A/N: Hi everyone! So this is my entry for Resbang 2013.

If you don't know what that is, go to my profile- Resbang is a Soul Eater fandom event in which authors write stories and wonderful artists make wonderful art for them. I've put a link in there to the Resbang masterpost, or main list of all the stories and art in one place, and I've ALSO got links on my profile to the fantastic art made specifically for THIS story, by some of basically the best people ever.

(note: the gorgeous cover art for this is by marshofsleep, and the link's in my profile!)

Now you should know that I was planning to write a much longer, more complete story, but time got away from me, so there WILL BE a sequel to this story. There are a lot of OC's at first, but this is the story of Black Star's mother and father and the fall of the Star Clan, so some familiar faces will appear after a while, and many more in the sequel.

This is something I worked very hard on, and it turned into something I'm rather proud of, so let me know what you think, and have fun reading!

He looked at her, apple-cheeked, dark of hair and eye, a smiling bubbling toddler sitting straight, waiting just for him, and had to hold back the urge to bury her alive.

"Olivia," he managed.

"Yes, daddy?" she chirped. So smart, already, and she loved him so much.

His mouth tasted like ashes and rage. "Would you like to help me?"

She tilted her head like a curious bird, shining shoes tapping at the floor. "Okay!"

Her hand was pudgy and hot in his. He thought of her mother's hand, cool and poisonous, and the eyes she'd given to their child, slanted and as dark as her witch's heart. "That's a good girl," he soothed absently as he led her to the elevator. "How have your lessons been going?"

She crinkled her delicate brow and then gave a little giggle as the elevator jolted. "Good. I got to paint a picture-"

He gritted his teeth. "Painting? You're supposed to be learning useful things." It came out harshly, too violently, and she cringed a little, trying to yank her hand out of his. He was so tired of pandering to her incessant selfish wants, her irrational and babyish ideas. She would be of no use to him if she grew up weak. He could not, would not, waste a gift like the one swimming in her genes, not after all he'd sacrificed to get it.

She watched him like a cornered animal, but then the elevator drifted to a stop and she perked back up as he led her into the labs. Everything fascinated her and he had to smack her hand away from several very expensive pieces of equipment.

"Take her," he barked at one of the lab rats, a wide-eyed woman with chewed-up pencils wobbling precariously behind both rather large ears. The woman pressed her lips together at his harsh tone, but picked Olivia up deftly and settled her on an examination table with a pat on the head. The girl accepted it all happily, still gazing all around, pink mouth open in fascination. He tried to see her as others did, a sweetly innocent child, but all he could picture was her mother's gilded fingertips weeping blue sparks. This girl held so much potential it was dizzying.

"Mr. Deering, sir?" the woman said hesitantly.

He snapped back and flapped a hand. "You know what to do. Be careful. If anything goes wrong I'm going to be very displeased."

The woman eyed him with far too much disdain. "Of course, sir," she said smoothly. One eyebrow lifted upwards a fraction before she managed to get it under control.

Olivia had caught something else, and she giggled, blinking up at him with ridiculously long lashes. "I'm important?"

"Of course you are, sweetie," the woman murmured, turning her back to him quite deliberately. "Now we're going to do some things, and they might pinch a little bit, but-" she paused, and he saw her shoulders hunch with vague amusement. "But you're going to be helping your daddy, and that's worth feeling funny for a bit, isn't it?" she continued, voice rather strained. What a bedside manner she had. It was too bad that the viruses she grew for him couldn't care less about such things.

Olivia considered that warily. "Do I get candy after?" she said hopefully, plucking at the flowery hem of her dress with chubby fingers. Such unspoiled infant innocence, veiling such power. It was almost beautiful to him. It was the same as the slick smooth shell of a grenade or the sweet odor of chloroform. One hand rose to brush her hair for a second, and she leaned into it before the big-eared woman distracted her with a poisonously blue lollipop, brandishing a glinting syringe behind her back.

Mr. Deering turned and walked away. His daughter called out for him after a moment, then, as he put his hand on the doorknob, she started to scream. He almost slammed the door in his haste to escape the sound. The witch's child, the test subject, the bright-eyed potential apocalypse, an entire body full of the most valuable blood there was- she might as well have been solid diamond. He rode the elevator back up to his office in a silent fury at nothing, fists clenched.

His secretary looked up. "Good morning, sir. Fresh coffee made."

"I don't want coffee," he snapped viciously. "Get me my schedule."

She was unperturbed. "Of course, sir." She never flinched at his shouts, which was half of why she was so valuable. He took his schedule from her roughly. She gave him a perfect, beautiful smile and sipped her own coffee, printing a rich pink lipstick stain on the rim of the mug, like fallen butterfly wings.

