Page 94 of Black Reign

Old friends from Stanford.

Leo’s parents.

Vale’s mother.

People from Hannah’s world.

People from Kane’s.

No Vesper.

I knew this was a mistake.

That thought has been circling since sunrise.

Maybe I never should have invited her.

Maybe keeping Vesper inside NULL was the smarter choice.

Clean.

Contained.

A woman made of words and fragments.

Caramel hair.

A mouth.

A teardrop on paper.

Italian messages appearing in darkness.

No expectations.

No possibility of standing ten feet from someone and realizing years of mental chemistry vanish the moment she opens her mouth.

Or worse.

Realizing they don’t.

That possibility is considerably more dangerous.

I rub the back of my neck.

She could be fifty.

Drew’s Russian theory remains statistically possible.

Not likely.

But possible.

The photographs suggest otherwise.

Still, photographs can be fabricated.

Bodies can belong to someone else.