Adrian Foster sat in a greasy, hole-in-the-wall restaurant that someone overestimating their own cleverness had named Pankake House. With a 'k'. A moue took his lips as one gloved finger traced a coffee mug printed with the unfortunate spelling.

Oh well. He didn't descend into the field for vacation. Mundane as it may seem, Mr. Foster had learned long ago that places like this were where all the intelligence trickled through. When people wanted to hide, they went where they thought no one would be looking. When locals wanted to gossip, they went to establishments owned by other locals. The convergence of the two created a hub that many agents overlooked. They preferred to crawl the web and sift databases.

Data, of course, had its time and place. But data wasn't a story. It wasn't the living, beating heart of the mission. And it certainly wasn't how opportunity landed in one's lap.

Mr. Foster sipped his coffee and listened to the chatter. A rotund woman with a rag slung over her shoulder leaned against the cook's window to ask him about his weekend plans. Her attempts at flirting were going so unnoticed, Mr. Foster almost thought to flirt with her himself, if only to provoke her target to jealousy. But he had no desire to be noticed, and that would certainly cause a stir with the locals. No, as is, he was just another old man eating toast and reading the newspaper. There was little difference between him and the pair playing checkers in the corner, except perhaps a couple decades.

Eventually, the woman gave up and remembered her customer, bustling over to fill up his mug. "Need anything else, hon?"

"No, no," he said easily. Then, as if he'd just remembered, he put down his newspaper. "Actually, you haven't had a young man pass through here, have you? Thirteenish, unruly brown hair, scrawny as a scarecrow." His voice was warm with amused affection, and it teased a smile out of the woman. "He's my nephew. I was supposed to pick him up here, but my sister and I seem to have gotten our wires crossed..." He trailed off ruefully, brows raised in hope.

"Well, no, I can't say I—" Her mouth twisted to the side, and she leaned against a chair. A finger tapped her lips. "Now, wait. Now, there was that kid... Jerry!" she called to the cook through the window. "Jerry, you remember the kid who wandered in here the other day? You said you comped his meal?"

"Huh?" Jerry said, leaned over his griddle.

The woman heaved a sigh and proceeded to pester details out of him. It sounded like the courier boy that Mr. Foster had lost came through here two or three days ago, penniless, but had made himself scarce when Jerry called the police to check on him. Jerry and the server didn't sound too concerned; it wasn't anything to do with them really after all, and they had called the authorities.

Mr. Foster's lip twitched as he held back an ugly sneer. It was people like this who made what he did necessary. Normal, careless, sweetly callous people.

Jerry, unfortunately, didn't know much. The courier boy had been here, that was all. At least the trail was warm. But there wasn't enough information to know whether the boy had taken the message to D.C. and just missed his pickup location, gotten cold feet and run for fear he'd be punished, or just defected entirely.

Mr. Foster sighed and rubbed his gloved hands together, trying to warm the one that was always cold. The bell over the door jingled, and the server forgot Foster to nab menus for the newcomers. He dug out a generous tip and made to leave, but a stray glance froze him in his seat.

A walking memory strolled right past Foster's table. The sharp angles of his face, the high, thoughtful forehead creased in thought, even the gait was the same, a walk somewhere between purposeful and watchful, as if every step were planned out. His breath caught in his throat. Matthew Reeves. Or at least, what young Matthew had looked like twenty years ago. The nose was different—not smashed flat by the childhood bullies Mr. Foster had saved Matthew from. And the hair—that pretty gold color would have come from Miss Jessica. Mr. Foster slowly let out the breath he'd almost forgotten he was holding.

Someone else might have missed it. It was unthinkable to know he could have sent someone to take his place, and this could have slipped through their fingers. Though to be fair, even he might have missed it if he'd only seen it in a photograph. In a picture, the boy could have been anyone. But here, walking and breathing and watching with his father's eyes, that child was undeniably Matthew's son.

Mr. Foster covered his tip with his newspaper. Meanwhile, one of the young Mr. Reeves's companions selected a booth in the back. She slid in, putting her hand to her waistband to steady something there: a gun, likely. Young Mr. Reeves ushered a thin, dark-haired, mouse of a thing into the booth across from her before sliding in himself. The server bustled over to take their order.

Casual as could be, Mr. Foster slipped his phone out of his pocket and turned it on. Despite his technology-obsessed generation, he'd never been a fan of the things. They were vulnerable: trackable, hackable. They reeked of dependence and distraction. In the field, he made it his habit to keep his off as much as possible. His people knew that.

So when he opened his encrypted messaging app, his brows rose. A link to a video of Jessica was followed by an article, one published by BrightSource Local, a news company one of their agents owned.

can't wait to see you again, the text below it said. meet ya at the normal place.

Mr. Foster frowned. His eyes flicked from the tongue-in-cheek request for him to meet for extraction up to young Mr. Reeves and his companions. It was hard to tell how much of the article was true without getting more information from the organization—more sensitive information than he trusted to be sent over cell signals. His frown deepened as he scrolled through the article. He hated to think that something might have happened to Jessica and Matthew. They should have come home a long time ago.

His jaw clenched as that old, familiar anger crept over him. The dumb children just had to go and put themselves in danger—risk death—and for what? Seventeen years in fear? Alone? His hand fisted so tightly it shook, so tightly he almost couldn't feel the cold rising in it. Idiotic, rebellious children. You deserve what you get, he thought. You could have had mercy, but you chose justice. He pored again over the blood in the article, seeing there that brush of justice painted over their bodies, and his heart hammered in his chest like an artist's on the cusp of a masterpiece.

