Alea slid away from the door and crossed to the window. She pulled the thick, dusty curtains shut, plunging the small room into absolute darkness. The last sliver of moonlight vanished.
She raised her right hand, her fingertips tapping the metallic hair clip behind her ear in a rapid, precise rhythm-Morse code.
A faint blue light pulsed from the clip, just once. A secure, encrypted communication channel opened, instantly neutralizing any potential listening devices in the room.
A man's voice, low and respectful, sounded in the micro-earpiece she wore. "Alpha, you're online. Fenrir standing by."
Alea's own voice was a low whisper, stripped of any country accent, cold and sharp as a shard of glass. "Status report, Fenrir. The Beaumont family's recent financial activities."
"All clear on our end, Alpha," Fenrir replied. "The NYPD internal network has been scrubbed. Your file is airtight. Alea Dillard, orphan, missing for ten years, presumed to have been living off-grid in the Appalachians. No one can poke a hole in it."
"Good," Alea said. "I want you to monitor the dark web. All channels. I need any and all chatter related to neurotoxins, specifically complex, custom compounds. I suspect Donny Beaumont's 'illness' wasn't a natural occurrence."
There was a pause. "Alpha, this is too risky. Let me deploy a tactical unit. We can have a perimeter around the Beaumont estate within the hour. We can intervene."
Alea let out a soft, humorless laugh. "Negative, Fenrir. This is a solo infiltration. I need to get inside that madhouse myself. There are answers I need to find, answers from five years ago."
Suddenly, a new sound cut through the silence of the house. The sharp, angry staccato of high heels striking the hallway floor, heading directly for her room.
Alea's eyes narrowed. "Fenrir, comms out."
She tapped the clip. The blue light died. In a single fluid motion, she was back on the bed, pulling the thin, scratchy blanket over her head, feigning sleep.
The lock on her door rattled violently as someone fumbled with a key. The door flew open, slamming against the wall. Vicky Dillard, dressed in an expensive silk pajama set, stormed into the room.
She waved a hand in front of her face as if warding off a bad smell. "It stinks in here," she sneered.
Vicky marched to the bed and ripped the blanket off Alea.
Alea flinched, scrambling back against the headboard like a cornered animal. Her eyes were wide with perfectly feigned terror as she looked at her glamorous, furious cousin.
"Look at you," Vicky spat, her voice dripping with venom. "A little rat, hiding in the dark. You probably smell like a barn."
Alea bit her lip, her eyes welling up with tears. Her hands clenched the thin mattress, her knuckles white. She was the perfect picture of a terrified, helpless girl.
Her weakness only fueled Vicky's rage. "This was supposed to be my dressing room, you know. Before you crawled out of whatever hole you came from."
Vicky raised her hand, her long, crimson-painted nails flashing in the dim light from the hallway. She was going to slap her.
The slap never landed.
In the fraction of a second before Vicky's hand made contact, Alea's expression shifted. The fear in her green eyes was replaced by a chilling emptiness, as cold and vast as a frozen lake. Her left hand shot out, a blur of motion.
She didn't grab Vicky's wrist. She clamped down on it, her thumb pressing with surgical precision into the nerve cluster just above the bone.
A piercing shriek tore from Vicky's throat. A jolt of pure, agonizing fire shot up her arm, rendering it instantly numb. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor beside the bed.
Alea leaned forward, her face inches from Vicky's. The raw, untamed killing intent that she usually kept locked away poured from her. It was the aura of a person who had walked through fire and blood, and it was suffocating.
"Don't," Alea whispered, her voice a low, deadly rasp that was utterly alien to the country girl persona. "Ever. Touch me. Again."
Vicky stared into those green eyes, her own wide with a primal terror she had never known. She couldn't breathe. Tears of pain and fear streamed down her face. She was looking at a monster.
Just as quickly as it appeared, the monster vanished. Alea released her grip, tossing Vicky's arm aside like a piece of trash. The terrified, stammering girl was back.
"Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry!" Alea cried, her voice trembling. "I-I didn't mean to! It's just... back home, in the mountains... you have to be quick, with the bears and all. It was just instinct! Please, don't be mad!"
Vicky scrambled backward, crab-walking away from the bed, cradling her throbbing wrist. She stared at Alea as if she were a venomous snake.
She stumbled to her feet and fled from the room, her sobs echoing down the hall. "Mom! Dad! She's a psycho! She tried to break my arm! Get her out of here!"
Alea watched the empty doorway, her expression impassive. The house began to stir, lights flicking on upstairs, voices rising in alarm.
She calmly walked to the small, attached bathroom and turned on the tap. She washed her left hand meticulously, scrubbing away the memory of Vicky's skin.
She looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror. A pale, plain face stared back. A face no one would ever suspect.
A cruel, thin smile touched her lips.
This was going to be fun.
She turned off the water, walked back to the bed, and lay down, closing her eyes as the chaos erupted around her.