"How long has it been?" he said suddenly, drowning in all the myriad ways his life had gone wrong, even as he sat enthroned atop his fortune.

She raised a perfectly groomed brow at him. "Since?"

"Since we fought."

"Ah." She put the edge of her thumb against her front teeth, watching him carefully. When had she become so hesitant around him, so careful in her replies? The blonde, polished mane sliding across her suit jacket made a gentle swishing noise that went straight to his overworked heart, because if he was tired and lost and angry, what was she? "Years. Fifteen, I think."

"Transform," Mr. Deering commanded idly, a foolish whimsy, one that made the two bulky bodyguards standing like statues beside his doorway stiffen, but blue sparks were in his blood still and he had fought so hard for this filthy power. He might as well enjoy the fruits of his labors.

She gave him a secretive smile, the air shifted, gravity gave a great ripple, and then she was cold, cold metal in his hand, a wicked edge shining gently. "Just like old times," he lied.

"Yes, sir," she answered dutifully, in that distant impossible way he sometimes thought only he could hear. The sound of her voice came through as if from a long way off, but her eyes beamed hesitantly at him from within her blade.

"I have a meeting at noon with our manufacturers and then a conference call with Hong Kong at three," he mused, glancing down at the schedule still clutched in his free hand, wondering why his heart had sped up when there was no danger anywhere. "I expect reports from the Asia division on our profits well before then. I want to know how well that nerve gas is doing overseas. Oh, have them send up the specs for this year's AK-47 ammunition."

She flashed back into a woman and nodded calmly. He went into his office with his ears still ringing from the sound of all the people they'd killed together and absently signed a paper to authorize another purchase of smallpox samples. Not everyone in the world could become a weapon, not everyone could wield them, but the vast tentacles of his corporation stretched out far enough to fill the gaps and then some.

Thirteen floors below him, almost a quarter of a mile below the official basement of his building, his daughter shrieked and thrashed, wailing as only an abandoned child could do. She'd finally seen her daddy, after so many months of tiresome monotony, after endless days of running and studying and gymnastics, after so much loneliness and work, and then he had left her. She couldn't bear it, couldn't handle being all alone again in this awful smelling place, among all this unfriendly white and slick steel. Panic gave her little body strength as she flailed, and eventually the woman in the scary white coat had to physically hold her down. The sticky lollipop was long forgotten, stuck crookedly to the sheets.

The lady did sound sad, though, and the regret crumpling her face touched Olivia instinctively. "I'm so sorry, baby, I'm sorry," she whispered over and over, putting all her weight down on Olivia's arm to hold it still as she depressed the syringe.

Olivia sniffled wetly, reluctantly accepting the fact that she couldn't escape, and wished for her lollipop. "Um, can I have another?" she said fretfully. Something dropped over her eyes as the needle was pulled free, shadows sliding between her and everything else, and suddenly she was very sleepy.

So Olivia curled up tight on the chilly bed and whined wordlessly to herself as the big-eared lady stroked her hair, scratched out notes with her other hand, and wondered, heartsick, if she'd been weak to be lured in by an overlarge paycheck and loose regulations. The shimmer of the brand-new centrifuge in the corner was alluring, but it wasn't as bright as the tiny girl's dark, teary eyes.

The waiting room outside her father's office was cold in every way possible. She sat as straight as she could in the leather-backed chair, wishing her thighs weren't sticking to it with nervous sweat, wishing that she had a magazine or enough bravery take a nap, anything to break this dreadful monotony. She stuck a finger in her mouth and started nibbling on a nail, swinging her feet, which didn't quite touch the floor, but the oppressive atmosphere soon stilled her back down. The click-clack of typing slowed and his secretary turned a fierce eye on her for a moment; Olivia gulped and looked at her knees. The woman was an icy blonde shrew who, quite clearly, hated everything and everyone, and beyond that particular unwelcoming feature, this place was nothing but dark wood walls and darker furniture, leather and glass and sharp angles, ferociously masculine. It was always unnaturally clean, too, every surface wafting the faint scents of lemon and furniture wax into the air. Nothing seemed touchable; she was afraid her fingertips would be eaten away if she did. Finally her father buzzed her in, and she pulled the intercom from her last mission out of her pocket and tossed it down on his oversize desk.

He raised dark brows, looking impeccable as always in his bespoke suit. His tie was navy silk today, dotted rather hypnotically with geometric silver triangles. "Hello, Olivia, it's nice to see you too."

Here, wrapped in a temperamental purr, was danger, and she fell back a little, very glad that the bulk of his desk was between them. "I'm sorry. Um, it's just there was a problem with this-" she pointed at the transmitter, carefully focusing her gaze somewhere on his chest, rather than his eyes- "And they won't listen to me in electronics. They're saying it's fine and it's ready for production."

