Emily flung her purse down on the banquette and slid in after it. "So what's so important?"

Maxwell didn't answer. He just stared back with those sad, dog eyes of his. It was that horrible, unmasked look of disappointment and loss she had grown to know well. Snapping at him probably hadn't helped things, but she was sick of the guilt which accompanied that look. It was like a mealworm burrowing into her heart every time they met.

"Well?"

"Hell, Em, I just wanted to talk." He brushed his thumb along the thin white line below his eye.

She held her hand to prevent it from reaching for the little star point hidden under a layer of foundation. The skin on her cheek suddenly felt tight, a reminder of her matching scar. She had a dot for his line. If they were lying next to each other in bed, it might look like a semicolon.

"So talk."

His mouth opened and closed a couple of times in an attempt to find the words to start, but the waitress came by before he could get anything out. She was impatient to take their order and stood by their table tapping the toe of an orthopedic shoe. For their meeting, Maxwell had picked a sad, old diner with sad, old waitresses.

Emily ordered coffee and a doughnut from under a dusty glass bell on the counter.

When they were alone again, he asked "Where's Aaron?"

"At Judo practice." She hadn't told Maxwell that Aaron had started taking classes. Not that he needed to know. Not that he deserved to know.

The anger she felt wasn't fair to him, but that knowledge didn't make it any less intense. It would be so much simpler if they were merely exes or a divorced couple with shared custody. But like all things in her life, it was so much more fucking complicated.

In their time together, Aaron and Maxwell had bonded, and now Maxwell acted like Aaron was his son. Worse, Aaron treated him like a father. Perhaps the time Aaron had spent with his real father had laid the groundwork for Maxwell's kindness to draw him close.

Emily was grateful for that kindness. She really was. Grateful and resentful. He had taken care of her boy while she was gone. But while he was growing to love Aaron, Maxwell learned to hate her. That time apart had confused and ruined everything.

It wasn't even her fault. If only that bitch had stayed out of her life.

Emily's hand clutched against the red vinyl of the diner's bench. She could almost feel herself back in that car, her hands wrapped in bloody bandages and fearing for her life.

In the dim glow of the Malibu's dome light, she made out the features of the woman leaning in the open car door. Her hair was dyed strawberry blonde and looked fresh from the salon. The lines in her face were deep but not ugly. They were exact creases carved by a master sculptor. The fingers clutching the sleek semiautomatic had nails painted the color of candy apples. The pistol radiated warmth and Emily imagined a wisp of smoke drifting from its recently fired barrel. There wasn't a drop of blood on her emerald Chanel skirt suit.

She hadn't changed a bit.

Emily couldn't believe she of all people was standing there. Could she be hallucinating? Could she have died back in the Aira lobby and this was her warm welcome at the gates of hell?

Feeling very small and fragile her voice squeaked out, "Mom?"

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? Now are you hurt or not?"

"A little." Emily patted the ACE bandage on her cheek. The bleeding had stopped but the pain still throbbed as though the shard of glass had never been removed. "I'm okay."

"Good. We should get out of here. Even in this shit-hole part of the country, someone might call the cops at the sound of gunshots. Come on." She held out her free hand and helped Emily out of the car.

In a dark gravel parking lot, there were four men. Two wore jeans and black shirts. In their hands were guns similar to her mother's. They hovered back, halfway between the car and a honky-tonk bar. It was closed for the night. Overflowing garbage cans rotted by the backdoor, where moths spiraled around a bare bulb.

The other two men, Emily's captors, lay in the gravel. Blood leaked out of them, soaking into the dusty ground.

Emily watched the designer heels walk away from her with elegance and purpose, never teetered or wavered on the loose stones. Her mother waved her pistol, signalling the gun men to follow her to the waiting Escalade. Emily stumbled as she raced to catch up.

Wordlessly, each woman opened one of the backdoors and climbed in opposite sides of the SUV.

"What the hell is going on, Lauren?"

"You're welcome. I'm happy to see you too, dear," Lauren said in that understated sarcasm she loved.

"Cut the shit. You just had me kidnapped. Seriously. What the fuck?"

