No Peace for the Damned

now,” Banks added with a sideways glance at Thirteen.
    I took the key from Thirteen. “Who else has a key?”
    He thought about that a minute. “Jon and Theo each have one. They’ve met informants here in the past.”
    “Do you have a key?” I asked Banks pointedly.
    He narrowed his gaze but said nothing.
    Thirteen said, “If you have a key, please give it to her. This is her home now. It would be an invasion of privacy for anyone else to have unfettered access.”
    Without taking his eyes from me, Banks reached into his back pocket and pulled out a large circle key ring with more keys than I could count.
How in the hell did he ever sit comfortably with a wad of metal like that in his back pocket?
    He moved his fingers swiftly, counting off the keys until he found the right one, then unwound it from the ring.
    “Someone else should have a key. A backup,” he growled, and slapped the key to my palm. Then he tromped loudly down the corridor from the kitchen and out the back door. The door slammed shut, shaking the cabinet doors.
    “If he’d just said he was keeping his key as a backup I would have understood,” I admitted to Thirteen. Wouldn’t have stopped me from making him hand it over, but I’d have understood his reasoning. “But what the hell was that all about?”
    Thirteen’s eyes were still on the back door. “With Network members missing, Banks is worried for me, that’s all.”
    But there was more he wasn’t saying, and I’d been trying to be less intrusive with Banks and Thirteen in the last couple of weeks. Maybe I needed to rethink that approach.
    “I’ll try to arrive a little early tomorrow evening. The others were shaken this afternoon, but I know they’ll have recovered and be full of questions by the time we meet again. Also, I wanted you to have a bit of time here by yourself. Get to know the place. Get as comfortable as possible before we really begin. Did you see the security monitors in the back?”
    “Yeah, I saw them.”
    “Good. I know I haven’t given you a lot of time to get things the way you like, but hopefully it will be enough.”
    Thirteen looked down at me then, and his face softened. His daughter flashed in his mind. A decade younger than me, she’d only been twelve when Thirteen’s enemies had killed her to get to him. It always made my chest swell with emotion whenever he looked at me and saw her.
    “I know the place isn’t much,” he said finally, “but it is, for all practical purposes, yours.”
    I could be suspicious of everyone else, but Thirteen’s motivations rang true for me. He wanted me to feel what the freedom of living here meant. To spread my wings and enjoy my first real taste of independence.

Eighteen seconds. That’s how long it took to walk from the front door to the back door of my farmhouse, hitting every room on the way. It had once taken me more than twelve minutes to go from one end of the estate’s main house to the other.
    I sat at the kitchen table and looked around. The sun was finally setting and shadows were growing longer. I liked that. For so long, I’d lived in the shadows. Or at least tried to.
    The far corner of the estate’s navy guest room had always had the best shadow. No one had ever thought to look for me there because it was basically out in the open. No furniture or draperies to hide behind—just darkness. That’s what made it perfect.
    I took a long, slow swallow of whiskey and shut my eyes.
    I was back in that room, hearing the footsteps tiptoeing down the hall, trying to sneak up on me. I knew they’d be coming. Their thoughts always gave them away
.
    I rolled out of the bed and silently moved into the dark corner. I slept in a different guest room every night, but they always found me. They were outside the door now. Malcolm and Markus. At least it wasn’t Father again. My ribs still ached after his little session with me the night before. He didn’t let the boys watch because it disgusted him to see how they reacted to me now that I was a teenager. But by keeping them away last night, he had guaranteed a visit this morning
.
    The door creaked open and light from the hallway spilled in behind them, keeping their faces dark
.
    “Do you see her?” Markus whispered
.
    “Shut up!” Malcolm hissed, then tried to shut the door. Markus pushed past him until he was all the way in the room. Malcolm growled
.
    I stood statue-still, not even breathing. Their matching blue eyes strained as they searched