I glance up at the screen occasionally, to keep an eye on the time. At 12:41, the blue horse appears.

"Okay. Blue horse, pink hat, 713." I still can't come up with anything more than zebra for the next one, so I don't say anything else.

As the clock flips to 12:42, a purple-and-yellow zebra in a blue coat appears. God, no wonder I couldn't remember the color.

"Do you think this is someone's job?" Deo asks. "I mean, does someone actually get paid to come up with these?"

Major dej vu. I try to remember what I said next, but again, I can't.

"Probably," I say. "But shh for a minute . . . I'm trying to remember something."

Green . . . dog. Green Chihuahua?

Nah. It's a wiener dog, ummm . . . whatchamacallem . . . .a . . . dachshund. Yeah.

I wait a few more seconds and then say, "Next one is a green dog. A dachshund. Orange sweater. Number is 83 . . . 7? I think."

When the image comes up, it is indeed a green dachshund. The sweater is reddish-orange and the number is 831.

"Whoa," Deo says. "That's . . ."

I turn toward Deo and nod. "Freaky. Yeah."

"So what's the next one?"

"I have no idea. That's when it ended. I thought it was a dream, at first. I just . . ." I look around the room, searching for recording devices, and say in a louder voice. "I just hope someone was watching. Because I have no idea if or when that will happen again."

There's no response. Deo and I just sit there, watching as the rainbow zoo parades in front of us.

"Do you think this is some sort of psychological torture?" he asks after a few minutes. "Like making us watch that singing purple dinosaur?"

I shudder. "You really shouldn't give them ideas."

At 2:27 (red-and-blue giraffe, pink scarf, number 584) Timmons enters. Now that we're closer to the doorway, I hear the hum that Jaden mentioned. It's faint but definitely electrical. It reminds me of the buzzing noise from the faulty ballast in the light fixture at the police station.

"Move back to the cots." He tosses Deo another paper bag. I get a whiff of tuna when he catches it. I think Deo does too, because his nose wrinkles. He's not a fan.

We do as we're told and Timmons goes over to the computer, keeping an eye on us and a hand on his taser. He stops the animal show and brings up the intranet.

"Boss says you can watch something 'til he gets back. Could be a while. But if you get any other sneak previews, you're to speak up, you hear?"

So . . . we watch Marvel movies. Deo has seen them all. He'd forgo clothes and possibly even food in order to be in the theater on the day of release. The last one I saw was the second Ant-Man, which means I'm three or four movies behind, but Deo is more than happy to see them a second-or in several cases, third-time.

Unfortunately, I'll need to watch them again at some point, because my mind keeps straying back to reality. I envy Deo's ability to lose himself in fantasy for a while. That type of break seems almost as useful as sleep for keeping stress at bay, and I've never really mastered it.

We're on movie number four when Lucas comes in. He snaps the computer shut, cutting off this villain named Thanos who's going on and on about some stone he wants.

"So . . . no more visions?" Lucas's tone is sarcastic. I'm not sure why. He's clearly had solid proof that all of this is real. But I guess it's part of his nature to act like a jerk.

"No. Just the one."

Lucas tucks the computer under his arm. "Move on to the second body then. Let me know when . . . if . . . you're done."

No explanation as to why we've been just sitting here for nearly eight hours. He simply heads for the door.

I wait until he's gone, then turn toward the bodies. I've avoided looking at that side of the room since last night, although they've definitely loomed large in the lab, like the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla.

As I get closer, I see that the blood has now dried or congealed. Somehow, that makes it worse. The coppery tang hits my nose more strongly and I fight back a gag.

Which one, Jaden? You knew them both. Which one should I go for?

He hesitates a long time. That makes me pretty sure that what he really wants to say is neither. But he finally answers.

It depends. Oksana won't stick around, but . . . I'm not really sure the full extent of her talent or even what it is. She might have picked up that chair the normal way when she hurled it at Lucas's head . . . I heard two different versions of that event. The only thing I know for certain is that she's not the most stable isotope in the lab . . . and here in The Warren, that's sayin' a lot. Something definitely rattled a few of Oksana's screws loose.

That's considerably less than comforting, and I step toward Will. But Jaden isn't finished.

Thing is . . . Will was a little flaky, too. But the biggest downside there is he's got a huge chip on his shoulder about this whole Delphi thing. He might not be so eager to leave. Personally, I'd pick Will, because crazy kind of scares me, but . . . your head, your call.

Crazy kind of scares me, too.

"So, which one?" Deo asks.

"Jaden thinks he's our best bet." I can't bring myself to look at him directly, but I nod toward Will.

Crouching down, I place one hand on his knee. Yesterday, when I did this with Jaden, the body was still warm. Will's leg is cold and hard beneath my palm.

"Okay," I say. "Let's do this."

I visualize pulling one of the mental bricks from my wall very slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time.

Picking up Will is no more difficult than picking up Jaden was. But this time, the others are ready.

My walls come crashing down.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

When I open my eyes, I'm on one of the cots, with Deo standing over me. Worried. I think he's saying my name, asking me something, but I can't quite hear him. I start to ask him what happened, where we are, when it all comes rushing back.

Unfortunately, the memory of what happened isn't all that comes rushing in. My return to consciousness stirs the pot and the inside of my head goes from silence to the busy roar of Glenmont station at rush hour. A swarm of voices in different languages.

My name is Legion, for we are many.

One section of the curtains has been pulled back, exposing the hallway and the rows of chairs where Lucas now sits, talking on his cell phone. It's in one of those weird cases with the tiny antenna like Ashley had.

When I look at him, the roar in my brain becomes even more frenzied. But I don't think the anger is directed at me. I'm pretty sure it's aimed at Lucas.

