Page 72 of Dose

It is rough and graceless. Her teeth catch the skin below my collarbone. My right hand knots in her hair, and she moves over me hard enough to bruise.

“Mine,” I say against her throat.

Her nails drag down my chest. “Yours.”

“Say it again.”

“Yours, Daddy.”

The word ruins what remains of my control. I tighten my grip in her hair and watch her come apart above me, her mouth open around my name. I follow with my face buried against her neck, holding her close enough to feel every breath.

For several minutes afterward, neither of us moves. She stays across my lap, cheek against my uninjured shoulder. My right hand travels slowly along her spine.

“Tomorrow,” she says, “we start on the western hub.”

I let my head strike the door once. Lightly.

“We have been home for two hours.”

“And I’m not suggesting we start tonight.”

“Generous.”

“I thought so.”

I tighten my arm around her. “Planning does not mean you’re entering it.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

She lifts her head. The humor leaves her face.

“Phoenix worked because no one tried to do every job. I knew the verification system. Raphael knew the children. Damon and Darius knew the building. Lucien knew how to move them without making their fear worse. You knew when to wait and when to come.”

“I did not enjoy the waiting.”

“I noticed.” Her fingers trace the scar at my temple. “I made my case. Damon tested me. Nikolai cleared me. You trained me even though you hated every second of it. When the operation went wrong, you followed command instead of turning your fear into an order for me.”

I think of the argument in the laboratory and the cruelty I used because I wanted her frightened enough to stay home.

“I tried to,” I say.

“You did. Then you listened.” She touches her mouth to mine, gentler now. “You were afraid for me, and in the end you didn’t use that fear to make my choice for me.”

I want to tell her this is not virtue. That given different orders, a different corridor, or blood that belonged to her, I would become exactly the man she should fear.

She knows. She stays anyway.

“Sixty-three,” she whispers.

We sit with the number.

Sixty-three children are sleeping, crying, refusing food, asking questions, or sitting perfectly still in three recovery sites tonight. Sixty-three individualized regimens will need review. Sixty-three nervous systems will have to learn that a closed door is sometimes only a door.

There are more facilities. More children. There is no reason to believe the next extraction will go as well.

We will plan it anyway.