ind her still sitting there, and from hi

're hired?"

id tha

e and thought better of it. "HR'll walk you through paperwork. Sign the

ng is l

ick, the Iron Wolves crest embossed on th

a hundred times. Sienna signed where she was told, initialed clauses about confidentiality and "team culture" and something called a "residency requiremen

id. "This shouldn't be

t is

front of a farmhouse: a man, a woman, two young girls. The taller girl looked maybe eight, dark-haired, solemn. The younger one, maybe fo

n on Sienna's own wrist since birth, the one doctors had alw

nna's voice came out s

l have to pull it and log it as misfil

move. "Please. I think it might be family. I don't have an

h to matter, because she sighed. "I'll copy it for you. But the original goes back in whatever file it came from, and I ne

t say a

ack, in faded pencil, someone had written a single word: Ashgrov

t matched her own down to the angle of the crescent, she felt something she hadn't let herself feel in a long time, not sin

at she was finally about to get an answer, and tha

hat she then tucked, pointedly, out of sight. "Good luck with the team, Ms. Cole. Killian

on't know w

e Sienna couldn't place. "Watch

uring any home stretch of games, which explained the eye-watering salary a little better. Her new apartment was small but clean, one bedroom, a window that looked out over the parking s

gro

lo, a text: how'd it

worry about the surgery mone

was sixteen and constitutionally incapable of leavin

, and then deleted it and wrote instead: Focu

girl's raised hand. The crescent mark. The farmhouse behind them,

or, sharp, and she nea

is

A pause. "I sai

sudden pulse in her throat was about the day's stress and not about th

d pulled him away, tie loosened, looking like a man who'd spent t

t something," she said. "Earli

ck at her face, and something in his jaw tightened like

what you're pl

st gold. "I'm going to ask you something, and I need yo

ar it, which was a strange thought to have, except a small, buri

" she

r life," he said slowly, "felt l

ropped to it, to the edge of the image visible between her fingers, to the little girl

ry quietly, "did you