"Kidnapped? I had you rescued." Seeing Emily's eyes bulge in disbelief, she sighed. "Think about it for a second: you just disappeared in the middle of a firefight. The government is going to assume you were captured or killed. They're won't be looking for you. You can disappear."

"No, I can't."

"Trust me. I have it all worked out." The massive Cadillac pulled out, spraying gravel in its wake.

"No. I have to go back. Aaron's coming home today. I mean, yesterday." With all the turmoil of being captured, Emily hadn't given time the briefest of thoughts. It was late. Pre-dawn. Max should have returned hours ago with her boy. "Good God! I was supposed finally get him back, and instead you had fucking goons drag me out into the middle of the desert."

"Oh, Lord. What trouble did you get my grandson into?"

"Don't act like you care. You abandoned us. You abandoned him. And you abandoned me.  Twice. You fucking left me twice."

Lauren sat rigid and faced straight ahead, staring at the back of the driver's head. "Here we go."

"Yes, here we fucking go." The thugs in the front seat glanced back uncertain if they should respond to the family drama erupting behind them. "You don't get to pop into my life whenever it's convenient for you and expect me to be grateful."

"Will you calm down? You're acting like a child." Lauren glanced out the side window as though watching the scenery pass by but it was too dark and desolate for there to be anything to see beyond the shoulder of the road. "I left you with Louisa because my life is far too dangerous to be dragging a kid along with me. How was I to know that she'd get herself killed?"

"I. Just. Cannot. Believe. You." Aunt Louisa had been Emily's real mother, raising her from an infant. Lauren only stopped by once or twice a year. She'd drop off some toy, pinch her cheek, and in the morning she'd be gone. "Got herself killed? You make it sound like she was in bank robbery gone wrong. She was hit by a motherfucking semi whose driver was asleep at the wheel. And where were you then? You vanished. Strangers in foster families were better mothers to me than you ever were."

"You make it sound so Dickensian. When you were old enough to join me, I came looking for you." Lauren turned to her with a deeply earnest expression—so deep and true, it could only be a lie. "When you dropped out of school and ran away, I found you. Do you think that was easy? You could have been anywhere, but I found you. And now I've found you again. You don't even know what sort of a shit-storm I just got you away from. And what thanks do I get?"

"The way I remember it, you came to me with a sob story about being a scared, unwed mother and how you wanted to be a family again. Then I ended up being part of your shitty gang of grifters because you're mark happened to have a thing for underage prostitutes."

"I taught you a skill. I taught you how to survive in this world."

Emily couldn't believe she had spent the last few years replaying the lessons Lauren taught her as though it was sage wisdom from a trusted mentor. It was all bullshit. Everything she said, everything she touched was bullshit.

Emily grabbed at the door handle. "Let me out. I'll walk."

"Don't be so melodramatic all the time."

"I want to go home. I need to get back for Aaron."

Lauren crossed her arms in front of her. Her frown was clear even in the darkness of the car. "You can't go back just yet."

"Once again: what the fuck is this all about?"

"I'm in deep."

Un-fucking-believable. She went for the door handle again. If she rolled properly, she could survive the jump even at this speed.

Lauren latched onto her arm with both hands. "Listen to me, Jellybean. The con's at a critical state. I either go all-in or it caves in on me. I need your help. The payday is huge. And there's no one better than you for this job."

Damn the woman knew how to pull every string. That drop of false praise was like a gallon of water after wandering in the desert. But it was bullshit. Lauren had never been shy about telling her how useless Emily was at everything, unless she was after something.

Lauren seemed to sense her hesitation. "Remember the Melville job. It's just like that."

Emily paused. Melville had been the only scam where she hadn't felt like a piece a chum in the water. The only job where she had gotten to do something she liked. And she had been amazing at it.

"Hear me out. This isn't just about the job. I know I haven't been the best mother. I have trouble showing emotion. But I love you. You need to know that. I want to get you and my grandson out of all this shit. Once were done, I'll set you up anywhere in the world you want, with enough money you will never have to work or hustle ever again. Just once more. The two of us together again. Let me do this for you."

Greed and love. One of the first lessons of the con game Lauren ever taught her was that greed and love were the keys to everyone's soul. The woman just had never taught her how to protect herself from it.

