I pushed the wooden door open with more force than necessary, and it gave a satisfying bang as it hit the door jam. The secretary seated behind a sleek wooden desk jumped when I entered.

  “Can I help you, dear?” she asked, with a sickeningly pink-lipsticked smile.

  “Is Janet in?” I practically growled at her.

  “You mean Headmistress Evans, dear?” she replied, her pleasant demeanor becoming disapproving.

  “Yeah, whatever. Is she in?” I demanded.

  “Is she expecting you, dear?” The smile remained plastered to her face, but suspicion clouded her brown eyes. My temper was already bubbling over and her condescending tone made me want to throttle her.

  Whoa, Talia. Calm down, she’s just a secretary, I warned myself. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pinched the bridge of my nose and took three deep breaths before answering. Seizures weren’t the only lingering effect of my trip to Nevada; my temper had developed a hair-trigger since the ordeal, although that was more likely a byproduct of cabin fever.

  I replaced my scowl with a near manic smile of my own. “I would imagine she is expecting me,” I replied as calmly as I could manage.

  “Your name, dear?” Ugh, stop effing calling me dear!

  “Talia, Talia Lyons.” Pink Lipstick pushed a button on her console. I heard a buzzing noise and then the secretary lifted a handheld unit and spoke into it.

  “Excuse me, Headmistress Evans?” she asked. She paused as Janet replied a greeting.

  “There is a student here to see you, ma’am. She claims to have an appointment.” Pink Lipstick paused again. “Ms. Lyons,” she answered.

  Awesome, she thinks I’m a student.

  “Yes, madam, Talia Lyons,” the secretary said firmly. The secretary’s face flushed as Janet admonished her for making me wait.

  Janet’s secretary didn’t appear to be more than late forties at best, but her hearing must already be failing if she kept the volume turned up loud enough that I could hear both sides of the conversation from across the desk. She quietly replaced the handheld unit, looked up and gave me another big pink smile. “The Headmistress will see you now.”

  Marching past the secretary’s desk, I twisted the large brass doorknob below the nameplate reading “Headmistress Evans.” Janet Evans had become Headmistress of the McDonough School when Mac had been promoted to Director of the Agency. I’d first met her during one of my family’s bi-annual visits to the Agency Compound. Janet had been a Hunter then, and along with Mac, had been one of the Operatives assigned to guard my family during our trip, and I’d taking an instant liking to her. After I’d been enrolled at the School, Janet had become somewhat of a role model for me.

  After my parents had been killed, Janet left the Hunters to become the Headmistress and keep watch over me. She was one of the few who knew the extent of my abilities; what I was actually capable of. In fact, Janet was one of the only people alive who had seen my powers. She’d been with Mac when he rescued me from the destroyed hotel room that had been the scene of my parents’ deaths.

  When I walked into her office, Janet was standing behind her large oak desk with her back to me. She was tall—close to six feet—and slim. Her reddish-brown hair was streaked with wisps of gray and cut to just above her shoulders. She wore a tailored navy pant suit and the collar of a white oxford shirt peeked out from underneath the jacket.

  “I told him that this was a horrible idea,” she stated, her back still to me, her hands busy with something in front of her.

  “A horrible idea? That might be an understatement.” The anger that had been building since I’d first laid eyes on Donavon was close to boiling completely over. Janet turned to face me, her slim fingers curled around two crystal glasses that were three-quarters full of amber liquid. Her dark green eyes, creased at the edges, radiated concern.

  She held one of the glasses out, in my direction. I walked slowly forward and wrapped both of my small hands around the cool glass, tracing the Agency’s logo engraved on the side of the tumbler with my thumb. Janet raised her drink in a mock toast, and I gently clanged my own with hers. I looked down into amber liquid, wishing that I could drown myself in its depths before bringing the cup to my lips. The liquor burned; first my tongue, then my throat, and finally my stomach. Draining half the glass, I felt the tension slowly ebb and the anger dissipate.

  I sank into one of the two leather chairs on my side of Janet’s desk. The chair was slick, the liquor had gone instantly to my head, and I nearly slid right off. I scooted all the way back, my feet dangling as they could no longer reach the floor. Meeting Janet’s eyes, I finally managed my first real smile of the day.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “It’s a start,” I admitted.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, the concern still heavy in her gaze.

  “In general? Or today specifically?”

  “Well, I was asking generally. I can imagine how you’re feeling today,” she laughed, slipping into her desk chair.

  “Generally, pretty good. The seizures are becoming less frequent. I haven’t had one in almost a month, so I guess that’s good news,” I mumbled. Following my return from Nevada, seizures had been a daily occurrence. Medical had worked around the clock to create the equalizer that I now received regularly. Eventually, the seizures had occurred less often, but unfortunately, they haven’t ceased completely. Besides the convulsions and loss of bodily control, the episodes left me extremely tired and mostly bedridden for days afterwards.

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  “Good, I’m glad to hear that. And I see you’re up and walking pretty well,” she commented, gesturing to my dangling legs with her drink.

  “Yeah, the physical therapy really helped. It was slow going at first, but I’ve been walking on my own for a couple of months now.” The rehabilitation had helped, but it had also been torture.

  “What’d you make of Dr. Wythe?” she asked with a knowing smile hovering over the rim of her cup. Janet clearly thought as much of therapy as I did.

  “He was okay, for a therapist. He declared me ‘stable’, so that is a step toward me returning to active duty. . . . I think.” Actually, I wasn’t sure if a “stable” diagnosis was good enough for the placement committee, but since it was good enough for Mac, I was hopeful.

  “It is,” Janet confirmed. “Now we just need to find you a cure and you’ll be back with the Hunters in no time.”

