"That sizzle-headed dolt," he breathed, a breathless hour later. "I'd punch that money-sucker's lights out all over again if I had the chance."

Challis made a noncommittal sound and leaned her elbows on the little windowsill. Actual iron bars striped the sunlight seeping into the cell, but there was nothing to see outside except for the wall of another building. She could hear voices on the other side of the room's door, mostly murmuring but occasionally the more penetrating boom of Officer Lars.

"Well," she sighed. "That would seal it for sure. But Corvin threw the first blow."

"You're sure?"

"He T-boned you into the fountain. You really don't remember?"

Rasalas cursed. "I thought we just ran for it. Oh, wait. That explains the gilligs then. I remember that."

The voices outside faded, and Challis heard an exterior door close with a muffled thud. Silence crept into the cell, unbroken.

She turned around. Rasalas sat against a wall, resting his forearms on his knees, the sharp edges of frustration stabbing out from him. He looked up at her, not needing to share his thoughts for her to understand him clearly. Of all the things for him to forget. It was her word against Corvin's. Who was going to believe that Rasalas just had no memory of the event? On top of that, given his violent tendencies in the past as a result of their joint surgery, there might not be a way out of what was coming.

The lock rattled, then a moment later the door banged open. Challis jumped and fell back against the wall, squinting her double vision at the black-and-bleached-topped hound on the hunt.

The door slammed closed again so they were trapped in with it. The room was vibrating with the righteous anger of Lakko Haske, backed by more than a week's worth of buildup from going cold turkey off the tripwire. Rasalas was on his feet in a second, guilt smearing over his face. As far as he knew, Chief Bosk had had to work with an irritable goosebumped rage monster that entire week in Eastwedgen before the expedition. And now it had hunted down Rasalas and caught him in a corner.

Lakko stood there, frighteningly still. Then, in a single slow motion, he slid a riding crop from his belt and started running his fingernails along its length, examining it closely.

Both Gannagens eased onto the balls of their feet. The tiniest scrape of Challis' boot on stained concrete was the only sound in the room.

Challis swallowed. "Ras?"

"It'll be okay," he said quietly.

It had to be. Now, more than ever, they had to be a team. Rasalas glanced past Lakko at the door, at the brass lock plate by the handle. A slight line of light appeared next to it, as if the door had bounced back after being slammed too hard. Did cell doors lock themselves automatically? And Lakko wouldn't lock himself in with them, would he? The handle was hidden from his sister's view by the corner of the doorframe. Rasalas rubbed his forehead, a move that would appear casual or just a nervous gesture to anyone else, but he completely closed the hidden eye for a full two seconds. Challis blinked, but she caught the signal. A moment later Rasalas felt her tap into his mind. He gave another look at the door, trying to direct his focus on the handle.

Then he edged along the wall a tiny bit, his fingers sliding on the stone behind him. Though he didn't know it, Challis got that, too.

Lakko's voice came in a low growl, colored by a tremor that was now the only outward sign of how much anger he was holding in.

"Where is it?"

Rasalas thought about how easily Lakko could send him spinning through the air like a carrot. "I don't have it," he said, spreading out his hands in front of him in a forced calm. "It's in my pack." Then after a moment, he added, "Captain."

"Liar," Lakko said, his accent snapping the 'L' to shoot the word through the air.

Rasalas untied the white-tipped tripwire at his waist and slid it out of his belt loops, holding it up so Lakko could see it. Maybe he could draw him closer without getting too close. To Lakko's left, Challis shifted softly to face the door.

"Not yours," Rasalas said with a nervous laugh. "This is the other one. Damn thing doesn't work. See for yourself."

Cold broke out over Challis' skin as she shot back into her own head. She kept her eyes on the man's boots. The moment he moved forward toward Rasalas, he would no longer be in front of the door.

It was a terrible idea.

She took a shaky, silent breath, the muscles in her legs tight with adrenaline. The firm feeling that had been unmistakable in Rasalas' head still pounded through her: a resolve to push through, to fight for another day, for something better. He was a dreamer. But if he could think that way, then so could she.

