The tension in the OC was heavy and seemed to blanket all sound.  There were only six of them and on the rare occasion when someone spoke, it was soft and brief.

Normally when the girl was in the wolf room, any member of the team with the time and the curiosity could come in and take a chair or lean against one of the many consoles encircling the control room.  There was an unspoken belief that with such a strange phenomenon more eyes would lead to more accurate observations.  But with the eclipse, R.J. didn't want anyone getting in the way of a rapid response to quickly changing events.

The eclipse was the new factor in the equation, and all of the tension and anticipation stemmed from it, as though the whole fucking werewolf thing had become old hat.  It was as though everyone had already gotten used to the fact that the laws of nature—never mind God and man—were being broken.  A person transforming into that horrific creature was apparently normal now and this eclipse promised that something strange might happen.

There was comfort in having Max so near while they waited for all hell to break loose.  The first time the full moon struck, Emily had to dig deep into her reserves of strength and cope with the dreadful ordeal alone—no one else was there for her.  But now, she knew she could rely on Max when things got crazy. 

Not that he was paying her the least amount of attention.  She admired the way he could shut everything off when he wanted to.  To an outside observer, it might appear that the two of them had never met by the way he acted. 

He sat there, not five feet from her, calm—bored even.  His arms folded as though he was waiting for a bus and not a display of demonic forces.  It was such a contrast to the others.

R.J. looked like he was about to go into labor.  He kept getting Aikman to run diagnostics and recalibrate the equipment every half hour.  He was so preoccupied with what might happen, she and Max could have started going at it on one of the consoles and he would never have noticed.

Horus's anxiety was turned inward.  He was absorbed with the cuticles he kept picking at.  His forehead creased as he looked down at them whenever he wasn't getting readings off the sensors.  When he finally tore one too deep, he sucked at the blood on his finger like a child.  He must have been worried about having another heart attack at the appearance of the beast.

Gracie was her usual cold bitch self.  She stared at the little girl as though she were an ant under a magnifying glass.  Every now and then she'd glance around the room.  She tried to do it casually, but Emily knew it was all about watching her.  For the last few weeks, that freak had been hovering around, always casting looks her way.  Emily had even spotted her at the grocery store near her house, while she was getting the ingredients for a dinner date.  She was trying to decide on a wine when Barbara Gracie stepped out from behind a pyramid of beer cases.

Just what she needed: some wack-job serial killer stalking her. 

At first, she felt the cold terror of being prey.  Was the evil Doctor plotting to capture her and eat her liver with some fava beans?  But Gracie would have to be both insane and stupid to go after another member of Project LARS.  The DTAA kept close tabs on all of them.  If someone turned up dead, she'd be the prime suspect.  If she needed to kill someone, she would be best to explore the vast world outside of the bunker.

Of course, one of the team had already turned up dead.  But that fucking moron Tray had been a victim of his own stupidity.  Max had explained to her how he was found OD'ed in his own apartment. 

Unless he had help.

No, Emily couldn't picture Gracie killing with a syringe.  She seemed more the scalpel and bone saw type.

So why was the Doctor following her?  The normal reason people got stalked was because of twisted romantic obsessions.  She hoped like hell that wasn't that.

What would be worse: that psycho wanting to kill me or date me?  Emily shivered.

She didn't want to tell Max about it.  He had enough problems.  And she wanted him focused on getting Aaron back, not distracted with the ice queen.   Emily could take care of herself if she needed to.

She took off her glasses and cleaned them.  As she slipped them back on, she tilted her head and grabbed a quick peek at Max.  He was running a thumb down his jawline, as though feeling the bristles of his faint stubble.  His head tilted slightly to the side with the gesture, exposing his neck.  The tender flesh carried with it memories of passion and affection.  Emily's lips caressing the hollow area below his ear—her fingers beginning their long exploratory stroke at his throat and inching downward.