It hadn't been her fault.

Maxwell sat across from her quietly. His hands formed an arch over his cup of coffee as he rubbed his knuckles, absently. He seemed lost in his own world, until he suddenly said, "Have you ever thought what you'd do when this comes to an end?"

"What? Breakfast?

"Don't be like that. You know I mean The Music Box. Have you given any thought to what you'd do when your contract is up?"

Emily had known what he meant. The question felt like a trap. He might as well ask if she had plans to going back to being a scam artist and neglecting her son just as her mother had done to her.

"I'm not stupid. The Agency isn't going to let me off because of some ink on the page. The contract said five years, but I'm here until they're done with me."

"Hypothetically, then? If something were to happen to Amy and there was no more need for the lab, what would you do? You must have thought about it. Would you go back to Boston?"

"Aaron's school and friends are here. I can't imagine ever moving. And what a horrible thought." Emily wrung her napkin into a knot, keeping her fidgeting hands busy. "That poor, sweet girl. I don't even want to think about anything happening to her. Isn't it bad enough what she's been through? What's wrong with you? How can you think that way?"

Guilt was such a strange disease. The more it played upon her mind, the more she wanted Maxwell to suffer from it as well.

"Why did you want to see me? To ask me a bunch of hypotheticals?"

Maxwell, muttered something about it being a mistake and having to go. He slipped away leaving far too many bills on the table to pay for their meager breakfast.

Emily watched him walk out to his car. Every day he was more of a stranger to her.

***

The light snow on the road  layered the pavement like tissue paper. Car tires tore long dark strips through it, while wet flakes specked the windshield.

Darren Palmer pulled through the security gate and headed toward the dull gray hangers that loomed like mirages in the dreary weather. He drank syrupy coffee from a paper takeout cup and thought about the biblical line: "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other."

But what if you had three masters?

Master One and Master Two were at odds this morning. Noelle had planned a St. Patrick's Day brunch with a few of the neighbors. When Jorgenson called with his latest demand, Darren had left her fuming with half hung shamrocks and green metallic streamers still in their packaging.

She had acted like he wanted to go.

Darren would have been much happier staying home in their warm house, eating Noelle's corned beef and cabbage quiche, instead of risking his life on icy roads and eating a microwaved breakfast sandwich from a drive-thru.

The Lexus's computer notified him of an incoming text message, just as the SBI jet came into sight. The message was from Jorgenson's traveling secretary and consisted of two words: "Your late."

The little troll couldn't spell for shit.

Darren had never felt more of an errand boy than he did since becoming the new head of security for SBI Pharmaceuticals. It was an executive level job with a diamond encrusted leash. A leash, which CEO, Walt M. Jorgenson, kept firmly in his grip.

The window for this meeting was a tight one, lasting only as long as it would take for the private jet to refuel. The eccentric businessman preferred face to face meetings instead of phone calls or emails. Prominent scientist, successful businessman, and self-styled Viking chieftain, Jorgenson was imperious and ruthless. He didn't avoid modern technology so much as twist it to his own very specific and very peculiar world view.

It wasn't just technology that got twisted in his grasp. With his promotion, Darren's role in the company had become less about corporate security and more about being the CEO's private barbarian thug.

If he had known what a lousy deal the job was, Darren might have been more hesitant about murdering his predecessor.

He parked by the hanger, where the secretary waited under a black umbrella. Over the sound of the car door slamming, he said, "You're late." His pudgy face was blotchy and red from the cold and his little pig eyes were squinted up tight against the wind.

"I got here as fast as I could, Josh. People forget how to drive when it snows. You should have given me more notice."

They walked together to the waiting plane. Sleet streaked down over the runway like lights in a long exposure photograph. Josh didn't offer to share the umbrella and Darren's shoulders and hair collected fragments of ice.

"Tell your excuses to Jorgenson," Josh called out as Darren climbed the mobile staircase alone.

The inside of the jet was surprisingly modern. It was nothing like the hallucinatory office Jorgenson kept in Manhattan. The multi-million dollar plane almost looked off-the-rack without his quirky Nordic touches.

Jorgenson sat at the back watching Darren as he approached. His presence dominated not just the high-backed leather chair his big body was squeezed into but the entire cabin. His face was calm but his steely eyes were cold with impatience.

