The restraints were more comfortable than the handcuffs, but that was where the benefits stopped.

The straps were tight against my wrists and ankles as they held me against the bed in a tight spread eagle. The soft padding on the bands were only giving me the illusion of comfort, for the more they tightened them, the more they pulled. The more my joints ached, and the more the heat under my skin rumbled.

My muscles tensed as yet another needle was plunged into my skin, the short sheer on my scalp prickling as I twisted toward the nurse who stood beside me, filling vial after vial.

I watched her, recognizing her at once as the nurse from that very first day. Although her hair was streaked in grey and her face lined with wrinkles, the color of her eyes was the same as her daughter’s. Katenka. The name on the badge was the same.

No wonder Kaye was Kaye.

I was desperate to ask. Desperate to know if Kaye was okay and what had happened. The woman didn’t look at me, however, and I didn’t dare say anything with so many people in the room.

Detective Bondar and his companion stood anxiously at the foot of my bed, their feet shuffling as they stood closer to the wall than to me. For all that I had heard them yell about cases and propriety and a dozen other things that I couldn’t place, they had been pretty happy about being here until a few minutes prior, when the man that now hovered over me had entered.

He wore a suit so dark it made his blonde hair appear platinum, both colors emphasizing his eyes so that they appeared to be little green sparks of danger. He glowered at everyone with those eyes, his expensive shoes crunching on bits of glass and metal that had been missed when they had put the room back together.

Although the bodies of the Vilỳ had been swept from the room by a few blood covered nurses, you could still smell the blood, even through the strong aroma of the antiseptic. You could still hear the workers as they scoured the blood from the halls, talking of the way all the monsters had dropped dead around me.

Of the mystery of it.

Of the miracle.

The tapping of the man’s shoes stopped as he bent over me, the low rumble of the television behind him making it clear it was turned to the news again.

“What is your name?”

The tone of the interrogators' voice was ice. It soaked the room with a shiver that ran down my spine, the same fear present even though he had asked the question before.

It was all he had asked. I still wasn’t going to give him an answer.

I lay still, as if I had another option, and stared him hard in the eye. Defiance spread through me as I met him head on, letting the warmth of my magic fill me as I once again tried to gauge my power and ability. My snarl faded when I caught sight of the embroidery on his lapel.

It was a tiny flare, a sunburn star with one long spire that stretched almost double the width above and below. It balanced on the point of his lapel like a top. The man so close I could clearly see the long threads in yellow and the brightest red that made up the insignia, the symbol the same as I had seen on the breast of The Cleaner’s uniforms.

Then, it had been an ugly yellow smear painted on body armor and helmets. Here it was worn with pride. Like a warning.

A brand.

Judging by the reaction of those in the room, by the way Kaye had shivered with the sound of their boots, this group was feared.

This group was in control.

“I don’t know.” Forcing myself to look away from the star, I gave the interrogator the same answer I had before, the monotone response obviously not what he had expected. “I would like to know who you are, however.”

The question seemed to be one that was not allowed. For the moment I said it Kaye’s mother jumped, the motion sending the needle she was manipulating painfully through my arm.

I restrained the yelp as I jerked against the restraints, all eyes turning from me to her as she stepped back, bloody needle held before her.  

She cowered under the look the man gave her, the same one he then turned to me, his warning relayed.

“I am sure you would.” His eyes narrowed in warning before clicking his heels against the floor. “Enemies of the State don’t gain all of the information they want. That was how the old government operated. I am not part of them.”

“So, you overthrew the government, then?” The interrogator smiled at my question, the look a dark smear of grease against my heart. The need to back down mixed dangerously with the need to plow ahead, to push buttons, to cause problems. If only the stubborn desire to challenge him wasn’t so loud if only it didn’t buzz under my skin.

“Overthrew,” he laughed. The sound made my muscles tense. “This is not the word I would choose.”

“Nor I.” The grumble came from the corner where Dr. Sirko sat perched behind the computer that had been brought in to replace the one I destroyed.

