* * *

  The streets weren’t as devoid of cars as Sarah expected for that awkward hour between night and dawn. A few cars passed them, heading towards the city center.

  Sarah touched a fingertip to the cold window. “I was surprised they let me out.”

  Pegasus shrugged a shoulder. “Your tracker is working fine, and I’m here to make sure you’re not causing trouble.”

  “They still trust you for that?”

  “For now.”

  “Do you have any idea how long your suspension will last?”

  “For as long as Zeus wants it to. That was the point of saying it would be indefinite.”

  “Sorry, I should’ve thought of something else.”

  “It’s done now. Most of the team took it as you panicking from inexperience.” He moved a hand from the steering wheel, placing it over her clenched fist. “The entire thing should be delt with internally with minimal repercussions. Unless this matter gets picked up by the oversight committee.”

  Sarah searched his face for the concern she heard in his voice. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”

  “They may decide that you’re someone worth focusing on.”

  That sounded ominous. “So I should try to be invisible for a while.”

  He gave her hand another squeeze before placing it back onto the steering wheel. “As much as you can.”

  Then this excursion would already count as a bad idea. Who asks to go outside in the middle of the night as soon as they get suspended? It might be better to turn the car around and head back, but they’d already left. Wouldn’t it be weirder to go back without doing anything? Not that she had any clear idea of what she wanted to do.

  “What happened with the prisoners?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s as Michael said. Their interrogation and any follow up will likely be done by Center. Zeus said it was better for us to let it go. It’s not as if they can’t get the job done. Having it taken out of our hands was just surprising.”

  Even Sarah, with her short time at the W.R.O., had noticed the oddity.

  Pegasus parked the car in front of a dark house—it didn’t even have a porch light on. “Would you like to tell me why we’re here?”

  Sarah stared out at the house. Her house. Why did she want to come here? To chase a stray thought, or maybe a ghost.

  He turned off the car, and the surroundings were dipped in darkness. Slowly, her eyes adjusted.

  She grabbed the door handle, then stopped. “Is it okay if I get out?”

  “It’s been long enough. It should be fine.”

  Sarah did note he was carrying his gun inside his jacket. It reminded her of the first time Pegasus had taken her outside the compound last year. He’d taken her to see her ghosts then as well, at the cemetery. Though back then, they still believed Robyn was alive.

  Yes, that was the ghost she was chasing. Her sister.

  Sarah stepped out into the chill. The blackness of the sky dissipated into a grayish hue beyond the passing streetlights, the stars not as bright as they were. The moon was approaching the horizon as if chased away by the incoming sun.

  If any of the neighbors happened to look out their window, they might think she was the ghost, come to pay her respects to a forgotten tree under twilight.

  Until she saw it, she hadn’t fully expected it to be there for some reason. Perhaps irrationally, she’d been expecting it to have left the house as well when its inhabitants were no longer there. But there it was, unaffected by the passage of time and its own abandonment.

  Flowers and leaves had fallen to the ground among the tall grass. It was obvious no one had been taking care of her home.

  She hadn’t checked, but she’d imagined aunt Ruth had collected whatever things she’d wanted and sold or donated the rest before selling the house itself. Was the memory of its bloody past still too fresh in everyone’s minds?

  She hadn’t expected it to look so… sad.

  Would her room still look the same? Robyn’s clothes haphazardly thrown onto the bed while her pillow was scrunched up under the sheets.

  She took a step forward before catching herself. There would be little comfort in seeing a room as empty as her grave.

  As for the box she and Robyn had buried somewhere—she didn’t remember where—it was better to leave it alone. A piece of them would be always left there in the form of a tangible memory. The box and the tree keeping each other company. Maybe that tree would comfort some other child in the future.

  She wiped a tear that rolled down her cheek.

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  To the east, the first hint of light painted the sky shades of blue and yellow. She shouldn’t be there when the neighbors awakened. A ghost come to haunt the place of her happy memories shouldn’t be seen in the daylight.

  Arms enveloped her in gentleness. “Do you want to go inside?”

  She shook her head.

  “What would you like to do?”

  Sarah turned to examine his face. “Are you okay to stay awake? Should we go back?”

  He’d been awake for longer than he preferred, not that she saw any sign of sleep on his face.

  “I’m fine.” He kissed her cheek, pulling her back into a hug. “Would you like to head back?”

  “Not really.” She wanted to stay in this familiar place, surrounded by its equally unfamiliar atmosphere. “Wanna walk around for a bit?”

  He took her hand, leading her back to the sidewalk. They moved away from the house, passing streets Sarah had ridden her bike down.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “I’m not sure what that was. Nothing specific, I think.” Sarah shrugged, kicking aside a fallen twig. “Maybe I wanted to check. See if any of the hallucinations were here waiting for me.”

  Had she come here, disregarding all rational thought, hoping to find remnants of the normal life she’d once had?

  Pegasus gave her hand a squeeze. “Did you dream of home again or was it because of what happened tonight?”

  She imagined he meant the mission since she hadn’t mentioned seeing Robyn. “I haven’t dreamed of home in a while. Several dreams have Robyn at the compound, living her life as part of the team. I still expect her to try and kill me sometimes when I see her.”

  “That’s to be expected. It’s not something your mind can erase or ignore.”

