A STREAM OF incoming messages to my communicator, each arrival punctuated with an irksome beep, ripped me out of sleep in the wee hours of morning. Outside the window, the sky was a turbulent navy with heavy gray clouds lit by the moon, which still hung lazily above the horizon. ‘Ominous’ was the first word that came to mind.

Erik groaned as I wiggled out of his warm embrace to search for my communicator. It had somehow ended up underneath the bed, cuddling with a family of dust bunnies. I shook the device free from its slumber companions. Apparently displeased by the early morning wakeup call, they flew up my nose and into my eyes in protest. I sneezed and cursed the non-furry little creatures.

“You okay down there?” Erik called drowsily.

“Fine,” I muttered as I emerged from the bunny cave and stood up. My sneezing fit continued, drawing a sleepy smile from Erik, who still had his eyes closed.

Not the best way to start my day.

Unsurprisingly, all eleven of the messages were from Victoria. The first informed me that UNITED’s cryptos had finally deciphered the time and date on the auction invitations, confirming that the event was to take place in just a few short hours. Messages two through nine were updated surveillance footage from Andrew’s Rock. Through the use of animal drones, the recon team was monitoring the premises from both the air and ground, giving UNITED a direct window into the comings and goings in the area. Even in the middle of the night, Andrew’s Rock was a hive of activity.

The last two messages both instructed me to call Victoria immediately.

The communicator beeped again as I finished reading the last message. Evidently Victoria had given up on text, because this was a voice call. Great, the councilwoman was short on patience today and didn’t trust me to obey her directives.

Less than alert, I hit the answer button before taking a good look in the standing mirror next to the privacy screen. Yikes. My hair was disheveled and frizzy from Erik running his fingers through the curls, lips swollen from hours spent molded against my boyfriend’s beautiful mouth, eyes puffy from too little sleep. And I was naked. Super professional—that was me.

“Agent Lyons,” Victoria greeted me automatically, golden eyes widening and thin lips forming an “O” when she took in my appearance.

I quickly disabled the video option, flames of humiliation engulfing every exposed freckle on my uncovered skin. Even though she’d only seen the upper portion of me—thank heavens for small favors—it was still enough for me to want to find Andrew’s Rock and immediately crawl under it.

Well, at least I can check off ‘shock-a-reaction-out-of-Victoria’ from today’s to-do list, I thought.

“Hey,” I said to cover the awkward silence from the other end of the call. “Sorry, I was sleeping. I just finished reading the messages, I’ll go wake the others now so we can go over the surveillance footage you sent.”

Following my lead and ignoring the fact she’d just seen more of me than either of us was comfortable with, Victoria’s response was professional.

“You received it then? Very good. Thus far we have been lucky, no one has spotted the drones. They will remain in place throughout the day to allow the council to keep an eye on things. That way, should you need reinforcements, we will know immediately.

“I need Agent Kelley and Agent Longpre in the conference room in one hour for a briefing with the strike teams. There are five groups, each comprised of ten agents, ready to leave for Andrew’s Rock on my word. Departing from Bern on their hovercrafts, it will take approximately nineteen minutes to reach you. Please keep that in mind. We will try to have one team in position nearby, but we cannot raise alarms by being too close.”

“Do you want me to pass all of that along?” I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

Erik was lying on his back in the middle of the bed, one arm thrown over his face to shield his eyes from the small lamp I’d turned on. The other was reaching out blindly in my general direction. Taking Erik’s hand, I climbed back onto the bed and let him pull me close.

“No need, I have sent everyone their orders and the relevant information,” Victoria replied.

“Okay,” I said, steeling myself for the councilwoman’s next words. No way had she called me at four in the morning just to make sure I’d received the surveillance footage.

Silence from the other end of the communicator had me double-checking the connection. Still intact.

“Is there anything else?” I finally prompted.

Victoria’s sigh was long and tired, and I wondered whether she’d been to bed yet. Suddenly, my three hours of sleep seemed indulgent.

“Talia…,” she began, and my ears perked up.

Victoria rarely used my first name. Sometimes, when she was particularly pissed, she’d use ‘Natalia’. It was always spoken in a patronizing tone that set my teeth on edge. But just then, the councilwoman’s tone lacked any trace of condescension. It was more beseeching, like she was about to ask a favor that I was unlikely to grant.

