“Damn it, Kelley. I thought for sure you’d been caught,” Arden said the moment we stepped through the gate.

  “You underestimate me.” Erik’s tone was light, jovial even.

  His mental vibrations told a different story, a dark and disturbed one. Mac’s appearance in the metro had obviously unnerved him, whether he was willing to admit it or not.

  “Just get back to the hotel before you get me in trouble.” Arden made it sound like an order. He gestured in the direction of the Hamilton with his startlingly large gun.

  “You got it. Thanks again,” Erik replied, giving the older boy a mock salute.

  Arden didn’t look amused in the least. I honestly couldn’t blame him. If we had been caught, Arden probably would have been in just as much trouble as us.

  “Thanks, Arden,” I muttered when I passed him.

  He managed a small, strained smile in response.

  Erik and I walked back in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Desmond and the other guards nodded to us when we entered the hotel. Erik pushed past without stopping to talk, dragging me behind him before I could thank them again for letting us out.

  At the door to my room, Erik kissed me softly on the cheek, running his hand absently through my curls.

  “Don’t you want to come in?” I asked, surprised when he turned to leave.

  “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head regretfully.

  “Why? I haven’t seen you in weeks,” I demanded. I blanched at the harshness in my voice. Softening my tone, I added, “Besides, I really need you right now.”

  I knew that I was being unfair. I wasn’t the only one showing the telltale signs of stress and exhaustion. Erik’s tired eyes stared down at me as he contemplated his next words carefully. Then embarrassment clouded his thoughts, and he averted his gaze.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I kind of promised the Director I wouldn’t spend the night with you,” Erik mumbled, actually reddening slightly.

  “What?! Why?”

  I couldn’t believe Mac had actually sought Erik out and made him promise not to sleep in my room. If I weren’t so angry, I would have been mortified.

  “The Director really didn’t want me here in the first place. Between the situation with my family and this,” Erik gestured from me to him, “he doesn’t think that I am an ideal choice for aptitude testing. Fortunately, Mimics are so rare that the Testmaster needed all the ones he could get. Even so, I practically had to beg the Director to give me the assignment. After a lot of groveling on my part, he agreed, obviously. But he made me promise that I would limit the amount of time we spent together outside of the actual testing. He was real specific about nighttime visits being strictly forbidden.” Erik cringed slightly, probably recalling the uncomfortable conversation he’d had with Mac.

  My agitation lessened slightly. I could tell how much it wounded Erik’s pride to beg Mac. And I was willing to bet that Mac enjoyed watching Erik cowed. Erik was proud to a fault and so confident, it verged on cocky. Mac didn’t value those traits. And Erik’s past would always be a black mark in Mac’s book.

  “And you agreed.”

  It wasn’t a question but a statement. Obviously, he’d agreed; he was here, after all. I felt a rush of warmth for Erik and a flush of anger for Mac. Dominance and control, that about summed up the Director.

  “Of course, I did,” replied Erik, looking both hurt and irritated. “I wanted to see you, spend time with you. I would have agreed to just about anything to spend a couple of hours with you, let alone the next three weeks. Besides, the Director said you haven’t been sleeping well, that you’re still having nightmares.”

  I shrugged. Truth be told, the nightmares were frequent, waking me several times on bad nights. When they first started, I’d confided in Dr. Wythe. That lapse in judgment was what had led to Dr. Thistler increasing the dosage of my medication. The nightmares stopped as a result, but the drugs made me listless, barely functional, a member of the walking dead. When Mac and Dr. Thistler finally agreed that my zombie-like existence couldn’t go on any longer, they reduced the levels and the nightmares returned. I swore up and down that I was fine and I thought Mac believed me. It surprised me to learn that he knew I was lying the entire time. Even more than that, I couldn’t believe he hadn’t confronted me.

  “I would sleep much better if you stayed with me.”

  I regretted the words the moment I said them. Not that they weren’t true; they were. But making Erik feel guilty wasn’t fair and I knew that. The guilt trip was made worse by the fact that, without meaning to, I had put a little extra emphasis on my words, unconsciously forcing my will on Erik—manipulating him. What was wrong with me?

  Indecision flickered in Erik’s eyes. Normally, he had a high tolerance to my talent. Not tonight. I felt sick to my stomach. Here I was, looking down on Mac for forcing Erik to beg in order to spend time with me and I was using my manipulation to get him to defy Mac’s orders.

  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” I finally said. “Mac’s right. I do need rest or else I will never get better.”

  My smile felt thin and forced. The disappointment coursing through Erik nearly broke my heart. Erik genuinely believed it was his own idea to come sleep with me. My desire had become his, making my subsequent refusal to let him stay sting that much worse. I could count the times I’d been more disgusted with myself on one hand.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” I promised Erik, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him goodnight.

  Erik waited while I unlocked the door and entered my room. I felt his presence while I changed for bed. It wasn’t until I had the covers pulled snugly around my shoulders that only emptiness remained in the hallway.

