Author: Margo Collins

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booked for the conference I’d been attending. There was a drugstore nearby on the Strip, so that’s where I headed.

All around me, screens showed the alien game show host drawing name after name. As I moved along the sidewalk, dodging the tourists who thronged the city even late at night, I kept my head down, praying I could get what I needed before my name came up.

Inside the store, fluorescent lights buzzed above me as I tossed the things I needed into a basket. A box-cutter. Nail scissors. Alcohol. Needle and thread. Bandages. Hair dye. And at the last minute, a pile of granola bars and a giant bottle of water.

I half-expected the cashier to comment on my choices, but the tall woman behind the counter barely even glanced at the items as she scanned them.

I was practically running by the time I got back to my hotel room, and my hands were shaking as I dumped everything out onto the counter in the bathroom.

What I was about to do was as illegal as it gets. And I was sure there would be physical and mental repercussions, as well. But at that moment, I didn’t care.

I’m a doctor. I can do this, even to myself.

Taking a deep breath, I counted to ten as I exhaled. I was a surgeon, and I’d done plenty of minor excisions. My hands stopped trembling, and I reached up to make the first incision about an inch behind my ear, hissing sharply as the pain hit. But I breathed past it and kept going. I’d have to stay steady to cut the wires that led into my brain.

Less than ten minutes later, I dropped my biochip into the toilet and flushed it away. With any luck, authorities would try to chase it down as it washed through the Las Vegas sewers, giving me time to get away.

I stitched up the wound I’d created with the needle and thread. I’d rinsed it all in isopropyl alcohol first, but I’d still need to keep an eye on it for any infection. Luckily, the conference had been rife with pharmaceutical reps handing out sample meds like they were candy. There were bound to be a few antibiotics in there if I needed them.

After I’d taped a bandage over the whole grisly mess, I glanced around the bathroom. It looked like a crime scene with blood smeared across the counter. With a shrug, I moved into the bedroom, trying to decide what to take.

My computer? Phone? God, they’d be able to trace me with those.

Better get a burner phone.

I grabbed the biggest shoulder bag in the room—one with a pharmaceutical company’s logo on it, a conference-attendee gift—and threw a change of clothes into it, along with a sample bottle of antibiotics and all my drugstore purchases.

The television was still playing in the background, and Vos had just drawn another name. “Amelia Rivers,” he announced.

I turned around as if in a trance. There it was. My face on the screen behind him.

Shit. Time to go.

No time to dye my hair, either. Maybe I could duck into a casino bathroom for that. Or better yet, find a way to do it at the airport—assuming I got that far.

But before I left the room, there was one last thing I needed to do. Moving in front of the bathroom mirror, I lifted up my long, blonde ponytail. Then I used the nail scissors to snip it off. I shook my remaining hair out. It was a shaggy mess, but at least I looked a little less like myself than usual.

I carried the ponytail out of the room and dropped it in a trashcan as I bypassed the elevators and opened the stairwell door.

“Here goes nothing,” I whispered to myself as I headed down.

The heavy door closed behind me with a final-sounding click as I walked away from everything I’d ever known.

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About the Author

USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” turned to writing romance novels instead. Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, sometimes they kiss aliens. But they always aim for the heart!

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