"And you're saying it's not?" he said silkily, a panther about to pounce.

"I- I-"

"Don't waste my time."

She quailed. "It's not. Ready, I mean, it's got a problem."

He hummed. She relaxed a little. It appeared she was going to survive this particular encounter unscathed, but then- "A problem that you found during your mission. Which means something went wrong." The last word was severe, auditory acid, and her mouth went dry.

"Um, well, I got the files you wanted from them, I mean, it was successful," she tried.

Her father snorted. She moistened her lips with her tongue and wished that his casual inattention to her small victories didn't make her chest ache so much. This time, she'd gone above and beyond, had actually taken the time to sabotage her mark's mainframe too before leaving, hoping he'd be proud of her, but that had been a stupid idea. She watched silently as he picked up the little intercom and turned it over in slim soft fingers. "What happened?"

"It's too big, for one, and there's no upper volume limit. It hit some kind of interference when I crossed their security border and started shrieking, they had a scrambler just for things like this. I nearly went deaf and then I nearly got my arm taken off when it blew my cover," she blurted eagerly. "But I got everything you wanted."

"Ah," he said mildly, looking at the miniscule chunk of beige plastic as though it had personally betrayed him. Olivia knew that look. Someone was getting fired for such an obvious oversight. "I'll send it in for redesign."

"Okay," she breathed. If he listened to her about anything, it was the field performance of the company's products. She rubbed her bicep, where a fresh wound was scabbing, pulling itchily on her skin.

He caught the motion instantly. "You were wounded?"

"Um- it's not bad," she hedged squeakily, twisting her fingers together and picking at her cuticles. Her fight was long gone, drained out of her with the first cool sweep of his gaze across her.

"Is it going to scar?" he asked harshly.

She swallowed down her nausea and focused on her reflection in the glassy mahogany of his desk. "Yes."

Her father sighed and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "In a highly visible place. You know the drill." She fidgeted, but nodded; the routine the girls in the bio lab had devised for erasing scars was effective, but painful. He steepled his fingers and watched her with dark sly eyes. Olivia tensed. "It's your birthday in a week, isn't it?"

Her heart jumped to her throat and she had to cough before she could speak. "Uh- yes. Yes."

"I'll be in Tokyo, but happy birthday. I love you."

She brightened, toes curling in pleasure. "I love you too."

"You're scheduled for another blood draw tonight," he informed her, a clear dismissal, already turning back to his paperwork. She smiled a little, nodded, and showed herself out. His secretary smirked at her and Olivia, in a fit of pique, made certain to knock over the woman's trash can as she left the room. It was a silly, childish move, and she would probably pay for it the next time she had to sit in the waiting room, but it made her feel a little better nonetheless.

That night, she lay helpless and mildly sedated on a cold laboratory table in the depths of her father's corporate headquarters, watching from under scratchy, drooping lids as her blood wove crimson through dangling plastic tubing. This time, they carved a little flap of skin off her hip, too, swabbed the inside of her cheek roughly and took a clipping of her hair. She bore it without much thought, mostly grateful that they weren't campaigning again to test her regenerative powers. A week later, she turned thirteen, and only Janie the phlebotomist remembered. Olivia wandered into the research wing looking for a prosthetic nose and a better atomized paralytic spray when Janie popped out from a corner, waving a lopsided chocolate cake and grinning madly, apparently entirely unaware of the mysterious yellow liquid splashed vividly across her lab coat.

"You made me a cake," Olivia said dumbly. All she could do was stare and battle the burning flush climbing her cheeks.

"Of course I did, honey," Janie said happily as a stethoscope fell from her pocket and clanked onto the linoleum. She thrust the wobbling cake forward insistently. "Here. You like chocolate, right?"

"Yes," Olivia whispered. She didn't, really. It didn't matter. She felt funny, like there was helium in her belly, and it was pleasant, but it was also strange. "I've never had a birthday cake before."

"What? Seriously?" Janie asked with a lift of her eyebrows. It made the pencils stuck behind each ear lift dangerously. "I should have made you one years ago," she muttered to herself, then, "Come on. Let's eat."

They hid like errant schoolchildren in an empty room and ate with their fingers until they were sick, giggling quietly, surrounded by the cobalt glow of refrigerators bearing tray upon tray of petri dishes. Three days later, Janie slipped and sliced a hole through all three of her gloves, contracted a modified strain of ebola from one of those petri dishes, and passed while Olivia was away on a mission.

