Then I walk to the corner store, dumping the plastic bag of bloody clothes into the garbage can outside. Mr. Gazonas smiles at me, like he always does.

  “How’s your little blond girlfriend?” he asks. “I hope you’re taking her someplace nice on a Saturday night.”

  I grin and get myself a cup of coffee and a ham and cheese sandwich. “I’ll tell her it was your idea.”

  “You do that,” he says as he gives me my change.

  I hope I get to take Lila out some Saturday night. I hope I get a chance to see her again.

  Trying not to think about that, I go back to the parking lot and force down my food, sitting in my parked car. Everything tastes like ashes and dust.

  I listen to the radio, flipping through channels. I can’t concentrate on what I’m listening to, and after a while I can’t keep my eyes open either.

  I wake to a tapping on the window. Agent Yulikova is standing beside the car, with Agent Jones and another woman I don’t recognize beside them.

  For a moment I wonder what would happen if I refused to get out. I wonder if they’d have to leave eventually. I wonder if they’d get one of those jaws of life and pop the top off my Benz like it was a tin can.

  I open the car door and grab for my duffel.

  “Have a nice rest?” Yulikova asks me. She’s smiling sweetly, like she’s the den mother of my Boy Scout troop instead of the lady who wants to send me up the river. She looks healthier than she did in the hospital. The cold has made her cheeks rosy.

  I force a yawn. “You know me,” I say. “Lazy as a bedbug.”

  “Well, come on. You can sleep in our car if you want.”

  “Sure,” I say, locking the Benz.

  Their car is predictably black—one of those huge Lincolns that you can spread out in. I do. And while I’m getting comfortable, I lean down to put my key into my bag and surreptitiously lift out my cell. Then, leaning back, I palm my phone into the pocket of the car door.

  The last place anyone is going to look for contraband is in their own vehicle.

  “So, you have something to turn in?” Yulikova says. She’s in the back with me. The other two agents are up front.

  The gun. Oh, no, the gun. I left it in Wharton’s office, under the desk.

  She must see it in my face, the flash of horror.

  “Did something happen?” she asks.

  “I forgot it,” I say. “I’m so sorry. If you let me out, I’ll go get it.”

  “No,” she says, exchanging a look with the other female agent. “No, that’s all right, Cassel. We can get it when we bring you back. Why don’t you tell us where it is.”

  “If you want me to get it—,” I say.

  She sighs. “No, that’s fine.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?” I ask. “I’d really feel a lot more comfortable if I was in on the plan.”

  “We’re going to tell you everything. Honest,” she says. “It’s very simple and straightforward. Governor Patton is going to give a press conference, and when it’s over, we’d like you to use your gift to change him into—well, into a living thing that can be contained.”

  “Do you have a preference?”

  She gives me a look, like she’s trying to gauge whether or not I’m testing her. “We’ll leave that up to you and whatever is going to be easier, but it’s imperative that he doesn’t get away.”

  “If it’s all the same, I’ll turn him into a big dog, I guess. Maybe one of those fancy hounds with the pointy faces—salukis, right? No, borzois. Some guy my mother used to know had those.” His name was Clyde Austin. He hit me in the head with a bottle. I leave those details out. “Or maybe a big beetle. You could keep him in a jar. Just remember to put in the airholes.”

  There is a sudden flicker of fear in Yulikova’s eyes.

  “You’re upset. I can see that,” she says, reaching out and touching her gloved hand to mine. It’s an intimate, motherly gesture, and I have to force myself not to flinch. “You’re always sarcastic when you’re nervous. And I know this isn’t easy for you, not knowing details, but you have to trust us. Being a government operative means always feeling a little bit in the dark. It’s how we keep one another safe.”

  Her face is so kind. What she’s saying is reasonable. She seems truthful, too—she’s got no obvious tells that would indicate otherwise. The thought nags me that Barron could have made up everything he told me about the content of the files. That would be profoundly awful and totally plausible.

