers tightened on Jesse's coat.

"Mara," Jesse said, keeping his voice low, "look at me."

"She can't hear you," Valerie said.

"You don't know that."

"I know the thing wearing her voice just named my father.