As Janie lay in quarantine, skin and organs slipping off and out of her, she managed to spare a few worried, fevered thoughts for Olivia before dying. Olivia surely could have used the support at the moment. This mission, out of ammunition from her earlier assault on the building, unarmed but for her knives and bare hands, she had no choice, no other option but to kill with her bare hands. She couldn't slip poison into someone's drink or shoot them from a distance this time. She had to use her blade and end it, or the mission would fail, her father would punish her, and beyond that, Olivia herself might die. She couldn't do it, though. She tried. She tried, and tried, but her body wouldn't obey past the fizzing panicked anguish fogging her head, even as the woman pinned beneath her whimpered and squirmed in tortured desperation. It was only when Olivia heard footsteps in the hall that she managed to drag her blade across the woman's neck. The strength needed to do so surprised her. It left a gaping scarlet smile, obscene below the twisted terror on the woman's face, and even though Olivia only saw it for a moment before springing out the window and flipping below the balcony into the garden, she couldn't breathe. Her lungs collapsed into cruel vacuums and she scuttled like a spider into the cover of an azalea where she curled up and wheezed desperately, wiping her gloved hands over and over onto the leaves.

Then the transmitter tucked into her ear, smaller and now equipped with a maximum volume limit, gave a crackling sputter. "Blacktail. Come in. Come in. What's taking so long?"

She leaned over and vomited. Her bile looked almost fresh and clean after the sickening crimson wave of the woman's blood. "I can't," she moaned. There were shouts above her, already, and every second she spent here was another second she could be discovered, could be killed or captured, but nothing on her body would move. She wasn't even sure her heart was still beating.

"Are you wounded?" came the familiar voice in her ear, strong and soothing. It was confident, careful, and she latched onto it with a stunted whimper.

"No," she managed, eyes clenched shut. "I can't. I can't."

"Shit," came a distant curse, then, "You need to move. There are four security guards closing in on your position right fucking now, eta two minutes, I'm in on their channel and they're heavily armed. Get on your feet!"

"I can't," she said again.

The voice was merciless. "Get on your feet or you die."

Her abused veins were burning, or maybe she was drowning in her victim's blood and her father's scornful gaze, she didn't know, but the voice stayed steady in her ear and she rose to her feet somehow, dashing out of the azalea and heading for the streets after clambering up and over a mossy stone wall. She had been ineffective, clumsy; she was drenched in tell-tale scarlet. Stifling self-loathing settled over her. "Help me," she wailed in scared shame to her contact, ducking into an alley and huddling between two dumpsters, uncaring of the oversweet stench of rotten food. "I'm- I need a disguise. What do I do?"

"You need a damn decon shower," came an amused voice, but it wasn't in her ear anymore, it was right in front of her. She blinked up at the man she'd only ever heard, her guardian angel fallen to earth and made terrible flesh. He was far too tall, too skinny, too pale, ghastly skin stretched painfully tight over beautiful arching bones, one eye burning down at her. The other was covered by some kind of headband, but she wasn't fooled. It was still watching her.

"Midori?" she hissed, one hand going to the butt of her gun by instinct and nothing else, because there wasn't a thing beyond queasy fear going on in her head. Nevermind that the thing was empty. It was still comforting.

"The one and only." He wrapped a blazing skeletal hand around her arm and yanked her upright. "Come on, girlie, we really need to get out of here." His voice was as otherwordly as his gaze, a low, landslide rumble, with a hint of an accent pulling at the edges. They ran. She had to take two or three steps for every one of his to keep up as they darted in and out of winding back streets. Sirens keened in the distance, but they made their way steadily further from the sound, and at last, after an eternity, after her mouth was full of thick slimy spit and her muscles screaming, he ducked under a decrepit bridge and let her stop.

"Thank you," she squeaked once she could breathe again, bent over with her hands on her knees.

He squinted at her, folded nearly in half, far too tall to stand under the bridge, though she could stretch entirely upright. "Thought you'd be older."

"Really?" That pleased her a bit.

"Yeah. God, you're a baby." The words were critical, but his tone was entirely approving, and she perked up some, but then the solid weirdness of talking face-to-face with a person she'd only ever heard while killing someone hit her and she shuffled her feet.

"Um. So you're Midori," she said, feeling a little awkward. He'd been her intelligence backup on two previous missions, and he'd given firmly useful advice, guiding her past obstacles and into position without a wasted syllable. Somehow she'd thought he was younger, different, not this twisted hulking one-eyed thing. Probably it was his wildly informal diction. Despite the fledgling wrinkles forming on his face, he wasn't even winded, but she was panting and clutching her ribs still. The thought came to her that her father wouldn't have lasted a block, running with them.