She was a fucking idiot for crossing the line and having feelings for him.  Relationships and feelings shouldn't go together.  Things never ended well when they did.

The last three men she'd been with had been marks—nothing but business.  There was a neat simplicity to the arrangements—at least while they lasted.  It was supposed to be the same thing with Max, but all that changed the night he showed up at her apartment. 

The fist pounding on her door made Emily move without any of the urgency it was demanding.  Her apprehension increased with each worrying bang.  She was still ten feet away from it and contemplating getting a knife from the kitchen, when Max yelled, "It's me.  Let me in."

She ran to unbolt the door, and he reeled in, staggering straight to the couch.  Despite the heat, he was wearing a long trench coat.  His face was so wet that for a second she thought it must be raining out.  But then the light caught the sickly flow of sweat on his pallid skin.

"When did you get back?"

"The plane touched down thirty minutes ago."

She found herself on the floor next to him.  Kneeling, grasping his cold hand.  "And Aaron?" she whispered.

He shook his head.  He shifted positions and failed to hide the pain.  His mouth twisted into a grimace.  "Sorry.  I didn't get him out."

"Is he okay?"  Her voice was stretched so thin from her anxiety it threatened to snap and break.

"Yes.  But the family took him and got away.  Benicio's father seemed to be expecting trouble.  There were armed guards everywhere."

Emily's head dropped.  It hung limp, staring at the floor, seeing nothing.  Her heart felt like a hand was crushing it into a crumpled wasted ball.

Benicio Torrealba was supposed to be a simple con.  He was a rich foreigner, who liked to party and throw his money around.  When Anna proposed running a variation of the Spanish Prisoner on him, with Emily as the damsel in distress, there didn't seem to be any reason not to fleece the sucker.  And the whole thing was a cake-walk.  Even when he wasn't too coked up to have a clue of what was going on, Ben was a gullible dimwit.  It only took three weeks before they were counting their money in an Atlantic City hotel, while he was back in Miami with a briefcase full of pure, uncut, and very fake cocaine. 

Emily had left him passed out in bed, drained after a night of celebrating.  She regretted the lines of real cocaine she had done with him.  She had joined him because he needed to feel that everything was normal, but it left her on edge.  As she lay there, she was sensitive to Ben's every movement and breathe. 

It was about four in the morning when he finally succumbed to all the champagne and tequila, not to mention the Mickey of Ambien Emily had slipped him.  She eased out of bed slowly so as not to wake him—if anything on Earth could.  Resisting the urge to shower the sex off of her, she headed to the door, slipping her dress back on as she went.  Her shoes were still in her hand with her purse when she reached the elevator.  Some pathetic excuse for a businessman with fucking sickening sweat stains on his shirt looked at her like she was some whore making her getaway.  She felt like spitting on him as they passed each other.  But like she had done all night, she kept her eye on the prize and played her part and drifted away inconspicuously.

Afterward, with Ben far behind her, the real celebrating began.  She sat looking out at the gray sky over the sea.  It stood in stark relief against the bright mood of the grifters inside the suite sipping bubbly.  Emily laughed.  She chuckled as she retold the way Ben had strutted around and boasted about rescuing Emily from her pimp and stealing the drugs from Ross in the process.  What a rube.  He was probably only just then figuring out that he had ten kilos of baby laxative and that his eighty thousand wasn't in the safe like he thought it was.  

It was easy to laugh at the dumb pig.

But that was before they learned that his father was some kind of South American mob boss.  And before Emily learned she'd left that scam with a lot more than her fifteen thousand dollar cut. 

It was another six weeks before she found out she was carrying Aaron.  Three months later Ross turned up dead.  The next day, Birdie vanished.  Whether he was another victim or his strong survival instinct spurred him to leave, they never found out.  Four more months and five cities after that, Anna cut her loose as too much of a liability.

At eight-and-a-half months pregnant, she was out of friends and cash.  Her little family was completely shattered.

