When Rhia returned to the house she had grown up in, she was halfway through calling out to Madeline before stopping herself. Since the day she'd gotten her driver's license, she had gotten in the habit of announcing when she was coming and going. That habit persisted into adulthood when she had her own place.

But there was nobody here now.

The fridge had been emptied and protective sheets covered the furniture. Rhia's great uncle had arranged for a housekeeper and a lawn care service on alternating weeks to keep the place in order and keep an eye out for any potential squatters. Madeline's valuables, from her family heirlooms to the photos on the walls, to the collection of clumsy school art projects that Rhia and Maddox had made over the years had all been boxed and prepared to be picked up by a moving company and safely stored until either Rhia or Maddox were in a position to claim them.

Packing up the house hadn't been easy. But it had to be done, and it kept her busy while her uncle dealt with all the problems with Madeline's estate. Most of it was done, with only one more box of art supplies to be packed up and donated. After that, it was just his room. Richard's office.

Madeline had been able to purge the rest of the house of her soon-to-be-ex-husband's presence. But not his office. She'd had a dozen excuses, but Rhia had always known the truth. The second she did, it was real. For all the things he'd done, Madeline had deeply loved Richard, and they had been together for nearly forty years. Rhia couldn't blame or judge her mother for that small hope that he would come back.

They could tear apart the divorce papers. They could buy him new clothes to fill the closet. They could retrieve his valuables from their shared safety deposit box. But emptying his office... it would have made it all so final.

Slowly, Rhia slid open the double French doors to the office and stepped inside. Nolan had once described Richard carrying the scent of rotten magic and death. Even though it was faded from his absence, her heightened senses could pick up on it now. It was an acrid, putrid smell. But with it were the familiar warm, earthy tones she'd always attributed with him.

Her relationship with Richard had always been complicated. From the moment she had come home with the Kincaid's, she'd known that he didn't want her there. He had tolerated her presence. First, Rhia thought it was because of Madeline. Now, she knew it was because those were the orders he was given by the Organization. Everything else had been for Madeline. It could have been so much worse.

He could have been a true tyrant to her. He could have molded her into an emotionless shell that carried out his orders without question. But he hadn't. Richard hadn't exactly been emotionally present for Maddox, either. He pushed them both so hard to succeed in everything they did. While Maddox certainly received a lot more praise, there were moments where Rhia felt that Richard really had been proud of her.

Sitting down in the old leather chair behind the desk, she looked around the office the way he would have. She could almost see Madeline puttering away in the kitchen with a younger version of herself and Maddox. They had been as useless in the kitchen as they had been at art, but they had been eager to learn under Madeline's sweet and enthusiastic leadership.

The right wall was adorned with keepsakes and trophies he'd collected over the years. Medals of honor from his time in the military. The real military, not just the shady private corporation that called him Colonel. The flat screen television that he'd grumbled and groused over, all because it was different from the old CRT he used for however long. A mounted baseball bat signed by his favorite player from the 2010 season, who's name Rhia couldn't remember.

Right next to the desk was a small cabinet where he kept a selection of old and expensive liquors. The only time Rhia could remember Richard ever being truly angry at Maddox was when he was seventeen. He nicked a bottle from the back of the cabinet, thinking that by the time Richard noticed it was gone, he would be in the clear. He was wrong. Turns out it was a five-thousand-dollar bottle that Richard was saving as a retirement gift for the general he served under. He was angrier about which bottle had been stolen than he had been about the fact that an underage Maddox was drinking hard liquor with his other underage friends.

The opposite wall was lined with shelves filled with books, document folders, and a few more trinkets on display. Just like Nolan's office, Richard dedicated one of those shelves to pictures of the family. They were out of the way of his work, but in easy view from where he sat. Right in the middle was a picture Madeline had taken at Maddox's graduation from the police academy. Richard was smiling proudly. One arm each slung around Maddox's and Rhia's shoulders.

"BASTARD!"

Rhia's scream tore from her throat. She leapt to her feet and flipped the heavy hardwood desk as if it were made of plastic. It fell to the floor with a deafening crash. Grabbing the chair by one of the arms, she swung it up over her head and brought it down on the toppled desk where it splintered and broke into several pieces. Next, she ripped the baseball bat off the wall and swung it around to obliterate the offending photographs and destroying the entire shelf along with them.

There were hundreds of pictures from that day. Pictures of just him and Maddox, or of him, Maddox, and Madeline without Rhia. But he had chosen that one to stand before the rest. The side of the picture with Rhia in it even slightly obscured Richard and Madeline's wedding photo.

