Christen, aware that Dana would send someone before dawn, helped them settle in the dusty but liveable empty house. Moore thought it prudent to use blackout material on the windows, and he took the first watch, but just as Christen predicted, nothing happened.

The previous evening, they had left the body in the cabin. When Dana's people arrived, she contacted Director Weiss, told him what happened, and informed him that she had moved Christen, Moore, and the Major to a safer location at their insistence.

***

The three of them watched the agents clear the cabin from a distance.

Christen recognized the agent in charge as one of the agents that Director Weiss suspected. He seemed more concerned with the area around the cabin than the inside, following the false trail Christen created down to the logging road, but never found the trail leading toward their new lodgings. Although he could track, he wasn't a tracker.

"That's agent Vaughn. Do you think he's one of our moles?" Moore asked when she returned from following the agent.

"Don't know. This guy seems more interested in finding us than the man who tried to kill us. Vaughn made a call from the road and told someone we're heading west," Christen said, knowing that Director Weiss would already have that information.

"Are you sure he didn't pick up on you following him?" he asked, and she smirked at him.

"Agent Vaughn would have easily fallen afoul of our assassin last night."

Moore shook his head.

Her affinity for tracking was almost animal, and hiding her enhanced senses and strength from people who were so good at their jobs was difficult. Despite the watch, she was just that little better at everything, and she constantly had to keep her guard up.

***

*Weiss says Vaughn made several cryptic phone calls from a burner phone on his return journey. They used his watch to spy on him,* Dana spoke in Christen's ear.

*GOT THAT.* Christen texted on her HUD.

*Congratulations, Christen, you did good,* Dana said, and Christen felt unreasonably pleased with herself.

The watch had the same transmission strength as a satellite phone to maintain constant contact with Unit A23. Despite this, Dana had allowed her a little space, only speaking to her when necessary, under the guise of not distracting her, but Christen suspected it had more to do with the revelation that they were family.

Dana wasn't sure if she was ready to speak about it, considering how badly Anna reacted to hearing the truth, and she didn't want to push.

"Inform Moore of Vaughn's behavior. Director Weiss instructed us to read them in on this information," Dana instructed, and Christen frowned.

*HOW DO I EXPLAIN THAT KNOWLEDGE?* Christen asked, and Dana took a moment to respond.

"Let them guess. You already told them you have a bomb in your head; it shouldn't be a leap of deduction," Dana replied testily.

"Moore? Director Weiss wants you to be aware that Vaughn made several cryptic phone calls from a burner phone. ISS used his watch to spy on him, so whoever controls him probably knows we're onto him," Christen told Moore, adding her suspicions.

"The Director assured us that no one knows of his intrusion," Dana corrected as Moore and the Major frowned at her.

"Director Strickland, I doubt if that will prove true, if you will forgive my saying so. He can't guarantee that no one knows he tracked Vaugh," Christen countered so that Moore and the Major could follow the conversation.

The ISS watches didn't possess the alien technology and codes that made her link to A23 secure and encrypted with an algorithm no one could break.

"Are you wearing an earpiece? The agents can track that!" Moore retorted angrily.

"No, I'm not wearing an earpiece, and they can't. Not in this century," Christen replied cryptically, looking Moore right in the eyes.

That familiar frown turned to a scowl.

"Should we move you to a more secure site?" Dana asked.

"No, Director, we'll continue with my training here and keep an eye out," she ended the conversation.

"The mole could return to try to pick up our trail," the Major countered.

"Unfortunately for them, it will rain before noon. Vaughn already sent them on a wild goose chase, and if someone does come, it won't be before nightfall, which means they won't start looking until tomorrow. By then, all traces of us around the cabin will have washed away. As far as they are concerned, we can be anywhere, and they won't waste time. A prudent spy will wait until we return to ISS headquarters."

Moore glanced at the sky with doubt.

"Do you get the weather forecast, too?" he asked as they masked their trail back to the cabin to grab lunch.

"No. Want to take a wager? Loser chops wood for a week?" Christen challenged with a teasing glint in her eye. Moore made her chop a lot of wood since they arrived to 'strengthen her muscles,' but she figured it was just because he hated doing it.

"Game on," Moore said, judging the cloudless sky with a weathered eye.

Christen laughed at him.

It was the first time he really heard her laugh like she didn't have a care in the world.

For someone so young, she was mostly somber, and he sensed the weight of tragedy in her life, even without knowing much about her.

Knowing the truth of her parentage from Dana's revelation, instead of the lies on her personnel file, only made her a more tragic figure. He suspected if he ever learned the whole truth, he would pity her and director Strickland even more.

Many questions nagged at him.

For one, she couldn't be nineteen; math told him that she had to be at least twenty-one, and how did she not realize that Strickland was her sister?

He would bet she'd never spent a day in Juvy; she seemed so innocent at times, like a kid much younger.

Where had she been the last few years? What happened to her to cause so many shadows in her eyes?

At night, he mulled over these things, and he would wager the Major's thoughts traveled in a similar direction, but they would probably never find out.

Every new answer only created more questions and a bigger mystery.

Christen reminded him of his little sister, and he still missed Eve every day. The memory of her bright future and the many plans she'd made hurt him. From the moment she could talk, she wanted to be an agent. It ran in their blood, and she would have been brilliant, a far better one than him.

Smart and wise, she badgered him into training her since she could first throw a punch. Eve had humbled him and made him laugh.

No one expected the agency to start grooming her at the tender age of sixteen. Just like no one expected a madman to plant a bomb on a bus filled with tourists just to take out Brandon Moore's little sister and the last living member of his family.

Until that day, his life had been a dream.

At the time, he was in love with Lagerveldt and didn't even realize that his doctor-fiance was an agent like him. The ISS had inserted her into his life to keep an eye on him and to protect his family.

The Major tried to stop Eve from getting on that bus but missed it by a few seconds, and as she ran after it, trying to stop it, it exploded, and a piece of metal shrapnel hit her in the abdomen. Almost bleeding out on the scene, she was lucky to survive.

Even though he should have hated her when the truth came out, he was devastated about not figuring it all out in time to save his sister.

When they were discussing the future while planning their life together, she had revealed her desperate wish to be a mother, but the shrapnel had ended any chance of her ever having babies, and they kept each other from self-destruction. Unfortunately, their relationship didn't survive their trials and tribulations, although they remained best friends.

Brandon still loved her, but something in her had died that day as it had in him. The ISS separated them from each other, and until this mission; they hadn't been allowed to work together.

Neither expected the Director to pair them up, but it was such a natural extension of their friendship that Moore felt comfortable having a partner for the first time since his first coworker, Gill Mason, died in action.

What bothered him was the danger this mission posed to all three of them—losing Lagerveldt would kill him.