“You’re unharmed?” he asks, but he already knows the answer. People do this all the time. They ask me questions when they already know the answer. I notice it more now because I’m struck by it. They don’t do it to be malicious.

They do it because admitting that they have already been briefed about my every move is impolite. We’re still pretending there’s a layer of decency here.

There isn’t.

But if there is, the senator is part of it, because he helped me when no one else would.

“I’m fine. A little bruised and my hair was turned into a roasted marshmallow by the blast, but otherwise I’m okay.” Reflexively, I smile.

He puts one hand on my right shoulder, looking deep into my eyes, the seconds ticking by. Ever since my mother died, he’s been so nice. Helpful. Involved. I know he’s the reason Drew’s team is my security detail. Why Silas is my bodyguard.

But… why? After what my mother allegedly did to Lindsay, why would he care? And… does he care? Or is this just another way to control me?

“Thank you again for the new phone,” I say, genuinely grateful.

“It’s nothing. You know you’re being monitored,” he says gravely. “It’s for your own good.”

“I know.”

“But you also need a connection to the world.” He says this with a strange mixture of compassion and authority. It’s hard to read him. I spent my entire life hearing stories about Harry, going to work events and hiding in a back room, Harry coming in and talking to me in small conversations. Occasionally, when work was light and I went with Mom to the office, we’d eat dinner together, Harry asking me about school, dance class, my flute lessons.

It was nice.

It was like having a father. I guess.

Not that I know what that’s like, because my father died before I was born, but it was the closest I knew.

“Jane?” Harry’s question makes me realize I’ve gone blank, stuck in the past.

“Oh! Sorry,” I say, following his lead to move.

Once we’re all in the office, I realize there’s a young woman, a few years older than me, flitting in and out of the room but always speaking with the senator for brief sentences.

“Ah, Glen! Let me introduce you two,” he says, gesturing toward me and the woman. “Jane, this is Glen, my new assistant. Glen, this is Jane Borokov, Anya’s daughter.”

New assistant?

New assistant.

Glen gives me an eager, speculative look, the kind that says she has so many questions to ask me, all of them juicy and lurid. Only basic decency and self-preservation stop her.

Maybe just self-preservation. Who knows?

“Jane,” she says fluidly, in a voice that is lower, more cultured and confident than I expect to hear. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“How could you not?” I joke, but it’s not really a joke. She knows that. I know that.

We laugh anyhow. It sounds like someone holding a coffee can full of buttons and shaking it violently.

Even Silas seems to be able to spare a modicum of sympathy for me. I’m standing in my mother’s ex-boss’s office, talking to her replacement. A replacement who is close in age to me, and who carries no baggage as the senator works his way toward the White House. She’s a blank slate, a clean whiteboard, a remedy to my mother’s horrid stain of betrayal.

“Can I get you coffee? Tea? Juice?” she asks, her question smooth and easy. I’ve noticed that the younger female staffers in politics tend to hate this part of the job, finding it demeaning. Mom always rolled with it, saying it was a reflection on other people if they viewed her as a servant.

No negativity comes from Glen, though. She is the consummate pro.

“Coffee would be great. I could use the liquid adrenaline,” I say, smiling. She leaves, and Marshall looks at me.

“Not enough in your system after the near miss?” he asks, a barb in his voice.

“Different kind of adrenaline,” I reply, trying to stop the conversation.

“We ready?” the senator says to Marshall, the words in question form but it’s not an inquiry.

It’s a command.

“Yes. Everyone,” Marshall says, the rest of us settling down. Drew Foster comes in at the last second and takes a seat next to me. If Silas has contempt for me, Drew hates my guts. He’s an order of magnitude worse.

And his knee is inches from mine, clenched hand angrily writing on a legal pad with a ballpoint pen, his body radiating heat from a simmer that makes me glad he’s not my full-time bodyguard.

Lindsay ran off with him to Vegas six months ago in a clever maneuver to get her out from under her mom and dad’s control. They eloped. It was all over the news, the one bright spot in the media onslaught after everything went down.

Drew married her so he would become her next of kin and her parents couldn’t keep shuffling her away to a mental institution to manage their reputations.

Not the most romantic start to a marriage. Then again, they didn’t have the most conventional relationship, either. You don’t go from being wildly in love to being drugged and raped by your buddies without a few bumps in the road.

Like, mountain-sized bumps.

But I’m so happy they’re back together, even if they both hate my guts now.

I look around the room. Drew is to my right, then on his right sits Marshall, then Victoria. Between her and Silas is the screen for presentations, followed by the senator, then Marcy to my left. There are plenty of empty chairs.

Lots of time for Monica to appear.

I shiver. I pretend I’m cold and rub my forearms.

“Jane’s car was firebombed ninety minutes ago,” Marshall begins.

Ninety minutes. Less time than a major motion picture.

“And while our tech team is figuring out the specific culprits, we’re certain it’s an online hate group and not political opponents.” Marshall grabs a clicker and turns on the video presentation screen. A short film of my burning car displays instantly, the wail of emergency service sirens in the video filling the air. He hastily punches the volume button and turns it down.

