"It's too dangerous."

"I don't hear you suggesting any other alternatives."

"She'll get killed out there."

"We'll be backing her up! They won't get within a mile of her."

"It's not safe."

"And she'll never be safe again. Not in this line of work."

"You know what I mean."

I leaned my head back against the hard wooden chair and closed my eyes. I rubbed at my temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache pulsing through my skull. We'd been at this for hours and we were no closer to finding a solution to locate my brother than when we started. The best anyone had come up with thus far was to stick me out in a public place, have me create a scene that would pretty much land me on the radar of everyone trying to find me, and try to pick up a trail from there.

Brent had shot that plan down pretty quickly but it hadn't stopped Gregory Lauer from trying to persuade him otherwise. Lauer was, apparently, a trusted ally. He was an old friend of Brent's, and my father's, apparently. Lauer had worked on a few missions with Jack Briar long before my mother entered the picture. He'd never met her and it apparently showed for, when I first walked into the room, he looked me up and down and said, with blatant astonishment, "That's Jack's kid? Doesn't look a thing like him."

Lydia had pursed her lips. Brent's had formed into a thin line. Daniel's parents looked distinctly uncomfortable. Professors McCarthy and Cunningham, along with and Ms. Perth, were all seated around one of the long lunch tables. My old teaching staff was a comforting sight—if there was anyone who knew exactly what I was capable and what I could, and couldn't, handle, it would be them.

As the veteran operatives argued, Lia doodled on a notepad beside me. Tasha was down in one of the sublevels with another of our old professors, Professor Monroe. The two of them were attempting to track Scorpions' movements. While it was unlikely, we were hoping that they would slip up and lead us to my brother. Or, at the very least, they'd send a ransom letter. I didn't want to admit it but the latter seemed the more likely of the two.

On my other side was Max. He'd been particularly engaged throughout most of the discussion but his attention had begun to wane a half-hour earlier. I didn't blame him. They'd been talking themselves in circles all day.

And then there was Daniel. I wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten himself in here. It seemed like the kind of top-secret event his parents might have wanted to keep him firmly away from. He was particularly interested in what everyone was saying, his eyes jumping from person to person throughout the entirety of the conversation. He was seated next to his father, arms propped against the tabletop, beside another woman I recognized.

Rachel Trotter. She, along with Brent, had come to recruit me for Oaks when I was fourteen. It was only now that I learned she'd been good friends with my biological mother, Elizabeth. They'd practically been sisters. She'd hugged me tightly when I'd walked into the room and smiled warmly. I hadn't seen her since I'd been dropped off at the school nearly four years ago.

"Are you all right?" Lia murmured to me under her breath. No one paid us any mind. Brent and Lauer were still arguing away.

"Fine," I grumbled as I opened my eyes to look at her. "But this is a waste of time."

She hummed in agreement but otherwise stayed silent. Until we had an exact location on my brother's movements, there wasn't really much else we could. I had the sinking feeling that, even if I did go out and make a scene, it might take more than that to get Scorpion at my doorstep. They were an elite group, strong and smart and lethal. There was no chance that they would fall for a trap like that.

"Well, I don't hear you suggesting anything, Grimes."

Brent glowered at Lauer. Lydia put a restraining hand on her husband's shoulder but her expression was as dark and bleak as his was. "I'm just trying to make sure that someone is thinking of Melanie's wellbeing. As far as I can tell, the only thing that you're interested in is stopping Scorpion with no regard for anyone else."

"Jack would want—"

"Jack would want us to make sure that his family was safe before anything else."

The two men glared across the table at each other. It was clear that they had no chance of seeing eye-to-eye. Brent looked like it was taking everything he had not to hit Lauer in the face repeatedly. The air grew tense and I was dreading the fact that someone, probably me, was going to have to diffuse the tension, just as a soft pattering of footsteps headed towards the table.