The mouse of a girl shot to her feet. Standing on the booth, she scrambled over its back and tore out of the restaurant.

The patrons startled. Young Mr. Reeves called out, chasing after her. The other girl, dragging her hand down her face, looked despairingly at her half-eaten plate of food. "Nothing to see here," she announced with a sigh. Folding up her pancake, she took a big bite and followed the other two out.

The hammering of Mr. Foster's heart died down in cold fits. Whatever young Mr. Reeves's parents had done, the boy was not at fault. And whatever truth lay in the BrightSource article, whether Jessica and Matthew lived or lived with the worms, the boy needed help. Just as his parents once had.

He sent off a quick text: can you pick up my nephew from Berlin HS? he missed the bus. I've got another errand to run.

The courier boy taken care of, Mr. Foster turned off his phone, folded up his newspaper, and rose. The bell jangled innocently as the door closed behind him.

Jason's feet pounded against the asphalt. "Ana!"

She ran through the barren parking lot to the car, hair streaming behind her. Slamming into the door, she yanked on the handle. Locked, it slipped through her fingers with a snap, and she banged on the window with both hands.

Jason grabbed her wrist. "Ana, stop." In his grip, she only fought harder, throwing herself against the car door. "You're going to hurt yourself!"

He tried to draw her into him, to calm her, but she shrieked and pushed him away. Her hand caught his bad arm, and a gasp punched through his chest. Ana tore from his grasp, and the pounding resumed.

Jason blinked stars out of his eyes. Rachel stood a few feet away, leaned back, arms closed off. Teeth gritted, he asked, "Can you unlock the door?"

Ana threw herself against the car again, and the alarm sounded.

"Rachel!"

Her eyes widened, and she threw a glance at the restaurant behind them. Fumbling with the keys, she dismissed the alarm. The locks popped. Jason yanked Ana away from the door and opened it for her. She dove inside and buckled herself in. Her shoulders shook, and she stared straight ahead.

Jason stared at her, at a loss. It was impossible to tell what had spooked her—maybe the people? She wasn't used to being around much more than his family. He dragged a hand down his face. But they had eaten in restaurants before while traveling. He fought back the rising frustration, unsure how his dad would have handled this.

Crouching, he met her eye and spoke in a soft voice. "Ana, come back inside. You need to eat."

She stared fixedly ahead. He reached for her face, to turn her toward him, and she slapped his hand away.

"Ana!" he protested.

"Well, have fun with her." Rachel stowed the keys in her hoodie and gestured with her folded-up pancake. "I've got eggs inside."

She turned to go in. Over her shoulder, Jason caught the two men who'd been playing checkers now watching them from the window. Their bushy brows creased in grandfatherly concern. One of them pulled out a phone.

"We need to leave," Jason said.

She followed his gaze and frowned. "Could be anything," she argued half-heartedly. "And we can't dine and dash or they'll call the cops for sure."

Jason wasn't sure what the old men thought they'd seen, but Ana had made enough of a scene, he didn't want to find out. "I don't plan on being here when anyone else arrives. Do you?" He pinned her with a gaze.

Lips twisting, she threw her door open. At the window, the waitress had joined in to watch them with fingers threaded, and Jason's nerves itched. Rachel threw the car into gear, and they took off. She blew through stop signs and wove in and out of slow Saturday morning traffic.

As they left the sleepy town behind, Rachel tossed over her shoulder, "So maybe sit-down places shouldn't be our thing in the future."

He glanced at Ana fidgeting and still taut as a wire. "Maybe not."

It was difficult not to be frustrated at her, especially not knowing what had set her off. But he took the feeling and folded it up and pushed it into a box where it belonged. It bounced against the lid, but he ignored it. He slid over to her and set his good arm around her stiff shoulders. "What's going on in there?" he whispered.

In response, she melted into him, tension dissolving into tears. She gasped and trembled, face buried into his chest. Feeling like the worst brother in history, he stroked her hair as she soaked his shirt. Their entire world had fallen apart. He couldn't process that—how could he ever have expected her to?

He caught Rachel's prying eyes in the mirror and shot her a warning glance. Her gaze flicked quickly away. Not that Ana would notice one way or the other. Not that it wouldn't be good for Rachel to find a reason to look at Ana like a girl rather than a black cat. If anything could tug on Rachel's heartstrings, it would be this. He should have let her gawk at—and feel bad for—Ana as much as she wanted.

But Ana didn't have a bed. She didn't have parents. She didn't have anything.

The least Jason give her was a bit of privacy.

Ana sniffled into Jason's shirt. Her chest shook, not able to get enough air in. One time, when she was little, she'd had a cat. It was white, with the softest fur and the pinkest nose. When she was sad, or scared, or just tired of feeling everything all the time, the cat would climb into her arms and lick her face with its tiny, dry tongue and sit there, warm and sweet against her chest.

One day, she caught it terrorizing a mouse. Trapped, it squeaked in shrill, piercing cries. Methodically, her cat—her beautiful, white, sweet cat—made tiny scratches against the mouse's vulnerable skin. Its paws were stained red. She swore it smiled.

She'd screamed and screamed and screamed, and they'd never had a cat again. The mice were safe.

But in the restaurant, she'd felt a cat. A bloody, twisted, white-furred cat. And she swore, she swore—

It had smiled.