"Did you tell Dina Gregory where you were training?" Victor asks in a calm voice.

"No," I say, looking up at him. "I was careful not to give away detailed information. I didn't even tell her where I was living. The three of us were just talking in the kitchen. Dina wanted to know what I had been doing. It was just casual conversation."

Fredrik looks at Victor.

"Stephens has probably had men scoping out every Krav Maga studio from here to Florida since that day. It would explain why it took them nearly three weeks to find which one she was training in."

"Wait-," Amelia speaks up as if a horrible thought just came to mind. "Is Dina all right? Please tell me she's OK. I wanted my house back, but I really liked that woman. She was kind to me."

"Dina Gregory is fine," Victor answers and Amelia and I are both relieved.

Amelia lets out a thankful breath, but then just as quickly her body locks up again and she's looking at Fredrik with desperate eyes, craning her neck toward him. "B-But you can't stay here. You have to leave." She looks at us. "All of you."

"That was my next question," Victor says. "Why didn't they kill you?"

"They expected you to come back," she says. "Or to at least contact me by phone." Her eyes dart to Fredrik again. "I couldn't answer."

Fredrik nods, accepting her explanation and her apology, letting her know that he understands.

She looks back to Victor.

"After a while, I pretended to hate all of you," she goes on. "I complained about how I was pissed that Fredrik would dump that old bat on me like that. Then I talked shit about you," she adds, looking back at Fredrik. "By the time I was done filling their heads full of bullshit, they thought I could be used to find you, to lure you here. I was just a woman scorned, who wanted to get back at Fredrik. That's what I was shooting for, to gain their trust so they wouldn't kill me. I was afraid, Fredrik. I think they would've killed me if I didn't think to do that."

Fredrik nods again. I feel like he's about to place his hand on her knee to comfort her, but he can't bring himself to do it, that the gesture makes him feel awkward. Instead, he offers her more assurance by way of words.

"You did the right thing," he says kindly. "And you're right, they would've killed you."

He stands up and turns to Victor.

"The only unanswered question left," Fredrik says, "is how did they know to look here." He puts up both hands in a surrendering fashion. "I swear to you that it wasn't me."

My body stiffens. My eyes dart back and forth between them, trying to gauge their expressions. The tension in the room deepens, nearly drowning me in it, but I soon realize that the tension belongs only to me as I subconsciously prepare for some kind of showdown between them. But the more I watch, the more I feel that Fredrik is telling the truth and that Victor believes him.

"I know it wasn't you," Victor finally says.

I'm stunned. And confused. And a little stung by Victor's immediate trust.

"How the hell do you know that?" I ask sharply.

"Because if Fredrik was going to give you up, it wouldn't make sense that he tell them where Dina Gregory once was. Weeks ago."

I snarl and cross my arms.

"You used me to test Fredrik," I snap. "You left me alone with him to see if he'd betray you by telling Stephens where to find me." I glare at him accusingly, unforgivingly. This isn't the time or place to confront him about this, but I can't hold it back any longer.

Victor steps up closer and reaches out both hands, intent on placing them on my arms. I start to step away and refuse him, but the recliner blocks my path. His warm hands fall upon my skin, his long fingers curling around my biceps. He peers down into my eyes and I see sincerity and determination in them.

"That is not what I did," he insists. "You have to trust me on this. And you have to trust Fredrik. He's not the enemy."

"So easy to judge and trust," I say with an edge in my tone. "Then why did you leave me alone with him like that? What did you mean by the things you said about trusting my instincts before you left?"

Victor's hands fall away from mine.

"We have to get out of here," he says.

He turns to Fredrik now and I'm left feeling both livid by his lack of explanation and apprehensive about the current situation because of the urgency in his voice.

"Fredrik," Victor goes on, "it's your decision. Take her to a safe-house or leave her here to her fate."

Amelia's swollen, reddened eyes widen with alert and dread. She jumps up from the sofa, her blue bath robe coming undone around her waist, revealing a white nightgown underneath.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asks fearfully, fumbling the tie around her waist to tighten the robe closed again. She looks right at Fredrik. "What does he mean, Fredrik?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

Victor Sarai blames herself for a lot of things, and in some cases, she is right to do so. It was foolish to speak of her training with Spencer-although vaguely-with Dina and Amelia. But she was careful with the information that she chose to divulge. She was careful, but not careful enough. Sarai is young. Inexperienced. Yet, she is learning, and learning the hard way, when it comes down to it, is really the only way.

"You can't learn to swim by reading it in a book," I tell her on the drive back to Albuquerque. I thought it best we take a car back this time rather than risking the airports again so soon. "It is the best way, Sarai. To learn from your mistakes is to make them. Authentically. No amount of training, no rehearsed scenario is going to teach you better than the real thing."

