After long stretches of nothing but highways and nausea, the landscape in the windows changed from static to a burst of color and activity. Since leaving the chaos that was Madrid, another proof of civilization in Salamanca flooded relief in Thirteen's gut. That meant he would be getting off soon, and he could finally throw up on the side of the road or something.

It wasn't like the flight out of New York was any better. He spent the entire trip hunkered in his seat, stifling his motion sickness so he didn't mess himself up. The last nine hours had been nothing but transit. He had barely digested the meager meals he consumed back in the abandoned apartment before blessing the airport restrooms with a gift. Jaq said he shouldn't even be feeling this way after a few weeks of rest. Even Kevan, who stressed his ability like Thirteen, was fine after three days.

The world wouldn't stop for Thirteen, so he had to move. Primeva might not be tracking them now thanks to the help Jaq's limited access afforded them, but there would still be sentries on the streets. Soldiers could be disguised as store clerks, cab drivers, and even random passers-by. Shaw had the world in his grasp. It wouldn't take long before the man thought of a way to gather them back to Primeva.

That was why he did the only thing he could think of to keep them safe for a little longer. Keep moving—that was what he told them. If they stayed together, it would be easier to identify them. But if they were in their home countries, if everyone had the same features as them, it would be easy to disappear and shake whatever remaining tail they had on them. Let Thirteen hope that by the time they reach Ulaanbaatar, they were as free as migratory birds.

His own tail was inside a black sedan tackling the same route as his cab since the airport. He committed the plate number to memory, doing a quick run over several databases he got through in transit. A bright red light blinked at the upper right corner of the device, signaling the end of the gadget's battery life. He'd find a charging port in the city, or maybe he'd just steal another phone. Time perception manipulation as an ability couldn't have come at a more favorable time.

The others probably blamed him for setting them into a world tour, but they should thank him. Now, after cross-referencing real-time satellite tracking videos and Primeva's employee records, Thirteen could make it seem as if the ones in charge of tailing his companions were eliminated by natural causes. Because he said so.

Murder never sat well with him, but with another life at stake, it was easy to choose the path with less thorns. Ridding themselves of the spies was the means to the end that was pRimeva. In the end, the scant lives of the spies couldn't compare to the thousands of children's lives who would be saved when Shaw's experiments terminated.

He opened an application on the phone Jaq gave him and jammed his thumb into the big, red button in the middle. From behind, a strong burst of splinter, fire, and smoke bloomed in one, big explosion. With the window's airtight seal, the sound was nothing more than a gentle rage in his ears.

It freaked the driver out, though, glancing at the rear window, then at Thirteen who remained motionless and indifferent in the backseat. He switched applications and typed a quick message to one of his benefactors. Deployed gift thirty seconds ago. Confirm if target is eliminated.

A message popped up soon. The money?

Thirteen drew from one of the bank accounts Primeva used. It was the same technique Jaq had implemented since she escaped her father. Wire Shaw's money to different places that even he, himself, couldn't trace it. Thirteen made a quick transfer, throwing another million in there to build good rapport with them. Jean Jacques Shaw had just paid for his own doom.

Sent, was Thirteen's only reply. Status of the ones in Dublin and Luton?

His phone pinged a few minutes later. The delay was understandable. They wouldn't give him direct lines to the European branch, so he had to engage in these roundabout channels. To think he was the one flooding their coffers with blood money. These organizations needed to go as well.

Eliminated on sight, the correspondent replied. Assets are safe and have flown out of the UK and Ireland as scheduled. The East Asia Unit will be monitoring them afterwards.

Thirteen breathed out, even if the action did nothing to ease the swirling nausea. He found the international cartel during his down time. Dangling Jaq's money over their heads made Thirteen their primary client in a span of weeks. Perhaps, if Thirteen was lucky, he'd get to meet the boss someday. He heard that the boss was as elusive as Thirteen was to Primeva. Interestingly, he also was believed to have a thousand faces.

The cab pulled up at an intersection of sorts. People passed by in droves, each one lost in their aims in life. "This is as far as I can take you," the driver said. "Go straight through that road, and you'll be in Mallorca."