Despite his moans and groans, Erik was awake. And listening to our conversation. Hearing my first name from Victoria caused Erik to stiffen, as well. Like me, he knew whatever she had to say was serious and probably not good.

“Um, yes?” I replied hesitantly.

“The council has received credible intel. From our undercover agents inside many of the foreign governments.”

“Okay….”

Erik and I exchanged an uneasy glance. His hand tightened reflexively on my waist, calloused fingers squeezing the skin just above my hipbone.

“As of right now, a majority of the Joint Nations representatives plan to vote against renewing the Treaty.”

A spasm of pain lanced through my core. It was one thing to discuss the Treaty being overturned in the abstract. But knowing that our supporters were officially in the minority was a different beast altogether.

“This isn’t really possible, right?” I asked Erik, my thoughts rushing on before he could answer. “I mean, they can’t really make being Talented illegal, right? They can’t really send all of the Talents to the island. They know there isn’t enough room. They know that, so they can’t really say everyone has to go there. Right? Right?”

Erik didn’t answer me, his brain was whizzing through the progression of events in the world and trying to come to grips with it logically. Understandably, with the Created making headlines from Tokyo to Manhattan, everyone was scared. The non-Talented were scared of the Talented. UNITED was scared of the vigilante justice those scared individuals were seeking. The members of the Joint Nations were scared of the chaos devolving into war. To them, peaceful coexistence of our races probably seemed like a relic from the good old days. So UNITED’s preemptive measures—preparing the islands for additional refugees, recruiting Erik to be the face of the Created—made sense. Ignorance wasn’t bliss in this situation. Ignoring the probability that our kind was doomed for exile was naïve.

Until Victoria uttered the words, I’d evidently been naïve, myself. Until that moment, a part of me truly believed that UNITED was being overly pessimistic. That once a decade every Talented-based organization lamented over the possibly of our kind being condemned to life on the islands. Only eight years old during the last Treaty vote, I barely remembered my parents discussing it at all, let alone worrying about whether it would pass. In hindsight, I should have been aware that all the news reports and conversation about the vote were abnormal. Sure, my parents were not likely to have shared their concerns with a child. But my Talents had been strong, even then, and I hadn’t yet learned boundaries when it came to reading minds. I’d known every worry that crossed the minds of my parents, even though I’d been too young to appreciate what most of them meant.

“So, what’s your plan, Victoria?” Erik demanded, shocking me back to the present. “Or is UNITED just throwing in the towel now? Have you already announced the lottery?”

“No, Erik,” Victoria said quickly, unfazed to discover our conversation had a third-party. “We are going to fight this until the end. But we need to be prepared and we need to be smart. It is imperative that you get every last Created out of that auction house. We want the Talented, but we need the Created. If we are indeed exiled, they will become more valuable than you can imagine. And more dangerous than anyone can appreciate right now.

“Should the Treaty indeed be revoked, the Talented and Created will become extremely rare and therefore valuable. Groups like the Poachers will become more common because Talent trafficking will be, technically speaking, legal. Their only hindrance will then be a shortage of supply to fill the immense demand.”

“Right, I understand all of that,” I said, though not really sure I did.

Victoria had already said all of those things to us, and she did not waste time repeating herself. So what was so important that Victoria felt the need to reiterate the information?

Sensing I was missing the bigger picture, Erik spoke up.

“What do you do when you don’t have enough of something, Tals?”

His voice was low and eerily calm. Erik only used that tone when he was battling his temper for control, and close to losing the fight.

I shook my head. Between the hour, my lack of sleep, and the eight billion thoughts running through my head, I was being painfully slow on the uptake.

“You make more,” Victoria supplied softly.

The metaphorical lightbulb over my head turned on, then overloaded and shattered.

“Can they do that?” I demanded angrily, confounded that I hadn’t caught on sooner. “I mean, I know they can theoretically, with the Creation drug. But they’d have to find it first. And then make it. UNITED has the only remaining vials of the drug, right? And the formula? It took TOXIC scientists years to perfect it, even having like ninety-nine percent of the research done for them already.”

By my father, I added silently, the admission too painful to say aloud. I didn’t like to think about my father and the role he played in the Creation Project. He’d been the one to develop the idea and the formulation. Even though I knew he’d had nothing but the best intentions, a tiny, sick part of me blamed him for unleashing this plague onto the world. I hated that part of me.

Focus, Talia, I chastised myself, shaking my head to clear the traitorous thoughts.