  I nod. “I guess I’m used to relying on myself.”

  “When you first came to us, I knew you were going to be a special case. Not just because of your power but because of where you were from. We seldom have significant contact with boys like you and Barron. The average LMD recruit is a kid who’s been living on the street, either because they left home or because they were forced out. Sometimes a family contacts us with a child who they think might be a worker, and we bring them into the program.”

  “Nonworker families, you mean?” I ask. “Are they scared—the parents?”

  “Usually,” she says. “Sometimes the situation is so potentially violent that we have to remove the child. We have two schools in the country for worker children under the age of ten.”

  “Military schools,” I say.

  She nods. “There are worse things, Cassel. Do you know how many worker children are murdered by their own parents? The statistics are one thing, but I’ve seen the bones, heard the terrified excuses. We’ll get a report of a kid who might be a worker, but when we get to the town, the girl will be staying with “relatives,” whom no one has any reliable contact information for and who don’t have a phone. The boy will have transferred to another school, only there’s no record of where that might be. They’re usually dead.”

  I don’t have anything to say to that.

  “And then there are the neglected children, the abused children, the kids who are raised to think their only choice is becoming a criminal.” She sighs. “You’re wondering why I’m telling you all this.”

  “Because that’s what you’re used to—not kids like me, with mothers like mine and brothers like mine.”

  She nods, glancing toward the front of the car, where Agent Jones is sitting. “I’m not used to being thought of as the enemy.”

  I blink at her. “That’s not what I think.”

  She laughs. “Oh, I so wish for a lie detector test right now, Cassel! And the worst part is that I realize it’s at least partially our fault. We only know about you because you had no other choice but to turn yourself in—and now with your mother being in a lot of potential trouble, well, let’s just say that our loyalties are not in alignment. We’ve had to make deals, you and I, which isn’t how I want us to proceed. I want us to be on the same page, especially going into such an important mission.”

  She lets me chew that over for a while. Eventually the car stops in front of a Marriott. It’s one of the innocuous massive box hotels that are perfect for keeping track of someone in, because every floor leads to one central lobby. Pick a high enough floor, and all you need is someone posted outside the room and maybe another person by the stairs and another by the elevator. That’s three people—exactly the number in the car with me right now.

  “Okay,” I say as Agent Jones kills the engine. “After all, I am entirely in your hands.”

  Yulikova smiles. “And we’re in yours.”

  I grab my duffel, they take navy overnight bags and briefcases out of the trunk, and we head for the main entrance. I feel like I am going to a very dull sleepover.

  “Wait here,” Yulikova says, and leaves me standing in the lobby with the nameless female agent while Yalikova and Jones check us in.

  I sit on the arm of a beige chair and stick out my free hand. “Cassel Sharpe.”

  She regards me with all the suspicion that Jones usually does. Her short ginger hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, and her navy suit matches her overnight bag. Sensible beige pumps. Panty hose, for God’s sake. Tiny gold hoops in her ears complete the effect of a person with no tells and no inner life. I can’t even tell her age; it could be anywhere between late twenties and late thirties.

  “Cassandra Brennan.”

  I blink several times, but when she reaches out her hand, I take it and we shake.

  “I see why they gave you this job,” I say finally. “Brennan family, huh? Yulikova said she hadn’t worked with many people who come from worker families. She didn’t say she’d worked with none.”

  “It’s a common enough name,” she says.

  Then Yulikova comes back and we head to the elevators.

  My room is part of a suite, attached to the rooms where Yulikova, Jones, and Brennan will be sleeping. Of course, I’m not given my own key. My door, predictably, does not exit into the hallway but opens onto the main room, where there’s a crappy couch, a television, and a mini fridge.

  I dump my duffel in my bedroom and head back out into the central room. Agent Jones is watching me, as if I’m about to pull some kind of ninja move and escape through the air vent.

