“I’ll be waiting,” I said. I watched James escort my stunning young wife to- ward the elevators. Twenty minutes later I saw Jam...es again, working the room. But Annie hadn’t returned with him, and about five minutes later James disappear- ed into the elevator. Once more I tried to keep my mind off what might be happening to my wifr, and ignored my watch. About 45 minutes later I saw Annie making her way toward me. Her eyes never left mine until she slid into. "I see the fear in your eyes. I don't blame you for being afraid: everyone is supposed to think that you will be in isolation for the next couple of months. Of course, nobody spends that amount of time in isolation without either going irretrievably mad or lapsing into a coma," she explained, almost sorrowfully."They probably didn't warn you of that when you volunteered for all those punishments," she added.I wondered how she knew all about that; Number Two or the Doctor must have told her."At. . and she sometimes liked to pretend she was, you know, one of those slutty service maids in the stories ... She had just forgotten to put it safely away. I asked her about it some more, and she admitted that the dares and things that Bree and you made her do at the party had gotten her very curious, even addicted to reading stories about that kind of thing.”“Wow, so she was basically telling you...”“Yeah, she was saying ... she liked to be told what to do. So, I sorta called her bluff. Told. Never had he killed a man in cold blood. The only men he had killed were those he had shot in this world and even then it had been a question of his life or theirs.He had been warned by Brumelle that the only way to kill Valdo was to get close to him and to act swiftly without mercy. If he were to act in a chivalrous manner, she had told him, so as to give him an even chance, he was sure to lose since Valdo had all sorts of hidden weapons that Vincent had probably never heard of. He had to get.