The silence pricked at Amara, gnawing at her. She didn't usually mind the silence when it was with another person, but she had never liked being alone. Layla had never seemed to mind it, though, even preferring it. But as children, even though her younger sister liked to be alone, she knew that she would always be up for anything Amara suggested. It had been all too easy to convince her to tag along with for almost anything, in those days.

Now? She was beginning to suspect that twenty years apart had had a bit too much of a sobering effect on their bond, dispelling the hero worship that Layla had looked up at her with.

There was nothing interesting happening. She checked her laptop, the obvious cameras and microphones that she'd bugged Layla and Hayden's house with now discarded. However, the far more discreet and advanced technology was still in every nook and cranny of their house: unnoticed. Watching. Waiting.

The security feed told her that Layla was sleeping, having gone to bed to take a nap at eight pm. Loretta had returned from her spa appointment, or so it seemed, as she sat at the kitchen island, reading a Korean newspaper. It wasn't too late to call... was it? Loretta would think she was awfully rude, Amara knew. But she liked the woman, genuinely.

Perhaps she hadn't meant to make friends with Layla's mother-in-law for any other reason than to annoy her sister, but now? Well, she kind of liked the woman. She was funny, in a subdued way, and motherly in a way that didn't leave Amara feeling suffocated. She may have been on her own for the past two decades, living on the streets and both consuming and selling drugs, as well as other illicit substances and cargo, but... She'd missed her mother.

Amara could never return to her own family now. Why not graft herself onto her sister's, as much as Layla might have been irritated by the intrusion? On the laptop screen, Loretta turned a page of the newspaper and lifted a hand to her face as if to brush away a tear. Her diamond ring glittered.

Amara got up from the floor, shut her laptop, and grabbed her purse and keys. It was still odd to stay in the same house for so long, to have a place to sit and a place to put her clothes and other things. To hang up items in a closet without needing to live out of a suitcase as she had done for so long. To eat food from a refrigerator, to put things in a freezer, knowing they'd be there for longer than a few days. It was odd, instead of hunkering over ramen noodles or frozen pizzas, to eat real food.

The idea felt like a luxury. A privilege. Something she didn't deserve and shouldn't get used to.

Layla had never asked her where she'd been the past two decades.

Instead, she'd kept her at a distance, at arms' length, always cordial enough beneath the brusque exterior, but never letting her close. And why should she? Why would she bother letting Amara in when her sister had been the original sinner, the first one to hurt her, the first one to abandon her? When her first scars, her first heartbreaks, were from Amara?

Instead, her first words when Amara had dropped back into Layla's life had been simply, "You know, there's still a website up about you. It says that you're missing. But you were never missing, were you?"

And Amara had simply smiled, and said, "Does that mean you didn't miss me?"

She wasn't sure why she had chosen now to re-enter her sister's life in earnest. After all, she'd been keeping tabs on Layla ever since she had left university that fateful day. Even when they'd taken her from her family, she'd held onto a few things, a few momentos. The toy makeup palette that Layla had given her when she was eight and Amara was eighteen. The teddy bear that Amara and Layla had gotten as part of a matching set when Amara was fourteen and Layla was four. Pieces of her sister forever crystallized in time and never to mature, to age, to wither.

And when they had let her out of that so-called training program, when she'd been released to wreak havoc on this world like a hurricane, she'd gone back to her childhood home. She'd watched them from a distance. She'd seen her sister grow up in glimpses: from a ten-year-old with pigtails to a cool, icy twelve clad in bell-bottom jeans and pink lip gloss, from a teenager to an adult who still held everyone at arms' length. Who had stopped holding her mother's hand to cross the street. Who always held her own bag, even dragging two suitcases behind her when going on vacations as a gangly eleven-year-old.

She saw what she had done to her sister. Making her closed-off, standoffish, independent. Making her rely only on herself. She told herself it was for the better. Women should be independent, just as much as anyone else. Everyone had to grow up too fast in this world. Why not help her sister along with the process?

But she'd seen the stars fade from Layla's eyes when she looked at her. She'd seen Layla throw away the teddy bear that had been part of a set. She'd seen Layla ignore Snowy when she rubbed against her ankles. She'd watched as the carefree, precocious child grow into a hardened, angry, cold individual.

And Amara had known part of it was her fault. She'd wanted to keep her distance, but she couldn't stand that look in Layla's eyes; like the world was out to get her and like she couldn't trust anyone. Like everyone held knives behind their backs. Like her older sister, her only sister, was nothing more than a traitor.

