* * *

  Sarah had some time before her shift started, so she went to the repository and pulled up the list of files Lore had requested. Cypher wasn’t wrong, there was quite the backlog.

  Curious, she opened the first one. It was a mission report where a low-level New Nation member had been taken into custody ten years ago. The next file was an arrest record by local police. A dock worker had been flagged because of his connection to New Nation members. More of the same followed, with interrogation reports and contact-tracing as if the persons of interest were carrying some plague.

  Sarah had to admit that Lore’s idea wasn’t a bad one. A lot of the people named in these files had been released after some time in prison. Some of them had even given up on the New Nation and moved on. Maybe one or two of those could be convinced to give up information that they would’ve refused to share back then. And some of that information might be useful. It was a longshot, but it was better than nothing.

  Her thoughts circled back to the files she’d sent Lore by mistake. It was worth a look. And if she couldn’t see anything that stood out, she could always show them to Lore again.

  She used her remaining time to cross-reference Lore’s past requests and the files she’d been sent. In total, there were three files Sarah had included that hadn’t belonged to the original list.

  Sadly, Sarah was unable to access mistake file number one. Another consequence of her recent suspension, her clearance had been downgraded just enough that the file in question was now inaccessible. She was able, however, to forward it to Pegasus.

  She half expected the same fate for mistakes two and three, but she was able to access and copy those two files easily enough. She sent them to herself so she could read them later.

  As for mistake number one, Sarah pretended she was being careless and added the file to the recent batch she was sending to Lore. Not like it would cause her any trouble to repeat her mistake. Who would even notice the supposed blunder other than Lore?

  * * *

  Pegasus followed Mermaid into the decrepit old house, hand resting on his gun until they were inside. They were still disguised as local police, but they’d put their masks on.

  Pegasus stepped over a pile of trash. An indication of how long it’d been there, even the bag looked partly decomposed. “What is this place?”

  “An unfinished house on property that’s been under dispute between family members for at least ten years.” Mermaid checked behind one of the few walls still standing. “This is the location we use for emergencies.”

  It wasn’t a large house, and there was only a ground floor, so they were quickly done searching the place. Mermaid’s informant was nowhere to be found.

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  “Could someone else have sent the message pretending to be him?” Pegasus asked. “Or could he have been coerced into it?”

  “We had different codes for all of it. The one he used was for saying he had something urgent for me. Unless he was deliberately setting me up, that’s not the one he’d pick.”

  Pegasus drew his gun, positioning himself in a corner with a clear view of two of the openings, a door and a caved-in wall. “How long do we wait?”

  “I’ve never been the first to arrive.”

  “Cypher? Have any more messages come in?”

  “No. Unicorn and Scorpion are done. The transport has them. Should I send them back?”

  The fact that there was no sign of Mermaid’s informant was worrisome. “No, let’s meet up here.” Just in case.

  “I can’t decide if it’s better to wait here for him or to go looking,” Mermaid said.

  Pegasus stopped himself before leaning against the wall—he didn’t think that thing was structurally sound. “Let’s wait until the others get here. Then we’ll see.”

  Mermaid nodded again.

  “Did he give you any details about what he was trying to do?”

  “Not much more than I told y’all. He said he found one of the regional leaders. He said he’d try to get closer to him. That’s why I was worried, I thought it was too risky.”

  “It’s his life, his risk to take,” Pegasus whispered. All of them lived that way in the end.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Cypher didn’t sound happy. “Locals have reported a body about three blocks from your location. Male, white, early twenties, brown hair, no ID.”

  Mermaid tensed.

  “We still have our police uniforms on, so we’ll go check it out.” Pegasus holstered his gun. “Have the others meet us there instead, but stay out of sight. No need to overwhelm the locals.”

  Mermaid had yet to move.

  “Ready?” he prompted.

  Mermaid followed him out, not saying anything on the short drive over. Pegasus removed his mask, running his fingers through his hair in the hopes of having it look acceptable. They were dropped off a couple of streets away since the van itself would be conspicuous.

  At the scene, two police officers were hovering around a lump on the ground covered in flowery bedsheets. Onlookers stood at a distance, watching the commotion with curious gazes.

  Followed by Mermaid, Pegasus breezed through the small crowd, directing his attention first to the officers. He used one of their usual stories—just passing by, heard it on the radio. “Mind if we take a look? He matches the description of someone we’ve been looking for.”

  After receiving a couple of nods, he and Mermaid went over to the body. Mermaid’s hand hovered over the sheet for a moment too long, and Pegasus took her hand, lifting the sheet himself.

  Mermaid sucked in an audible breath. “That’s him. That’s Jake.”

  Pegasus lifted the sheet further. There was a reasonable amount of blood underneath the body, but he couldn’t see a wound. Probably on the back.

  He replaced the sheet carefully, leaving Mermaid to organize her thoughts while he headed over to the officers. “Not him. Too bad. Guess we’ll have to keep looking.”

  With a wave, he walked off before they had a chance to ask more questions. Mermaid’s steps sounded right behind him.

  Back in the van, Mermaid took off her uniform jacket as if the thing was constricting her. “We have to figure out what happened to him.”

  “Of course.”

  Cypher was already requesting that the body and the investigation be transferred to them.

  “He was just some dumb kid, thinking he was joining a grand revolution against an unfit government. But his brain wasn’t fully rotted yet, so he noticed the stuff they did never seemed to have a purpose other than fearmongering.” Mermaid scoffed. “By the time we caught him for weapon smuggling, he was already pretty disillusioned.”

  Pegasus hadn’t been there for that mission, but he could imagine how someone like that could be turned into an asset.

  “Maybe it would’ve been better for him to serve his time.”

  “You offered him a choice. This isn’t your fault.”

  They were all hanging on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall at the slightest whim of fate. His thoughts drifted to Sarah, again thinking how horrible it would be to see all the different ways they might fall.