"Do you know," Lakko was saying, "what these last seven days have done to me, Gannagen? I've been looking forward to this moment almost as much as the tripwire itself. Nowhere to run now, is there?"

Challis ran. The moment Lakko's boots shifted forward, she slipped silently behind him and grabbed the handle of the cell door. It had indeed bounced back so she only had to give a sharp pull enough to open a gap big enough to fit through. The marvelous door didn't even squeak as it opened, and Challis darted out to freedom. She had to get to the horses.

Instead, she whumped straight into something so hard that it almost knocked her backward. Fortunately, his hands steadied her shoulders so she didn't fall.

"Let go of me!" she said as the other tightened his grip.

"Of course." Drunnel released her with a slight push back into the cell. He stepped in after her, his gaze sweeping over the other two before settling back onto Challis. She flew back to her feet, but she was more confused than angry. It would never have worked anyway. But, doggone these Haskes, did everybody have a bone to pick with the Gannagens today? Drunnel was tall, taller than Lakko, and now there were two Haskes too many for the small holding cell.

"What's the consensus?" she spoke into the tightness of the room. "Are you leaving us in the hands of those ignorant patrolmen?"

"Yeah, Lak," Rasalas added warily. "What's the consensus?"

Drunnel took a breath, his face settling into a half-smile with one eyebrow up, an expression that always served him well in such situations.

"That," he said grandly, "is up to you."

"Oh, lay off," Lakko cut in, his grip tightening on the crop. "He's a foul thief, Drun. Nobody needs to hear whatever you have to say."

Drunnel absently reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick coil of wire. He watched, amused, as both twins twitched forward just a little, and then he sidestepped to Lakko and handed it to him. Lakko flung it over the back of his neck with a sound of relief. Rasalas paled and backed away a step.

"You want to stay in the program, don't you?" Drunnel went on as if nothing had happened. "Did I ever mention how much money can be built on the grounds of maccoton research?"

"No," Challis said. "Continue."

"Listen to this. You have a debt to pay, no? Bill after bill coming out of nowhere, with interest piling up? This would cover that, and more. Perhaps even… forgive my speculation, but perhaps even a reversal surgery of sorts. Back where it all started, in Cormellican."

Challis looked in disbelief at Rasalas, who was slowly working his jaw as he still watched Lakko. He gave a small shake of his head, then a small tilt to one side. Whatever that meant.

"You, lass…"

She jerked her gaze back to Drunnel. His eyes crinkled.

"You can manage animals. Big ones. A rare talent."

He took a step towards her, lifting his hands out to the side just a little. Challis backed away a step. What did he want, a hug?

"Well, not without… well, only with…" she stammered, not daring to look at Rasalas.

"What you can do with those thrikes, Challis," Drunnel said softly, "that's exactly the kind of competence we need for this expedition to succeed. I'm not lying to you," he insisted, his clipped accent more prominent. Challis crossed her arms and looked away. "We've been on the tails of those maccotons ever since the first sightings, and do you know what we've found out?"

"No."

"Intelligence. Real, developed, and probably as exotic an efflux as you can imagine. We need you, Challis. We need you to control them. I know you've tasted the tripwire. Let me offer you more, and you can put it to good use."

The room was silent as the words sunk in.

"Blast my trippers," Rasalas said loudly. Or rather, he said something much worse that left nothing to the imagination. He fisted up his hands and growled, "You'd put her in the front line to meet those monsters head-on? And at the cost of a tripwire? Over my dead body."

"Your word," Drunnel interrupted before he could go on. He looked earnestly at Challis, so much so that she almost believed him. "Your word that you'll help us, and we won't let them take you back to Polescos under arrest."

She tensed. "You can do that?"

He nodded slowly.

"I promise."

Challis stared at the man, captivated by the words. The bittersweet thought came that maybe she wasn't just a nobody. Someone needed her, someone besides her twin brother. She couldn't disappear anymore, couldn't run, but maybe… maybe it was better this way.

Just as before, at their first meeting, it was Drunnel who was sparking that hope inside her. Maybe they really could get out of this after all. She thought of the dull reality of arrest and imprisonment back in Polescos, where they had nothing but debt and disapproval. And if Rasalas couldn't remember anything about what happened, or why Corvin had gotten into the hospital, the legal side of things would get into an impossible tangle.