Sarai sits quietly on the passenger's side staring out the side window. She won't look at me. She has hardly spoken since we pulled away from my liaison's location near Phoenix thirty minutes ago. The moon hangs low in the early morning sky, appearing enormous across the dark expanse of the desert landscape.

"It's no excuse," she finally speaks up, although distantly.

"It is an excuse," I correct her. "This isn't Hollywood, Sarai. You're not going to learn the things you want to learn in the time you wish you could. You've made mistakes. You'll make plenty more-"

She snaps around to face me.

"I said it's no excuse," she pushes the words through her teeth, her eyes are wide and unforgiving. Unforgiving of herself rather than me. "I'm the one that got myself into this," she says. "I chose this life. I told you it's what I wanted. I begged you to help me." She points her index finger harshly at herself, pauses and grits her teeth. "I chose this life. I'm not a child, Victor. You can't sit me down and tell me that what I did was OK, that I have a right to make mistakes. Because in this life mistakes get you killed."

I admire her more now than I did moments ago. Because she understands it. She refuses to take the easy way out by accepting the get-out-of-jail-free card that I offered her. She refuses to be allowed mistakes and though I know she will still make them because she is human, she will learn faster from them than someone who chooses to accept the excuses. Sarai is a defiant girl. She is hard and reckless and fearless to a fault. But she is determined and she is strong. Despite her problem with discipline, and how she still hasn't fully tapped into that criminal, killer mindset in which is key in helping to keep her alive, I know that she can succeed in this life.

"Do you regret it?" I ask. "Do you regret the life you chose?"

"No," she says flatly, honestly, her eyes trained out ahead watching as the black asphalt on the highway is swallowed up by the hood of the sedan. "I don't regret it. And I don't want out."

She raises her back from the seat and faces me again.

"I want to kill Hamburg and Stephens," she says with determination, "and then after that...," she pauses, but never moves her hardened eyes from mine. I only glance away long enough to check the road. "I have to tell you. It's something that I told Fredrik. After Hamburg and Stephens are dead, I don't want them to be the last."

I felt all along, from the moment she told me she wanted to kill them herself, that they would only be the first in a long line of future assassinations. I could see it in her eyes, the lust for revenge, the hunger for bloodshed. The death of Javier Ruiz by her hands is what sealed Sarai's fate. The first kill is always the trigger, the instant in one's life when everything changes, when a person's character takes on a new, darker form. I know she thought about killing Hamburg every single day from the night she met him. I know because I remember the face of my second kill, the way I hunted him for a week like a serial killer might hunt his next victim. All I saw was his face. All I wanted was to end his miserable life the way I ended the life of my first mark. Because it was what I was bred and trained to do. I longed to feel the praise that Vonnegut bestowed upon me after my first successful mission at the age of thirteen. To see him smile proudly as I had always wanted to see my father do. I longed to taste the admiration that the other boys in the Order had for me. So, from my first kill onward, I devoted my life to my job, giving up my resentment for being forced away from my mother. I killed to please Vonnegut for the majority of my life, until I began to see that Vonnegut took more from me than he ever gave.

Now, I kill because it's all that I know.

Sarai and I kill for different reasons, we are driven by very different needs, but in the end we are both killers and I know that will never change. We can't come back from that, and most who kill more than once, don't want to.

I look back out at the road.

"Does that bother you?" she asks about the truth she just revealed. "That I don't want them to be my last?"

"No," I say softly. "It doesn't bother me."

I sense her look away and silence fills the car, only the sound of the tires moving briskly over the highway filtering through the confined space.

"What's going to happen to Amelia?" she asks.

"Fredrik will either take her to a safe-house, or he'll kill her."

I expected her head to snap around again upon hearing that, but she doesn't even flinch. She nods, accepting it as casually as I would.

Already she is becoming harder. Already she is adamant about not letting her mistakes define her, betraying the only things she has left, to make certain that she doesn't make them again.

Her humanity.

Her conscience.

It's late afternoon when we make it home. I thought Sarai might sleep most of the way, but she didn't sleep at all. She's been awake for more than twenty-four hours and yet she is entirely conscious and shows no signs of lethargy. It's the adrenaline. I'm all too familiar with its effects on the mind. But right now, I'm so exhausted by the drive that if I don't get some sleep soon, I'll be useless.

I check the house thoroughly before I feel it's safe enough to relax, even though I checked the surveillance on my laptop before we arrived. I've no reason to believe Stephens and his men know the location of this house, but as always, I cannot let my guard down. It's still a mystery as to how Stephens found out about Amelia McKinney and Dina Gregory. No matter what it looks like, I know Fredrik had nothing to do with it. But as much as the breach concerns me, it's not important right now. Right now, I know I'm going to have to drop everything, my plans for training Sarai while hoping that I could drag this out for months or even years so that maybe she will change her mind. Or, until she decided to let me kill them for her. I know now that nothing will change her mind and no matter how hard I try to convince her, she'll never agree to let me do it.