"Mr. Palmer. Have a seat. There is not much time. I have business on the West Coast."

"How was Norway?"

"Beautiful. Just beautiful. We forget the exhilaration of living on top of the world, when we spend too much time in this new land of yours." He said new as though nothing new was ever good—like all of the Americas had come out of a sweatshop in Bangladesh last week.

He tapped his gold ring on the arm of his chair with a distracting tap-tap. It was one of the relics dug out of the secret archeological site he owned in Maine. The prize was a reminder of both his heritage and his ability to get anything he wanted. Even from several feet away, the four point flower design was clear to see. It was a symbol that seemed to say, I wear history on my finger.

"Patience." It was clear Jorgenson meant this as the topic for their meeting, but he didn't offer any further explanation.

The man was clearly fishing for a question. But Darren wasn't in the mood to play the fawning apprentice today, so he took his seat and waited for his boss to get on with it. He'd prove that he could be patient too.

Jorgenson stroked the fine hairs of his beard. He looked as though he had forgotten that he had ever wanted to say anything at all. Then he broke the spell and took a drink of designer bottled water.

"Patience and persistence, I have told you that all things can be accomplished with these two virtues?"

"Yes, many times."

"Well, it has finally paid off with our little problem in Phoenix."

"It has?" Darren perked up. The werewolf hadn't been discussed in months. He might have forgotten about Jorgenson's strange fixation on the creature, except for the fact that this obsession was the source of all Darren's problems. Had it not been for Project LARS and the wolf-girl, he might still be an ignorant little ant working happily at SBI. Without it, there wouldn't be a string of betrayals and corpses in his past and an apocalypse looming in his future.

"Where violence and subterfuge had failed, politics has succeeded. It is very convenient that your leaders make themselves so available for sale. Yes, my sizable donations in the last election have borne fruit. The order has been given and soon that vargynja will no longer be a problem."

Jorgenson had used that term at least half a dozen times before Darren had looked it up on the internet. It was ancient Norse for she-wolf. The knowledge only made him disgusted that the pretentious bastard was peppering his speech with a dead language.

"That's wonderful news, sir. So does that mean the world is safe?"

"When has the world ever been safe? We are but one step closer to postponing Ragnorak." He wagged his finger like he was teaching a lesson to a small child. "But every step is a victory. And we will take step after step until every last one of those werewulves are wiped off the Earth."

He leaned back in his lavish seat and grinned through his golden beard. "You know, Mr. Palmer, It is moments like these that validate the work we do. We are warriors for a sacred crusade. There is great honor in that."

Did he mean we as in the two of us? Or we, the cabal he was a part of? Or was it just his usual usage of the royal we? That obnoxious way he had of referring to himself in the plural.

"I agree, sir."

There was a brief celebratory pause, then Jorgenson gave him a new assignment and dismissed him.

On his way home, Darren's mind turned to his third master—just as crazy, if not crazier than Jorgenson. She was the psychopath who held a knife to his family's throat. She would need to know about this. Darren was so well trained by fear that he never considered not informing her. Her words always loomed large in his mind: which of your daughters do you want me to kill?

After he reached the anonymity of the highway, Darren switched on the Bluetooth for his phone. "Call Barbara Gracie," he told it.

***

R.J. could feel the news in his fingers. The flesh on them had turned waxy and cold. When he flexed them they seemed to pull wires connected to his gut. He was standing but uncertain of what to do. Rage had propelled him upward but had given him no other cues for action. In front of him, Maxwell's face disappeared in a pixilated red fury that filmed his eyes.

"That's completely insane. She's a little girl."

Wiley deflated where he stood and flopped into the chair by his side. "I know. It's crazy. Believe me I don't want this."

"You can't expect me to go along with her murder. I won't do it."

Maxwell raised his hands in defeat. "I understand where you're coming from. I didn't come here to play the government heavy. I came to you because I need your help. If we don't handle this properly, it could get very ugly."

Wiley's tone of defeat was sapping the fire out of him. The anger was shifting into fear. The directive to kill Amy had the horrific inevitability of a car at the bottom of a lake slowly filling with water. The dissipation of nervous energy sucked the strength from his knees, and R.J. dropped back to his seat.

