‘We were about to,’ Juno said, ‘but we had to be careful. Fawn’s your sister. For all we knew you’re back on terms with her.’

Charlie wasn’t convinced, but knew she’d learn nothing useful by calling them liars.

‘So how can I help you?’ Charlie asked, hiding her suspicions.

‘We’re riding a downward spiral,’ Juno admitted. ‘You and Mango taught me good and I ran a tight lab, until Seth gambled the money we needed to pay off the Janssens. I brokered a deal with some guys in LA to produce a batch of fighting-dog embryos. The plan was to do that and sell our lab equipment. We’d have had enough money to pay our debts and make a fresh start in California. But the cops raided my lab before I completed the work.

‘We owe Janssen associates four-point-something million and we burnt through the deposit the guys in California paid us,’ Mikey said, sounding super anxious. ‘The only way we get out of this mess alive is if we can access a decent lab, finish the job and get paid.’

‘I’ve got the embryos in the trunk,’ Juno explained. ‘You’d save our asses if you let me use your lab. We’d be out of your hair in a day if you helped.’

‘I’ve seen videos of nightmare dogs fighting,’ Charlie said, shaking her head. ‘It’s barbaric.’

‘I know it’s no picnic,’ Juno snapped. ‘But is your godson getting orphaned any better?’

‘Nobody gets in my lab,’ Charlie said. ‘I have money set aside. What if I gave you some cash, so you could make a fresh start somewhere out of state?’

‘Fawn’s merciless – they’d always be looking for us,’ Juno pleaded. ‘I know we had our differences towards the end, Charlie. But we were good buddies. We had fun, back in the day.’

Charlie was torn. She did have fond memories of Juno. They’d been especially close the first year after she’d been released from White Boulder, when Harry had stopped talking to her. But Charlie didn’t accept that they’d spent two days following her around just to ask for help.

Plus, they both had zombie mods going on. It was one of the milder ones, but Charlie suspected that Seth gambling and getting killed, the lab getting seized by cops and the angry California dog fighters were all linked with Juno and Mikey living in a permanently high state that made it near impossible to judge risks and make good decisions.

But then there was Patrick. If it wasn’t for the four-year-old, Charlie would have bounced already.