Xavier and Dylan were led into a plush looking office. Neatly organised books and clean lines stared back at them, along with ergonomic furniture.

Xavier hated sitting in there. Sure, the chairs were comfy, but there was something about their angular shape that made him feel exposed.

A tall, thin man opened the door mere seconds after they sat.

'Kowalski. Denvers,' he said.

'Sir,' they replied in unison.

The sharply dressed man took a seat behind the desk and flicked through the report in front of him.

'Two officers injured. An ex agent dead. And we have a teenager in the cells. Would one of you care to explain?' The man peered at them behind his spectacles, his gaze unwavering.

'We were called to the scene-' Dylan cut off as the man held up his hand.

'I know what you were doing there. I want to know what went wrong,' he said steadily.

'From the initial reports, it appeared to be a feeding frenzy,' Xavier said.

'But you disagree?'

'The bodies don't add up. Eight vamps, four dead workmen. The only other person who was killed was Mari. And she wasn't killed for blood.'

The man slid the papers across his desk and picked up one. 'Marilyn Le Bou. Do we know what she was doing there?'

'Not yet,' Xavier admitted.

'I assume that's why you brought the girl.'

'Sir, I believe she may know why the vamps were there.' He watched the director of the Bureau nod to himself.

'Has she said anything?' the Director asked.

'Not much since Mari...'

The Director's sharp eyes watched Xavier carefully before glancing at Dylan and sitting back in his chair. 'Agent Denvers, could you arrange for the girl to be transferred to the interrogation room?'

'Of course, Sir.' She stared back at Xavier as she shut the door, looking worried.

'Xavier,' the Director began, dropping the formalities. 'I understand this must be hard. I know you and Mari were close.'

'I haven't seen the woman in over fifteen years.'

'Around the time of the Awakening,' he noted, taking the seat Dylan had vacated. 'We need to establish how an ex agent ended up involved with something like this. Questions will be asked about her choice of weapons alone.'

'I understand, Sir.'

'I want you to keep me informed of anything you find. We need to get a handle on whatever shitstorm we've found ourselves involved in.'

'I'll interrogate the girl myself. We'll find out what they were both doing there.'

'Do you have any theories yet?' the Director asked abruptly.

Xavier chose his words carefully. 'The vamps weren't there to feed. They were looking for something.'

'And you think the girl knows what that is?'

Xavier kept his face neutral. He knew exactly what the vampires had been after. And it wasn't a thing but a living person. Only that was something he didn't understand, and with Mari's dying words still lingering in his ear, he kept that piece of information to himself.

'It's possible. As you said, they were equipped with UV guns. I'd like to know why they had them,' he said honestly.

The Director gazed at him, his steely blue eyes unreadable. 'See what the girl has to say. I want your report in two days' time. After that, I recommend a holiday. Maybe somewhere nice, like Devon or Somerset. Somewhere away from the city.'

Xavier stood. 'I fear I would be out of place.'

'Sometimes it is the unexpected places where we truly find ourselves,' the Director countered. 'The coastal air would do you well. My husband is an insistent hoarder of brochures. I'll see that some are delivered to you and your partner. You deserve the time away from the office.'

Xavier agreed half heartedly and left the office before the Director forced a holiday form on him. As an agent, the holiday benefit wasn't bad, but there was nowhere else he could think to go. The Bureau was his life. Nothing else could survive whilst he remained there.

He walked into the room behind the interrogation room, where Dylan was already waiting for him.

'And what did the Director have to say?' she asked.

'He suggested we talk a holiday after we hand in our reports.'

'I could get behind that idea. My boyfriend's been banging on about skiing in northern France.'

'But you don't ski?'

'He thinks it'll be a wonderful bonding experience,' she replied drily.

'So what about the girl?' he asked, sidestepping around the talk of boyfriends and holidays.

He watched the girl from behind the two-way glass. She had her head rested on her arms, keeping her face hidden from his view.

'Where do you want me to start?'

'The beginning would be good.'

She rolled her eyes, having heard his joke before. 'Legally, Marilyn Le Bou doesn't have a foster daughter. We have no record in the system of a Ray, Raya or Raye matching the girl's description. Her blood's not in the database.'

'Have you rerun it?' Every child over the age of one was blood typed. It was part of a mass government approach after the Awakening. It was the best way to track people.

'Three times. There's no mistake. She's not in the database.'

'Add that to the list of questions we're going to ask her,' he said, already walking towards the other room.

He opened the door and watched as the girl glared up at him, though he noted that there were still no tears. Dylan closed the door before they both sat on the other side of the table.

The girl's hands were cuffed, and yet she ran her nails over the polished surface as far as they could go.

'Do you know who I am?' he asked.

'Xavier Kowalski,' she responded immediately, making him pause.

'You've been listening.'

'Mari used to talk about you. She said you were one of the best agents in the Bureau,' she said, as though she didn't believe it.

'We ran your blood through the database, and we found nothing.' Dylan laid the results out on the desk.

Ray slid the sheet towards herself and read, though the details were scant.

'I always wondered what would happen if someone ever did that,' she said, mostly to herself.

'You didn't know you were unregistered?'

Ray smirked and pushed the sheet back across the table. 'Babies are blood typed at one. I don't remember that far back.'

'That was after the Awakening. Which means you're older than you look,' Xavier stated. 'So how about we start with some simple questions? What's your full name, and how old are you?'

'I'm seventeen,' she said, surprising them both. 'And my name is Ray.'

'Ray what?' demanded Xavier.

