“Is Brett the reason why you did it? Are you hoping Whitney will keep him away from you if you’re pregnant with Norton’s baby?” He led her down the hall to the elevator.

Mari shoved her fingers through her hair, betraying agitation. “I’m not accepting him. One way or the other, I’m not accepting him.”

“Whitney told me he doesn’t want the women to feel the same way over the men, because if the pairing doesn’t work—if for some reason she doesn’t get pregnant, or the baby isn’t what he’d hoped—then he can send another partner.”

She stiffened. “The baby isn’t what he hoped? What exactly does he plan to do with a baby that isn’t what he hoped?”

Sean frowned. “I hadn’t thought about it. Maybe adopt it out?”

“Adopt it out?” She dragged her feet, slowing as they made their way down the corridor toward the laboratory.

“Well come on, Mari, you can’t tell me you want to sit around with a crying kid hanging on you.”

“If it was my kid, yes. Is that what you’d want? Your child sent away?”

“I don’t know what I want. When Whitney talks about how genetic enhancement can save so many lives and if we just developed a group of soldiers with superior skills, so many young men and women would never have to lose their lives or have catastrophic injuries, it makes sense. I can go out and do what I’ve been trained to do and know that someone else, someone not nearly as skilled, might be killed—would probably be killed—if I wasn’t doing my job. Doesn’t it make sense to work toward finding a solution to war?”

“The babies are still our children, Sean,” she pointed out. “They aren’t robots; they deserve to have the same choice you as an adult have. They deserve the same rights other children have.”

Sean pulled open the door to the medical laboratory and waited for her to enter first. “If you could just hear him, Mari.”

“I have heard him. He raised me. He found me in an orphanage, and facilities and laboratories like this one have been my home since that day. I didn’t play like normal children; I didn’t even know there was a normal. Martial arts and shooting guns were normal to me. I’ve never been on a swing or gone down a slide, Sean. I was out in the field playing battle when I was six. I never had a holiday. No one tucked me in at night. Is that the kind of life you want for your son or daughter?”

Sean shook his head. “I’ll talk to him again.”

“It won’t do any good. You know it won’t. He’ll just present his ‘this is for the good of mankind’ argument, and no one can get around that. He doesn’t think with emotion, Sean. He discounts emotion altogether. When he pairs a couple, it’s just physical attraction. Or that’s what it seems to be. He doesn’t want to run the risk of emotion, because then the parents might care about each other as well as their child. What would happen when he decides to experiment on the child—or he doesn’t think the pairing was what he wanted after all and he wants to break the couple up?”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“No? I think you’re deluding yourself, and I don’t understand why. We had hundreds of discussions about this and you always agreed with the rest of us. What Whitney is doing is wrong, Sean.”

Mari looked around her at the cold stainless-steel counters, sinks, and gurneys. She hated this room. It was so cold, yet when they turned on the spotlights, it was glaringly hot. Surgical instruments lay like torture implements in neat little trays. She tore her gaze from the knives and forced herself to smile at the small, thin man waiting for her. “Dr. Prauder, I’m reporting for a checkup.”

“So I’ve heard. Whitney wants a full report on you.”

“I’m here to give you whatever you need,” she said, forcing a cheerful tone. Her stomach knotted up at the thought of what was coming. She didn’t look at Sean. He knew her well enough to know she detested the poking and prodding. Whitney even tried to extract memories. Everything, no matter how humiliating or private, was recorded.

She took the gown the doctor gave her and changed in the small alcove, counting in her head to control shivering. Ken, where are you? If she ever needed another human being to get her through something, now was the time. She didn’t want them to give her a morning-after pill. She didn’t want them touching her body or deciding she needed more shots or another tracking device.

She detested the lack of control, how vulnerable she felt when she was strapped down helplessly and the doctors were able to do whatever Whitney decided was her fate. Most of all she detested the sneaky, very personal way Prauder touched her when he was pretending to be impersonal. Whitney often came for the exams. He stood on the other side of the glass with that terrible little half smile staring at her as if she were a frog he was dissecting.

How far away were the Nortons and their team? Had they lost track of her? Had Sean managed to throw them off and now she was trapped here alone? And what if she was pregnant? Whitney would take her baby and she’d never see it—not if he knew it was Ken Norton’s. He’d looked too pleased, and it was rare for Whitney to be pleased.

“You ready, Mari?” Sean asked.

“In a minute.” She folded the shirt carefully, running her hand over the material in a small caress. It was stupid and girlie and made her want to choke, but she couldn’t stop herself. They’re going to examine me. Do you know what that entails? And while they examine me, they have a guard standing right there, watching the entire thing. And a camera records it and Whitney stands outside the glass staring in at me.

There was no reason to tell him. She was stoic about it—well, usually stoic about it. Sometimes she fought and the guards ended up with broken bones and black eyes, and then they sedated her. She suppressed another shiver and held the shirt to her face, inhaling Ken’s scent, hoping to keep it with her through the coming ordeal.