  “You want something from the vending machine, you ask one of us to accompany you. Otherwise you won’t be able to reenter the room—the doors lock automatically,” he says, like I’ve never been in a hotel before. Jones is about as subtle as a two-by-four to the face.

  “Hey,” I say. “Where’s that partner of yours? Hunt, wasn’t it?”

  “Promoted up the chain,” he says tersely.

  I grin. “Give him my felicitations.”

  Jones looks like he wants to slug me, which is only subtly different from his usual way of looking at me like I’m a slug.

  “Are you hungry?” Yulikova asks me, interrupting our little conversation. “Did you have dinner?”

  I think of the remains of the sandwich moldering in my car. The thought of eating still fills me with a vague queasiness, but I don’t want them to notice.

  “I didn’t,” I say. “But I am eager to hear some specifics about what happens next.”

  “Perfect,” Yulikova says. “Why don’t you wash up, and Agent Brennan can go out and get us some food. There has to be a Chinese place around here. Then we’ll talk. Cassel, is there anything you don’t like?”

  “I like everything,” I say, and walk into my room.

  Jones follows. “Can I have a look at that bag?”

  “Go right ahead.” I sit down on the bed.

  He smiles thinly. “It’s just procedure.”

  My duffel seems to bore him after he feels around the lining and looks at my pictures and blank index cards. “Have to pat you down too,” he says.

  I stand up and think of my cell phone in the pocket of their car door. It’s hard not to smile, but I remind myself that congratulating myself on my own cleverness is a good way to get caught.

  He leaves, and I waste some time reading my paperback. It contains the unlikely reveal that the detective and the murderer he’s been tracking are actually the same person. I am incredulous at how long it took him to figure that out. I got it a lot faster when it was me.

  A little while later I hear the far door to the suite open and some conversation. Then someone knocks on my door.

  By the time I emerge, Brennan is passing out paper plates. The smell of grease makes my mouth water. I thought I wasn’t hungry, but I am suddenly ravenous.

  “Did we get hot mustard?” I ask, and Jones passes a couple of packets in my direction.

  As we eat, Yulikova puts a map on the table. It’s of an open area, a park. “Like I said in the car, this is a very straightforward plan. Complications are to be avoided. We wouldn’t allow you to be part of an operation we weren’t very confident in, Cassel. We understand that you’re inexperienced.

  “Governor Patton is giving a press conference on the site of one of the former worker internment camps. He’d like to position Proposition 2 as helping workers, but he’d also like to subtly remind everyone to be afraid.”

  She takes out a ballpoint pen from her jacket and marks an X on a clearing. “You’ll be here the whole time, in one of the trailers. The only real danger is that you’re going to be bored.”

  I smile and take another bite of my kung pao chicken. I get a hot pepper and try to ignore my burning tongue.

  “They’re going to build a stage there.” She touches the page. “And a trailer for Patton to get dressed in will go here. Over this way are a few other trailers for his staff to work out of. We’ve managed to get one that we’re assured can be kept secure.”

  “So I’m going to be by myself?”

  She smiles. “We’ll have people everywhere outside, posing as local police. We also have a few people in Patton’s security detail. You’ll be in good hands.”

  Which makes sense, sort of. But it also makes sense that if I’m alone in the room and I come out and attack Patton, I’ll look like I was acting alone. The Feds will be off the hook.

  “What about security cameras?” I ask.

  Agent Brennan raises her eyebrows.

  “Because it’s outdoors, there aren’t any,” Yulikova says, “but what we need to worry about are press cameras.” She makes a blue dot in front of where she marked the stage. “The press pit is here, but there will be vans parked in the lot over there, where our vehicles will be too. If you stay in the trailer, you should be out of sight.”

  I nod.

  Agent Jones serves himself another pile of sesame chicken and rice, squirting soy sauce over the whole thing.