"No problem. Thank you," Thirteen replied in his native language. It was easier, after all. He didn't have to grapple with words. He stepped out into the street just as a gentle breeze grazed his skin. It was cold this time of the year, but it could get blistering in the other months. None of that. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and scrolled through the map. The apartment was near, and if he was correct, only one person lived in it. Said person had been there for more than ten years.

While the trip he made them go through was to chase Primeva's lambs out of hiding, it was also for their sake. The others might have thought it strange when Thirteen suddenly went on about finding their families. Think of it as killing two birds with one stone. Just that there might be more than two birds this time.

He reached the building and craned his neck up. This one rose to eight stories—smaller than the ones around it—making it almost invisible to who didn't pay attention. He marched to the rusty gate plastered with black and pushed it open. It swung inward with ease. With the sun shining bright in the sky, everyone in the units must have been out. No need to lock the hatches.

Thirteen tackled the rickety metal stairs rounding floor after floor until he reached the unit he was after. He came in front of a squalid door with the nameplate hanging for dear life with one nail. Escriva, it read. He knocked once. Twice.

A man past middle-age but not quite old poked his head out. "Yes?"

"What do you know of Jaime Halcon Escriva?" Thirteen asked, slotting the phone back into the pocket of his ripped jeans. Jaq said the style suited him, but a nagging feeling in his head said she thought he was so scrawny that frayed threads fit his status better. Whatever the case, as long as Thirteen wasn't walking around naked, he'd take it.

The man scowled. "What do you want with me?" he asked. "I'm not giving alms."

"Nor am I asking you to," Thirteen answered. Hostility was understandable when one was faced with a stranger who seemed to know too much. He cleared his throat. "I'll get straight to the point—I'm your son. The one you had with someone called Teresa Aragones Vargas. Is she inside?"

"Go away," Jaime grouched, apprehension now melting into pure hatred. "If you truly cared about your mother's memory, you'd never show your face near me."

Thirteen stayed rooted in his place. "When did she die?" Reading between the lines brought him more information than actually talking to this man. Why were people as convoluted as tangled yarn? "I have been gone for a long time. It would serve me better to understand what happened."

Jaime's dark brown eyes darkened. "It's shortly after you passed," he said. "After the policia took you away and we signed the contract, she was never the same."

"And for some reason, you blame me?" Thirteen prompted. "Is it a child's fault for what his parents turned out to be?"

"She wanted nothing but to see you live," Jaime replied, tone dripping with a venom Thirteen hasn't heard before. "And now, you turn up here—alive and well—as if you're soiling her memory, her wish, and her final days. You might as well have killed her."

"You should have let me go, then," Thirteen said. "We could have avoided a lot of heartache that way."

Jaime scoffed. "Perhaps," he said. "I'll ask you again—what do you want? Why did you come here?"

Thirteen smiled at his father. It was a haughty one, and not out of amusement or sentiment. "If I have died out of an illness, that means I lived a life with you for a while," he said. "I must have had a name. What is it?"

Hurt flickered across the older man's features. "Gael," he breathed. "Our courageous boy."

"My condolences," Thirteen said, making Jaime cock his eyebrows and part his lips in confusion. "You have done well all these years. May you continue to do so in the years to come. That boy has passed on, as you have said. Even if we share the same face and the same body, I'll never be who I was back then."

Thirteen stepped back, gripping the strap of his travel bag. "So, live your life for yourself," he continued. "There is an entire world out there. Don't forget that boy and his mother, but don't think about them too often. Life comes and goes, some a little sooner than others."

He jerked his chin at Jaime. "This is the last time you'll ever see me," he said. "You asked me why I came. I just...want to bring the past to a conclusion. That's all."

Jaime bobbed his head and pursed his lips. "Did you get what you wanted?"

Thirteen exhaled a quick breath from his nostrils. "More than enough, Señor," he said. "I got more than enough."

He didn't say enough of what, though. It was better left to imagination. It was better left to memory. He walked out of the corridor and out of the building. Not once did he look back.

"So...that's what happened." Kevan uncrossed his legs from the couch and sauntered to the apartment's kitchen. The boy had to skirt around a pile of boxes and other trash. They had done their best tidying up, but some clutter had a habit of being harder to move. Besides, it wasn't like they would stay here for long. "Who wants a drink?"

"You're awfully nice after the trip. What's gotten into you?" Ji-yeon shouted, her voice carrying all the way to the neighboring complex. "Hot chocolate for me!"

