* * *

Sarah gulped down the last of her coffee, putting the cup down on the only empty spot on her desk.

The door flung open as Robyn sped into the room, a tornado disturbing everything in its wake. It was like watching a storm from what was barely a safe distance. Any sudden shift, and it would be on you.

Robyn tossed aside a pile of clothes that had been sitting on the bed, lifting the bed sheets. “Have you seen my glasses? I have a test today and I need to be able to see the board.”

Sarah pulled her backpack onto her bed, checking what was already in there. “You don’t wear glasses.”

Robyn tossed a shirt at her. “Sarah! My glasses.”

Sarah threw the shirt back onto her sister’s bed. Why did she think Robyn didn’t wear glasses?

She reached behind one of her old math books and grabbed Robyn’s glasses. “Here.”

Robyn deposited the random pile of junk she’d been sifting through onto her bedside table before accepting the glasses and checking it for spots. “Are you ready to go?”

“Almost.” She wanted to find an extra pen. “Hey, can we stop to grab some pizza on the way home tonight?” She had a sudden craving, and it’d been a while since they’d had any junk food other than movie night popcorn.

“Are you gonna be fighting dad for the olives?”

Sarah ignored her, searching under her bed for her blue pen.

“Leave that and let’s go. I can’t be late today.” Robyn headed out the door without waiting for a response.

Sarah stood up, and the world spun for a moment. Maybe she got up too fast.

Robyn was calling her name from far away.

It was another few seconds before she could move, but then momentum carried her forward. She tossed her cell phone and the only pen she’d found into her backpack along with her notebook. The notebook still had a pencil as a place marker—more nightmares she’d forgotten.

She stopped on her way out to turn off the bathroom light. Her fingers slid along the wall, but as she glanced at her own reflection, she froze. The sickly face staring back at her seemed as surprised as she was. Dark circles stood out against an unhealthy pale skin.

Was that really how she looked?

The reflection’s lips moved, disconnected from her own. A chill ran through her. A choked sound she didn’t recognize as her own escaped her.

Sarah blinked.

The image of her tortured self was gone.

* * *

Pegasus slowed his steps to keep from making a sound as he approached Cypher’s station. Not that his friend would notice anything with the incessant clacking and clicking of his keyboard.

Unnoticed, Pegasus got close enough to read what was on his screens. Cypher forwarded a request to Lore, sent a message with new search parameters to his helpers, and sent a quick update to Zeus. He then checked another incoming message and forwarded that information on to Athena. The next message that popped up on one of his screens was a long stream of data. Cypher finally stopped everything else to read it.

Pegasus leaned in over his shoulder, his shadow falling over the desk.

Cypher glanced up, returning to his reading the next second. “Are you done with Dragon’s sister yet?”

“Haven’t started yet.” Pegasus leaned against his desk, turning slightly to watch the security monitors overhead. “We’re taking a break.”

Cypher snickered. “A break from the picnic in the garden?”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Pegasus ignored his teasing. “Any news on Griffon’s team?”

“Nothing new so far.” Cypher replied to a couple more messages before spinning his chair around to face him. “Seriously, what are you doing? Checking up on us?”

“I’m only asking.”

“Yeah, like I’ll buy that. If you’re not gonna work on Sarah’s story, go lie down. You know Zeus isn’t gonna let you do anything. And don’t even bother protesting while you look like something that crawled out of a zombie movie.”

“Actually, I was looking for Unicorn.”

Cypher laughed. “So you can check up on her instead?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“I think she’s in the conference room.” Cypher spun his chair back around and started scrolling through some newer messages. “She should be done with her call to Center, so now would be a good time to talk to her. She’s got another outside call scheduled in about thirty minutes.”

“Thanks, master of many minions.”

Cypher waved him off, already paying attention to something that came up on another screen.

Pegasus knocked on the door to the conference room, waiting until Unicorn answered before going in.

Unicorn was leaning against the edge of the conference table, looking up at the various reports displayed on the main screen.

When she turned to look at him, her normally cheerful expression had been replaced with a tired smile.

“You look as bad as I feel,” she said.

He’d been hearing a lot of variations on that theme lately. Didn’t bode well for him. He took a seat across the table from her. “You seem comfortable in this role.”

Tired, but comfortable.

“Zeus keeps asking me to head up the investigation division full time.” Her upper lip curled. “And I keep telling him I have no interest in climbing up the ladder.”