After Aaron was born, she kept moving, running petty cons, stealing, doing whatever she had to just to survive and keep him safe.  That all ended when the goons caught up with her and took her boy away.  Or as they called him, "Torrealba's grandson." 

They let her live.  It was a crueler punishment than the bullet in the back of the head that Ross got.

The months that followed were the darkest of her life.  She was even more miserable than during her childhood, something she never thought possible.  Knowing that her little boy was out there and she might never see him again was crippling.  More than once she found herself lingering over the razor blades in the drug store or wondering if a tall building she passed had roof access.

When the DTAA offered her the deal, there wasn't a second of hesitation.  She'd do anything to get Aaron back even if it meant babysitting a goddamn werewolf.

As she relived her misery, her whole body slumped against the arm of the sofa.  Max stroked her hair.  She was in a hopeless zone between tears and total collapse.  "It didn't work out but I'll be more prepared the next time.  I'll get him.  Don't worry, I'll bring him back to you."

She looked up at him.  He was breathing hard; his nostrils billowed with the effort.

"Besides," he said.  "Now I have a score to settle with those sons-of-bitches."

"You're hurt."  She said it as though only just noticing his distress for the first time.

"I'll be okay."

Emily got to her feet but kept her face close to his chest.  She pulled open his coat and saw the blood seeping through a towel taped to his side.  "You've been shot.  I'm calling an ambulance."

"No."  He grabbed her by the wrist.  His grip was like iron and it held her back as she tried to leave.  "No hospitals."

 "The DTAA then?  We have to get you help."

"No.  This operation was off the books.  It looks worse than it is.  I dug the bullet out on the plane and stitched it up.  The bleeding's almost stopped.  And I've taken penicillin to prevent infection."  He forced a reassuring smile.  His perfect teeth flashed like a glimmer of hope in the dim room.  "See, I'll be fine."

"Can I get you anything?"

 "Water."

She grabbed a glass from the kitchen cupboard and filled it from the tap.  She was still in a daze.  She had allowed herself to get her hopes up.  She had almost felt Aaron's small body in her arms.

But once again, life had shown itself to be nothing but a pile of shit.

She still didn't have Aaron.  All she had was a half-dead Fed on her couch, whose wound was her fault. 

Max had lost a lot of blood.  She'd seen it before.  Without proper medical treatment, it was going to be touch and go tonight.  Why wouldn't he go to the hospital?  Why wasn't the DTAA doing something to help?

Emily handed him the glass and he sucked back half of it on the first gulp.

"What did you mean by off the books?  They knew about this.  Didn't they?"

Max didn't answer.  He stared at the surface of the water in the glass.

"They didn't, did they?"  Her voice rose with an odd, misplaced excitement at the revelation.  "Why?  Why would you do it?  Why would you go against them?"

"For you, Em.  For you and Aaron.  A boy should be with his mother."  He placed three fingers on her cheek and kissed her. 

His mouth didn't feel anything like business.

"Okay, here we go, people."  R.J.'s voice snapped everyone in the OC to attention.  Little Amy was about to turn into the big bad wolf.

Emily would never get used to the transformations.  Despite all the scientific evidence they were gathering, there was nothing natural about it.  It was an abomination the way one second a terrified human girl shook on the floor and the next a beast of pure dread was launching itself with blind fury at the glass, trying to tear off the wire mesh welded to the steel walls.

"The eclipse should start at 1:48 that's two hours and twelve minutes from now.  If there is anything you need to do, get it done before then.  I want everyone on their toes."

Emily's mind drifted away from her own worries, as the demonic terror thrashed around in the pen.  The sleek creature leaped and charged trying to force a way out. 

It was a monster that didn't belong on this Earth but watching its desperate and futile attempt at escape, Emily couldn't help feeling a small glimmer of sympathy.  As it howled in fury and bounced off the walls trying to break its prison, she thought, sometimes I feel like that.