Having now examined the records from the SSA, she understood. She’d never seen her father look that frightened before.

How much her mother had revealed to her father about what happened in Argentum, Kate didn’t know. But if her mother had told him half of what was contained within the files, then she understood why he was so afraid.

Kate wished she could have seen the videos referenced in the pages herself, of the interrogation of her mother when she was a little girl, and of William at seven years old. All she had was the transcript, but what both of them described, especially William, of why they were returned, and what frightening abilities rested within them, made her physically ill.

She also desperately wanted to know why a large portion of the file on her mother was missing. Stolen, the SSA director had said. An internal problem that we’re still looking into.

But she had seen the videos of the little girl and what she’d done in those moments in the field and at the airport before those fanatics took them all.

“It’s happening again, Senator,” the SSA’s director had said, leaning on his desk. “All you have to see for proof is on any news network’s website.”

He’d then turned around his laptop to reveal CNN’s front page, showing the next burgeoning hurricane on the coast of New Orleans.

“Take your pick. Hurricanes on the coasts of twelve countries now. Wildfires too. Uprising in violence and hospitals suddenly overrun with people dying rapidly of diseases. Over and over. But faster and more powerful than before. And when you look at this,” he said, calling up the surveillance video from the airport, “you understand why.”

She’d told him she needed time to examine the records. He’d allowed her to take copies of them home, and arranged for them to have a conference call at seven. By midafternoon, the news about the disaster in Memphis and William’s appearance broke, and she’d called, demanding to speak with him. Director Wolve was already dispatched to Memphis, she was told. But he had staff coming to her at that very moment.

When the men in suits arrived, they had with them a signed order from the FBI. Having read and reread the files repeatedly at that point, she’d co-signed the document, and accepted the agency’s offer to fly her to Memphis.

As the helicopter finally began to descend, Kate took a long, deep breath. She had always been decisive, able to take command and feel confident about her decisions, even if they were painful to make. Now, she hated the waffling within her, born from the reality that she was going ever deeper, entwining with an enemy she had fought against her entire political career.