Ray's eyes tightened ever so slightly. 'I don't know my last name. Mari never told me. Didn't matter, anyway. We changed it every time we moved.'

'You moved a lot?' Dylan asked, jumping on the piece of information.

'Mari enjoyed new things. Staying in one place didn't suit her.'

'Cut the bullshit,' Xavier growled. 'Answer our questions.'

'I thought I just did,' Ray countered.

'Marilyn Le Bou has zero presence after she left the Bureau. No bank accounts. No fixed address. So why did you move so much?'

'You'll have to ask Mari...oh wait, she's dead.'

Xavier's fists slammed into the table, but the girl didn't even flinch.

'I don't think you understand how serious the situation is,' he said.

A nerve ticked in Ray's jaw. 'The woman who's looked after me since I was three is dead. Killed in broad daylight by creatures that are physically burnt by the sun. And you think I'm not taking this seriously? I don't know why Mari moved us so much. She always said it was safer, but when I asked what it was about, she shut down. I thought maybe my parents were ex-Bureau and that the vampires were fulfilling some vendetta.'

Xavier glanced at his partner as Dylan scribbled down some notes. The story was plausible, and yet he didn't believe it.

'What were you doing at the flats?' he challenged.

'We moved in about a month ago.'

'There's no mention of a Marilyn or Ray on the residents' register.'

Ray hesitated. 'We used fake names.'

'And fake papers?'

Ray shrugged. 'Mari handled everything. I wouldn't know.'

'So you don't know why the vampires seemed to target you?' he asked directly.

For the first time, he watched her waver. Her careful mask broke, and she paled.

'I-I'm not sure.'

And this time, he believed her.

Dylan pushed a blank paper towards her and a pen. 'Write everything you know, exactly as it happened.'

Xavier followed her lead and stood, when really he wanted to stay and ask more questions. They only made it into the hallway before he stopped Dylan.

'We're really just going to leave her there?'

'Xavier, I know you want answers, but the girl in there isn't going to give us any right now. She was attacked. Lost the woman who took care of her. And now she's in an interrogation cell. Clearly there's something going on, but I'm not sure how much she knows,' she said honestly.

'Then we should ask more questions,' he argued.

'She'll close up,' Dylan said confidently. 'You have to see that?'

Xavier fell silent, and Dylan turned back to look at him.

'Relax. Sleep. The girl will be there in the morning and we'll get the answers we need then,' she told him before walking off.

Xavier watched her go with mixed feelings. His mind was still on the girl in the interrogation room, and he pondered about going back in, but he resisted, instead he headed towards his quarters.

Like many agents, the Bureau was more than just a place of work; it was his home. Back when he'd first started, it had been mandatory to live there. All agents were on call 24 hours a day, given their limited numbers, but all that had changed after the Awakening.

They recruited heavily after that night, needing more agents to cope with the increase in demand, which meant a relaxing of rules. Now more agents lived off base in satellite estates.

He keyed in his code, and carefully stacked his shoes by the door. The apartment had been refurbished over the years, but its current reincarnation was his favourite. The living room comprised grey furniture and black walls with a stripe of white where his entertainment unit was. Two doors on the left led to a bathroom and a bedroom. And a small kitchen had been squeezed in on the right.

It was simple, uncluttered, and devoid of knick knacks. Exactly how he liked it.

He took the flask out of his pocket and put it on the counter before he took off his coat, unable to take his eyes off it. It was almost identical to the one he owned, which had pride of place on his bedroom shelf. The only difference was the monogram on the front. He remembered their excitement when they had them commissioned in honour of passing their basic training.

He took a seat at the counter and unscrewed the top.

'Mari,' he toasted, before taking a swig.

The moment the liquid touched his tongue, he dashed to the sink and retched. The copper taste remained in his mouth until he washed it out.

'What the hell?' He tipped some of the liquid out, noting the reddish tinge. 'It can't be.'

He scrambled around in his kitchen junk drawer until he found the small UV hand light. It was slow to light and flickered on and off a few times before he hit it against his palm. The light strengthened and remained consistent long enough for him to shine it on a few small drops.

The drops glowed faintly and his stomach rolled.

'Why is there blood in your flask, Mari?'

He tapped the UV light against his head, the batteries having finally failed, and tried to think.

'But you'd given the flask to the girl,' he realised. 'You loved this flask but she had it. Was she the one that was drinking from it?' he questioned himself.

He grabbed his mobile and dialled the lab.

'Anthony here,' the lab technician sang when he answered the phone.

'The girl that was brought in from the Grange estate, what's her status?'

'Good to hear from you as well, Xavier,' Anthony drawled. 'She tested negative. No contamination and no bite marks were evident when she underwent her examination.'

'Were there any other marks on her body?'

'Everything was pretty standard... except.'

'Except?' Xavier questioned.

'When we took the initial readings, the machine came back inconclusive. So we retested.'

'And the second test came back negative?'

'Exactly.'

'How often do results come back inconclusive?'

'Almost never,' Anthony admitted. 'But the machine could have been faulty. That's why we used a different one. But like I said, there were no bites. No scratches. And no fails.'

'Just one inconclusive test?' summed up Xavier.

'It's all in the report I sent to Dylan,' Anthony confirmed. 'I thought she would have shared it with you.'

'It's been a long day. We're reconvening tomorrow,' Xavier downplayed.

'Well, don't be a stranger,' said Anthony before he hung up.

Xavier continued to listen to the dial tone as he pressed his fingers over the engraved flask that contained traces of blood.

What the hell does the flask have to do with an inclusive contamination test, he wondered. And why didn't Dylan mention the report?