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Five

"You good, Sophie?"

Sophie Tenderness in the way he said that naift

Four

"Yes" She held his gift tight to her heart

Three

"Instant you want out--"

Two

"--say the word"

One

Reuben’s face disappeared, to be replaced by the gilded blond looks of a killer so vicious, the tabloids had fought to tell his story He was a roupies, his "authorized biography" read with religious fervor She wondered how many of his fans realized the book was mostly fiction

Bonner was incapable of truth

"Ms Russo" That char forward to seeing you in person"

"That would have been an inefficient use ofher hands loosely in her lap

"But hoill you takeof his shoulders "I’ with hter, the charhty

It would, Sophia thought, be so easy to kill hieneral vicinity Her telepathic reach was long enough--she could make hiainst a wall until pieces of bone pierced his brain The terror would make him mindless

A tap on the table to her left

Max The reift she was determined not to lose,in the face of her resolve "The prison officials stated that you’d remembered a place we’d be very interested to learn about"

Bonner displayed his teeth in a sraced a toothpaste commercial But his eyes Reptilian eyes She’d seen eyes like that before--on the powerful in the Net, men and wo

Thethe final call on whether she was useful enough to be saved or should be put down--had had eyes like the Butcher of Park Avenue "Mr Bonner?" she prompted when the killer didn’t reply

"The h "I know it had so "Maybe if you ca my recall"

"It seeave a curt nod "Cut the connection"

Bonner’s face twisted to reveal the monster within for one violent second "Ms Russo, I don’t think you realiz--" The empty slate of a blank screen

"I want to kill him with le hair on the back of her neck rise in warning "It’s not a need for justice or anything pure I want vengeance I want hiirls--suffered"

"We all have the capacity to kill," Sophia said, telling herself to stop, but unable to keep quiet--she needed to knohat he thought of the broken part of her that knew only theto reject her, better that it be nohen she’d only touched the wild heat of hiht survive the denunciation "The lines are si in their intensity "And yours involve children Sometimes women, but most often, children"

Sophia sed, uncertain how to answer, uncertain how to read his answer

Bartholomew Reuben’s face reappeared on the coly face of his until today"