The two of them sat across from each other mirroring the same look of dejection.

"There's got to be a way," R.J. said in a voice robbed of strength. "We have to find someone to overrule this. Surely there's someone in the DTAA that's not a monster."

"It's beyond the Agency. This comes from up on high." Maxwell passed his hand through his short, sandy hair. Sweat prevented a fan of hair from settling back down on the top of his head. "I know this isn't easy, but this will get done with or without us. We've all grown to care about her. We've watched her grow up. At least we can make it so she's not surrounded by strangers at the end and it happens painlessly."

"She's just a little girl," R.J. repeated.

"We both know that's not entirely true. This was always a possibility. They almost shut us down once before."

"But that was before she matured. She's learned how to control the changes now."

"Yes, and that's what kept her alive this long."

"What if we refused? What if we protected her?" There was a frantic edge to his words. R.J. knew he must sound like a madman, but he didn't stop the flow of his thought. "We could lock ourselves in. We have independent power, water, and enough food to last years. With all this security, we could hold them off indefinitely. We could wait until they came to their senses."

"What senses? You're talking about politicians." Maxwell leaned forward in his seat. "You have to listen to me. Listen closely. If it came to that, there's nothing stopping them from burning this place. When the DTAA commissioned it, they planted C4 charges everywhere. If we force their hand, they can drop the whole damn mountain onto us." He shuddered when he finished speaking.

This couldn't be happening. R.J. stared down at his desk blotter and rubbed his temples. There was a time when the thought of an autopsy would have eased the sting of losing a live specimen. But he could no longer think of Amy as a specimen. She had long ago stopped being his experiment.

R.J. could hear his ex-wife's voice in his head, this is what you get for losing your objectivity. Mila had a pure commitment to science, which trumped every other relationship in her life. If she were here, she'd view R.J.'s reaction as nothing but weakness. Think of what we could learn, she'd say.

Maxwell stood with slow, unrushed movements. "Jamie's chip." He picked up the sealed Petri dish from the desk and shook it. The microchip inside the small plastic disk rattled around like the dried up husk of a dead insect, drawing R.J.'s eyes. "I know why you kept it."

R.J. flinched as though it had been an accusation. No one had spoken of Jamie Haddad in years. He had died down here in the bunker—a victim of his own compassion. Afraid that Amy was sick, he had gone into her enclosure, only for her to transform. R.J. had come across the identification chip among his mutilated remains.

"I've know you a while, R.J., and I know you don't keep this because you like morbid mementoes. He died on your watch and you won't forgive yourself. That's why it's still on your desk after all this time. I know you want to save her. I know you want to light the torches and assemble the mob. Hell, I wish we could. But we can't, because if we do, there will be a lot more people dead than just Amy." Maxwell put Jamie's chip down and leaned on the desk with both hands. "The Agency wants this to all end quietly. Anyone who gets in their way is going to die. I need your help to stop that. You won't be the only one outraged by this decision. I need your leadership to keep the others in line. This is no longer about Amy. There is nothing we can do for her. This is about how many of the others we can save."

Maxwell held his stance for a moment and then made his way back to the door. With his hand on knob, he said, "Think about it."

In the empty office, R.J. stared a long time at a blank void that existed somewhere in front of him. Hesitantly, he picked up the RFID chip and examined it as though seeing it for the first time.

This tiny piece of technology was the last remnant of the man. Jamie was the first of them to see Amy as more than a specimen of a rare species. He had been friends with the girl, while R.J. was still absorbed by the lycanthrope and readouts of genetic sequences.

Jamie would never agree to the order. He would die trying to save her. It almost seemed as though the chip was mocking R.J. for hesitating to do the same.

Laying the Petri dish down solemnly. R.J. thought, it's almost like he's still here looking out for her. A ghost in the machine.

R.J.'s eyes narrowed. The words in his head had sparked something. He coddled the ember of the idea, stoking it into a small flame.

Maxwell was right: they couldn't stay and fight. R.J. hadn't suggested leaving with Amy because he knew too well that it was impossible. But what if he was wrong about that? What if there was a way?