Midori lifted a brow. "Yep. So you're-"

"Olivia," she said, cutting him off before he could call her by her codename. It was so strange, how foreign this tall man still seemed. Sometimes her support received a photo of her, but not usually; generally they tracked her from a distance via a device in her watch or an earring or something else while monitoring whatever needed to be monitored. Her father wanted her face to stay as secret as possible for as long as possible. The fewer people out there who know who she was, the more effective she could be undercover.

He grimaced a little, wide rubbery mouth twisting. "Aw, shit. I didn't need to know that."

"But you saved my life," she protested, a little hurt, even as she realized her gesture had gone against every single piece of training she'd ever received.

He stared at her like she'd just grown another head. "You do realize that if you'd died the entire mission would have been compromised and I wouldn't have gotten paid?"

"Oh." Of course. What an idiot she'd been. The adrenaline rush of her escape faded, and the bubbling gurgle of the woman whose throat she'd slit came back full force.

"Are you going to puke again? I heard you the first time, that's evidence left," Midori asked, frowning like a gargoyle as he loomed over her. Nonetheless, he slapped her on the shoulder in what she suspected was meant to be a comforting pat.

"No," she said sharply, but then, as she caught the rich copper smell of blood again, "I was messy, I was bad, I didn't- I killed her, but-" Her windpipe closed off in sympathetic terror as she thought of the woman again. She didn't think she'd ever forget. How could ending a life with her hands be so different than with a gun? It was the same, wasn't it? The mark always ended up dead because of her. Yet this was clearly, obviously not the same thing at all. It was worlds away from anything she'd done before.

He grunted and did that awkward shoulder smack again. "It's never nice, but the first time's always the worst. You definitely fucked up, though, I gotta say."

She stared at the ground, wishing she could shuck her gory coat, but the less evidence left behind the better. "We should probably go," she said quietly.

"Mm, good point. Come on." With that, he was off, so fast that it almost seemed like he'd simply disappeared, and she stumbled after him. As they resumed running, she came back to herself a little, and she glanced sideways at him, memorizing his features even though he was so distinctively formed that she doubted he could ever be forgotten. It was probably why he specialized in intelligence and technology rather than actual field work; he would stand out far too much to anyone who even remotely knew what he looked like. She shot sideways glances his shaven head, the loose dark clothing he wore, the well-worn holster around his hips, packing his guns, and then her eyes locked on the proud black star inked into his bicep.

She knew that sigil, and she had to bite back a gasp and nearly tripped right onto her face. He turned his head and met her eyes with his own good one.

"See something you like?" he teased gently, but he yanked the sleeve of his shirt further down. She blushed furiously, focused her eyes forward, and tried to run faster, but he kept up easily, shaking his head mournfully at her efforts and never once getting out of breath. She'd thought her cardio routine was more than adequate, but apparently not.

Eventually, after an impossible stumbling decade in which she was fairly certain she would die of pure exhaustion, she reached her evacuation point far outside the city and they parted. He slipped away like a fish into the depths, quickly and silently with nothing more than an irreverent wave. Sitting safely in her father's corporate car and headed to the airport, though, she heard a crackle in her ear and then, "Good work, girlie."

That was it, three little words, but it was the most she'd ever gotten, and she leaned her face against the cold glass of the window and let it freeze her joyful tears.

The new phlebotomist, Janie's replacement, kept rolling her veins; finally Oliva took the needle and did it herself. It hurt less that way. She watched them take her blood away and hopped off the table, one finger pressed to the cotton pad over the needle prick, and reached for a bundle of scratchy bluish gauze to wrap it with.

"Here, let me," said the phlebotomist, a middle-aged man with far too much extra weight around his middle. He smiled at her, but it was patently false. She gritted her teeth, swallowing hard, and let the burgeoning flutters Midori's words had put in her stomach multiply before yanking her arm away.

"You should get better at your job if you want to stick around here," she said coldly, watching his flabby sweating face drip into something almost fearful. It felt good, it tasted strangely sweet, and she kept her eyes on him as she finished wrapping her arm. Maybe if she got tougher, if she adopted some of Midori's insouciant, lethal confidence, he would tell her she'd done a good job again someday. She pretended she was tall and terrifying. "Tell me what you're developing with my blood," she commanded, suddenly, and the wicked glee of her own mad daring was heady. Midori had been proud of her. The memory put steel into her spine that it had never had before.

The fat man's jowls quivered. "That's classified-"

"Do you really think that I, of all people, don't have clearance?" she bluffed, reaching for calm, reaching for bold even as her heart pounded away. She had no idea if it was working, but judging by the overly rapid blinking of his eyes, it was. She leaned closer. What would her father say to someone wasting his time? She thought about it, thought about the deep ominous drop his voice took when he was about to start a business negotiation, and the razor-sharp impatience of his secretary. "I strongly suggest that you don't try my patience."

