"It's no accident," she said, and hazarded a glance at him. He didn't look impressed. "Or, at least, there's a possibility that it might not be one."

A thin smile rose to his lips, one partially hidden by cigarette he brought up to them. "As I said, clever."

"The person who asked you to investigate things his way, as an accident ..." Her fingers flexed nervously. "Do you think he's the reason I've been hurt?"

"I've been told how to work this case by more than one person," he said, "and as for any of them being involved, I can't say for certain. Mayors and boards of trustees aren't infallible bastions of purity, no matter what they pay the pressmen to say about them." He inhaled his cigarette down to a stub, then exhaled a cloud of smoke. "But I've also been told by a much higher power to quietly find the truth, and just as quietly handle the party or parties responsible in the most permanent of fashions." He smiled again, this time with a predatory flash of teeth. He stubbed his cigarette out on the tip of a finger, then dropped it into the glass. The lamplight caught on his knuckles, which were crisscrossed by scars. "I'm certain your clever little brain can puzzle out what that means, too."

A chill worked down into her blankets, one that the temperature of the clinic had nothing to do with. He'd been ordered to murder someone, that was what he was saying. "Why?" she said, her voice so small that she barely heard it.

"You're fond of that word, aren't you?" He didn't allow her time to reply, if a reply had even been wanted. "Valens Valley is an unusual place full of unusual people, and that is why."

She tried not to peek at his deathly white skin. Tried, and failed.

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"You've forgotten what that means, of course," he said, his bitterness of tone forcing her to look elsewhere, "so allow me to enlighten you: we are what the government politely calls a 'project town,' a civilization of monsters allowed to prosper under their benevolent supervision. To threaten one of us is to threaten the American way, or so I've been told."

Powers, monsters, government projects, this all sounded like nonsense. Yet here she sat talking with a man who looked like a living corpse. Somewhere close by, another man was knocking dents out of metal bed frames either with his shoes or his bare hands. And she ... she had powers too, ones that had kept her from dying. Only this last was difficult to believe without direct evidence, not that she wanted to have any.

Instead, she unraveled the message he'd left between his words. It hadn't been deeply hidden. "You make this town sound like a prison," she said.

He seemed to be staring at something only he could see, something resting an untold distance away. His voice carried the weight of ages when he spoke. "A prison is still a prison no matter how well-disguised its bars." He rose to his feet. "And on that note, I shall kindly ask you to keep our conversation between us, Miss Ellsworth. Ears are always listening, and friends are not always friends." He reached up to adjust his tie, which had been upset by the ludicrous way he'd been sitting earlier. "Give your full trust to no one, not until your attacker has been caught."

Sound advice, with a fatal flaw. "That would mean not trusting you."

"So it would," he conceded, with a nod. "Now, if you'll forgive me, I must fetch the president; she'll be quite cross with me if I don't inform her of your condition." As he reached the foot of the bed, she told him to wait. He paused, then cast a glance over his shoulder. "Yes?"

"Why tell me all that?" she said. "Why take the risk?" Because there surely must've been risk in it if he asked her to keep their talk a secret.

Out of the lamp's harsh light, he looked almost normal. His skin could be mistaken for a trick of the light. "There should be some kindness in this world, don't you think?"

To that, she had no answer. She couldn't remember if the world had ever been unkind to her or not in the first place. He disappeared round the edge of her screen at a fast clip, melting into the trembling shadows like a phantom.