I looked up as Tasha entered with Professor Monroe. Her face was clouded, his trouble, and they both looked as if they had horrible news to tell. My heart crashed into my stomach and for a moment I could hardly breath. The only thing on my mind was my brother.

"Tash—" I croaked.

Her eyes flitted to me, remorse written in their depths before she turned back to the seasoned operatives who had taken charge of this whole ordeal. "They sent a ransom," she said and slid a photograph across the table.

It was Malcolm who picked it up. His eyes raked over the image once before he passed it along. The picture floated around the room in unbreakable silence before it came to me. I stared down at the photograph with unimaginable horror running through me.

The picture was crystal-clear, not a grain or spot in sight, and dark. The main focus of the image, though, was bright and easily distinguishable. My brother, strapped down to a simple wooden chair, beaten and bloodied. There were shadowy bruises on his skin, especially around his left eye, and it looked as if there was some dried blood on his forehead. His eyes, bright azure, bored into mine accusingly. Someone off camera was holding a gun to his temple. A piece of paper was held upright in my brother's grasp with bold lettering printed upon it.

PARIS CATACOMBS. JULY 7. 8 AM. JUST THE GIRL OR HE DIES.

Two days. That was all I had. I was looking at less than forty-eight hours before they killed my brother.

Unless I went to meet them.

"No," Max said. He was studying my face. Saw the determined expression that had flitted through my eyes. "They'll kill you."

"I won't let them murder my brother. Wes has no part in this. I have to go." Surely he would see that.

Everyone was looking at me. And where before they had borne differing expressions of anger, now they all stared at me with the same gaze. All of them were saying "No, you're not going."

"Melanie," Brent began.

"You can't," Malcolm cut in.

"It's too dangerous," Grace added though she looked at me with remorse. She knew my brother; knew how good of a kid he was. The look in her eyes was akin to the thought of losing a child and I got the feeling that this was nearly as hard on her as it was on me.

"I don't care about the danger," I snarled. "I care that my brother is safe! If you don't let me go, they will kill him." Max laid a restraining hand on my shoulder. I shrugged him off. "We finally have a location on where my brother is going to be and we're going to do nothing about it? I can't believe this!"

Malcolm shook his head at me. "Of course, we're not going to do nothing, Melanie."

"Malcolm's right," Brent added. "We'll go in for your brother. You will stay here while we do so, where you're safe."

"Stay here? Seriously?"

"To keep you safe," Lydia enunciated. "Right now, you're in a secure location. The second we take you out of here, we're playing right into what Scorpion wants. You'll be much easier to target when you're out in the open. At least here we can monitor your position and ensure that nothing happens to you."

"I deserve to be there. I'm the reason that our parents are dead and that he's been beaten to shit. It's all my fault," I stressed. "I can't take the risk that you'll get to him before they realize that I'm not there. The second they know that I haven't come, he's dead. You have to believe that he's dead."

I looked to everyone in turn, making sure my gaze was lingering and intense. Nearly everyone stared back at me with remorse and iron-clad resolve. Max and Lia just barely met my gaze and I knew that they, too, we're not on my side. No one was going to let me leave.

My chair scraped against the floor, emitting a large squeal, as I kicked it back away from the table. I rose to my feet and strode out of the room, ignoring the calls that followed after me. I had nothing else to say to any of them. Not until they accepted the fact that I needed to be there. Without me, my brother was doing to die.

God, I needed to hit something.

I swept into the hallway, my steps silent and sure. It was strange being here at Oaks in the summer. Despite the fact that I'd never had an official home to return to during holidays, I'd never spent a break at the school. I'd always gone home with Lia or Tasha. The silence that echoed throughout the building was deafening. I missed the business, the way that I could slip into a passageway undetected or move throughout a crowd without being seen. The openness of the empty corridors was confining.