The fat man opened his mouth as if he were about to give in, flicked his gaze to the right, but then snapped his jaw shut decisively and shook his head, glancing down at her in a way that suggested he had only just remembered she was thirteen. "No, sorry. I can't do that." He spun around and hunched away, bearing the sloshing bag full of her blood, and she regarded his back in severe disappointment as he left. Then, alone, she turned to follow the direction his eyes had looked. There was a hallway there, with four doors. She knew where the first three went; she'd entered them often enough over the years. But the last- she hopped off the table, approached it, and jiggled the handle.

It was locked, and the security keypad beside sported the unusual extra measure of a fingerprint analysis pad, instead of just a four-digit pass code. Dour satisfaction washed over her. She knew where the secrets of her blood were being hidden now, and she would bide her time, and when the moment came, she would find out what they were using her for and why her earliest memories were screams and needles.

The high of her nearly successful little probe lasted until she was almost asleep that night, drowsing in a puddle of cold azure moonlight slashed through into slivers by the bars on her bulletproof window. Something brought her snapping to full consciousness, nothing concrete, not a noise or something seen, but the buzzing of her nerves told her in no uncertain terms that something was wrong as she fumbled under her pillow for her gun.

She reached over to her bedside table and flicked on the light, narrowing her eyes carefully as they adjusted, and crouched on her bed with her back to the wall. "Who's there?" she rasped airlessly, leveling her pistol at the empty room, wetting her lips with a nervous tongue.

There was nothing. The security system guarding her door and window was still blinking a reassuring green, and there were no other possible entry points at all, no way in via vents or crawl spaces or anything. She was being foolish. This awful day had rattled her nerves. What would her father say, to see her acting so paranoid? And so soon after she'd resolved to be stronger. Shame curdled her stomach, but there was still something, a feeling, not unlike the prickling on the nape of her neck that told her she was being watched, but stronger, darker. She licked her lips again and then movement caught her eye. In the split second that she looked, the bare moment before her finger would have tightened on the trigger, the awful impossibility of what she was seeing froze her in silently howling panic.

Her full-length mirror, propped on the wall opposite her, was no longer empty. The woman with the second scarlet smile opened up in her throat was there, wispy and white and dead, but her eyes were very alive, and they were looking directly at Olivia.

Tears forced themselves out painfully, helplessly, pure horror tracing stinging tracks down her cheeks as she shook. The woman didn't move, but she didn't go away, and the longer she stood there staring the more Oliva felt something vital tearing in her mind. At last, she somehow began to pull the trigger, so slowly that in a distant corner of her thoughts she wondered if she would simply collapse, dead, from the effort of it, but then the woman blurred at the edges and a heartbeat later, it was only Oliva's own face reflected back at her, blanched and terrible.

She sighed convulsively and sank down onto her bed, dropping the gun to claw at her head, but then the prickling eerie sizzle came back to her skin and she looked back up at the mirror. Olivia herself was crouched on her bed, hands halfway raised, but her reflection was standing casually, arms crossed, regarding her with slit eyes.

Olivia yelped, scrabbled for the gun again and this time, she managed to shoot. The mirror shattered into a thousand shards and she collapsed, only now aware that she had hardly been breathing. Her entire body felt like it had been turned inside out. She stared at the bits of mirror, sucking in air. No one came; the perimeters of her room hadn't been breached, and her gun had a top-notch silencer attached. She was alone, except how could she ever, ever trust that she was alone ever again? Her heart was going to explode right out of her chest. She wiped angrily at the tears still leaking down her face and reached out gingerly to snatch one of the larger pieces of mirror from her floor.

It was just a mirror. She saw only her own face, still bloodless, and the naive cowardly youth looking back at her made her cry harder.

"Um. You looped the security tape, right?"

"Course. This isn't my first rodeo, girlie." Midori sounded only mildly irritated in her ear, but she knew she was pushing her limits, grilling him so about his half of the job. She couldn't seem to help it, though.

"So I'm good then? You'll-"

"I'll tell you when to move, yes, Jesus Christ. Not gonna be long either, so get ready."

"Okay," she said drearily, picking at a peeling shred of skin on her lower lip and hunching her shoulders as a trickle of rain made it through a hole in her carefully ragged umbrella and down into the collar of her jacket. Waiting was hard and sometimes she felt like it was all she ever did. A taxi came by, too fast, and she only just hopped out of the way of the wave it threw onto the sidewalk.

A distant, thoughtful hum, then, "Go. Ten minutes max at the front desk. You'll have thirty seconds for each camera in the halls so walk fast. Got it?"