  “Governor Patton is going to make a brief speech, and then he’s going to answer questions from reporters,” Yulikova says. “You’re going to slip into one of the trailers and stay there until Governor Patton takes the stage. We have a monitor set up so that you can watch the local news. They’re broadcasting the event live.”

  “What’s the speech supposed to be about?”

  Yulikova coughs discreetly. “Senator Raeburn has attacked Patton in the press. This is supposed to be his chance to redirect the conversation—and to reach out to the rest of the country. If Proposition 2 passes in New Jersey, other states will start drafting similar legislation.”

  “Okay, so I wait until Patton leaves the stage. Then what? Do I count to three and jump out at him?”

  “We have a uniform for you. You’ll have a clipboard and headset mic. You’ll look like one of the crew backstage. And we have a specially formulated black ink that covers your hand. It looks like you’re wearing a glove, but your fingers will remain bare.”

  “Clever.” I am eager to see that stuff. My grandfather would be happy to know that the government really has been holding out on us in terms of secret cool toys. Too bad I can’t tell him.

  “While Patton is giving his speech, you will move to his dressing room and wait for him there. When he comes in, well, it’s a pretty tight space. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get your hands on him. We’ll be able to communicate with you through the headset, so if you have any questions or want to know the position of the governor, we will be able to give you all the support you need.”

  I nod again. It’s not a terrible plan. It’s a lot less complicated than Philip’s whole lurk-around-the-bathroom-all-night scheme for killing Zacharov. It’s also eerily similar. I guess transformation work assassinations all have a certain pattern.

  “So, okay. Governor Patton’s a borzoi. Everyone’s freaking out. Now what? What’s my exit strategy? I have a minute or two—maybe less—before the blowback hits. His bodyguards are right outside.”

  She makes a circle on the paper where the trailer is. “Figure the confrontation happens here.”

  Agent Brennan leans forward to see the mark.

  “The bodyguard who’s in our employ—the man who’s going to be on the left—will explain that Patton doesn’t want to be disturbed. Patton will doubtless be in great distress, but—”

  “Doubtless,” I say.

  No one ever laughs at this stuff.

  “We believe his erratic behavior makes it likely that our agent will be able to explain away the scuffle and the sounds that follow. When you’re ready, let us know through the headset and we’ll get you both out of there.”

  “I won’t be able to go right away,” I say. Agent Jones starts to speak, and I hold up a gloved hand, shaking my head. “No, I mean I can’t. The blowback makes it so that I will be shifting shape. You might be able to move me a short distance, but it’s going to be complicated, and I won’t be able to help.”

  They look at one another.

  “I’ve seen him do it before,” Jones says. “As much as I hate to say it, he’s right. We’re going to have to stall for time.”

  Yulikova and Agent Brennan are both eyeing me speculatively.

  “It’s that bad?” Agent Brennan asks. “I mean—”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not really looking. Sometimes I don’t really have anything to look with, if you know what I’m saying.”

  She blanches. I think I may have successfully freaked out my first FBI agent.

  Go me.

  “All right,” Yulikova says, “we’ll change the plan. We’ll wait out Cassel’s blowback and then get him out. We’ll have a car standing by.”

  I grin. “I’ll need a leash.”

  Agent Jones gives me an evaluating look.

  “For Patton. And a collar. Can we get a really embarrassing one?”

  His nostrils flare.

  “That’s very practical thinking.” Yulikova seems sincere and calm, but Jones’s jumpiness is getting on my nerves. It might just be that he gets like this before missions, but it is driving me up the wall.

  “And that’s it,” Yulikova says, reaching for another egg roll. “The whole thing. Any questions, Cassel? Any questions, anyone?”

  “Where will you all be?” I touch the map, pushing it a little toward her.

  “Back here,” she says, her gloved finger tapping against the table, indicating a vague place distantly in front of the stage. “There’s a van we can use as a command center where Patton won’t be threatened by our presence. He’s requested all his own security, so we can’t be too obvious. But we will be there, Cassel. Very close by.”