  “Yeah, I just hope that the Committee finds in my favor,” I replied, examining a small scrape in the leather chair with one fingernail.

  “They will. Mac will make sure of it,” she promised. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully, meeting her earnest gaze. Knowing that Janet was on my side made me slightly more optimistic. “The way I see it, Mac owes me after springing Donavon on me this morning,” I added.

  Janet snorted. “When he told me that he intended to bring you in on this spy hunt, I have to admit that I argued strongly against it. Given what happened between you and Donavon last year, I was worried that you might still be too fragile to handle it. If that’s true…” She let her voice trail off, the unspoken question hanging in the air. I didn’t need to hear her finish her sentence. Janet was offering to have Mac replace me—she was giving me an out.

  “No, but thank you. I know that I can’t avoid him forever. I was just caught off guard this morning.”

  Part of me did want to take the easy way out and let her convince Mac that I wasn’t ready to work with Donavon. But the proud part of me couldn’t let Donavon win. If I had myself removed from this assignment, Donavon would win.

  “For what it’s worth, he’s been torn up over what happened to you,” Janet said, eyeing me carefully for my reaction.

  I arched one eyebrow in surprise and then drained the other half of my drink to cover my reaction. Donavon upset about what happened to me? Somehow I doubted that.

  “How long has he been here?” I asked finally, extending my cup for Janet to refill its contents.

  It was Janet’s turn to look surprised, her green eyes full of suspicion. “As long as you have,” she answered hesitantly. “Mac didn’t tell you that?”

  What? Why had Donavon been here for nine months? He was a Hunter. He should’ve been out on missions, not here doing…whatever it was that he was doing. The knowledge that he’d been here this whole time without once attempting to see me was like a bucket of ice to the face. He really didn’t care about me. The confusion must have been evident in my expression because Janet continued without waiting for me to respond.

  “Well, I guess that Mac thought it best you recover in peace,” Janet said hastily, refilling her empty glass.

  “Why is he here?” I asked, scanning the older woman’s mind to find the truth. Janet had her thoughts guarded and I didn’t want to push.

  “I think that Mac should be the one to tell you.”

  Well, that’s ominous.

  I spent the remainder of the day in Janet’s office, catching up on everything that had happened during my confinement. She elaborated on what Mac had told me the previous night, about the covert investigation they’d launched to uncover who’d leaked my identity. Janet agreed that there was a traitor in our ranks. She agreed that my mission was targeted because I was sent directly into Crane’s lair. However, unlike Mac, Janet wasn’t skilled at blocking me; I found in her mind what I assumed was in Mac’s.

  Both felt that there was more to it than that. They both believed that I’d been targeted, at least in part because of who I was and what my Talents were. I’d surmised as much even though Mac had been reluctant to share that detail with me.

  Janet gently grilled me on my confrontation with Crane, hoping that I’d remember some detail I’d been unable to recall when I made my official report. I hated to disappoint her, but I couldn’t shed any more light on the situation. In nine months, I hadn’t been able to determine what I thought about Ian Crane’s insistence that he knew my father. I had no idea if that was true or just something that he’d said to through me off balance. If it was the latter, his plan had backfired. His claims about my father were what sent me over the edge, making me attack him.

  Spending the day with Janet made me feel bad for losing touch with her during my Pledge year. It also made me realize how much I craved human interaction. I’d always considered myself something of a loner. When I was younger and my parents were still alive, I spent most of my time with adults. My parents had kept me out of the public eye as much as possible. They had both known that I was different. Many people felt uncomfortable around me even though they had no idea what I was capable of. But it hadn’t really bothered me. I’d preferred the company of adults to that of children my own age, anyway, so it wasn’t until I came to school that I truly made friends.

  Well, “friends” might even be an overstatement. I made exactly one friend: Donavon. Donavon was the first person my own age that I’d ever connected with. We’d quickly become inseparable. I hadn’t yet mastered my Talents when I first formed a connection with Donavon. We stopped communicating with words when we were twelve. At first, we would sit next to each other, holding hands, having our own private conversations. The only outward sign that we were talking would be when one or both of us wouldn’t be able to suppress a giggle. By the time we were thirteen, we didn’t even need to be touching to keep up a continuous dialogue. We were even able to carry on full discussions at night, each in our respective dorm rooms.

  When Donavon had cheated on me, I’d felt like I lost half of my heart. I didn’t realize how much I depended on him until he was no longer there. I hadn’t been able to actually break the connection we’d formed, but the absence of a soft song playing in my head before I went to bed, or a joke when I was called on to answer a question in class, were painful reminders of what I’d lost.

  Now, after being forced into social isolation, I found that I was desperate to converse with people who weren’t ordered to evaluate me. Sure, I knew that Janet was going to report anything that I said to Mac, but at least she was genuinely interested in how I was feeling and what happened to me in Nevada and didn’t view me as a number in a long list of patients.

  The light-responsive windows behind Janet’s desk and the electric lights in her office slowly became brighter, marking the setting of the sun. My stomach gave a rumble. I’d had three glasses of Janet’s liquor and no lunch. Suffice it to say, I was drunk. Definitely time for me to make my way to the cafeteria, I decided. Sliding myself to the edge of the slippery leather chair, I stood, swaying slightly.

  “One surprise before dinner!” exclaimed Janet. Her cheeks were rosy from the liquor; she’d had also her fair share of the bottle.

  “A surprise? You shouldn’t have,” I teased.

  “Mac wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but I figured that if he was going to force you to work with Donavon, you deserved a little reward,” she smiled, a mischievous twinkle in her green eyes. My curiosity was definitely piqued.