The response to the two words was instantaneous. The Detective shifted his feet and moved closer to the wall, the soldiers stepped toward him, guns cocking as a few moved to aim. The guns were waved away by the dark-suited man. Not an interrogator, I realized, an Officer. The Officer turned toward my doctor with a scowl and a snap that even made me jump.

“What word would you use Doctor?”

The threat was clear. A shadow of fear crossed the doctor’s face, but he straightened his shoulders, his eyes unwavering as he faced the Officer. My magic sparked at the look in his eyes, that same protective need growing strong as my power rose up to meet it. I almost let it free, but it still felt out of control.

And surrounded by so many guns I knew it wasn’t worth the risk. I didn’t know if I could do anything against guns.

“I would call it murder.” There wasn’t a wave of fear in his voice, although I could sense it in the air around him.

“Murder?” It was a word choked in a laugh and it grated on me, sending the same boiling need to battle raging through me. “Murder to protect the people that the former government would not?”

The heat in my hands began to bubble as the Officer took a step toward Dr. Sirko. I tightened my hands into white-knuckled fists, determined to keep it under control.

“Murder to remove those that would rather see you bitten and writhing…”

Another step. The burn was moving up my arm now, the heat growing as the soldiers in the room began to re-aim their weapons, the motions deflating the elderly doctor’s confidence.

The heat was a wave now, I could feel it wanting to explode. Was it worth it? One look at the guns that surrounded me told me no.

I tensed in an attempt to stifle it, the motion sending the restraints rattling and the Officer turned, his green eyes narrowing as he reached to the large gun that swung on his hip.

“It is murder to kill a family who would only…”

The Officer swung toward Dr. Sirko, a hiss of expletives and warnings streaming from him in Czech. It was only noise, my focus had been dragged away by a sharp jab in my arm and the scornful eyes of nurse Katenka. The danger was clear. I stared at her, trying to ask a million questions and glean a thousand answers. But there was only fear, only a warning of danger in her eyes.

“Is she…?” I began to ask, but even those two quiet words pulled the focus of the men, the bickering between Dr. and Overlord ending abruptly.

“Am I what?” The officer snarled as he misheard me, pushing the hair that had come loose from the slicked style back into place.

Katenka kept her head down, focusing on the new vial of blood she was taking and hastily grabbing gauze the moment she was done.

“Are you part of a military?” I lied without hesitation, the scratchy burn in my throat making my words blur together.

“I am here to assess you, sir.” He avoided the question artfully, and although I could see Dr. Sirko shift behind him, the man said nothing. He only began inputting numbers into his computer and scratching who knows what on a pad of paper, his back now curled and shivering in submission. “I am here to determine who you are, what you know, and how you took down a fleet of the Chrlič on your own.”

“I didn’t...” I stalled, not knowing which lie I needed to give him first.

“I have told you, Commander,” Dr. Sirko said, only faltering slightly when the tap of the commander’s shoes gave warning. “He remembers nothing, and he was in a coma when…”

“I believe none of that.” The now identified commander interrupted with a snap as he turned back to the physician. “You are a traitor to your country…”

“I am a hostage and the only competent physician in this facility…”

“Your hospital, and the local police,” the commander continued with a nod to the two directors, who instantly stiffened, “the fact that they have been led into this guise only shows me further how inept you are to continue his case and his care...”

At that, both detectives and doctor erupted into revolt. Their voices ran over each other, combining with the low rumble of the television until the room was full of sound, full of anger.

The emotion pressed against me, heating and swirling until that same lightheadedness from before came over me, the edges of my vision pulling in and out of focus.

With a low groan, my body collapsed weakly, the metal clasps on my restraints clicking gently at the removed tension.

The anger in the room evaporated.

“Nurse,” Sirko spoke over the still protesting detective, “I need you to dose him with cyclosporine. Make sure his blood levels are…”

“Don’t dose him with anything,” The Commander snapped, rushing to my side and hovering over me. “I need to test his blood.”

“You have enough,” Kaye’s mother finally spoke, her voice so kind that the snap she tried to place in it felt awkward. “If he doesn’t get this his body will reject his heart and he will slip back into a coma…”

“The coma never occurred…” The sound of the cleaning crew in the hallway silenced at the sound of his roar.

