Mastermind (Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood #1)

by Andrew Mayne

I came here to kill parasites. It didn’t matter if I didn’t need a microscope to kill some of them.

I’ve never been in a tornado, but twenty minutes next to Jessica Blackwood is as close as I ever hope to come.

“Hard to imagine how someone could do that to another person,” I reply. “No, it’s not. You just make a person not a person. You start with a label.

If people were pets, some would have to be dogs: everyone likes them. Others, like cats, are a bit of an acquired taste and come with the understanding that it’s going to be a one-way relationship. I think I fall into tarantula territory—interesting to most people at first, but only worth the effort to a select few.