“Why are you not here yet?” Eleni shouted into the phone in her hand. She was pacing back and forth in front of the window, one hand on her hip. This was the third time she’d called the person, and the tone of her voice had grown increasingly impatient with each conversation.

The door to the room suddenly opened and in walked Magdalena, also on the phone. “I’m here now,” she said.

Eleni practically threw her phone down on the bed. “What took you so long?”

“There was a lot to get ready for the—” Magdalena began, then looked at Sam. “For tonight.”

Eleni grunted impatiently. “Well, now you can play babysitter with this human. I need to see to the other one.”

“You left her alone?” Magdalena said.

“Did I have a choice?” Eleni snapped. “Besides, she’s weak from that thing you put into her. She can’t do anything. I’ll go get her and be back in ten minutes.” She left the room, slamming the door behind her.

“She’s so dramatic,” Magdalena said, sitting on the bed and looking at Sam. “She could have left you here by yourself for a few minutes. It’s not like you’d be able to use your powers or anything, right?”

Sam didn’t respond. Magdalena made a pouty face. “Don’t be mad at me,” she said. “I promise, I’ll take my little pet out of you soon enough.”

Hearing this, Sam felt fear stir inside of him. If he was right about how the parasite worked, taking it out meant that he would probably die. But if Magdalena was trying to provoke a response from him, he wasn’t going to give her one. Instead, he stared out the window.

Magdalena patted a small bag that she had carried in with her. “Anyway, Eleni should be happy. I brought her a surprise. If you swear not to spoil it, I’ll tell you what it is. Do you promise?”

Sam still didn’t respond. The Mog was irritating him. What he wanted to do was blast her across the room with his telekinesis. Instead, he could only try his best to ignore her. But she wasn’t going to make that easy. She stood up and walked into his line of vision, waving at him as if she had just spotted him and was delighted to see him there.

“I’ll tell you anyway,” she said as he turned his head and looked at the wall. “It’s a new batch of serum. I harvested one of the creatures.”

Sam couldn’t help himself. “Harvested it from who?” he said.

Magdalena clapped her hands. “Oh, you are interested!” she said. “Don’t worry. It was no one you know. At least I don’t think so. Just some human boy with a pyro Legacy. We have a lot of those, so he wasn’t anything special.”

“He was a person,” Sam snarled.

Magdalena rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, and a hamburger is a cow before it’s a meal. I don’t see you getting all upset about that.”