The revelations from the night before haunted Lysander the entire next day at work. Sam kept trying to involve him in office discussions, but he quickly lost the thread of any conversation, finding himself staring at random points on the wall and remembering that his foster father was hiring Shifted and that they could somehow survive outside the Barrier. He felt disconnected from reality, and he couldn’t make this new information line up with his world view.

“Lysander, you’re freaking me out,” Sam accused after what must have been the thirtieth time he fell into his own thoughts.

“What? Oh, uh, I’m sorry. I just feel a little weird,” he said, chuckling a little.

“You’ve been staring into the middle distance for the better part of three hours,” Blair told him, her tone even and no nonsense.

“Ah, I know. I’m sorry,” he said again.

“No need for apologies. Just pointing it out so you could maybe stop doing it.” Blair habitually pointed out things that she thought Sam and he could stop doing.

“Right, okay,” he murmured.

“It’s no big deal. We’re just worried, is all,” Sam spoke up, cutting a look at Blair.

“I’m really fine, no worries, seriously. Let’s just get this mock-up done,” he said, shuffling his idea pile around to keep his hands busy, thoughts beginning to turn once more to Red’s face as she told him the truth of things.

“Maybe you should just head home? You look pale,” Sam said, biting her lip. Blair immediately stood from her chair and laid the back of her hand on his forehead.

“Hm, no fever, but Sam’s right. You’re distracting us like this,” she said.

Startled, he looked between them, Blair staring him down and Sam trying to avoid his gaze. “Oh god, I’m so sorry. I’m fine, for real. I can do this,” he reaffirmed, clicking open a pen and sliding Sam’s layout plan over to him to look over. His anxiety over inconveniencing them kept him from losing his train of thought again, and he was able to work in earnest. While he scribbled some suggestions on Blair’s idea sheet, he overheard the two having a whispered argument.

“You didn’t have to say it like that, Blair, that was horrible,” Sam whispered aggressively. She had the kind of whisper that carried across a room.

“I don’t see the problem, Sam. He deserves to know what we’re thinking about him,” Blair replied.

“The problem is that we seem like assholes!”

“Untrue. I think he appreciates knowing how we feel.”

“Maybe, but you didn’t have to say it like that,” Sam finished lamely. In this case, Blair had the right of it. Lysander would rather know that he was hampering them than continue on obliviously, but he also understood Sam’s hesitance. After the big rejection of the previous year, Blair had found him curled up in a stall in the men’s restroom crying after he had been missing for a half hour. It had only been once at work, but he admitted to his colleagues afterwards that he was suffering from pretty frequent panic attacks. Blair took the news in stride, but Sam still walked a bit on eggshells around him, scared of triggering his nerves.

“Hey, Lysander! We’re gonna get some drinks after work tonight. Wanna join?” Sam piped up. The inclusion was nice, but he felt the sting of only being invited because she was worried that they had hurt his feelings.

“Oh, nah, that’s alright. I have plans with Miria tonight,” he said.

“That’ll be nice then! Have fun!”

“Of course, thanks.”

Blair gave him a contemplative look but kept whatever thoughts she had to herself. The rest of the work shift passed quickly. Miria met him outside his office once more, smile widening at his appearance. He waved goodbye to Sam and Blair and returned Miria’s smile with an exhausted one of his own. Sleep had not come easy the night before, his mind spinning in circles and going down crazy rabbit holes.

“Oh no! You sleepy, Lys?” Miria asked in concern, “You have giant circles under your eyes. It’s awful.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, brushing off her worry.

“We can reschedule? I don’t mind.” She smiled up at him once more, and he was struck anew by how much shorter she was, the crown of her head just reaching the center of his chest. Even Red outstripped Miria in height, Red only a head shorter than himself.

“God no, I’ve been looking forward to this,” he confessed.

And he had been. Spending some quality time with Miria seemed to him just what the doctor ordered. Just a nice evening away from all the craziness going on in the rest of his private life. He could spend a night pretending he wasn’t plotting to fake murder her father. That thought broke the wave of contentment that had been creeping over his shoulders and jerked him back to full anxiety. He had to believe that she would understand his reasons if she ever learned the truth. But then again, his whole modus operandi involved keeping her out of it. He didn’t want her darkened by the reality of what her father planned. She already spent too much time feeling disillusioned by Joseph Campbell, she didn’t need to have any more of his sins lurking over her head.

“Great! Me too!” With a little skip, she gestured him across the street to a conveniently located Italian place. Italian was their favorite cuisine and Caruso’s was their favorite place to eat it. It was just gravy that the restaurant happened to be across from their workplace. As soon as they stepped inside, the scents of basil and garlic assaulted their nostrils, causing his stomach to growl in anticipation.