  Nightmares didn’t keep me awake well into the night; guilt did.

  ***

  Mac knocked on my door while I was still brushing my teeth the following morning. His patience must’ve been thin because he didn’t do me the decency of waiting until I answered the door. Apparently, he had his own key. His cold, appraising eyes darted around the confines of the small space as though he were looking for something askew. Then I realized that it wasn’t something; it was someone—Erik.

  “He’s not here,” was what I wanted to say. But starting a fight with Mac before breakfast didn’t hold any appeal.

  “Good morning, Mac,” I called instead, my speech garbled by a mouth full of spearmint toothpaste.

  “You’re almost ready. Good,” Mac commented, smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles in his navy blazer.

  The only difference between the one he wore today and the one he wore every other day was the TOXIC logo embroidered over the left side. Every Operative working with the Aptitude Council to administer the exams—Mac included—was required to wear Agency-issued clothing with the emblem of their home division. Since I didn’t technically have a home division anymore, my jackets also bore the TOXIC seal.

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  “I am,” I agreed, ducking back into the bathroom and spitting the foamy, green liquid into the black, porcelain sink.

  The sound of Mac tapping the toe of his expensive, brown loafers against the plush carpeting set my teeth on edge.

  “I can meet you down there if I’m taking too long,” I offered, hoping he would accept.

  I wasn’t keen on being in such cramped quarters with the Director after witnessing his clandestine meeting the night before. The chasm that had developed between us made the room impossible to navigate.

  The urge to ask Mac about the prisoner on the train and the “research” he wanted to conduct was like a physical itch. I formulated a thousand questions in my mind, knowing full well I would never ask any of them. Admitting I was down in the tunnels was not something I was prepared to do. I’d find out the truth another way.

  “I am not in a hurry, Natalia. We have plenty of time before the first appointments,” Mac replied, glancing in the direction of the time, prominently displayed on the screen of my Communicator.

  I nodded at my reflection in the mirror over the bathroom sink. As per usual, my curls were unruly, hanging in tight coils down to the middle of my back. I’d applied a liberal amount of cream to hide the red blotches that dotted my cheeks. Purple crescents no longer marred the skin beneath my eyes; concealed beneath copious amounts of flesh-toned makeup. I’d even gone one step further and brushed a light coating of bronze eye shadow across my lids and liberal amounts of black mascara to thicken the appearances of my lashes.

  When I exited the bathroom and donned my own black Agency-issued jacket over my black dress shirt and black dress pants, Mac nodded approvingly. “You look rested this morning,” he said with as kind a smile as I’d ever seen cross Mac’s hard features.

  “I slept well,” I lied easily.

  In fact, I hadn’t slept well at all, hence the need for the extreme beauty regimen. But I knew if my sleeping habits didn’t improve soon, Mac’s moratorium on Erik’s late night visits would be the least of my troubles.

  Reluctantly, Mac had agreed to let me stop seeing Dr. Wythe once I’d agreed that Penny’s images were false. Yet he wouldn’t hesitate to restart the sessions if he thought I was still dwelling on what happened with Penny in the courtroom.

  “Are you going to wear a color besides black the entire time we are here? If you are not careful, Natalia, people will begin to think you are in mourning,” he replied, sending his blond eyebrows skyward and challenging me to contradict him.

  “I’m wearing color. See?” I pointed to the emerald-green scarf threaded through the belt loops of my dress pants.

  I’d added the accessory for exactly this purpose. I knew Mac was going to comment on my colorless ensemble and had decided that preemptive measures were necessary.

  I held his gaze and let the snappy retort to his mourning comment die on my lips. Another surefire way to land back on Dr. Wythe’s leather chaise was admitting that I was grieving the death of a traitor. I had to be careful, though. If I appeared too agreeable, Mac would know something was off. My ornery attitude had become a staple of my personality since returning from Nevada and Mac expected a certain amount of antagonism from me. I couldn’t disappoint him. Every day, the tight rope I walked became harder to navigate and it was only a matter of time before I fell.

  “So I see.” Mac nodded.

  A ghost of his earlier smile was still on his lips and he shook his head as though chastising himself for not anticipating my actions. It had been like this for weeks; the unspoken challenges, the nonverbal baiting, and the silent battle of wills.

  At one time, I wouldn’t have dared cross the powerful Director Danbury McDonough, but now I found myself purposely pushing him further and further toward his breaking point. I wanted him to lose his temper, show emotion. I wanted an excuse to yell and demand answers to questions only he could give. Part of me was still scared, but just not of Mac. I was scared that once the questions were out of my mouth, I couldn’t take them back. Even worse, I wouldn’t be able to forget the answers.

  “I’m ready,” I declared, sliding my feet into black flats.

  The tension between us ebbed slightly as we made our way from my room to the breakfast buffet in the hotel’s dining hall. Our conversation turned to the procedures for administering the tests somewhere between the syrup-infused sausage patties and coconut-mango pancakes.