Spinning around, Rhia swung the bat through the liquor cabinet, sending a torrent of glass and expensive alcohol to seep into the carpet. The next swing dislodged the television from his cradle on the wall, shattering the screen before it even hit the floor. She went back to the desk with a cricket swing and leaving a sizeable dent in the wood. She brought the bat down on the desk again and again and again.

Richard had never seen her as his daughter. But somewhere along the way, she had become more than just an entity. More than just a job. At some point in her life, he stopped hesitating when she went to him for comfort and advice. Eventually, he became her guiding hand in ways that he never had to be. It wasn't just for Madeline.

The baseball bat snapped in half, but Rhia still wasn't done. She ripped out the top drawer and threw it straight through the opened French doors to explode against the opposite wall outside, sending its contents flying everywhere. The second and third drawers hit one of the doors in rapid succession, first breaking the glass, then cracking the wood so hard it was dented at an odd angle. The fourth drawer hit the much sturdier doorframe, and miscellaneous papers rained down among the splintered wood.

The worst part was her own traitorous heart. Whenever she imagined rolling back the clock and going back to the way things were, she still wanted him there. She imagined an alternate universe where everything was the same, except she wasn't a dragon. She and Maddox could have brought Nolan and Nova home as their partners. In her dream, eventually Richard would have gotten over the vampire and the shifter thing. He would boast that his daughter was dating a doctor, and he would have cried over the first of his grandchildren being born.

She loved him. She missed him. She hated him. He was the only goddamn father she'd ever known, and even after everything he'd done, she still wanted him in her life.

Grabbing the handle of the fifth, final, and largest drawer, Rhia nearly ripped her shoulder out of its socket from the unexpected resistance. Not wasting her time looking for a key, she braced one foot on the frame of the desk and ripped the drawer out, lock be damned. When the drawer hit the wall, something fell out and bounced across the floor without breaking. Climbing over the wreckage, Rhia snatched it up to get a look at what Richard had been so protective of.

It looked like a teleconference speaker, but bigger and heavier. If she was in the mood to ponder, she would have guessed that it was an Organization device that ensured secure communications. She only got so far as thinking about those cowards hiding in the shadows.

This was their fault. All of it. As pissed as she was at Richard and what he had done, the orders had come from them. They chose to place her with the Kincaid's when they could have put her with any other family. She didn't give a shit if it was an accident or not. They were the reason that Madeline was dead. They were the reason she was an orphan and would always be an orphan.

They were the ones who had Maddox. They were the ones who had Nolan.

The only things she had left to love were in their clutches.

She knew what she had to do.

Dropping the box, Rhia dug her phone out of her pocket and dialed Nova's phone number. She answered on the second ring. "Hi Rhia," she sounded miserable, but slightly less exhausted than the last few times Rhia had called. "How are- no, never mind. That's a stupid question. How was the service last night?"

"It was good. Huge turnout, just like we knew would happen. Mom would have loved it right up to the point where she realized everyone was making a fuss over her."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there for either of them. It feels like I should have tried harder."

"Don't be ridiculous. There's no way I would expect you to get on a twelve-hour plane ride days after giving birth to twins. Mom wouldn't want that either. You have nothing to feel guilty about, okay?"

"I know..."

Nova went quiet, and Rhia gave her a moment to collect herself before asking "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Nova cleared her throat, and her voice sounded stronger. "I'm being discharged tomorrow morning. It's still a little hard to believe they're here."

"Have you named them yet?" For the first time in what felt like forever, Rhia smiled. "I can't keep calling them 'the girls' or 'the twins'."

"Yes, I have," Nova laughed as well, and it was a wonderful sound. "I'll text them to you with the proofs from the photographer."

"Photographer? Wow, Nova. You didn't strike me as someone who would spend money on something like that."

"It's what Madeline would have wanted. She had a baby's first album set up and ready to go from when I was only a few weeks along. Didn't bat an eye to make up another when we learned I was having two. I know she was planning it do it herself, so now... it would be disservice to her memory if I let them go untouched. I plan on telling them just how special their grandmother was and... and how much she loved them."

Nova took a shuddering breath, and Rhia knew she was crying again. Her own chest felt heavy, but her eyes remained dry. "Nova," she said, and her voice trembled with the weight of her decision. "I know things are hard. I'm sorry I have to ask you this... I need you to tell me that everything is okay, and that I should just come back to Paris to be with you and the girls for a while. I need you to talk me out of doing something stupid."

There was a long silence from the other end, broken only by a few sniffs as Nova cleared her eyes and throat. "I can't do that, Rhia."

Her answer was the last thing Rhia expected, and she actually pulled the phone away from her ear to stare at it.

