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only following orders. I…I had no choice."
    Now, that was a lie!
    In a flash Sigrid sensed his treachery. The images came at her hard, and she winced, grimacing as each data fragment shattered against her. They were just bits and pieces, only fragments of images. Trying to make sense of it only brought more pain and more of the whispered warnings to forget. But Sigrid didn't need her memories to know what he'd done. She saw it in his eyes and felt it in his shame—shame that registered so strongly in her sensor nodes she spat, as if trying to rid herself of the foul taste.
    Slowly, she turned to face him, and the last of the color drained from his face.
    "No. Please. I didn't mean to."
    "Yes," Sigrid said. "You did."
    Her grip tightened on his throat. He grabbed for her arm and kicked with his feet. "Please. I have a wife. Children."
    Also a lie. "Then I'd be doing them a favor."
    With a squeeze of her finger and thumb, she applied pressure to his left and right carotids. His death was swift and painless—more than he deserved. He was filth, trash of the worst kind. She left his body on the gurney in the pool of her own blood.
    A hospital gown hung from the hook by the door. She took it, throwing it over her shoulders and stuffing her arms in the sleeves. While she was busy doing up the buttons, something caught her eye. It was something on her stomach. Sigrid probed it with a finger.
    It was a scar. And a fresh one at that.
    Sigrid had many scars. Many of them were from training, more from combat. She'd been shot, stabbed, bashed, beaten and burned more times than she cared to remember. She remembered all her scars, and quite vividly, thanks to her PCM. But she had no memory of this scar. Or that one , she realized as she spied an even longer one that zigzagged across her right breast.
    "What the…?"
    Her voice trailed off as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the door's window. She gasped as her hand flew to the side of her head—and the spot she knew should be there. Except it wasn't.
    On Bellatrix Sigrid had run into three unusual girls—three of Harry Jones's volunteers. They were more machine than woman, harvested and corrupted into tools of war for the Independents. Sigrid had fought them and won, barely, but the fight had left its mark. One of the girls' swords had come within millimeters of chopping her head clean off. She'd escaped the killing blow, but the cut of the blade had left a large bare patch along the side of her head and shaved off a good chunk of her hair. Suko had even teased her about it. Yet to look at herself now, the hair was fully grown back, and the scars and the torn skin, even the nick on her ear, were fully healed.
    Sigrid stared, gaping. It couldn't have happened more than a few days ago, but for her hair to grow back like that, it would take…
    Years.
    With trembling hands, Sigrid did the last of her buttons up.
    Escape. She had to focus on her escape. The sooner she was out of here, the better. Escape. Find Suko. Until she did that, nothing else mattered.
     

CHAPTER TWO

Contracts
    Poking her head out the door, Sigrid saw the hallway was clear, and she ran. She was a blur as she covered the distance in great, long strides, yet her bare feet made no sound on the tiled floor.
    There were junctions in the corridor at regular intervals. No windows. Only doors, more cells like the one she'd escaped. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them. Whatever this facility was, it was immense, perhaps even larger than the one on Bellatrix, yet each cell she passed was empty. No people, no bodies. No life. Was this entire facility just for her? It couldn't be.
    Sigrid kept running, only slowing when she heard muted voices ahead. Sliding to a stop, she peered around the corner. There was a security station here. Two uniformed guards—one male, one female—stood at their posts. No stun batons for them, they were armed with heavy-caliber recoillesses.
    They were busy chatting. And rather