Seeing Glen exiting a room, he waved the doctor down. The other man hurried over, dark circles under his eyes.

Dev took in his friend’s wrinkled clothes, the way his ginger hair stuck up in untidy tufts. “I thought you were off shift.”

Glen thrust a hand through his hair, further electrifying the strands. “I wanted to be here in case our guest woke. Caught some sleep in the break room.”

Introductions took only a couple of seconds, and then they were walking into Ekaterina’s room. To Dev’s surprise, she was awake and sitting up, sipping something out of a small cup. He glanced at Glen.

“Just ten minutes ago,” the doctor murmured.

Ekaterina looked straight at Dev, her eyes skating off Ashaya as if her former colleague didn’t exist. “The cobwebs are starting to part.” Her voice was husky, as if it hadn’t been used for a long time. . . or as if it had been broken in the most brutal way.

Walking to her side, Dev took the cup she held out, caught by the shadows that swirled in the green-gold depths of her eyes. “How much do you remember?”

She swallowed but didn’t break eye contact. “I don’t know who I am.” It was a plea, though her voice didn’t shake, her eyes didn’t glisten. Yet Dev heard the scream—a thin, piercing cry that stabbed him right in the heart.

Part of him, a small, barely salvageable part, wanted to offer comfort, but this woman, simply by existing, was a danger to his people. She was Psy. And Psy connected to the Net could not be trusted. No matter that she acted more human than her brethren, he had to treat her as a weapon, carrying within her the seeds of Shine’s destruction. And if she proved to be that, he’d have to make the most lethal of decisions . . . even if it killed the last bit of humanity left in him.