"Or rather, I won't do that. I will not lie and say everything is alright when nothing is alright. I won't tell you it's going to be alright either, because we both know that's bullshit. And I'm not going to tell you not to do something when everything we have done thus far has gotten us nowhere."

"Nova... what I'm planning..."

"Don't tell me. You shouldn't tell me. And you don't have to justify anything. I understand."

"The things I might have to do... I don't know how long I'll be out of touch. Will you and the girls be safe?"

"Yes. I know how to disappear. This time next week, Nova Foster will be no more."

"Will Atticus know how to find you, or-"

"No," there was a harsh snarl to her voice now. "I have nothing left to give that man. I trusted his judgement when it came to your abuse. I believed his word when he swore not to use Maddox against his own father. He was supposed to keep Madeline safe. Atticus Shaw has done nothing but fail our family. I will not give him the opportunity to fail my daughters. If I have anything to say about it, he will never even lay eyes on them, and they will know to never trust a polar bear who knows nothing about what it means to be a member of the pack."

"How will I... actually, no, you're right. It's better if you don't tell me either."

"I will leave a method of contacting me with Bastian Wes. He is the only one I truly trust with that information. He will not break, no matter what."

"Yeah. Bastian is... Nova, do me a favor. Like I said, I don't know how long I'm going to be gone, so... when you're telling them about Grandma Madeline, tell them about their Aunty Rhia, okay? Tell them how much I wish I could be there to be their bad influence and to teach them about actually good music."

"Rhia, I'm trying to avoid traumatizing my children."

They laughed together again, but it was short-lived, and the tension returned quickly.

"I will tell the girls about you," Nova assured her. "But you need to promise me something in return."

"Anything."

"Find Maddox. He'll know how to find me once he's out. I understand there's no predicting the timeline of these things, but the girls need their father. I don't... I don't want to do this without him. Please..."

"I will," Rhia swore, not just to Nova, but to herself and to Madeline's memory. "I'll bring Maddox home. Whatever it takes, no matter how long... I'll bring them both home."

"Thank you. Now, not to sound cold, but let's not drag this out. I love you, Rhia. Good luck."

"Love you too, Nova. Take care of yourself and the girls. Stay safe."

The call ended, and a moment later Rhia's phone pinged with a message from Nova's phone. Three pictures appeared on the screen. The first was of Nova holding both of the twins on her chest. She looked tired but elated, and the love in her eyes couldn't be more obvious. The two infant girls were paler than their mother, and both had a shocking amount of curly black hair on their little heads.

The next two pictures were of each twin on their own, wrapped in different colored swaddles with matching bonnets. Their eyes were open, revealing that they'd been born with heterochromia; one green eye like their father, one dark brown eye, like their mother. Their eyes mirrored each other, and it was the only way that Rhia could tell them apart aside from the swaddles and the names the photographer had photoshopped under them.

The baby wrapped in yellow was named Madeline Hope. The one wrapped in green was Meredith Joy.

Nova had named her daughters after their grandmother, Madeline, and their aunt, using Rhia's middle name.

In the middle of the destroyed office, Rhia fell to her knees and burst into tears for the first time since hearing that her mother had died. Her lungs caught, and she choked and coughed, but she couldn't stop sobbing. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried like that instead of everything going numb. All she did know was that no one was there to make it better this time.

She was alone.

Eventually, the tears dried up. She lay on the floor for a few more minutes, shivering and flipping between the pictures of her sister-in-law and two nieces, searing them into her memory. Then, she got up and went to the bathroom. She took out the sim card and snapped it in half before flushing it down the toilet. The phone itself met the same fate, landing in two pieces where the water would destroy the change of recovering any data.

Going to the front entrance where boxes were stacked neatly for the moving company, she started opening them until she found the items she needed. She packed them in a backpack, walked out the door, and locked them. She left the keys in the mailbox where her great uncle would find them when he came to collect the mail.

It was like she was on autopilot, not thinking about anything but the next step. Get in the car. Drive north. Drive until she reached the edge of the property where Nolan had taken her during her awakening. A fence had been erected since the last time she was there. To the layman's eye, it looked like a basic wood fence just to mark the property lines. Rhia knew better. The fence was lined with sensors and cameras, ensuring that no one could get in or out without alerting the 24/7 surveillance team. A small outpost—a shed, basically—had been built at the entrance to the drive.

A shifter stepped out of the outpost, a heavy rifle in his arms. The muzzle was aimed at the ground and his finger wasn't on the trigger, but the safety was off, and Rhia knew just how fast he could shoot her in the head if he wanted to. She turned off the car, stepped out, and raised her hands to show that she wasn't armed. "Atticus said I could come see her whenever I wanted," she said to the soldier without identifying herself. If he didn't know who she was, then he had to be the densest shifter in the whole coalition.