“What the hell is taking so long?” Sean demanded.

“I was shot, you moron. My leg was broken. Although it’s mostly healed, it’s still sore, so I’m being a little wimpy taking the jeans off. Do you have a date? Am I holding you up from some important appointment, because honestly, Sean, I don’t mind if you want to postpone this little event.”

Sean muttered an obscenity she pretended not to catch. She took a deep breath and let it out before stepping out of the jeans. Just once, one time in her life, she wanted support. It was stupid. Her entire education was about self-reliance and discipline. It was about facing pain and the impossible task and completing the mission no matter what the personal cost might be.

She’d had a small taste of freedom, ironically as a prisoner, and it was much more difficult to face the starkness of her life. Reluctantly, Mari placed Ken’s shirt on the chair and wrapped herself in the gown.

She made a face at Sean as she climbed onto the table. She hated this. Hated it. Whitney knew it too. She’d tried various ways to distract herself over the years, pleaded for music, tried a running dialogue—nothing worked. She was the insect, pinned to the table, strapped down and stripped naked, to be examined and dissected just like the frogs and other animals and reptiles in biology classes.

The light clicked on, bright and hot and shining over her body. They were going to see every mark Ken had left behind. They would photograph and record and turn her one beautiful memory into something ugly and depraved.

She sat up before the doctor could strap her down. “I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry, Sean, I can’t.”

“Don’t go crazy on me, Mari,” Sean said, holding up his hand.

The doctor backed away from her, glancing toward the glass. She followed his gaze to see Whitney standing there watching with his dead eyes.

Mari slid off the table and went to the window. “I can’t. I can’t do this right now. I can’t tell you why, I don’t know why; I just can’t make myself do it.”

“I’m extremely disappointed in you, Mari,” Whitney said through the intercom. “You left this facility without permission and I didn’t even punish you. This examination is necessary. You’ve had them hundreds of times and there’s no reason for you to be upset about it. Get back on the table.”

“My body belongs to me. I don’t want to share it with science.”

“You are a test subject for the laboratory and you follow orders.”

“Is that what I am?” She moved away from the window, sensing Sean closing in on her. “What are you, Sean? Are you a test subject too?”

“You don’t exist outside this facility, Mari,” Whitney said. “Get onto the table or I will have you punished.”

“Are you going to send Brett in? Drug me? Beat me? What will happen to your precious baby if you do that, Doc? Brain damage? Maybe I’ll miscarry. That could happen too, couldn’t it? I’ve never been afraid of your punishments.”

Sean was close. Too close. He was very skilled, and unlike the other guards, he’d actually trained with her and knew her weaknesses. She changed her body position just slightly, enough to be able to move fast and block whatever he might throw at her.

“We don’t have to do this, Mari. You can’t win. Even if by some miracle you managed to put me down, ten other guards would be up here helping me out. What’s the point?”

“I put you down once already. I’ll take my chances.”

“I let you. I had it coming and we both know it.”

“How are you going to get me down, Sean? Slug me in the stomach? Knock me out with the syringe you always carry?” She beckoned him with her finger. “Come on.”

“Wait!” Whitney snapped. “Mari, don’t be ridiculous. No one is going to touch you.” He spoke into his radio and sent her his half smile, the one she detested. “Of course we aren’t going to force you. We want your full cooperation.”

For a brief moment she was elated. She’d been right. Whitney didn’t want to take a chance on possibly harming an unborn child of one of the Norton twins. She studied his face as he waved Sean off. Her heart jumped. He was up to something.

“Mari,” Sean hissed her name, just above a whisper. “Get on the table.”

She shook her head, but her defiance was already ebbing away. Whitney was the only person who terrified her. The more he smiled or looked amiable, the more frightening he became.

She backed away from Sean. If she could just have a few days, maybe the marks Ken had left behind would fade, and they wouldn’t be photographed and recorded and put in a file for Whitney to show whomever he reported to. It was too intimate, too much as if he had witnessed the insanity of their passion together.

“Mari, he’s bringing down one of the other women.”

Mari closed her eyes against the sudden burning. “Are you certain?”

But she didn’t have to ask. Cami appeared, her dark hair tumbling down her back, her one concession to being a woman. She was a fighter all the way, and Whitney detested her almost as much as he detested Mari. Cami walked with her shoulders and back straight—a soldier who had been taken prisoner and refused to yield.

“Mari, you made it back,” she said in greeting. “We were worried about you. The word was, you were shot.”

“My leg. Zenith fixed me right up and then nearly killed me. Apparently when it’s in our systems too long the cells begin to deteriorate and we bleed to death.” Mari smiled at Whitney. “Just one more piece of information that was overlooked when we were being briefed.”

“So why am I here?” Cami asked Whitney.

“I’ll let Mari explain it to you,” Whitney said.

Cami turned her vivid blue eyes on Mari. “It’s all right, Mari.” Her voice was gentle, calm. “Whatever he’s making you do, he can go to hell.”