No longer the hero of her sister's life, but the monster.

Now it was with those thoughts in mind that she strolled over to the Song household, rapped on the door, and affected an appropriate expression. "Mrs. Song?"

Loretta ushered her in, clad in crisp blue jeans and a white polo shirt even at this late hour. "Come in, Amy. What's the matter? Did something happen?"

She thought there had been an emergency. A house fire, a gas leak, a water main break. What she didn't know was that Amara was the emergency. "No, no... I just, um, sorry to disturb you at this time. I just felt... It sounds stupid. I just felt lonely, I thought you might want some company. I brought you some cookies."

Loretta smiled, accepting the gift. "Thank you, Amy, that was quite thoughtful. I could use some company... Though Layla is sleeping, so we'll have to keep our voices down."

"Thanks for having me. I apologize again for not calling ahead. Truly unforgivable of me." She smiled. Was she truly unforgivable? She'd made herself unable to forgive. She'd told herself that others' forgiveness meant nothing to her. What if it didn't?

She was at peace with that now. She was at peace with it the way she was content with walking on creaky floorboards, knowing the perfect spots to step as to not awaken her slumbering conscience.

"No, no, as I said, I wanted the company, as well. I thought coming to visit my son would make me less lonely, but the truth is, ever since his father died, well... that's part of why I'm getting remarried." Loretta stood, her hand hovering over the electric kettle. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Just a cup of tea would be great, thanks." She drummed her fingers on the granite countertop, staring down at her nails, cut short and straight across her fingertips. Practical. Bare.

"What kind?" Loretta opened a cabinet before pouring hot water into a mug.

"Green if you have it, please." It always calmed her thoughts and lulled her nerves into a blissful state of placidity. Alcohol had the opposite effect, making her jittery, unable to function.

"Of course."

Within moments, a steaming cup of matcha was placed in front of her, and she cupped the mug in her hands, which suddenly felt cold. Seized by the sudden urge to be friendly--to do one last act of kindness--to have something good to her name, when she left this godforsaken world, she said, "What was Hayden's father like?"

Loretta paused, setting down the kettle. "He was... He snored."

That wasn't exactly what she expected to hear. "Really?"

"Yes." Loretta smiled, breaking free of the preppy suburban mom mould that Amara had placed her in, seeing her as perpetually a grown-up, polished, dignified version of a soccer mom. "He snored like a freight train, and when he was gone, I missed that sound. I would've done anything to hear him there, sleeping beside me, one last time. He told the worst jokes, but I laughed anyway because he could never get through them without laughing himself, and it was so... His laugh was infectious. Contagious. He never buttoned his shirts right on the first try, and he'd always ask me to help him rebutton them for him. He could tie a tie like nobody's business. He never slept through the night, he'd always be up at odd hours, which came in handy when we had Hayden and had to be up all night with the baby. He was... He was everything I wanted in a man and so many things that rankled me."

She listened, fascinated by this tale of love. "He sounds lovely."

Loretta shook her head, smiling. "He was more than lovely. He... He was my whole life, Amy. I'll never find someone like him, and I don't want to, because they would only be a cheap imitation. I love the man I've found now, and I'm grateful I can find love again at all, at my age. If Hayden becomes half the man his father was, I'll be happy for him."

Amara nodded, ignoring the fact that she was here to hurt Hayden Song. That she was here to manipulate him, to ruin his life, and if it meant befriending his middle-aged, innocent mother... Well, she'd do it. It was easy enough to never get attached if you never laid down roots. "I'm sure you're proud of your son all the same."

"He has made me a grandmother," she said after a moment. "And what about you?"

"Me?"

"Husband, children? I know it's very hip these days to say you don't need a husband or children, especially as a woman, but dear, coming from an old woman like myself--" Loretta didn't look a day over fifty-five, but maybe it was the Korean genes, "I don't think that's true."

Amara had accepted her fate. In this line of work, there would be no white dress, no walk down the aisle. She'd only set foot during the past twenty years in a church to rob it. How could she marry someone when they would never be able to trust one another? One look at her sister's marriage seemed to prove that. Still, she lied, spinning an alternate life for herself. "I'm a military wife. My husband's in the Middle East, he's been there for the past few months."

"You must be very proud of him," Loretta said, patting her hand.

Proud? Surely she could be proud of this fake husband she'd just concocted. "I am, but sometimes, I just wish he was home. It's selfish, I know."

"It's human." Loretta shrugged, taking a sip of tea.

But what Amara had become was far darker than human. "Yes." She lifted her cup. "I guess it is."