I walked through the hallways, fuming silently, until I hit the library. Normally, I would have made my way towards the little secret alcove tucked away behind the stacks of books, but this time I went to an easily identifiable window-seat and plopped down on the hard wooden bench. I stared out through the paned glass, my eyes trained on the green grass grounds below. Beyond, I could see the little pond where we'd picnicked the day I'd found out about my mom's death. It seemed like so long ago now but also as if it were yesterday. This whole experience was like a bad dream. I just needed to wake up.

My head tilted back against the cool glass and I wrapped my arms around my knees. I knew that, in another room, they were probably all talking about possible extraction plans and ways to leave me out of the fight while ensuring my brother's safety and still managing to get the intel they needed to shut Scorpion down for good. But, from what I'd been observing, there was no way to leave me out of this. What was more, I was getting the feeling like I was supposed to be a part of it all.

Now, I didn't believe in destiny. It was hard to make sense of the idea that everyone was born with a sole purpose in life. This mission wasn't my fate. However, it was difficult to deny the fact that I had a concrete role in this insane play. Jack and Elizabeth Briar had given me up so that they could stop Scorpion's work. My parents had died for this. Wes was being punished to bait me. Everything revolved around me. There was no other explanation. I was in this. Whether I wanted to be or not, whether everyone else wanted me to be or not, I was in this.

I closed my eyes, thinking back to everything that had happened over the past few weeks. I tried to think of anything, anything, that might persuade them to let me go with them. Even without their cooperation, there was no way that I was getting left behind. If I had to, I would stow away.

That was when something clicked.

"Find her," I whispered to myself as the piece fell into place.

"Mel?" Max asked.

I looked over to him in a flash. He'd appeared out of nowhere, as he often did. He was standing a few feet away, in between two stacks, with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. He looked wary, as if he weren't certain how I would interpret his presence.

"Find her," I said to him.

He raised an eyebrow at me and took a few cautious steps closer. "Should I know what that means?"

"The night of our Covert Ops final," I explained. My thoughts were flying. In all the craziness lately I'd all but forgotten about the break-in at the school. It'd never even crossed my mind that something like that could pertain to me but it was the only explanation I could come up with. "The attack. Those men said to 'find her.' What are the odds that a group of people break into our school looking for a girl from our class a few days before my life goes to shit?"

Now, Max was frowning. "Very unlikely."

"You know what this means, right?"

Max just stared at me, waiting silently.

I licked my dry lips. "Oaks isn't as safe as we thought. If they got in once..."

"They could do it again. Dammit," Max swore. He walked over and came to sit beside me. He was tall enough that his feet hit the floor when he sat. "You have to tell them that Oaks has been compromised." There was no missing the 'them' he was talking about. I was completely certain that the Grimes, the Ortiz's, Rachel Trotter, Gregory Lauer, and all of our teachers were arguing substantially a few paces away down the hall.

"What's the point?" I asked him.

"Mel?"

I sighed. "Nowhere I go will be safe, Max. This is an elite organization of killers. They know what they're doing. The only reason I'm still alive is because they want me alive."

"For your father," he commented.

"For Jack Briar," I agreed.

Max regarded me for a moment. "Do you think he's alive?"

"The other agents don't seem to think so. Brent doesn't think that he is."

"What do you think?"

What did I think? About my father? About this whole damn situation? I didn't really know. It was all so complicated. I wasn't prepared for this situation. There was no guidebook, no mission outline, which could have prepped me for this. I'd been having a hard enough time deciding which agency to pick. Now, I had to worry, truly worry, about my life. For the first time, it really hit me that I was in grave danger. Scorpion wasn't going to stop until they had me right where they wanted me.

"I don't know," I said at last. "I think that if he were dead then Scorpion wouldn't be pushing so hard to find me unless they thought that he and my mother left Vavilov's research with me when they left, which is a very real possibility. And I think that if they killed him we would know. His body would have been found. They would have put him on full display."

