* * *

Sarah made her way through the southeast corridor, Mermaid and Scorpion were with her. Pegasus, Unicorn, and Griffon were at the north entrance. Wolf, Hawk and Eagle were waiting outside for their cue.

They had already taken out the outside surveillance without exposing their presence. Only two more rooms between them and the stairs straight ahead.

So far, so good. And she was being optimistic.

Shots sounded. Griffon and the others had been discovered.

Scorpion signaled they pick up their pace, stealth no longer a main concern. Wolf and his team should be coming in. The rest of them needed to make it to the second floor as quickly as possible. One of their targets came rushing out of the room on the right, weapon drawn on them.

The world turned to slow motion in Sarah’s mind. She pointed her gun at him, ready to take the shot. One of her teammates appeared behind him from the other side of the hall, gun pressed to his temple. Sarah’s finger eased on the trigger just in time.

The woman told him to put the gun down, and he was lowering it, his other hand already raised in surrender.

Her mind struggled to make sense of it. It was Robyn’s voice!

The woman’s mask stopped her from seeing her face, but how could she not know her own sister’s voice?

A shot sounded. Another shot. A shout followed suit.

With a delay, she realized she’d been the one to fire the second shot at their attacker.

The man faltered.

Her sister, or whoever it was, had vanished like a trick of light.

The terrorist fell motionless in front of her.

Behind her, Mermaid was on the ground.

Scorpion was checking her, relaying what had happened back to Griffon.

Sarah quickly confirmed the terrorist was dead before heading to Mermaid.

“What the hell?” Scorpion shouted when Sarah approached.

Sarah had no idea what had happened. “Who was that?”

“Someone you were supposed to shoot!”

“Not now,” Griffon said as he joined them. Apparently, he’d come to their aid.

“Phoenix, escort Mermaid back to the van. Scorpion, with me.”

Sarah helped Mermaid up. The bullet had lodged in her body armor.

Shots became more distant as they headed out of the building.

Snake signaled them all was clear when they reached the van.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said repeatedly as she helped Mermaid out of her vest to check the damage underneath.

There was a bruise forming on the right side of her upper back.

“Doesn’t hurt too bad,” Mermaid said, readjusting her shirt. “I’ll be good to go by the Foundation Day party.”

“I’m really sorry.” Sarah didn’t—couldn’t—offer an adequate explanation.

“Are you okay?”

Sarah nodded, but that was surely a lie.

She’d heard Robyn. Worse, she’d seen her there, seen someone. Even if it were a trick of light and shadow, she could swear that the terrorist had lowered his weapon. But there wasn’t anyone else there who could’ve shot Mermaid. None of it made sense.

The others came back sooner than she expected. There were no major injuries reported. No one asked her about her mistake, no one spoke to her, and she was satisfied with that.

Although she knew it wouldn’t last, she was hoping she could make it back to the compound without having to say anything at all. All she had to do was survive a thirty-minute flight. Of course, that was too much to ask for. The plane had barely taken off when the shouting began.

“What the hell was that?” Scorpion asked. “She froze up.”

Sarah looked up to find them all looking at her.

“Phoenix, what happened?” Griffon asked.

“Why didn’t you take the shot?” Scorpion insisted.

“I’m sorry. I know I messed up, but I don’t know what happened. I thought I saw him lowering his weapon.”

Pegasus frowned at her. Sarah pulled away from his gaze, afraid he’d see right through her. She knew she’d have to explain herself, it was inevitable, but she wished she could put it off a little while longer until she understood it herself. Though an eternity would not be available anytime soon.

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Sarah apologized again to Mermaid and excused herself, moving to the back of the plane when no one objected.

She closed her eyes, and the images came back to haunt her in the darkness. Replaying in perfect clarity, as if there were no doubt in her mind, the man lowered his weapon and raised his free hand as the woman pressed her gun to his head.

Sarah’s fists gripped the armrest and squeezed. Had she really lost it?

“Sarah?”

She opened her eyes to find Pegasus standing there, watching her. They hadn’t had a proper conversation since she shut him down, but the awkwardness wasn’t as bad as she expected. She moved to the window seat, and he took the vacated spot.

He leaned back as if settling in to take a nap. Sarah opened the window shades and looked out at the clouds. She could see them just below the stars, forming a fluffy gray mattress under the plane. The moon was somewhere in the distance, bright and almost full.

“Thinking of jumping?” Pegasus asked in a whisper.

“Never mind the glass, I’d get stuck halfway out that tiny hole.”

He leaned closer to her under the pretext of looking out the window. “Do you want to tell me the truth now?”

Had he been the one selected to come interrogate her?

She glanced over towards the front of the plane. Scorpion was focused on her computer, Griffon was talking with Unicorn, and she could barely make out the edge of Mermaid’s boots where she’d spread herself across a few seats.

Illusory as it may be, the lack of attention allowed her to relax a little. She turned back to Pegasus, half-expecting him to be pretending to sleep again.

He was looking at her. Patiently, but expectantly.

She let the air out slowly. “I thought I saw something, just for a second, out of the corner of my eyes.” It didn’t sound so bad then. “It caught me by surprise.”

