Isi made her way through the office section of Campus Tower, just a hallway with doors on either side and administrators working away. She’d already recovered the drive Kara had hidden, tucked behind a row of dusty folders in a lecture hall filing cabinet. One mission down. Two more to go.

  The tower was quiet, thankfully. Fewer people to avoid that way. Lev was still in the wind, and without Trevor to pull Novem's data, she’d have to get creative. This tower was his last known location. That meant the security cameras were her best bet; hence, the trip to the security office, which was coming up on her left.

  Isi paused outside the door. It was ajar, and she could see a man sitting at a desk, tapping away at a console and scribbling notes. Perfect. Now, she just needed something to get him out of the office.

  Twenty minutes later, Isi was back with two boxes of donuts from a pastry shop a few buildings over, more than enough for everyone working today in the administration section. She left the donuts in the breakroom and started knocking on doors to share her fake good news: HR had provided donuts. It was time for a break.

  By the time she got to her target’s office, Isi had perfected her pitch. Judging from the surprise of the other employees, this pretty much never happened, but was also a welcome occurrence. Good news usually was, so much so, that only one man had questioned the fact he’d never seen her. She’d mentioned that she was with the main branch of the university’s HR department, and he’d seemed satisfied.

  At this point, there were a couple of people in the breakroom who could hopefully keep her security officer occupied for a few minutes. She peeked her head into the room where a middle-aged man sat studying something on his console screen. “Hello,” Isi said. The man looked up at her, surprised.

  “Can I help you?” he asked distractedly.

  “Oh, I just wanted to let you know there are donuts in the breakroom. It’s a little gift from the university HR department for the hard work you all do when so many people are on break,” Isi said.

  “Really?” her target said, truly focusing on her for the first time.

  “Yeah. Some kind of new HR initiative,” Isi said with a shrug. “Short paid break, free food. I’m not complaining.”

  The man grinned. “Can’t argue with that. Just down the hall?”

  Isi nodded. “A few others are already there. I’m just finishing the loop.”

  “Thanks for the heads up,” the man said, rising from his desk to head to the breakroom. He had his ID badge clipped to a pocket.

  Isi scanned the hall like she was checking for the next door to visit. As the man stepped through the doorway, she stumbled back just enough to brush his shoulder. Her fingers caught the edge of his ID badge and slipped it free with practiced ease. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said, turning back towards him. “I’ve been such a klutz lately!”

  The man waved off her apology. He pulled his office door shut and continued towards the breakroom, obviously excited to do something other than work.

  Isi headed towards the next door in the hallway. As soon as the security guy turned the corner, she made her way back to his office. With one tap of his badge, she was in. Still, she wouldn’t have long, so she made the most of it.

  Seconds later, she’d freed a small cylindrical device from the protective mesh in her pocket. She shoved a stack of papers aside and connected it to the console. The screen whirred, processing.

  She’d never tried it on a university system before. It’d be interesting to see if they were any better than everyone else. She waited. Waiting was bad at the moment. It just gave her too much to think about.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Marcus’ words echoed like a sound clip she couldn’t escape: Am I just a pawn to you?

  He wasn’t. He was a partner. Right?

  So, why hadn’t she shared the whole plan with him? And the little things, like the device whirring in the console right now, her mother’s invention. She’d never told him. He didn’t need to know. Was that wrong?

  It was better that way. Or she’d thought it was.

  Then Trevor had gone and fallen off the face of the Earth, and all his protective secrets? They were twisting the noose tighter and tighter. What if she was just doing the same thing? What if—

  The screen flashed: Biometric input error. Please select an alternative method.

  She let out a long breath. Focus.

  She scanned the options—password or ID card—and smirked. Well, they had some security at least. Most people were so confident in their burstproof rooms that they didn’t even configure their malfunction protocols.

  She hit ID card, held it up to the reader, and murmured her thanks to her mother. It was a memorial of a sort: using her mother’s tools to find her mother’s killers.

  A few taps later, and Isi had the video feed pulled up from two nights ago. She’d already wiped most of it, but everything after they’d left was still there. She scanned through the various cameras. Not many outside. They probably weren’t keen on replacing them regularly, but there was one focused on the courtyard and another on the back walkway.

  She checked the courtyard first. That area was well lit, but it had been a chaotic night. The feed swarmed and undulated with movement as Isi sped through the footage. Earlier in the night it was mostly pairs of Tiago’s people walking past, searching. But after a while a crowd seemed to coalesce. Isi slowed down the footage to 3x speed. It looked like there was some argument going on between two groups of people.

  Isi scrolled through until she caught sight of someone familiar walking through the crowd. Jeron strode through the courtyard flanked by two people glaring at the assembled crowd, which parted in front of him. Bingo.

  She scrolled forward following him as he talked to a few people in the crowd and then went inside. Isi switched to the internal cameras, following Jeron where possible. From what she could tell, he’d headed straight to the top floor where he met up with none other than Teorin. She flipped quickly backward through footage until Lev appeared, leaning on Teorin.

  Lev… Marcus had told her he’d been hurt, but Sasha had really done a number on him. Isi couldn’t help but remember his smile at the gala. Another person who’d become nothing but a chip on the table.

  Until his sister realized she was holding half the cards.

  Still, if she and Marcus hadn’t called Sasha in…

  No, things would have been a mess no matter what, just for different people. Teorin and Kara would have been caught in the streets without Marcus’ warning. Moping about difficult decisions was useful to no one.

  Isi focused back on the footage. Where he’d gone, that was all she needed. She skipped back to where Teorin and Jeron first appeared together and quickly flipped through the footage. They’d called in a doctor for Lev, hung around while the doctor looked at him, and then left. Nothing complicated.

  Jeron had pulled a car around to the front of the building on the wide sidewalk. Then Jeron and Teorin had exited the tower, Lev between them. After loading up in the car, they drove away. Not much else to go on.

  A laugh filtered in from the hallway, and Isi froze, hand going to her mother’s device. She waited for a few heartbeats. She had the key anyway, but better not to get security involved. No one tried the door.

  She let out a long breath and scribbled down details about the car before flipping through camera frames to see if she recognized anyone else in the courtyard later on. After Jeron left, things seemed to simmer down, but Isi recognized one face in the crowd, one of Tiago’s guys. Good enough.

  Lev was still injured. She hadn’t seen any rumors about him in the hospital, so if Novem had hidden him there, they’d done it well.

  Or they hadn’t taken him to the hospital at all. Considering they had an on-call doctor, that felt more like Jeron’s style. So, the car was all she had to go on.

  She scanned the video files again, but nothing else stood out. Time to go. The security officer could come back any minute now.

  Isi closed out everything that she’d been working on and checked to make sure everything in the office was as it had been when she arrived. Then, she slipped out and dropped the ID card at the edge of the hall like it had simply fallen.

  She knocked on a couple more doors, letting whoever was in the office know that there were donuts available. One man she sent down the hall found the badge she’d dropped on the floor. He’d probably return it to the security officer, who really seemed to be taking advantage of the “paid break” and donuts. Another five minutes wouldn’t have even been a problem.

  At the last door in the hall, she mentioned that she had to go and asked the woman to spread the word to anyone that hadn’t heard. Performance complete, Isi made her way out of the building. She had some more investigating to do. It was time to take a trip to the closest medic, just in case, and then she’d pay a visit to an old friend. One who owed her answers.

  [Lev] Here's my rent. This one looks like it's got a pretty awesome terrifying and talkative sword. Almost like me if I were a weapon, so very cool. Check it out.