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Jesus Christ . . .

How, he mouthed.

“I’m not sure precisely how he does it. But that was the way he got me in the first place. We were all in that cave where Rehv was being kept in the colony. The symphaths had come in and Lash got me—it happened so damned fast. I was suddenly off my feet, being dragged out, but I couldn’t fight and no one could hear me scream. It’s like a force field. If you’re inside, and you try to breach it, the shock is painful and quick—but it’s more than aversion. There’s a physicality to the barrier.” She lifted her palm and pushed at the air. “A weave. The strange thing is, though, you can have other people in the same space. Like when you came in.”

John was dimly aware that his hands hurt for some reason. Glancing down, he saw that he’d cranked them into fists and the pad was digging into his flesh. So was the Bic he’d been writing with.

Flipping to a new page he scribbled, I wish I’d known you were there. I would have done something. I swear I didn’t know.

When she read what he wrote, she reached out and put her hand on his forearm. “I know. It’s not your fault.”

Sure felt like it on his end. To have been right with her and not had a clue that she was—

Oh. Shit.

He wrote fast, then flashed, Did he come back. After we’d been there.

When Xhex shook her head, his heart started beating again. “He drove by, but kept on going.”

How did you escape, he signed without thinking.

While he scrambled for a fresh page, she said, “How did I get out?” As he nodded, she laughed. “You know, you’re going to have to teach me sign language.”

He blinked. Then mouthed, Okay.

“And don’t worry. I’m a fast learner.” She took a deep breath. “The barrier had been strong enough to keep me in since the moment that he took me. But then you came and left and . . .” She frowned. “Were you the one who did in that slayer downstairs?”

As his fangs punched out into his mouth, he mouthed, Fuck, yeah.

Her little smile had the edge of a dagger. “Nice job. I heard the whole thing. Anyway, it was after everything went quiet that I knew I had to get out or . . .”

Die, he thought. Because of what he’d done in that kitchen.

“So I was—”

He held his hand up to stop her, then wrote fast. When he showed her his words, she frowned and then shook her head.

“Oh, of course you wouldn’t have done it if you’d known I was in there. But you didn’t. And it sounded as if you couldn’t help it. Trust me, I’m the last person you need to apologize to for slaughtering one of those bastards.”

True, but he still got a case of the cold sweats thinking of how he’d inadvertently endangered her.

She took another long inhale. “So anyway, after you left, it became apparent the barrier was weakening, and when I was able to punch my fist through a window, I knew I had a shot.” She lifted one of her hands and looked at the knuckles. “I ended up taking a runner through the doorway. I figured I was going to need the extra force working with me and I was right.”

Xhex shifted around in the bed, wincing. “I think that’s where I got the tear. On my inside. I got wrenched badly breaking out—it was like pulling my body through concrete that was about set. I hit the hallway wall hard as well.”

There was the temptation to believe the bruises he’d seen on her skin were a result of her escape. But he knew Lash. He’d stared into the face of the guy’s cruelty enough times to be absolutely sure that she’d been put through a lot at the hands of the enemy.

“That’s why I needed to be operated on.”

The statement was voiced in a clear and level way. Trouble was, she did not meet his eyes.

John flipped to a new page, wrote six letters in capitals and tacked on a question mark. When he turned the pad around, she barely glanced at the REALLY?

That gunmetal gray stare of hers swung away and locked on the far corner. “It could have been an injury I sustained fighting him. But I hadn’t been bleeding internally before I got out, so . . . there you go.”

John exhaled and thought of those scratched and stained walls he’d seen in that room. What he wrote next made him