“Anyhow,” I continued. “They can’t just make more, they don’t have what they need. It’s not like we’re going to send gift-wrapped bottles of the drug to the Poachers, so…shit. Shit, I am so stupid.”

Neither Erik nor Victoria spoke, giving me time to grasp how truly perilous the situation was.

The Poachers didn’t need the formula, or UNITED’s stash of the drug. A simple blood transfusion was sufficient to transmit both the drug and a talent signature, the distinguishing mark in our DNA that identified us as Talented. Back when I’d been given Donavon’s blood, I’d needed to be given a daily shot of the drug, to keep everything stabilized. Since then, the drug had been improved and it was no longer necessary. The last shots they’d given me, of the new formula, proved that. All anyone needed to make more Created were Created. Which the Poachers had, locked in cells underneath their house of horrors.

Erik rubbed my side soothingly.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tals. It’s early, you’re still half asleep.”

“Not anymore,” I muttered. The epiphany I’d just had was more effective at waking my senses than a shot of pure adrenaline.

Even Victoria seemed to pity my witlessness. Her voice carried sympathy when she spoke next. I’d never heard that tone from her. It was almost worse than her condescension, even though she didn’t mean it to be.

“Yes, Talia. The drug flows through every Created’s veins. Just as Donavon McDonough inadvertently infected you, the Poachers will be able to purposefully infect others.”

Donavon’s name was already a knife in my heart. The reminder that it was his blood that made me Created was another twist of the blade. Just like with my father, I despised the part of me that hated Donavon for infecting me. Every time my mood spiraled or my temper flared to all new heights or I began to question my sanity, I cursed Donavon in one breath. And in the next, told myself that I wouldn’t be feeling anything at all without his actions. I would be dead, no question about it.

Even on my best days, I questioned whether the tradeoff was worth the price I’d one day pay. I was living on borrowed time. Just because the drug had yet to eat holes in my brain, the outcome was inevitable. Or so UNITED’s big fancy research scientists believed.

Once, during an interrogation, I’d gone too far, used too much power in my haste to prove the accused innocent. As a result, Ernest Tate, a friend and colleague at the McDonough School, was left brain-dead. Instead of only searching his memories for answers, I’d stolen his past and robbed him of a future. Of all the horrible things I’d done in the line of duty, mentally crippling Ernest, one of the most intelligent guys I’d ever met, was the one I’d never forgive myself for.

Though technically still alive, Ernest was more zombie than human. Terrified as I was of the same thing happening to me, in a way, it seemed oddly fitting that I might one day share his fate. Unless those big-brained scientists developed a cure, and fast.

“Talia, stop,” Erik said shortly. I looked at him helplessly. He laced our fingers together and squeezed before continuing. “Victoria, what is your point? What is the point of us hashing through all of this right now?”

“Because I need for you to understand why the Poacher’s Talented victims are not a priority,” Victoria said plainly. “You both disagree with this decision, I know. And, believe it or not, I do value your opinions. However, this matter is not up for debate. I need you to see the bigger picture, to appreciate why it is we’re giving you these orders, so that you will follow them to a tee. No going off mission. No breaking the rules. No making up your own rules as you go. Am I clear? I know you want to do something that will save all of the Talents at the auction, but I need you to go in, get the Created, and get the hell out of there.”

Instead of her usual annoyance with my rogue nature, Victoria’s tone was unusually kind. At a complete loss for what to say, I didn’t answer her immediately.

Even with Victoria’s sound logic and terrifying conclusions, I wasn’t sure that I could just ignore the plight of the Poacher’s Talented victims. To say I “disagreed” with the council’s decision was like saying the Poachers were “not nice people.” It was an understatement of gross proportions. Plain and simple, I wanted to save all of them. I abhorred the idea of leaving behind the Talented, leaving them to be owned by the morally bankrupt people who were going to buy them. It was impossible to keep those words from breaking my heart every time I thought them. The council might as well have said to leave my compassion and integrity at coat-check on the way into the auction house, because their orders went against everything I stood for. Hell, the orders went against everything UNITED allegedly stood for.

Indignant on behalf of my fellow Talents, I looked to Erik for support. And found none. His expression was sympathetic, but not likeminded. Erik’s mind was wide open after last night’s therapeutic screaming match and subsequent makeup shenanigans, so I was able to feel his turmoil over the matter. Just like me, Erik disagreed with the council’s decision on principle. Unfortunately, he also believed that leaving the Talented behind was the necessary course of action, if the mission was to remain covert.

