I slowed myself to a walk before I interrupted him. I didn’t want to scare him, to make him think there was an emergency.

He was still startled when I appeared, a little breathless, in the stone doorway.

He jumped up from behind his desk. The book he was reading fell out of his hands.

“Wanda? Is something wrong?”

“No, Doc,” I reassured him. “Everything’s fine.”

“Does someone need me?”

“Just me.” I gave him a weak smile.

He walked around his desk to meet me, his eyes wide with curiosity. He paused half a step away and raised one eyebrow.

His long face was gentle, the opposite of alarming. It was hard to remember how he’d looked like a monster to me before.

“You are a man of your word,” I began.

He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but I held one hand up.

“No one will ever test that more than I will test it now,” I warned him.

He waited, eyes confused and wary.

I took a deep breath, felt it expand my lungs.

“I know how to do what you’ve been ending so many lives to discover. I know how to take the souls from your bodies without harm to either. Of course I know that. We all have to, in case of an emergency. I even performed the emergency procedure once, when I was a Bear.”

I stared at him, waiting for his response. It took him a long moment, and his eyes grew wilder every second.

“Why are you telling me this?” he finally gasped.

“Because I… I am going to give you the knowledge you need.” I held up my hand again. “But only if you will give me what I want in return. I’m warning you right now, it won’t be any easier for you to give me what I want than it will be for me to give you what you want.”

His face was fiercer than I’d ever seen it. “Name your terms.”

“You can’t kill them-the souls you remove. You must give me your word-your promise, your oath, your vow-that you will give them safe conduct on to another life. This means some danger; you will have to have cryotanks, and you will have to get those souls onto shuttles off-planet. You have to send them to another world to live. But they won’t be able to hurt you. By the time they reach their next planet, your grandchildren will be dead.”

Would my conditions mitigate my guilt in this? Only if Doc could be trusted.

He was thinking very hard as I explained. I watched his face to see what he would make of my demand. He didn’t look angry, but his eyes were still wild.

“You don’t want us to kill the Seeker?” he guessed.

I didn’t answer his question because he wouldn’t understand the answer; I did want them to kill her. That was the whole problem. Instead, I explained further.

“She’ll be the first, the test. I want to make sure, while I’m still here, that you’re going to follow through. I will do the separation myself. When she is safe, I’ll teach you how it’s done.”

“On who?”

“Kidnapped souls. The same as before. I can’t guarantee you that the human minds will come back. I don’t know if the erased can return. We’ll see with the Seeker.”

Doc blinked, processing something. “What do you mean, while you are still here? Are you leaving?”

I stared at him, waiting for the realization to hit. He stared back, uncomprehending.

“Don’t you realize what I’m giving you?” I whispered.

Finally, comprehension slammed home in his expression.

I spoke quickly, before he could. “There’s something else I’m going to ask you for, Doc. I don’t want to… I won’t be shipped off to another planet. This is my planet, it truly is. And yet, there’s really no place for me here. So… I know it might… offend some of the others. Don’t tell them if you think they won’t allow it. Lie if you have to. But I’d like to be buried by Walt and Wes. Can you do that for me? I won’t take up much space.” I smiled weakly again.

No! Melanie was howling. No, no, no, no…

“No, Wanda,” Doc objected, too, with a shocked expression.

“Please, Doc,” I whispered, wincing against the protest in my head, which was getting louder. “I don’t think Wes or Walt will mind.”

“That’s not what I meant! I can’t kill you, Wanda. Ugh! I’m so sick of death, so sick of killing my friends.” Doc’s voice caught in a sob.

I put my hand on his thin arm, rubbed it. “People die here. It happens.” Kyle had said something to that effect. Funny that I should quote Kyle of all people twice in one night.

“What about Jared and Jamie?” Doc asked in a choked voice.

“They’ll have Melanie. They’ll be fine.”

“Ian?”

Through my teeth. “Better off without me.”

Doc shook his head, wiping at his eyes. “I need to think about this, Wanda.”

“We don’t have long. They won’t wait forever before they kill the Seeker.”

“I don’t mean about that part. I agree to those terms. But I don’t think I can kill you.”

“It’s all or none, Doc. You have to decide right now. And…” I realized I had one more demand. “And you can’t tell anyone else about the last part of our agreement. No one. Those are my terms, take them or leave them. Do you want to know how to remove a soul from a human body?”

Doc shook his head again. “Let me think.”

“You already know the answer, Doc. This is what you’ve been searching for.”

He just kept shaking his head slowly back and forth.

I ignored that symbol of denial because we both knew his choice was made.

“I’ll get Jared,” I said. “We’ll make a quick raid for cryotanks. Hold off the others. Tell them… tell them the truth. Tell them I’m going to help you get the Seeker out of that body.”

CHAPTER 51.Prepared

I found Jared and Jamie in our room, waiting for me, worry on both their faces. Jared must have talked to Jeb.

“Are you all right?” Jared asked me, while Jamie jumped up and threw his arms around my waist.

I wasn’t sure how to answer his question. I didn’t know the answer. “Jared, I need your help.”

Jared was on his feet as soon as I was done speaking. Jamie leaned back to look at my face. I didn’t meet Jamie’s gaze. I wasn’t sure how much I could bear right now.

“What do you need me to do?” Jared asked.

“I’m making a raid. I could use some… extra muscle.”

“What are we after?” He was intense, already shifting into his mission mode.

“I’ll explain on the way. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Can I come?” Jamie said.

“No!” Jared and I said together.

Jamie frowned and let me go, sinking down onto the mattress and crossing his legs. He put his face in his hands and sulked. I couldn’t look directly at him before I ducked out of the room. I was already yearning to sit beside him, to hold him tight and forget this whole mess.

Jared followed as I retraced my path through the south tunnel.

“Why this way?” he asked.

“I…” He would know if I tried to lie or evade. “I don’t want to run into anyone. Jeb, Aaron, or Brandt, particularly.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to have to explain myself to them. Not yet.”

He was quiet, trying to make sense of my answer.

I changed the subject. “Do you know where Lily is? I don’t think she should be alone. She seems…”

“Ian’s with her.”

“That’s good. He’s the kindest.”

Ian would help Lily-he was exactly what she needed now. Who would help Ian when…? I shook my head, shaking the thought away.

“What are we in such a hurry to get?” Jared asked me.

I took a deep breath before I answered him. “Cryotanks.”

The south tunnel was black. I could not see his face. His footsteps did not falter beside me, and he didn’t say anything for several minutes. When he spoke again, I could hear that he was focusing on the raid-single-minded, setting aside whatever curiosity he felt until after the mission was planned to his satisfaction.

“Where do we get them?”

“Empty cryotanks are stored outside Healing facilities until they’re needed. With more souls coming in than leaving, there will be a surplus. No one will guard them; no one will notice if some go missing.”

“Are you sure? Where did you get this information?”

“I saw them in Chicago, piles and piles of them. Even the little facility we went to in Tucson had a small store of them, crated outside the delivery bay.”

“If they were crated, then how can you be sure -”

“Haven’t you noticed our fondness for labels?”

“I’m not doubting you,” he said. “I just want to make sure that you’ve thought this through.”