“Shit,” she said.

“Maisie,” Declan snapped over the phone, not for the first time. “What is it?”

“It’s Lennon Pierce,” she said hurriedly. On the screen, Lennon took off running. “The son of the US presidential candidate. And the border patrol just spotted him.”

Hadley did a double-take at the screen, alarm on her face.

There was a long pause. “Where is he now?”

“He’s running. He—” She stopped talking as the four men swarmed Lennon, tackling him to the ground. “They’ve got him.”

Her phone beeped, and she looked to see who was calling. Franco Lopez.

“Declan, it’s Lopez on the other line.”

“Go.”

She switched to the other call. “Lopez? I’m here.”

“Get down to my lab. As fast as you can.” He hung up.

She raced toward the door, glancing back at Hadley. “Can I take your scooter?”

“Yes, take it!”

“Thank you!”

—

Hadley’s scooter took Maisie through the streets of the Q so quickly that people had to jump out of the way when they saw her coming. She used the annoying horn that she’d often teased Hadley about.

She practically fell off the scooter when she arrived at the lab and lurched for the door.

A direct request from Lopez was unusual. She could only remember it happening once or twice before. Everything went through Declan now, and her dad before that.

Paul, one of Lopez’s bodyguards, stood just inside the building, and he nodded at her and pointed down the hallway. She ran for the door. It opened automatically.

Lopez was at his desk in the lab, his brow furrowed as he wrote something in a notebook. He looked up at her briefly.

“One second, Maisie.”

“Sure.” She tried to breathe quietly.

He finished writing and stood. He was a heavyset man with dark hair, now streaked with gray. He wore square-framed glasses, and he rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. His smile was friendly, and she was surprised to see him give her one.

She shouldn’t have been. Lopez was always calm. Eerily so. It was probably why he’d gotten along so well with her father. The two had been lifelong friends until her dad’s death a year ago. Isaac Rojas would punch a guy in the face for looking at him wrong. Franco Lopez would jump in and immediately smooth things over.

“I would like some options for when I speak to the CDC and the FBI about our newest arrival,” he said.

“The F-B-I?” she repeated, searching her brain for the words that went with the familiar letters.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said patiently. “Cops.”

“Right.”

“I need for you to give Mr. Pierce this in the next hour.” He passed her a small black pouch. She opened it to see a plastic needle loaded with a clear liquid. “It will provide immunity from the virus for a short period of time.”

She looked down at the needle. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. That’s what you’ve been helping me with.”