“Stubborn parasite,” my nurse grumbled, a painful prick in my arm preceding the cool flood of foreign medication.

“The coma was a direct result of the heart transplant. His body is rejecting…”

“Heart transplant?” I asked in confusion, the sound swallowed by the Commander’s hand slamming against the railing of my bed, the sound causing everyone to jump and cower back to the corners that they had been hiding in before.  

I watched them go, watched the white-knuckled grip of the militant man and listened to the echo of the impact, remembering my own fist slamming against a table in some other room.

Against a map in some other time.

The memory was no more than shadow overrun by the shout of the Commander’s tirade.

“Stop this nonsense. They say you remember nothing. They say your heart is not yours. I do not believe them…”

“My heart…?” I couldn’t stop the shock from bleeding out.

As well as I had put a lock on everything, this burst out of me, followed by the same image that had haunted me since the moment they had brought me back from the dead.

My blood, spreading over the stone. The pieces of my broken heart erupting from inside of me in an explosion that burst over rock.

My jaw dropped, a single sound dripping from my tongue before I clamped the betrayer shut. The Commander’s smile spread wider, his knuckles growing whiter as he leaned over me, hovering like one of the Vilỳ’s.

“Your heart what?” He hissed, the tone making it clear he thought he had discovered something great.

“My heart is not mine?” It was more of a statement than a question.

I made an attempt to clutch my chest and all of those scars that crisscrossed over me, knowing full well none of them was big enough for a heart transplant.  

The Commander smiled. The look only made the foreign object in my chest pump harder, my confusion growing with each throb.

My anger was rising. I needed to know what they meant, I needed answers. Pushing aside the desire to command them, I looked from the Commander to the Doctor my eyes pleading for anything he could give me.  

“No,” Dr. Sirko said, the response was followed by manic chicken scratches at the foot of my bed, Detective Bondar and his partner coming back from the dead. “We noticed it after you had been unconscious for a few months. Your condition was worsening and we had to intubate you. But all of our tests began to return… abnormal.”

“Sir, I command you to cease,” the militant man roared, another swath of his hair coming loose from its style.

“You bare no sign of transplant, but the organ itself bears signs of having come from the woman…”

“Doctor Sirko!” Another command was followed by the click of guns, no less than twenty instantly trained on the man in question.

The snap of voices and guns sent poor Katenka into a tizzy as she began focusing on arranging her vials, putting as much space between her and the horrors of the room as she could.

“I will not advise you again.” The Commander continued as he stepped toward the elderly physician, the man shaking as he attempted to hold his ground. “You do not share criminal information with wards of the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Ukraine.”

Sovereign Sanctuary of the Ukraine.

The SSU.

Kaye had said the acronym once, but the fear and anger behind it had caused it to stick to my bones. Now I understood why.

Now, I understood the fear.

“He is my patient…”

“He is our property!”

The Commander roared louder as my magic jolted inside of me, the surge of power so strong that I jerked against it, restraints pulling as half the guns turned toward me.

“Ugh,” the groan twisted into pain as the magic did, the serge of aggression shifting to a warmth that stretched to bones and joints as I began to relax.

“I must see to my patient…” Dr. Sirko said, sliding from the chair as all of the guns trained on him, the few that had not loaded doing so with a faint click. “His heart… he needs attention.”

“He needs nothing. You have been duped.”

“I have not,” Sirko snapped, his frustrations finally breaking free in a roar that sent the older man shaking in place.

“You will not undermine me!” The Commander roared in return, the room shaking as the eruption turned into a battering ram.

Soldiers flooded into the room, their guns already drawn as they pointed between me, the doctor, and the poor nurse whose tray of blood went flying, a few of the vials shattering and splattering against the wall.

Bright red streaks against the dark striped grey wallpaper.

Blood against stone.

Blood against….

I jumped at the sound of the gun.

I jumped at the scream.

It was all I could do not to call out, not to let whatever magic was inside of me out and fight the soldiers.

I wasn’t sure what good it would do even if I tried. I would be just like the doctor, blood pouring down my arms as I was dragged from the room.