They spent the rest of the evening in companionable conversation, chatting over garlic bread and salad and pasta. He felt a thin sheen of olive oil coating his lips from the house Italian dressing as he mopped up the last bits of it from his bowl with his bread. Popping the bread into his mouth, he groaned in satisfaction, hands settling over his full stomach. Miria giggled into the napkin she was using to dab her own lips. She had missed a small spot of marinara on her cheek and he motioned to it, trying to show her where it was on his own face.

“You got a little sauce there, Mir.”

A panicked look swept over her features, and she started scrubbing at her cheek with the napkin. “Oh jeez, I’m such a mess,” she said with a laugh that did nothing to hide her nerves.

“Stop, stop,” he said, reaching across the small table and grabbing her arm. She settled at his touch, hands falling to her lap where she started to fold her napkin back into its original square shape. “How was your dinner with Mr. Campbell last night?”

She glanced up at him through her eyelashes, “It was fine. Nothing new.”

He didn’t fully believe that. She always got overly obsessive about the neatness of her appearance after Joseph cut her down. He should have noticed the signs sooner: the mechanical perfection in the sweep of her eyeliner, each strand of her hair sprayed into full obedience, every wrinkle obsessively removed from the length of her dress.

“Did your uncle end up showing up?” he asked. Anthony Campbell had a habit of showing up places he was barely invited to, barging in as if he owned the space.

“Mm, no. Uncle Tony knows when my dad wants some time alone with me,” she answered. Lysander was glad that Anthony hadn’t made an appearance, but he still felt uneasy with Miria’s reactions.

“You can talk to me, Mir. That’s what I’m here for,” he said quietly, trying to coax her out of the shell she had buried herself in.

“I know that, Lys. It’s really no big deal, though. He’s my dad, he just worries about me,” she said, giving him a smile. The look screamed farce, but he didn’t want to call her out on it and make her retreat further into herself. He believed she would talk to him when she was ready. And if not, then he was already in the process of solving the problem, so everything would work out.

“If you say so,” he replied.

“I do say so. Now, let’s get outta here. We still have work in the morning,” she said while standing. She took the check to the counter and paid while he ran to the restroom and washed his hands. They said their goodbyes outside the restaurant before splitting and going their separate ways.

As he made his way to the train station, he heard low voices coming from an alley, sounding heated. One voice sounded familiar, but it was difficult to tell with how far down the alley they were. His anxiety begged him to continue moving, but his brain clicked with the realization that the person he recognized was indeed Red.

Of course it is, he thought to himself. She was lurking near him again, and his curiosity finally forced his stiff limbs to creep a few steps into the alleyway, hiding behind a dumpster and a stack of cardboard. Red and whoever she was arguing with were just around the first corner that led behind the row of buildings further down the alley, but it was too dark to make out their shapes. He kneeled down to make himself smaller and wondered what twist of fate had him skulking around dank alleys and eavesdropping on his acquaintances.

“Remind me what you’re doing here, kid?” Red’s voice came from around the corner, irritation causing it to rise in volume. He heard a murmured reply from the other person, the tone sounding male. “Oh yeah? Well, listen here, this is my job, got it? And if I catch you wandering around him again, I will kill that pretty little brunette you’ve been seeing.”

The statement made his knees turn to jelly and he propped himself further back onto the brick wall beside him. Somehow after spending time with Red and feeding her dinner in his apartment and watching her pet his dog, he had forgotten that she was an assassin, a dangerous person by every account. Even Skittles was wary of her.

“So you can crawl back to whatever rathole you scampered out of and tell your client to fuck right off, understood?”

He heard a thud and then footsteps retreating in a run. His legs were shaking by this point, both from fear and from the struggle of supporting his weight. Shakily, he stood only to turn and find Red standing just next to him, arms crossed. He yelped and jumped back, slipping on a small puddle. He thudded to the ground, feeling pain shoot from his tailbone up his spine.

“Do you have a habit of being places you’re not supposed to, friend?” she asked, her right eyebrow climbing up her forehead.

“N-no, I just--I just thought I heard your voice. I got curious, I’m sorry,” he stammered out, still attempting to stand from where he had crumpled on the ground.

Suddenly, she grabbed a handful of his shirt and hauled him up to his feet, shoving him harder than necessary into the wall behind him before letting go. “How many times do I have to tell you not to worry about me, hm? I thought I was fairly clear,” she said, tone much harsher than anything she had directed at him previously.

He coughed at the impact, curling over a bit to catch his breath. “I know you keep saying that, but I just--”

“Just nothing, Lysander. Unless it has to do with the deal we made, stay out of my business, yeah?” she cut him off.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he began, “But, I mean, you just keep popping up places!”