And then there were their own hospital bills. After they had lost their mother, Challis' treatment went so horribly wrong, one surgery had turned into three, and they were buried so deep in debt that they lost everything they had. She remembered when her father came home late one night, once Chief Director of all local pterosaur services, now nothing. After her first week on the bare rooftop of the tiny lodge, it had all been too much. Tears, and racking despair, and an aching in her head that threatened never to go away. There had been a knife, too. But Rasalas was there, always there, and he wouldn't let her. Fight for another day, for something better, he had said.

For a long time, she hated him for that.

They still had active vitasnap patches from their exposure to Cormellican technology, not even a decade ago. A reversal surgery… was such a thing even possible?

"No," Rasalas spoke up again, more desperate. "Hell no. Chall, listen to me, it's all nugget."

No one was listening. The Haskes were watching his sister more intently than anyone had a right to. She had her eyes fixed on Drunnel, who was putting on a marvelous show of smiling and breathing as if he wasn't chasing down every piece of knowledge he had about the Gannagen twins for something else to say. Something to wipe that calculating look off Challis' face.

The room was so physically still that the flux began to settle, dormant once more despite the thrumming tension.

Challis finally blinked away from Drunnel and felt the lift away from his gaze like a load coming off her shoulders.

"You're right," she said. All three of the men's mouths opened to say something, but she pressed forward. "Right, as always, Ras."

His shoulders slumped and he said wearily, "Thank you."

"But," Challis went on. "He's also right. We need this expedition. And it needs me."

Drunnel and Lakko shared a glance. Then Drunnel took two long strides to Challis, snapping out a hand to grab her collar.

"Thank you," he declared, all pretentiousness gone. "We'll take you, then, and leave him."

His other hand seized her arm, fingernails digging in, and he ignored her cries of pain as he started towing her like a mutton sack toward the door.

Rasalas gave a shout and lunged toward them. Lakko saw it coming, and his meaty fist thunked him in the middle, right in the stubnicker. Rasalas grunted and stumbled, one hand sliding on the floor until he landed hard on his side. Lakko's full weight crunched him down onto his front and flattened the air out of him. At first, Rasalas didn't notice a cold wire, the tripwire he'd stolen from a dead fox, wrapping around his throat until he felt Lakko's hands scrabbling to cross its ends behind his neck. He abandoned any attempt to roll and grabbed frantically at it. It doesn't work. Panic exploded hot through him.

"Stop. Where did that come from?" Drunnel halted his dragging, staring. "Where in the good earth did you get a wire, you gutless scoundrel!"

Challis went numb as everything, the pain in her arm, the fury at Drunnel, vanished into sheer terror for Rasalas. She could only watch him purpling and choking, as helpless as if he hadn't been taking tripwire stimulants for the last few months. The FHF agents were just too strong.

Hers was also distracted. Challis ripped her mind out of its frozen state and forced her terror into action. She let its intensity crash through her as she twisted hard, planted the feet, and jammed her right elbow backwards into Drunnel's stomach. When he bent over with a grunt, she bent with him, low enough to sock the side of his knee with her fist.

It didn't crumple him as she had hoped. Rather, the blow backfired with rattling pain through her hand without any noticeable effect on the knee at all. As she took a moment to gasp, her feet left the ground without her permission and she was caught in the meanest, squeeziest bear hug from behind that she had ever experienced. Drunnel's arms tightened the breath out of her lungs, and she kicked uselessly in the air until her feet finally slapped the concrete again.

She fought in a breath, then forced it out again in a string of heated words.

"We know what's in those caves, you monster," she gasped. "Tell him to let Ras go or –" She tried to kick her heels back at his shins. "Or we're telling everyone your secret!"

Drunnel released her suddenly, spinning her to face him. He grabbed her chin with one hand, forcing her eye contact from six inches away.

"What did you say?" he said savagely. "How do you know about those caves?"

Challis gritted her teeth. Drunnel let go and backhanded her across the face. Then he turned, his voice flat.

"Lak, kill him."