"All right," she murmured, already in motion. She shook out her umbrella and gave a gusty sigh, flicking water droplets from her coat, as she approached the rather pasty redhead working the front desk. The woman had hair teased to high heaven, Texas pageant hair, defying all known physics in a way that was actually rather impressive.

"Hi, can I help you?" she asked, with an overly bleached and firmly insincere grin. It looked as if her face was sore from smiling all day.

Oliva folded her umbrella and smiled back. She thought about Janie, all bubbling fizzing energy, authentic and true, and said cheerfully, "Hi! I'm here to see Mr. Klein, please, I'm his niece. I'm just in town for a few hours and my parents wanted me to come see him."

The redhead blinked. It was apparent she had never even considered her boss having family of any sort, but she said, entirely naturally, "Sure thing, hang on just a sec." She pressed a button and pushed the microphone on her headset closer to her mouth with one pale finger.

Olivia leaned on the counter and tried to look young and nonthreatening, concentrating on bringing her smile up to her eyes, just the way her acting coach Maria had taught her. "Can you tell him it's Eve? I have six sisters so-" then she shrugged and chuckled.

"Wow, six?" the redhead laughed, and then, "Hello, Mr. Klein, you have a visitor. Your niece Eve." Olivia waited as patiently as she could. The redhead's eyebrow shot up. "Ah, yes, sir. Eve."

Olivia nodded encouragingly. That codeword would no doubt have him just about ready to jump out his window- if he were as stupid as her father had said he was, anyway. The redhead listened with slowly widening eyes to whatever her boss was saying, and then turned hesitantly toward Olivia.

"He's expecting you. I'll buzz you right up. Tenth floor, room forty-nine, okay?" she said stoutly, with only a shadow of fear in her voice.

Olivia put on a catlike grin, the one her father used when he destroyed companies. "Thank you so much," she said. Her voice was far too sweet. "So, what happened today?"

The redhead was obviously confused, head tilting. "I- I don't- pardon?"

"I said," Olivia repeated, dropping her voice an octave, "What happened today?"

"Well-" then the redhead got it. "Oh. Nothing. Nothing happened. No one was here?"

It came out as a question, and Olivia answered with a gentle nod before pushing off from the counter she'd been leaning on and strolling toward the elevator. In her ear, Midori said, "Eight minutes, seventeen seconds. Nice work. I cleared her phone records too."

"Cool," she said mildly. The elevator hummed and whirred as it rose, and she grimaced at the tinny music playing just softly enough that she kept accidentally straining to hear it.

"So? What's new?" Midori asked, sounding unbelievably bored.

She snorted and settled her hips back against the wall, watching the numbers above the door climb with a fingertip between her nibbling teeth. "Um. Running more. I've got my mile time down to five twenty-three," she answered casually. Inside she waited with bated breath.

"Nice."

Her spirit soared and the ache of her calves was entirely worthwhile. "You?" she said, a bit timidly. It seemed he was in a talkative mood today, though, and she was rabidly curious about what exactly a member of the most successful mercenary clan to come out of the Asian continent for over three decades did in his daily life.

An exasperated huff in her ear, thunderous over the transmitter. "I've been training this absolute idiot kid, the boss' little brother. I fucking hate him. I wanna throat punch him until he stops moving." She giggled helplessly at that image, one hand over her mouth, and then the elevator dinged and the door slid open. "Go get 'em," Midori told her before going silent.

She strode out, very fast, checking the signs posted on the wall to confirm that she was heading the right way. The halls were silent as a tomb, lushly carpeted in floral maroon, and there were no windows anywhere that she could see. The security cameras eyed her sternly as she went by, and she made a face at one of them.

"I saw that," Midori spat gruffly. The next camera she passed got a rather rude gesture he'd taught her during their last mission, in which she'd ended up posing as a Bangkok street urchin, and he choked a little before breaking out into guffaws. She grinned at nothing and practically skipped the rest of the way to room forty-nine.

The door she flung open with a theatrical bang, and there was Hans Klein, all alone, pale and perspiring and vulnerable, facing twitching in an effort to look stern and competent. "You're a fool," she told him in her father's voice. Her gun was heavy and reassuring against the small of her back.

He raised his hands placatingly, swallowing visibly. "Listen, I don't know what this is all about, but Eve was unnecessary, I've held up my end of the bargain with Cascadia, and-"

She prowled closer and watched the muscles jump in his temples. "Have you? That's funny. That's not what Mr. Deering told me."

Klein's boxy face turned a rather interesting shade of purple and he stood up to keep his desk between them as she rounded the corner of it. "It's the truth. I didn't sell any of the viruses. You can look at all my records if you want. I have proof!"