“And?”

“And it’s weird. Why are you always around?” His mouth was moving entirely divorced from his mind. Internally, he cursed his nervous babbling.

“It’s not my fault that you work with our target,” she said with a shrug, her irritation finally seeming to melt away slightly.

He supposed that made sense, especially considering the restaurant he had gone to had been just across the street from his office and Joseph almost always worked late. “Okay, fine, that’s fair.”

“Go home, friend. It’s late,” she said, moving away from him and walking to the edge of the alley. He straightened to follow her, but then she turned and looked at him dead in the eyes. “Oh, and, try to stay out of the alleyways from now on, yeah? You might not like what you find.”

Then she was gone, turning left out of the alley and leaving him a shaking mess against a pile of damp cardboard. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she had just threatened him, and it took him another good minute in order to convince his body to move again.

The walk to the train station felt like the greatest challenge of his life even though he was only a block from it. The lights coming from inside called to him, seemingly offering shelter and safety. Upon seeing the glow, his pace quickened and he all but threw himself inside after scanning in.

He had been afraid often enough in his life, the feeling was anything but new, but something about Red’s demeanor and her threats to the mystery person made his heart hammer. He felt once more as though he had gotten himself into something that he had no business being a part of. Lysander Badeaux didn’t make shady deals with shady people and skulk around at night eavesdropping on a highly dangerous woman. Lysander Badeaux barely even left the safety of his apartment, for heaven’s sake!

But then Miria’s face from dinner sprung to his mind, and a snippet of the conversation from the incident two weeks ago popped in as well, and Lysander Badeaux clenched his fists and knew--knew from the deepest parts of himself, the parts of himself that may or may not have even functioned prior to this--that he was doing the right thing. That, in this case, the ends could justify the means, if it meant saving people.

At the end of it all, Joseph and Mirianna Campbell would be happy again and all would be well.

He had to believe that.

Samantha Sinclair lived in a ramshackle house that was kept standing by virtue of hopes and prayers. As she neared the front door of the one story ranch style, her youngest brother flew out the door and threw himself on her in greeting.

“Sammy! You’re home!” Charlie was twelve and still had dreams for the future, even with their mother dialed out and their father dead. He was too young to remember anything different.

“Hey Charlie! Everyone holding up okay in the homestead?” she asked, shuffling them forward so they could enter the house together.

“Yup! We’re all doing good!” he said with a smile up at her. Both Charlie and Brian--who was sixteen--still attended school, and she encouraged them to focus all their energies on that. Glancing into the living room, she saw Brian sitting on the floor on top of his sleeping bag with a book propped open on his knees. Placing a finger over her lips and shushing Charlie, she motioned them the extra few steps into the kitchen.

“I heard that, and I appreciate it,” Brian called. Charlie burst into a fit of giggles and she smiled over at him. Zane, her oldest brother at eighteen, sat hunched over a newspaper, a pen clutched in his hand. She could see several things circled and marked.

“Looking for jobs, Zane?” she asked as quietly as she could muster so she wouldn’t disturb Brian or her mother, who was almost certainly holed up in her room.

“Uh huh,” he said distractedly. He had worked tirelessly for a small ice cream joint not far from their home before it was forced to close because it lacked the resources to continue running. Not many people in this area could afford luxuries. Thankfully their food was taken care of, and Sam could funnel everything she made into the mortgage and utilities. She felt thankful to have a job at all, given how many people didn’t. Sometimes, when she was feeling especially low, she resented Lysander and Blair for working when they could very well go without. Their families would provide for them, whereas she had to provide for hers. The difference had been a monumental chasm that she had had to breach when she first started working with them, especially with Blair.

Haughty, perfect Blair.

It had taken her a long time to see behind that facade, but she was glad to be there now.

After preparing dinner, she brought a plate to her mother in her room. Emily Sinclair sat in a chair near her window, looking out at the backyard they shared with the two houses bordering them. Weeds choked out the garden near the back, and Sam had a flash of remembrance for when her father would come in with dirt stained fingers, holding fresh vegetables for them to try. Shaking herself to clear the memory, she stepped carefully through the room, avoiding the pieces of paper strewn all over the floor. All of the papers were half-finished renderings of her father’s face from different attitudes. Placing the tray on the stand next to her mother, Sam looked over her mother to ensure she looked more or less the same. Emily had a charcoal clutched in one hand, poised over a blank sheet. She glanced at the food her daughter provided and turned her attention back to the paper, finally placing the tip on the page.

Sighing, Sam left her mother to her devices, gently shutting the door behind her.