“I know it’s hard, Tals, but you need to take your emotions out of the equation.”

Along with his words, Erik sent calm, tranquil thoughts meant to cool my temper like a light breeze on a scorching summer day.

“Look at the situation through a dispassionate lens,” he continued. “You’ll see that this is our only option. Believe me, I hate the thought of leaving anyone behind just as much as you do. But you can’t buy every single person that comes up for auction without drawing a lot of unwanted attention, which would defeat the purpose of going in undercover. I’m not even sure that you’ll be able to buy all of the Created without arousing suspicion.

“Just do me a favor, Tals. Instead of focusing on the ‘leaving-people-behind-part’, try to think of it like this: by rescuing the Created, you are going to save everyone in the long run.”

“So the ends justify the means, is that what you’re saying?” I sent back warily.

On principle, I hated that argument. It was one of Mac’s favorites. In fact, it was the philosophy on which he based every ethically-unsound decision he’d made.

“In this case, they really do, Tals,” Erik replied, cringing when Mac’s name popped into my head.

“Talia?” Victoria prompted. Her impatience was showing, but she still sounded concerned, in deference to the tough situation she was laying out for me. Victoria truly seemed to understand how difficult it was for me to agree with the council’s decision. “I need to know you’re onboard with us. That you will do things this way, not because it’s right, but because it’s necessary. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes, Victoria,” I said, with a heavy sigh.

Relief was evident in her voice when she spoke again.

“Good. The invitations that correspond to each of your false identities are on the way now. Meet with Agent Canary and her team, finalize as many details as possible, and stay close to your communicator. Erik, I will see you shortly at the briefing. If you haven’t looked at your own comm unit lately, we are having a tactical meeting in the conference room in forty minutes.”

“Got it,” Erik replied. “I’ll be there.”

Victoria ended the communication without another word.

Even though I knew that we needed to get moving, I leaned my head against Erik’s bare shoulder. He ran his hand up and down my arm to ward off the chill Victoria’s orders had left. We stayed like that for a long time, cuddled together on a ridiculous four-poster bed from another century, lost in our own thoughts and upcoming duties.

“We should get dressed, go wake the others,” Erik finally said in a gentle voice.

“I don’t like this, Erik,” I whispered, needing to give voice to my protest one last time. “It’s not right. Leaving the Talented behind is not right.”

Even though we’d already been over this, Erik indulged my need to vent. Getting it all out of my system before I met up with the others was imperative. One of my strongest gifts was the ability to project my thoughts and feelings onto others. It was something that I did without ever intending to. My emotions were, literally, infectious. Especially when I felt something strongly, like the guilt and dread and rage I was experiencing just then.

“I agree with you, Tals,” Erik soothed, rubbing small circles at the small of my back. “But they will try to make more Talents out of normal humans. Most won’t be able to handle it. A lot of them won’t survive the transition.”

“I guess,” I grumbled. “It’s a bad sign when you’re the reasonable one.”

Erik scoffed, though I felt his relief when I seemed to accept the reality of the situation.

“You wound me, Tals. Reasonable is my middle name.”

I tilted my head and trailed kisses up Erik’s neck. He closed his eyes and groaned softly. When my mouth was right next to his ear, I whispered softly.

“Get over it, Erik Reasonable Kelley.”

Erik laughed, the sound deep and rich in his chest and I wanted to stay there, in that carefree moment, forever. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t have chosen to, even if it was an option. I had work to do. Kenly needed me. The other Created captives needed me.

I kissed Erik on the soft spot right behind his ear, something I knew he liked.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he warned, pulling me onto his lap.

“Well, in that case, this is your last kiss,” I said and brushed my lips across his. “I need a shower.”

Untangling myself from both Erik and the sheets, I climbed out of bed and headed towards the bathroom.

“Want company?” Erik sent from the bed, a colorful sequence of contortionist-worthy maneuvers accompanying his offer.

I turned and shot him a wry smile over my shoulder.

“You’re not that flexible.”

Erik’s reflexes were so fast that I never even saw the pillow until it bounced off of my nose. Using telekinesis, I returned fire, drowning Erik in a sea of decorative pillows.

“Tease!” he called out, voice muffled by the mountain of fluff.

“You love it,” I shot back and felt, rather than saw, Erik’s grin.