“What did you think you saw?”

She didn’t want him to think she was crazy, if only because she was still trying to convince herself she wasn’t.

He lowered his voice even more. “You’re going to have to say something during the debriefing.”

She let out a breath, the name escaping along with it. “Robyn. I thought I saw Robyn. I know it’s not possible. But it made me pause for a moment. I’m sorry, I don’t know why that happened.”

“Maybe it’s being back at the compound, back where you lost her, emotionally speaking.”

Lost… that was a new sort of euphemism for shooting your sister.

The familiar pain came even though her sister hadn’t been the one to die there. Her mind hadn’t been great with separating the two Robyns so far. She shoved the thought away before her mind dove further into that misery.

“So you don’t think I’m crazy?”

Mischief colored his smile. “I didn’t say that.”

“Are you incapable of giving a straight answer to anything?”

“I don’t know, maybe. I’m not sure.”

“Are you gonna make me go talk to Athena?”

“I won’t, but then you’re not my responsibility, are you?”

She glanced over at Unicorn and Griffon.

The plane started descending and seatbelts clicked into place throughout the small plane. Out the window, Sarah could identify the buildings already.

“Would you meet me at the garden after the debriefing?” he asked.

She was tempted to say no, but she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. And, regardless of their confusing current situation, he was the closest thing to a friend she had here. He was the closest thing to anything she had left. “Do you think there’s pizza around?”

He grinned. “I bet I can get some.”

The debriefing wasn’t as bad as Sarah expected. She told them she thought she’d seen one of their own in the hallway behind the target, maybe a shadow. And for some reason, her mind pictured that shadow as Robyn. As for not shooting, it might’ve been a combination of being distracted by that shadow enough that she mistook whatever motion the terrorist was doing for lowering his weapon. It sounded much more plausible and slightly less insane than the whole truth would have. Either way, she was ordered to go see Athena the following day, and she was grounded pending Griffon’s and Athena’s evaluation.

Going to the garden afterwards felt like an escape. There was something about those trees, about that place, that she adored.

Pegasus was already inside waiting for her.

“Is this place always empty?” she asked.

He placed his tablet down on the table and pulled a chair out. The motion made him wince.

“How’s your arm?”

“Fine enough. The muscles aren’t completely healed. Today didn’t help.”

“That’s what you get for going back out so soon.”

He waved off her criticism. “So, how’d it go?”

“I’m grounded and I have to talk to Athena tomorrow.”

He pushed a plastic container across the table towards her.

She laughed. “Pizza?”

“Cold pizza from two days ago.”

She opened the lid and pulled out a slice. “Won’t kill me.”

“Are you alright now?”

She nodded, wondering if that was a half-truth if not a complete lie. “Maybe this happened because I’ve been dreaming of Robyn a lot lately.”

“Is she going on about how she hates the color white and how it’s not even a real color? Because I’ve had several nightmares that went like that.”

Sarah laughed, trying not to choke on her pizza.

Pegasus grabbed half a slice from the container. “What do you dream about?”

“Being home. I don’t really remember all of it. But I know my parents are there sometimes, and so is Robyn. And it’s not like it’s a perfect day in the life or anything… but it always is, because they’re there, you know?”

She fought to stop the suddenly emerging tears, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from watering.

Pegasus was nice enough to pretend he wasn’t seeing any of it while still looking right at her.

“Are you still going over the recordings?”

“Only a couple of times.” At least a little every day. Could that have played a part in causing her hallucination? “Maybe more than I should.”

“I’m worried about you.”

Sara stared at the pizza slice in her hands. He might wind up confiscating the recordings if he thought they were to blame for her mental mishaps. “I’ll set the recordings aside for now.”

Pegasus looked relieved. “Did I tell you about the time Robyn ran around in skates inside the compound?”

Sarah’s eyes widened. Surely he was joking.

“I don’t know how it started. She and Scorpion were talking about recreation for recreation’s sake versus training in our spare time. I’m sure you can guess who was advocating which.”

Sarah nodded. Her sister would not be a fan of working during her down time, she was sure of that.

“Anyway, she started going around on these skates, even upstairs.”

While she listened, Sarah was once again surprised by how natural it felt to talk to him, but something was different. What should have felt like enough to her, didn’t—not anymore. Pegasus, on the other hand, true to his promise, had left the matter aside and gone back to how they interacted before. She was left to pretend it didn’t bother her as much as it did. Perhaps it had been some whim on his part and nothing more. She realized she’d missed part of what he was saying.

“She knocked him right into the recruits and we went around calling it a strike for a while after that. She was not happy.”

“I got it,” someone said from the other side of the garden.

Sarah whirled around, startled to hear another person’s voice—she hadn’t heard the door.

She scanned the entire place. There was no one else there.

A touch brought her back to the moment. She turned to face Pegasus, wondering what they’d been talking about. She looked down at where he was touching her forearm, but made no move to pull away.

He removed his hand awkwardly, placing it flat against the table. “Are you still with me?”

“I’m not sure.”