She rolled her eyes again. "I'm getting there. Anyway, this whole time I'm in a coma, I hear about how the Soul Eater is trying to become a god, and she's gonna string him along and make him think she's helping him when she's, like, furthering her own agenda."

Surprise, surprise. "And that agenda includes?"

"Chaos." Anne laughed. "Oh my God, did I ever tell you what I thought about the Movement?"

"Apparently, you didn't think too highly of them," He wriggled his hands again. When her sharp gaze snapped toward his wrists, he shook his head. "I'm just trying to get comfortable. So, the Movement pissed you off enough you'd want the Oracle to have free reign on planet Earth?"

"Okay, I went from being the highest paid assassin on their roster to being a receptionist. A receptionist? I could have stayed human and done something dumb like that." She paused. "You know, if I'd been born, like, ten centuries later. But the point is, I was told they had a contingency for when assassins couldn't work anymore. I didn't know it meant getting busted down to secretary."

"So, you're going to help her destroy the world because you're unhappy with your retirement benefits? Max laughed. Yeah, no, you're way more mature than you look."

"Oh, shut up. You're so righteous and everything because you're not filing papers all day for room and blood." She crossed her arms and pouted. "Like it matters, anyway. I'm not stupid. I know that once she gets some power, a lot of us will be stupid enough to stick by her. The smart ones, like me, are going to lay low."

"And you don't think she'll find you?" Here it was. The desperate bid for freedom. He hoped she didn't peg it as such. "Listen, you can stop all this now. There are Movement people working against you guys, and you're gonna lose. But if you get me out of here, if you get Bella out of here—"

"Oh, that's sweet." Anne snorted. "You want to save your doggy girlfriend from certain death and you think you can scare me into doing it. Yeah. That's not going to work. I have a vaultful of money waiting for me, and part of that payment is contingent upon my new boss getting her hands on your illegitimate baby."

Max swallowed his anger. It wouldn't help him burst out of the cuffs, and she would probably end their little dialogue and start cutting him up like a jack-o-lantern. "Yeah, that's the part of all this I can't figure out. Was she just waiting for someone to achieve the impossible? I mean, I don't like to brag, but vampires don't get chicks knocked up every day."