Perhaps I should kill them anyway- "Victor?"

I snap out of my deep contemplation.

She's standing at the sliding glass door looking out into the endless expanse of dehydrated landscape. The sun is setting on the horizon, illuminating the thick bands of ribbon-like clouds with a deep pinkish glow.

"There's something I need to say to you," she adds.

I walk toward her slowly, curious and impatient and even troubled by what she's about to say.

"What is it?" I ask, stepping up closer.

She doesn't turn around to look at me, but remains gazing through the tall, spotless glass. Her arms are crossed, her fingers resting atop her biceps.

"I've made a decision," she begins in a soft, apologetic voice. My insides are beginning to harden. "I just hope you'll understand."

She finally looks over at me, turning only her head. Her long, soft auburn hair cascades down the center of her back, pulled away from her bare shoulders. She changed into a thin white tank top while on the drive back. I love to see her in white. It makes her appear angelic to me. An angel who carries death in her pocket.

"Tell me," I urge her in a relaxed voice, though I am anything but relaxed right now and I've no idea why. "What decision?"

Her dark eyes stray from mine and I find that small, seemingly insignificant gesture a tragedy.

She moistens her lips with her tongue, leaving her plump bottom lip wedged delicately between her teeth for a brief moment.

"After Hamburg and Stephens are dead...I'm going to leave." She turns around fully to face me. My heart has stopped beating. "I'm going to take Dina with me somewhere and I'm going to do my own thing."

I can hardly get my thoughts together much less form a sophisticated sentence.

"...I don't understand."

Sarai tilts her head gently to one side and uncrosses her arms, letting them hang freely in all of their elegance. She steps right up to me. I want to take her into my arms and kiss her, but I can't.

Why the hell can't I?

"Victor," she goes on, "I know now that I can't live like this. At least not with you. And with Fredrik. The two of you are professionals and I can't keep this delusion up, thinking that someday I'll be able to keep up with either one of you, much less both of you." She puts up a hand as if I had been about to argue and although I wasn't prepared to speak, I realize she must see the growing argument in my face. "Look, this isn't a cry for attention. I'm not saying this to make you tell me that I'm wrong. I know that as much as I wanted to stay with you, it's just not possible. If I don't get myself killed, I'll end up getting you killed. And I know I could never live with that."

"Well, I do think you're wrong," I manage to say, wishing that I could say more.

"No," she says, "I'm not. And you know it."

"But where would you go? What would you do?" My tone becomes urgent. "Sarai, you tried living a normal life already. You tried and look what happened."

Why am I saying these things? I should be rejoicing in the fact that she has finally come to her senses.

She sighs softly. I watch her delicate shoulders rise and fall.

"Don't do this," she says, shaking her head. "Don't pretend that this bothers you, or that you want me to change my mind. Just don't. You know this is the right thing as much I do now. If only I had listened to you long ago, if I had just dropped this stupid vendetta against Hamburg, went on with my life, I'd be at home in Arizona with Dina and Dahlia and even Eric-"

"But you didn't love him," I point out.

Why did I say that? Of all the things I could've said, all the topics I could've explored, why did it have to be that one?

"No, I didn't." She looks into my eyes thoughtfully. "But he was normal. He was what you wanted for me, but at the time, I was too selfish to understand that you were right. That kind of life was right."

I take a step back from her. "Wait," I say, putting up my hand momentarily and then running the edge of my finger across my mouth, my head hung low, "So you're saying you want a normal life now?"

"Not at all," she says, shaking her head. "I could never go back to that. I'm just saying that if I hadn't have gone through with my plan to kill Hamburg, things wouldn't be as bad as they are now."

I cock my head to one side, a confused look on my darkening face. "Then what exactly are you saying?" I ask. "What, you're going to just start killing people on your own?" That's almost laughable to me, but I certainly keep that contained. I know Sarai would try it. I know she would kill and maybe even get away with it a few times, but she couldn't get away with it forever. Not without the resources that I have.

"I haven't figured that out yet," she answers.

Sarai places her hand on the glass door's handle and slides it away from the frame, letting the mild, early evening air rush in from outside. She steps out onto the back patio.

I'm standing outside with her before my mind catches up to the hurried movement of my legs.

"You're not making any sense," I say.

The back motion-activated light floods the concrete patio when Sarai steps across the path of the sensor. She stands just on the edge of the bright beams, leaving only part of her face cast in a darkening shadow as the sun is nearly set.