“Which opponents would those be, Marshall?” Drew asks. “Corning, or someone else?”

Marshall’s eyes dart to me. “We were hoping Jane could give us some insight into that topic.”

I groan. “I’ve told you a million times before–I don’t know!”

“You know more than you’re letting on,” Drew says, turning to me with an aggression that makes me flinch. “You were Lindsay’s darknet informant for years. You fed her information. You’re more skilled than anyone in the room at hacking and accessing networks and information.”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“Oh, we’ve heard you. We’ve heard what you’ve selectively told us, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, congressional subcommittees, intelligence community experts… we’ve heard. But we haven’t heard everything.”

I sigh. Marcy and Victoria share a quick look. The senator watches Drew but doesn’t interrupt.

To my surprise, it’s Silas who speaks next. “I thought we were here to brief the group on Jane’s car bomb incident today, Drew.”

“We are.”

“Shouldn’t we address that first?”

Silas is calm. Deferential. But something has changed in him, and I’m not the only person in the room who notices. If I didn’t know Silas can’t stand me, I’d almost think this was a very covert form of defending me.

“Jane, why don’t you tell us what happened?” the senator orders, threading his fingers before him in his folded hands, his face placid.

Drew gives him a sharp look but says nothing.

“I, uh… Silas knows more than I do,” I say, giving him a half-panicked look.

“I didn’t ask Silas,” the senator says. “I asked you.”

“Well, we–I was at a coffee shop,” I start.

“For what?” Drew interrupts.

“For coffee,” I say slowly.

Drew gives me a sour look.

“I wanted to drink coffee. You know, in public. Like a normal person. I wanted to sit with my drink at a table and stare at the ocean until some of the tension from being the worst shitstain in the history of the United States dissipated. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to do it.”

Drew doesn’t react.

Normally, I’d never curse in front of anyone except friends, but I’m all out of those.

And patience. My patience is gone, too.

“And?” the senator asks.

“And Silas tried to tell me I had to leave.”

“You refused?”

“He didn’t tell me why.”

Drew, Marshall, and Senator Bosworth look at Silas, who glares at me.

“I was about to, but Jane was being difficult,” he explains.

My turn to stare back. “I was being human.”

“Like I said.”

“When a ‘subject’ wants to have a tiny shred of control over her day, she’s ‘difficult’? Are the men you protect ‘difficult’ when they object to being moved around like an object?”

“Don’t try to turn this into some anti-woman rant,” Marshall demands.

“I’m not trying. It’s Silas who–”

“I’d consider any subject in your position to be difficult, Jane. It’s not a gendered complaint,” Silas says in a robotic voice, the lack of emotion a tip-off.

Marcy and Victoria share a look I know all too well. It’s the look women give each other when they’re in a room filled with powerful men. I’d join in, but they don’t look at me. I’m not in the club.

“Let’s get back to the story,” Drew says drolly. “Silas didn’t tell you why you needed to leave, and...”

“And I walked to my car. He grabbed my arm and told me not to. I argued with him. He was drawing attention to us, and I didn’t like that.”

“Then why did you fight him?” Marshall asks in an accusatory voice.

Did Marcy just roll her eyes? Huh.

“Maybe because Jane is a sentient human being who has the right to preferences?” Victoria comments, scribbling on a notepad. She does not look up.

My opinion of Victoria just improved.

“Go on,” Drew says, giving me more attention suddenly.

“I was walking to my car and saw something dart out from in front of it. I thought it was a bird, or a Canadian goose, or just some little animal.”

“Did you see it, Gentian?” Drew asks, the question making it clear he was supposed to.

“No, sir. I was busy listening to the intel on the threat, then ran to protect her.”

“And how did he ‘protect’ you?” Senator Bosworth asks, frowning.

“I–he was just on me, from behind. I was flat on my stomach, grass in my face, just as the car exploded.” I reach up and touch my bangs. “The heat singed my hair.”

Silas scrubs his dark hair with an absent-minded hand.

“Good save,” Drew says to Silas, who just shrugs as if it were nothing. No big deal. All in the line of duty.

The senator takes it all in, peering at me for a long time, searching my face. Inventorying me.

And then:

“I think the safest course at this point is to hide Jane at an undisclosed location.” He looks at Marshall. “You got the PR on this?”

“We’re making sure it doesn’t affect you, sir.”

“Great. Poll numbers are stronger than ever and we want to keep them that way.”

“Actually,” Marcy said, interrupting, “we’re discovering a sympathy effect every time you’re associated with Jane, Senator.”

“A what?” Harry is perplexed.

“Women over sixty-five seem to have a small bump to your advantage whenever a news story is about Jane.”

Before I can react, Silas asks, “Where do I take her?”

“I think she should stay here,” the senator says, to my surprise. “We have a guest house by the pool. Security’s tighter here than anywhere else. Might as well have Jane spend the night at The Grove.”

“Like hell that’s going to happen,” says someone from behind me.

I don’t even need to turn around.

I know exactly who it is.