"Her tutors come in an hour," the shifter nodded. "You have until then. Leave everything on the drivers' seat."

Rhia followed his instructions, leaving her keys and wallet on the front seat. The backpack sat innocently on the floor on the passenger's side. A second soldier came out and did a quick but thorough pat-down, making sure that she wasn't bringing anything into the safehouse. "Didn't know there was anything out there that could hurt a dragon," the second shifter said, eyeing her bandages suspiciously.

"Pray you never meet a hellhound then," Rhia glared back. "Next time you see your boss, make sure to ask him about it. Those little nerf guns you're carrying won't do shit when Echo comes to say hi."

The soldiers exchanged glances before backing off and gesturing for her to go inside.

The house looked exactly the same from the last time she was there. Memories prodded at the back of her mind. The hypersensitivity of all of her senses caused by both her awakening and her heat. The panic and the denial. The way Nolan held her in his arms. Atticus's exasperation every time she broke something. Dáithí's voice.

She shoved the serpent out of her mind as quickly as he'd popped up. She still couldn't believe how long she'd blinded herself to his true intentions.

Through the back door, a young girl was stretched out on a deck chair in a bikini by the pool, soaking up the California sun.

They'd moved Priya here pretty early on into her 'relocation', as Atticus and Bastian liked to call it. They thought it would be better to give her some sense of normalcy by living in a normal house instead of a collection of rooms in a Counsel facility.

She had the run of the place up to the bordering fence and access to the internet, though her activity was strictly monitored, and she was prevented from actively participating. Apparently, she spent most of her time scrolling through Reddit feeds and reading stories on an old fanfiction site Rhia herself used when she was a pre-teen. That part of the report actually made Rhia smile when she imagined the rigid, military-trained male shifter guards being forced to read the trashy, convoluted, erotic machinations that could only be dreamt up by fanfiction authors.

Food, drinks, and snacks were brought in for her with the expectation that she feed herself breakfast and lunch, while someone would cook and eat dinner with her. She had tutors to keep her education on track, multiple therapists, and, up until recently, regular meetings with Bastian where the medication that allowed her control over her appearance would be restricted.

The summary reports highlighted that Priya was a bright young woman, though naive in the way that all fourteen-year-old girls were. They also noted that, after two and a half months, there had been some progress towards breaking the Organization's brainwashing. She was receptive to a lot of what the therapists, Atticus, and Bastian had to say, and willing to accept that there was so much more of the world beyond what shew as raised in. But she was steadfast in her idea that the Organization 'helped' her. And any time she was denied her medication actively reinforced that idea.

When she heard the patio door slide open, Priya sat up and looked around, and her face lit up in an enormous smile when she saw who it was. "Oh, my gosh!" she squealed, leaping to her feet and flinging her arms around Rhia's shoulders. Immediately, the mimic jerked back, her smile gone. "Oh, my gosh. Wow, I... I've never felt this before."

"I thought the meds kept you from feeling people's emotions." Rhia raised an eyebrow

"They do, for the most part." Priya shrugged and pulled on a beach cover over her bathing suit. "But I can still feel them when I touch someone, and when they're that strong... what happened? No, wait, that's none of my business! Sorry. The therapist says I need to work on my impulse control."

"It's okay. A lot has happened since we last saw each other. Maybe I'll tell you about it one day, but... not right now."

"Of course! I totally understand. Boundaries are super important, and if you don't want to talk about it, I'll totally respect that."

Rhia chuckled and looked around the yard. The pool was exactly the same. The window from the bedroom on the second floor had been replaced. "You know, this is where they brought me when I first started awakening," she said wistfully. "I nearly burned down the place a couple of times. Atticus had to replace a couple of pipes and all the wiring by the time I left. Control was... not my strength."

Priya was downright squealing with excitement as Rhia's eyes landed on one of the cameras pointed directly at her. They weren't even trying to be subtle. Reaching out, the dragon took the mimic's hand in hers and forced a link.

"Don't react," she said quickly, even as Priya flinched. "They can't know what we're talking about. We'll only have a few seconds when I disable the cameras, so I need you to talk fast and be precise. Squeeze my hand if you understand."

Priya squeezed her hand tight for a second before releasing. Rhia took a deep breath, letting Priya feel her resolve in her broken emotions.

"Entity Sierra," Priya's eyes widened when Rhia used her designation. "I'm ready to go home. How do I go back to the Organization?"

~