She rolled her eyes dramatically, shook a chiding finger at Klein, mostly for the benefit of the little silver camera watching her beadily from the corner. In her ear, she heard stifled laughter. "I believe you," she said gently.

Klein immediately dropped into a chair, panting as if he'd been running for his life. She watched his ill-fitting suit rumple with vague distaste. "Oh, thank god," he muttered, running his hands through his hair. "Listen, tell Deering that-"

"Mr. Deering," she correctly instantly, scowling, all the play leaving her at such disrespect.

He squinted at her and licked his lips. "Okay, tell Mr. Deering that everything's square, all right?" She didn't say anything, and it appeared to bolster his confidence, because he stood back up, pointed a finger at her, and started to bluster. "Anyway, you're just a kid. What was he thinking? I could have had you killed before you even got in here if I'd wanted, he shouldn't have sent a baby in to try and scare me!" Lies upon lies, and insults piled on top. His security was atrocious and he was so confident in his ability to sweet talk his way out of any situation that he'd allowed her up to his private sanctum, even warned by the codeword. Then again, if he had run or mounted an offense, he would have been killed anyway, so maybe he'd made the right choice, taking his chances. But he was disgusting and, to be entirely honest, she was a tad mystified as to how he'd ever gotten this far up the ladder in the first place.

She smiled in a way stolen from someone she didn't quite remember, as cruel and beautiful as a tsunami, and from her transmitter came an approving cough that made her heart sing. "I believe that you didn't sell them. However, you didn't destroy them, which was the other part of the deal. I may be young but I'm not an idiot, Mr. Klein."

He was very still, and regret traced fearful lines of sweat down his shiny face. "Of course I did," he stammered, then, in a desperate bid to buy time, "Look, I'll take you down to my researchers, you can look for yourself! They're not there!"

The drowned-woman smile stayed tight and wide on her lips. "No."

She killed him with a single gunshot, and it was a vicious relief to watch him bleed out from a safe distance. Her palms were hideously sweaty and she wiped them absently on her jeans before pulling a pair of plastic gloves from her pocket, slipping them on, and sitting down at his desk. He was more of a moron than anyone had suspected; the files on his viral experiments were right there in his top drawer, unlocked and unprotected, Cascadia Security Incorporated's teardrop logo proud and bold in the upper corner. She scooped them up, slipped them into her jacket, and stepped fastidiously over the pooling blood on her way out of the room.

"So," Midori said slowly. His voice was strangely hesitant, and she tightened, wondering what bad news he was about to dish out. Had that redhead called the police? "Mr. Deering runs Cascadia, no?"

She frowned, walking faster down the halls. "Um, yes, why?"

"Deering. Deer. And you're Blacktail."

She stopped stock still and proceeded to yank on her hair for a few moments before she could get her feet moving again, not looking at the cameras. "And?"

"Well, shit, girlie, do I have to spell it out?" he sighed raspily. He muttered something else she couldn't understand. It sounded both vile and Japanese.

Olivia nearly dove into the elevator and smashed the ground floor button ferociously. "He's very important to me. It's sort of a tribute," she settled on.

Midori grunted disbelievingly. "Really," he said flatly.

"Really," she confirmed, crossing her fingers subtly. She'd been given that stupid codename; it wasn't her fault. Her father couldn't be angry if Midori started asking questions, she thought frantically, knowing deep down that he could and would. She had to throw Midori off the trail. How, though? Her mind raced as she crammed her knuckles into her mouth. Midori was blunt to a fault and had a nose for lies like a bloodhound. Only one thing could sway him from sharing this juicy new hunch about her lineage with his clan.

She cringed. Truth was heavy and uncomfortable on her tongue as she said, "Okay. You're right. It's nothing but the past, though, and he didn't give me his last name. I don't legally have one. I've been off the record since I was born. No social security, not a paper trail anywhere in the world." Her breath caught. "I've never been to a school or signed anything, ever. I don't-" Her lungs grew tighter. "I don't exist. I don't. It's nothing. I'm nothing."

"Aw, shit," Midori whispered. "Don't cry, girlie, I hate that weepy crap."

She raised surprised hands to her face and then, hating her weakness, scrubbed mercilessly. When she strode past the redhead, her face was stern and clean, and if she cried when she was back outside, well, it was still raining and her umbrella was leaky and it was only natural for her face to be wet. "I'm sorry," she said after a moment, keeping her head down and lifting her scarf up a bit so that passerby on the street wouldn't wonder at someone talking to herself. "That was- um, unprofessional."

A rumbling breath. "Only a fool trips on what's behind him," Midori said at last. "And you're no fool, Blacktail."

She smiled damply into her hand.