"I'll take coffee anytime." Jocasta perked up. "Do I have to get groceries for anything?"

Ji-yeon whirled to the other girl with her eyes squinted. "And you're awfully compliant," she said. She threw a glance Thirteen's way. "Seriously, what is wrong with everyone?"

"Jocasta has always been compliant," Thirteen answered, setting down the phone. "And Kevan can be nice when he wants to."

"And you're saying things that are so nice it's hard to believe they're dripping from that mouth," Ji-yeon replied. "Did your trip change you too? Because mine didn't. It's a waste of time."

Thirteen sent a quick image in their messaging group. He watched Ji-yeon open the attachments—just link after link—showing her the locations of several unexplained deaths near their vicinity a few days ago. Her eyebrows rose higher and higher, almost touching her hairline. "What..." she breathed. "Did you do this?"

He smiled. "Not without some help," he said. "The trip isn't just to find our living families and make them take us back. They wouldn't—I know that before we set off—but I need a legitimate reason to get us spreading out and luring Primeva's agents to the open."

Kevan arrived back into the room bearing three mugs. He walked straight into Thirteen's explanation, having read it from his mind. "I figured you don't want me to say anything, so I didn't," he said, propping the mugs on the low table. "I am still thankful I got to go on that trip, though. It's like a weight off my chest. At least I know Shaw didn't lie about that one."

Ah, yes. To confuse the enemy, say multiple false statements and insert a single truth. Not like Thirteen cared about Shaw's lies and honesty. For all he knew, the billionaire wasn't The Corrector and Primeva wasn't his. For the world, Jacqueline Shaw was an unfortunate victim of the trials and has since then ran away from her father. Truth bends according to power's influence. That has always been the case. It wouldn't change anytime soon.

But that didn't mean Shaw hasn't authorized experimentation on their bodies. It didn't refute that Primeva slotted said experiments into numerous iterations of the Games, forcing the contestants to kill each other. Having lived those moments, no one could take that truth away from them. And if Primeva has enough money and influence to keep their activities for the next century private, maybe Thirteen should just come into the open and shout his truth to the entire world.

Figuratively, of course. In his brief time outside the Game, he had seen all the ways humans fight larger mechanisms than themselves. It wouldn't make a dent, especially with Primeva's reach and control. He needed to play it better. He must be better at this new Game than the one who made it and has been playing it since its conception.

"Okay, so we got rid of those spies," Ji-yeon said. "What now? Do we rescue Dishari and Slate? Do we kill them for betraying us?"

"We'll think about that on the way," Thirteen said. "You are more than welcome to join me in my next project. I'm sure you will all love it."

Jocasta took her cup of coffee courtesy of Kevan and took a sip. "Let's hear it."

"We bring Primeva down," Thirteen said without missing a beat. His belief in his words seemed to have startled even Alon, who was usually disinterested about these things since the beginning. "We bring Jean Jacques Shaw down with it."

Kevan chuckled. "What you have so far is good," he said, having taken a peek in Thirteen's mind yet again. "I'm in. I figured I don't have much of a life in Dublin, anyway."

Jocasta stuck a lip out. "Can't you at least tell us what the plan is?" she whined.

The esper jerked his chin at Thirteen. "Ask him," he said. "I don't divulge any information I gather without the owner's consent."

"An interesting ethic," Thirteen said. "If you choose to come with us, I'll tell you everything. Otherwise, you are free to go on your way. I'll still keep an eye on you from time to time, just to make sure Primeva doesn't find you."

Jocasta scoffed. "Then, count me in," she said. "I'd rather get revenge than spend my whole life wandering around without aim."

"Me too," Ji-yeon said. A grin pulled her lips apart, exposing her fang-like teeth. "I told my relatives I'd be living my life as I want. And hacking Primeva to pieces sounds like a good pastime. It would be challenging."

She wasn't wrong. Despite Thirteen having some kind of hand in the game, Shaw still held the higher ground. It would be an uphill climb, for a lack of better terms. "And Alon?" Thirteen prompted.

The boy shrugged. "Why not?" he said. "I've got nothing better to do anyway."

That was all of them. "Alright, then." Thirteen clapped his hands and beckoned them closer. "Let's get started."