  “Ordinarily, I prefer a trained test administrator lead the sessions and ask the questions, but in your case, I think it will be more beneficial if you take the lead,” Mac explained, selecting a half a grapefruit and sprinkling white sugar crystals across the nearly neon-pink flesh.

  “So, I just ask the kids a bunch of standard questions off a piece of paper and read their responses out of their heads?” I clarified, wanting to make sure that it was actually that simple.

  We had been over this all before. Testing procedures were safe, a neutral topic that didn’t lead to an argument, so I was more than happy to let Mac repeat the instructions as often as he liked.

  “Yes and no. You will ask the questions and gauge their responses. Mr. Kelley will attempt to get a handle on their actual talents and determine a very general ranking. The actual test administrator will monitor the outputs from the electrodes hooked to the subject and take a blood sample to test for a Talent Signature,” Mac answered, leading me away from the buffet line now that both our plates were overflowing with food.

  “Talent Signature?” I asked, sliding into a seat at the two-person table he’d selected in the corner of the formal dining room.

  I unfolded the crisp, white napkin and spread it across my lap. The tablecloth was the same bright-white as the napkin. A small glass vase sat on the edge of the table next to the wall. The solitary rose’s petals were a red so deep that the flower appeared to have been soaked in blood.

  An image of a bloody hand clutching ragged pages of a letter as the thick, sticky liquid seeped onto fallen leaves momentarily clouded my vision. I shook my head to clear the unpleasant memory. My hands shook slightly as I wiped sweat on the napkin in my lap. When I smoothed the fabric over my pants once again, I almost expected it to be red instead of white.

  Relax, Talia. I left out a shaky sigh and met Mac’s eyes across the table.

  Mac gave me a hard, appraising look before clearing his throat loudly and answering my question.

  “Yes, Talent Signatures. Every person with abilities has a unique marker in his or her genetic makeup. The marker is as specific to the individual as a fingerprint or retinal scan. The marker, or Talent Signature, identifies the individual’s gifts even if they are extremely-low level and otherwise undetectable.” Mac shoveled a large spoonful of cottage cheese into his mouth.

  “Well, if we can just do that, then why do you go through all the trouble of hooking these kids up to machines and having people ask them a bunch of questions?” I asked, savoring the sweetness of the syrup as I happily chewed on a piece of sausage.

  “Once they are at the School, we’d still need to perform an evaluation to see if they are aware of their powers and to what extent they have been able to use them thus far. The Talent Signature gives no indication of how strong the child’s abilities are, or will become. Plus, the process for extracting this marker is extremely expensive and complex and not one hundred percent accurate. Our medical research team is still perfecting the procedure. This is the first year we will be implementing it. In light of recent events, I thought it best to use both the blood test and the panel determination to reduce the risk of future misdiagnosis.”

  Everyone at TOXIC had thought Penny was a Higher-Reasoning Talent when, in fact, she’d been a Mimic. She used her talents to replicate my own and keep me from ever reading her mind. If her blood had been analyzed for a Talent Signature when she was first brought to the School, then The Agency would have realized what she was capable of. Although, unless there was a blood test that identified devious traitors, I doubted knowing that she was a Mimic would have helped us.

  “Besides, some children don’t outwardly manifest talents until they are older. We have been running into the problem more and more frequently where a panel gives a child a negative determination, yet several years later we learn some boy is turning invisible and sneaking into the girls’ locker rooms or morphing into another child to annoy his parents and teachers. Testing for a Talent Signature will allow us to identify those children now and bring them to the School. That way, when their abilities finally emerge, they will be in an environment that can help them adapt to the change,” Mac continued.

  I found the whole production oddly fascinating. Since I wasn’t born in the United States, I’d never been tested myself. As both a student at the School and a Pledge with the Hunters, I’d been ineligible to participate with the administration of the tests. Up until this year, I’d had no desire to, either. I abhorred the idea of forcing parents to submit their children for testing. While I firmly believed in providing children with gifts like mine a place to learn how to use them and giving them a career that might otherwise be impossible because of normal people’s perception of the Talented, I didn’t understand why there wasn’t a choice. I never voiced my opinions. Mac didn’t want to hear them and some even considered my point-of-view traitorous. I knew others in The Agency agreed with me, but they never spoke about it either.

  I knew the point of Mac telling me about the children who go unclassified was meant to demonstrate the kinds of trouble they can cause and strengthen his argument in favor of blood testing. Instead, it made me long for a real childhood—a carefree time in my life that I never had.

  At school, the unauthorized use of talent comes with a stiff penalty. In classes, we learn to use our powers to fight our enemies, protect the country, and serve the greater good. No one played pranks on the teachers or caused mischief. We all understood our purpose and we all took it seriously. I didn’t allow myself to dwell too long on a life that would never be. Wishing I’d been born talentless was as ridiculous and pointless as wishing I’d been born with straight hair.