“I’d rather wait and explain everything to you and Becks at the same time. Right now, he’s exhausted but I’m pretty sure nobody’s been shooting at him—yet, anyway—and that’s something else I’d like us all talk about at once. So when can you be here?”

There was a clattering sound as Alaric shoved his keyboard away, knocking something to the van floor in the process. “Give me ten minutes to get Becks back here, and I’ll break a couple of dozen speed limits getting over to you.”

“Don’t forget to pick up dinner,” called Maggie.

“Maggie says—”

“I heard her. Do you need anything else?”

“Just drive safely, don’t get pulled over, and don’t crash into anything. If we’re going to die horribly, we’re all going to do it together.”

“Great pep talk, boss. Very touching. I’ll always remember the day when you told me not to drive into a tree on the way home.” Alaric said something caustic sounding in Cantonese—what little I remembered from my course on field communications made me think he’d just called me a goat fucker—and hung up.

Smirking, I pulled off my ear cuff and dropped it into my shirt pocket, twisting to face Maggie and Kelly. “They’re on their way, and yes, Maggie, Alaric’s going to pick up dinner. He said they’d be about an hour. Why are we ordering dinner if you’re making pancakes?”

“It gives me something to do with my hands, and Mahir’s got to be hungry after becoming an international fugitive from justice.” Maggie handed Kelly another egg. “I’ll tell the house to transmit our normal order, plus three.”

“Fair enough.” I got up and crossed to the fridge, pulling out a can of Coke. “Make me a couple of pancakes, will you?”

“Already planning to.” Maggie took the bowl from Kelly. She looked inside, sighed, and started picking bits of eggshell out of the batter. “I’m assuming things are pretty bad for him to have come to us this way.”

“I don’t know that they’re any worse than they were yesterday, but I think they’re about to get pretty bad, yeah.” I couldn’t stop thinking about Mahir’s casual mention of divorce papers. I’d given his wife shit since the day they got married, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to leave him. He was risking everything to be here with us. Hell, he’d been risking everything since the day he agreed to come back to the team. I just hoped we could live up to the degree of faith that he was putting in us, because I really wasn’t sure anymore.

Just keep breathing, advised George. It’s too late for any of us to turn back now.

“Got that right,” I muttered, and cracked open the Coke, taking a drink before asking, “Doc, what do you know about viral parasitism?”

Kelly stared at me. “What?”