“Can I help you?” Mom asks, her voice tight. Instinctively I bury my hands deep in the pouch of my hoodie.

I poke my head around the corner into the hallway, so I have a view of the entrance. I gasp. It’s a team of Moncha guards, dressed from head to toe in black, complete with slick black panther bakus at their heels. They have a distinctive insignia on the shoulders of their uniform: the Moncha logo, a stylized letter M, with a cluster of stars in the corner. They’re part of Eric’s team.

“Mrs. Chu?”

“It’s Ms.,” Mom answers, her chin jutting out in front of her as she opens the door. She’s trying to stand solidly, to show them they can’t intimidate her—but I can tell that they do. Of course they do. They’re designed to intimidate—everything from their all-black outfits down to their terrifying, robotic-looking panthers. There’s nothing cute and fluffy about these bakus.

“Do you live here with your daughter, Lacey Chu?”

“I do.”

“We have orders to search your residence for stolen Moncha intellectual property.”

“Whose orders?” Mom stands with her hand on the door frame, her knuckles turning white as she grips it in fear. Petal is fluttering around her ear nervously, beeping at her. “Yes, I know who they are,” she snaps at her baku. He must be reminding her these are members of Eric Smith’s personal security team. “I can’t just let you in because you say you have some ‘orders’ from somewhere. We’ve just come back from the hospital—where my daughter has been for the past month. Can’t you come back tomorrow?”

“No, ma’am. We were directed to search your property as soon as your daughter returned.”

She straightens her spine. “This is an invasion of our privacy! Unless you have some sort of warrant…”

“Actually ma’am, we can search whatever we like, whenever we’d like. It’s in the terms of your lease for the apartment.”

Her face drains of color. “No, it isn’t. I would never have signed something like that.”

“Everyone who lives in this building has signed it. Moncha Corp owns this building, and as such we have a right to enter at any time. This request is a mere courtesy. Now if you and your daughter could step outside with your bakus, we will only need a few minutes.”