Unicorn was one of the longer-serving field agents, so it wasn’t unusual for Zeus to place her in charge of investigations from time to time. Technically, she was still a part of Griffon’s team. Probably a good thing, too. Scorpion liked to joke that Unicorn was the stable force that kept them all from killing each other. He wondered how they were doing right now.

“I don’t like responsibility and I hate paperwork even more. I’m happy to keep shooting people for as long as they let me.” She rubbed at her eyes. “And this investigation is doing nothing to change my mind.”

“Not going as expected?”

“Everything we think may be a lead only leads to a dead end.” She pointed at the screen, where they had a schematic showing connections they’d traced from Gellman’s cell. “I really wanted to find something before Dragon got back. She’s been so off with worry lately.”

“Don’t take it too hard. If it’s not there, it’s not there. I know you’re doing your best. You always do.”

A hint of a smile surfaced, only to vanish again. “You should’ve seen her when I took her back to the house. She looked devastated when she came back out. I hate that there’s nothing I can do to help.”

Pegasus joined her on the edge of the table, staring up at the screen. “There was nothing useful?”

“Not really. We tracked down three other cells that had contact with Gellman’s recently. We captured most of another cell today.” She flattened her dark curls onto the top of her head out of habit. “From what we’ve gathered so far, they seem unaware of which cell had been responsible for the attack on Dragon’s family or why. Cypher has one of his minions checking it out.”

“But? What’s worrying you?”

“Even if we bring down twenty cells and they all claim to not know about those orders, there’s no guarantee that there won’t be one cell out there that still has a hit out on Sarah.”

“It’ll be a gamble.”

They could improve the odds with time, but odds were always odds.

“She’ll be bait,” Unicorn corrected.

Pegasus nodded. Even with all their precautions, it would be inevitable.

Unicorn put down her tablet and met his gaze. “If that’s what it comes down to, we could use it to our advantage.”

“You can be the one to talk to Dragon about that.” Pegasus wanted no part in that.

“Do I look suicidal?” Unicorn asked. “I’ll let Zeus decide what he wants us to do. How’s the coaching going?”

Pegasus sighed dramatically for effect. “Slowly.”

“She’s being difficult?”

“No, but she’s been under a lot of stress ever since she got here. I imagine she’s worn out. I didn’t want to push her.” Except for his hopes of getting assigned further work when he was done coaching her, they were in no real hurry.

He was content with giving her a few more days to process everything and hopefully recover some more. It also gave him an excuse to spend some more time with her.

“I don’t think anyone is in a rush to send her back out, that’s for sure,” Unicorn said. “But what are we going to do when we do send her back out? I imagine we’d leave surveillance on her for a while.”

They might have to, whether for her protection or because they’d be using her as bait, but that would require more planning. They would also have to see what resources they had available in terms of personnel.

“We have enough bridges to cross in the distance, I say we set that aside until we confirm the where and when. We’re not lacking in immediate problems either.”

The com sounded as if on cue.

Pegasus smiled. “See?”

“Unicorn? Your call’s in,” Cypher said. “And Pegasus, Doc Brown’s waiting for you downstairs.”

Pegasus tried not to make a face as he headed out with a mock salute towards the com.

“He’s on his way,” Unicorn answered for him. “Put the call through, please.”

Pegasus went straight for the elevator. As he selected the floor, he had an odd moment when he almost pushed the wrong button, his actions tainted by his thoughts of Sarah.

He considered stopping by to check on her, but he could do that after his talk with the doctor. He suspected Doctor Brown was keeping him in the infirmary an extra hour for every ten minutes he was late in showing up.

It was probably fine to wait a bit longer to go see her. Sarah had seemed better when he walked her back to her room after the garden.

The look in her eyes when she’d been looking at the mirror earlier still troubled him. It looked too much like fear to be nothing.

What could she be so terrified of in a mirror?

Distracted, he almost followed his train of thoughts back to Sarah’s room despite having decided to go straight to the infirmary.

Sarah had been on his mind a lot lately. He’d already noticed it, but he’d attributed it to having been asked to plan her return home and work on prepping her.

True that she was a distraction, but if he were being honest, it was a distraction he’d been growing increasingly fond of. Unexpectedly, he was not looking forward to the day when Sarah would leave them.