Max nodded. "I agree. So, if Briar really is alive, how do we contact him? It seems to me like he's the only one who might know what to do. After being undercover with them for so long, he has to be the only person alive who might be able to give us the information we need that could potentially take Scorpion down and get to your brother."

"He won't be lured out easily. He's stayed undetected for so long that he knows how to blend in and not draw attention to himself. There's no chance that he'll slip up."

"Then we need to go to him. Make sure that we can draw him out just enough to determine his location and then find him but not enough to lead Scorpion to his door. It'll have to be a quick op. As discreet as possible." Max was staring at me pointedly.

"You want me to draw him out." Not a question.

"I think you might be the only one who can."

I leaned my head back against the wooden frame of the wall. I didn't think that Max was necessarily wrong about that fact. It seemed like all of Brent and Lydia's attempts to contact him had fallen short. If I couldn't get him to come out of hiding, then it was pretty likely that no one could.

But it wasn't something I wanted to talk about right now. My head was pounding and I was feeling queasy. To make things worse, my brain kept sending up images of that stupid ransom note every time I closed my eyes. My brother's skin, bruised and bloodied, kept replaying like a movie stream on the backs of my eyelids.

"Say something else," I said to Max. "Take my mind off of all this shit. I need to forget about it. Just for a moment."

Max released a long stream of air. "So, that's Daniel, hmm? The childhood best friend."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah."

He nodded. "I can see why the two of you were mates. He's very friendly."

"Oh, yeah? You two talk a lot last night? Stay up and paint each other's nails and have pillow fights in your dorm room?"

"Not really my style."

I grinned. "Figures. It's so hard to find a guy who doesn't appreciate a good pillow fight. I don't know what it is that Lia sees in you. But, seriously, what did the two of you talk about last night? If I know Daniel, then he probably asked you half a million questions."

Max shrugged. "He did. Wanted to know about the school and what we do here. Mainly, though, he wanted to know about you."

"Me?"

"Wanted to know what I thought of you. What kind of person you were now compared to when you first arrived, among other things. I told him that I thought you were a heartless fiend with no regard for individual space or personal hygiene." He looked at me with mirth, clearly joking, before his expression sobered. "I think he's missed you, Mel. And I think that he's not quite sure what to make of this new you that's come back to him."

"I'd feel the same way if I were him."

"I mean it. He watches you when you're not looking at him and his expression always seems to mirror someone who's lost. This is a scary world for us all, Melanie. But it's particularly scary for him. It's all new. He got no easy transition. Just the other day he was a normal person and now he's been thrust headfirst into a world where his parents are CIA operatives, one of his closest friends has been kidnapped by a terrorist organization, and his childhood best friend who he thought was dead isn't anymore. He's got to be dreadfully confused. I think you should talk to him."

I sighed, seeing his reasoning with such clarity it was almost painful. "You're probably right. You always are."

Max laugh and his expression lightened considerably. He patted my knee and rose to his feet. "Go talk to Daniel, Mel. I mean it."

He walked away, leaving me staring after him. I watched as his back disappeared around the bend and then turned my attention back out the window. The sky was starting to darken in true England fashion as a storm began to brew. It would be pouring rain within a few minutes and likely wouldn't stop for some time.

I'd always enjoyed the rain. Storms had been a steady comfort for me throughout my life and there'd been plenty of times that I'd found myself staring out a window long into the night while lightning flashed across the sky. And when I'd been a child, I'd sat and looked out into that same view with my brother by my side. It was one of the things we'd always shared.

I swung my feet off the side of the bench and stood as a lump formed in my throat. I could only imagine what my brother was enduring right now and the image my mind threw up was not a pleasant one. Wes wasn't a fighter. He didn't know how to survive this. Not like I did. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that Wes would be dead if I didn't get to him in the next two days.

The hallways were just as empty as they'd been previously. There was no noise, no sound of chatter or footsteps. Just long shadows coming in through the blinds on the tall windows that adorned the south wall of the corridor. And then I turned the corner and ran smack