  The other Robyn came to mind, intruding as only she could on the memory of Sarah’s true sister. “When the other Robyn said it was my fault Mom and Dad died—”

  “Don’t dwell on everything she said. That wasn’t your fault.” He pulled her into a hug. “None of the blame falls on you.”

  A twist of fate, she thought, echoing the words she’d heard from Robyn’s lips a few hours ago.

  “I saw Robyn today, when I went back to my room.”

  “Was that why you were running out in your top?”

  “Yes, she was very upset that you let me get shot.”

  Pegasus laughed, checking the street before they crossed. “I’m sure she would be.”

  “That was all there was to it. She ran off before I could ask anything else.” The festering thoughts that had been intermittently creeping out once again made their presence known. “I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t even asleep.”

  But if both versions of her sister were dead, then what was she seeing? The past? Or something else?

  Pegasus brought them to a stop, pulling her into his arms as he placed a kiss on her temple. “We’ll figure it out.”

  A yellow glow hazily lit up the world. Maybe they should go home. Again that word. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought of the compound that way. Her house was just that now. Everything that made it home was gone. Well, everything but that tree and a box that would someday be devoured by the earth.

  She forged a smile, willing it to chase away the darker thoughts. Careful to avoid touching the gun, she fished in his pockets for the car keys. Pegasus chuckled softly, having immediately realized what she was doing. Instead of releasing her when she stepped back, he insisted on pulling her closer, leading them onto the grass. Sarah bumped into a tree and Pegasus followed, pinning her against it. His right hand followed hers, encompassing the hand holding the keys.

  “Something you wanted?” he asked playfully.

  “I thought we might drive around a bit.” She tried to pull her hand from his grasp, but he held on.

  “Are you ready to head back?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think this place has whatever it was I was looking for.”

  His thumb traveled along her wrist. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “You can come back whenever you need to,” he whispered softly.

  “I know that.”

  “And you don’t need to make a clean break from your past.”

  “I know that, too.” She smiled up at him. “So, are you going to let me go?”

  “Sure.” He leaned in to kiss her instead.

  There was no pain, no despair. Did that mean they were in their own place now? Both of them, together?

  Sarah squeezed his jacket. “You’re not letting go.”

  He leaned in, lips brushing against her ear. “I changed my mind.”

  He kissed her again. Sarah melted into the kiss, letting herself forget where they were.

  When he pulled away, he had the keys dangling in his hands. “I don’t trust you driving.”

  She capitulated easily. She hadn’t been planning on driving. Having her in charge of a moving vehicle was not the best idea.

  Laughter from across the street made Sarah reflexively pull away from him, only to hit her heel against a tree root. Embarrassed, she turned to check if anyone had seen them. Three boys about her age were loading some things—very inefficiently by the looks of it—into the back of an olive green car. One had a broom he was trying to push into the passenger seat while another waved him off with a dustpan.

  The air was knocked out of her as the third boy got out of the driver’s seat to yell at the other two.

  “Jeremy.”

  “Still not Jeremy,” Pegasus said, taking it in stride. “Still me.”

  Startled out of her reverie, Sarah turned to him, feeling the blood drain from her face.

  “I know you’re not Jeremy.” She pointed towards the small rowdy group across the street. “But I think he is.”

  “Which one?” Pegasus stepped out from behind the tree, neither his voice nor expression giving anything away.

  Sarah half expected him to say no one was there. “The one in the gray shirt.”

  “I thought you didn’t know who Jeremy was.”

  “I don’t… Well, I didn’t.”

  She hadn’t known, hadn’t even thought the name familiar except from a dream, but now she was absolutely sure that boy was Jeremy.

  “What do you want to do?” Pegasus asked.

  Before the thought had formed, Sarah stepped out into the street and was moving towards the small group. The sound of Pegasus’ footsteps as he followed gave her added courage. She walked right up to the boys, trying to disguise her nervousness with her movements.

  “Hi, sorry to bother you,” she started, getting their attention just as two of the boys were trying to shove a small chair between a large box and a suitcase.

  The car didn’t look like it would fit anything else. She wondered if it would even fit a driver.

  Jeremy, who was currently not holding anything but the confiscated broom and dustpan, stepped forward after being addressed.

  “Would you happen to know which way Abbot Lane is?” She smiled. “We’re trying to get back to my friend’s place. We left our phones because it would be a short walk and now we’re turned around and I think completely lost.”

  Was she rambling? She was pretty sure she was rambling. Pegasus would be laughing at her, but she refused to turn around to confirm it.

  Jeremy scratched the back of his neck, thinking. Sarah wondered if she imagined a faint hint of recognition in his chocolate-colored eyes.

  “It’s about four blocks down that way,” one of his friend’s answered instead.

  She thanked the other boy with a smile, turning back to her primary target. “You’re Jeremy, right? I think we met once.”

  He studied her face more carefully, nodding after a long pause. “Yeah, you do look familiar. You used to live around here?”

  She nodded, hoping he wouldn’t remember too much.

  “Yeah, I think I kinda remember you.”

  “I’ve been gone for a while. Can’t even remember the streets apparently.”

  He nodded, accepting her explanation. Then, looking over her shoulder, he spotted Pegasus. “Like Mike said, it’s down that way, right before where the road curves.”

  Sarah nodded, pretending the memory came to her as he spoke. “Thanks. Have a nice day.”

  She waved at them, heading back to Pegasus. It took all her willpower to not turn around. It wasn’t until Pegasus squeezed her hand that she noticed it was shaking.