One at a time. I need to take them one at a time and push them behind the back wall. I'll have to deal with them all eventually, and I don't think even the wall will shut out all of them entirely. But it will at least get the bedlam down to something manageable, something that might allow me to think without this whirl of distraction.

I close my eyes again and try to find some coherent thread to follow. Finally, I sort Jaden's voice out of the roar, answering the question before I can ask.

Will, Oksana, and two other women. Only four.

ONLY four?

I draw a few calming breaths as I try very, very hard not to freak out. Molly isn't even fully assimilated yet, and counting Jaden, I now have five additional voices in my head. At once. And I can't exactly call Kelsey to schedule an emergency appointment.

But in another sense, Jaden is right. I sensed way more than four others when the walls crumbled.

Yeah. Oksana and the other two were chosen as . . . representatives, I guess? The rest held back.

Why?

They were thinkin' too many voices might . . . be counterproductive. And they want to help, not make it harder.

Help . . . with what?

With getting you out of here.

Really? That's it?

Well, umm . . . no, actually. They might also be plannin' a bit of payback.

I open my eyes and look back at Lucas, who's still on the phone, staring through the window at me as he talks. It only takes that brief glance to get a reaction out of my new hitchers, who seem pretty keen on sitting Lucas down in here and adding a fourth corpse to the room.

If I have to kill Lucas in order for me and Deo to escape, I won't shed any tears. Given what he did to my hitchers, what he did to Molly, and what he would have done to me if Ashley hadn't showed up, I seriously doubt I'd lose even a single karma point. I might actually gain a few.

What they're envisioning would be an execution, however-murder, plain and simple. If I could, by some miracle, force Lucas to sit down so that I could duct-tape him to a chair, I'd grab his security badge and focus on getting us the hell out of here. My new hitchers don't seem to care much whether I approve of their plans, however. That means we're going to need to have a little group chat.

But first, I need to get my head together enough to speak to Deo, to let him know that I'm okay. I can't hear him, but he's clearly saying my name. Tapping my cheek gently.

I try to put up another wall, to drown out the noise, to close the new hitchers off in some corner of my head. But it's no use. I'm too scattered, too divided, to function. My head feels like it's on the brink of exploding. As a group, they are stronger than I am, and that terrifies me.

QUIET!!.

I don't have much confidence that mental bellowing will work, but it's all I can do. I'm not even sure how well some of them understand English, given the cacophony of different languages I'm hearing.

Jaden echoes my plea for quiet, and the furor dies down a bit.

Anna can't function if we're too close . . . to the front. Everyone needs to pull back. Give her some room!

Two voices I don't recognize join him. One is male, which must be Will. That kind of surprises me . . . I guess I'd expected him to be mute. The female voice is halting, and I think she may not be accustomed to thinking in English. Both echo what Jaden said. Back off. Give her room. Chill.

Gradually, the crowded room that is my brain grows silent enough that I gain control.

"I'm okay, D."

He lets out a sigh of relief. "You passed out."

"How long was I out?"

"I don't know. Ten minutes, maybe longer. Long enough for him to notice and start making phone calls. And then your eyes were open, but you weren't answering. It was like you could see me, but you couldn't-"

"How did I get back over here?"

"I carried you. Do me a favor and lay off the Doritos, okay?"

"Funny. Ha-ha. Maybe you need to hit the gym." I give him a playful punch in the arm. "But really, thanks."

His face darkens. "Wasn't going to let that bastard touch you."

"Did I . . . say anything while I was coming to?"

"Not a word. Why? Did you manage to pick up that Will guy?"

"Uhhh, yeah." I look up to where Lucas was sitting. He's no longer there, but I still can't really say much more when they could have every inch of this place wired. "This could be very interesting. He's . . . strong. That could be a prob-"

I'm outside and I'm running. Deo is a few feet in front of me. It's cold, but he's not wearing a shirt. Only sweatpants.

Usually, I can keep up with Deo. In fact, most of the time, he's the one running a little behind. But my ankle is throbbing, a slow dull ache that keeps me from putting my full weight on it.

We're in a clearing, with just a few scattered trees, running slightly downhill toward a more densely forested strip of land. Even though the sky is dark, I can make out the shape of a building off to the right and another one, at a distance, to the left. A muffled noise, like a car alarm, sounds several blocks away.

As we run, the alarm noise either stops or grows too faint to hear. I look back over my shoulder again at one of the buildings. The one we came from. The structure looks as though it's damaged, but it's not the ruined building from Taylor's drawing.

A light from above sweeps over the ground behind us. Once, twice. There's a rapid thwop-thwop noise overhead, but it fades quickly. A plane. No, a helicopter. It sounds familiar, like one that Abner rode in during Vietnam.

I turn to see if I can spot where it's going, and that's when I see someone behind us, closing in fast. A man. He wasn't there the last time I looked back. He's not big enough to be Lucas. Thinner. More like- "Faster, Deo! I think it's Cregg!"

The man is shouting my name. We push into the trees, and the ground begins to drop off. The tree cover is dense, but I see a road ahead. A flash of lights from a car. Power lines above us. And in that split second that I'm looking upward at the utility lines, I trip over something. A rock, or maybe a tree root. My ankle howls in protest.

A hand grabs my arm as I start to fall. I open my mouth to tell Deo to keep running, certain that it's Cregg, but all that comes out is a scream.

And then I realize it's Daniel.

He says, "You're going-"

". . . wrong with her? She was awake a minute ago."

Deo's arm is around me and I'm leaning against his chest when Lucas's hand connects with my face. It's not a gentle tap like when Deo was trying to wake me up earlier. This is a full-bore slap, and it's all I can do to keep control away from the three Furies roaring inside my brain. My fingers clench into claws, ready to rake the eyes out of Lucas's head.

Most of their thoughts aren't in English, but the few that are make their intent pretty clear.