I watch for a few moments then hurry back around the desk. I want to know everything. This is unbelievable.
I punch the next button. A shot of the balustrade at the entry vanishes and I see a long shadowy corridor. Lor is stalking down it, and I wonder where he’s going in such a hurry. I lose him and punch the next button. As I’d hoped, I’m able to follow him down the hallway. I punch three more buttons tracking him through what I realize must be the servers’ wing. When I punch the fifth, I gasp again as Lor reaches out, grabs Jo from behind and spins her around. I see their mouths moving, she’s angry, he’s pissed, too, but I can’t hear a word. I study the panel irritably, feeling cheated by my reality TV, trying to locate a volume button but no such luck. When I glance back up, Lor has Jo turned around, facing the wall, shoved against it. He’s holding both her hands in one of his, trapped against the cool glass surface.
I can see her profile. She’s not angry anymore. She’s turned on as hell.
With his other hand he undoes his belt, shoves her short skirt up, and before I can give them the privacy the moment demands, he’s up against her, pushing inside her.
Her back arches, head drops back, and the look on her face is—
“Just as I suspected, everybody is having sex but me,” I mutter irritably.
I punch the screen off and hurry to the next one.
And stare blankly at the screen for a long, pained moment.
“No,” I finally manage to say. “He would not come back here first. He would come to me.”
But he wouldn’t. And he didn’t.
Barrons is back.
Standing in a room I can’t place, a deep gash of a stone chamber. I think, Please tell me it’s not the sex club I’ve heard so many rumors about. Please tell me I’m enough.
Ryodan moves into view.
Where are they? What are they doing? Why didn’t Barrons come to me, tell me he was back?
I watch the screen, never taking my eyes from it. Minutes creep by and nothing changes. They don’t even appear to be talking. Just watching something.
I shake myself from my trance and punch the next button.
The Rhino-boy club disappears, revealing another dimly lit stone room.
A shadow moves in the darkness.
What the hell is down there?
What are they watching?
The thing separates from the shadows, stumbles toward the light, cringes and stumbles back again.
I suddenly can’t find enough oxygen in Ryodan’s office to breathe.
My hand flies to my mouth as I stare, staggered.
Dageus MacKeltar is not dead.