The ID card was a sliver of lightweight plastic, yet its burden only expanded the longer Gemma possessed it. Her hand clasped itself around the pocket it lay within, and lifting its slender shape out sent tremors through her fingers. Close-cut teeth hidden along its thin edges pricked into her skin.

    Yet the layers of physical discomfort paled beside the struggle of seeing Jacob's face. From a thumbnail frame, he looked at Gemma not through the vanishing veil of his ghost that lingered just beyond her reach, but in real, bleeding-edge detail. His rich black hair – longer than she remembered – waved with the card's movements, the stubble along his jaw – another difference – chafed against her fingertips, and springs of newborn hope rose in his coffee-brown eyes. If she shut her eyes and squeezed the card, Gemma could swear the faintest echoes of a heartbeat passed through her palms.

    "Yikes. I promise Jake wasn't always so gross-looking." Landing beside Gemma on the low yard wall, Avery tilted the card towards her and scrunched her nose up. She drew her knee up to her chest and shifted close to Gemma, a starry twinkle in her eye. "He had a sweet smile, even when he was wasted. One time, he and Nate buddied up for Sweet Caroline, and we had to –"

    "You're never going to drop that, are you?" Nathan asked as he strolled to a halt with his hands on his hips. "Ignore her, Gem. That's all ancient history."

    Avery's bright grin energised the cool evening air. "Yeah, and it was adorable. You two were the cutest couple."

    Slipping the card into her pocket, Gemma rose from the wall and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Thanks for coming, guys," she said as she peeked down the side street at the blue-accented walls of the Silverlake office building. "Though...I have no idea how to get in. Even at this hour, they have someone outside."

    A steel-toned SUV sat on the pavement outside the office, and its hulking frame deflected the falling streetlight away from the entrance. Nadine sat slouched in its driver's seat with an aluminium travel mug, moving only to take a slow sip and rub the tiredness from her eyes.

    "Is that all? Too easy." With a fiendish grin, Avery tapped Nathan on the back, raising an eyebrow when he remained still. "You're up, Nate."

    "What?" Nathan's confusion ebbed away until his eyes widened with clarity. "Oh no. No way."

    "Yes way, farm boy! You know how rough Nadine has it, being the local Silverlake suit and all." As she spoke, Avery urged Nathan forward with a string of tiny nudges to his back. "A shot of wholesome, outdoorsy sunshine is sure to brighten up her sucky late-night guard duty. Even if it doesn't, it'll distract her long enough to let us run inside."

    Exasperation rumbled at the limits of Nathan's face, yet he smoothed out the front of his shirt and locked eyes with the SUV. "I don't look too sketchy, right?" he asked, running a hand over his beard. "I don't want her thinking I'm about to stab her or sell her broadband or anything."

    Biting her gleeful tongue, Avery fiddled with her necklace's cord and smiled. "Please. Unless she's terrified of golden retrievers, you'll be fine," she said as she ruffled Nathan's hair. Without warning, she yanked him into the side street and waved him away. "Get over there and do your thing!"

    Nathan shuffled his way to Nadine's car, and a pit cracked open in Gemma's stomach. She kept her eyes fixed on her friend's progress as she and Avery entered the side street. "Do you really think this'll work?"

    "I think Nadine ticks me off," Avery chuckled, hiding her amused smile behind her hand. They ducked behind the building's far side, and she watched Nathan's awkward efforts to get Nadine's attention before feeling Gemma's unimpressed eyes on her. "And I believe Nate's got this. He's a people person!"

    "Excuse me?" Nathan's distant voice began. "Did you know you have hen harriers nesting here?"

    Avery's face fell. "Shit."

    "They're a bird of prey, and a pretty endangered one," Nathan continued, one hand perched on the roof of Nadine's car. "I was walking down from the hills, and I think I spied a nest between your office's vents."

    The crack of Nadine's opening door snagged at Gemma's strained heartstrings. "You're disturbing my late shift to tell me...about birds," she mumbled, her voice barely breaching the wind's whistle. As the following silence sapped the strength from Gemma's legs, Nadine stomped out of her vehicle and slammed the door shut. "Damn it, show me where they're at. I can't have pests onsite when inspection time comes round."

    With a wheezing gasp, Gemma broke from the wall's cover and rubbed the dazzle from her eyes. "That was close," she said, wiping beads of sweat from her brow. "I can't believe he won her over so fast!"

    "Don't question it. The Gatland charm works in mysterious ways," Avery answered as she rounded the building. Mounted by the entrance, a card reader's blue light blinked through the darkness. "Your turn. Whip that card out and let us in."

    Gemma produced Jacob's ID and swiped it past the scanner, keeping her brother's face pointed away from her. A chirpy tone sounded, and she poked the door open to reveal a wall of shadows within. "Looks like nobody's home," she observed as the ceiling lights ignored her first steps inside.

    Digging her phone out of her pocket, Avery flicked on its light and illuminated the sterile grey tiles at their feet. "All the better for snooping around," she said, and her free hand found Gemma's wrist in the darkness. "I'm with you, Gem. Now, let's go find Jake's geek lair."

    Cold off-white walls enclosed the office's reception area, their flaking paint hidden behind bold company livery and huddled rows of deep blue fabric seats. Oversized metallic letters spelled out Silverlake's name over the grey front desk, slicing through the murky interior with blades of blue backlighting. Retiring heating pipes creaked and popped on their drift back to room temperature.

    "You know, this place was abandoned before Silverlake swooped in," Avery called, rattling the handle of a locked door at the back of the room. She passed her light over the nearby ceiling, where countless scars marked the tiles. "Me and the guys used to sneak in all the time. I'd bring a few open bottles from the pub, and Nate would grab his dad's stereo so Jake could blast whatever album he'd managed to save up for. It rocked."

    "Seriously?" Gemma glanced at her friend from the front desk. "Didn't you ever get busted for trespassing?"

    "For sure. I lost count of how many times Nana blasted me after the neighbours dragged me home." Coasting behind the desk, Avery spun its office chair with her foot. She fell into its stirring seat, easing herself to a stop facing Gemma with misty jade springs swirling in her eyes. "Having Nate and Jake around helped. Even after we got kicked out on our asses, they always found something to laugh about. I'm lucky I ran into them."

    Before she could give voice to the question burning in her mind, Gemma's knee knocked against a boxy button tucked beneath the desk. She ran her fingers over its matt green actuator, and Avery's slight encouraging nod matched her own growing desire to push it down. A shifting latch clicked nearby, and Gemma swung the previously locked door wide open into a long, gloomy corridor.

    Avery bounded to Gemma's side and flicked her light to reveal a string of identical office doors in both directions. "Now we're breaking rules! Nice job," she said, her teeth shimmering in her light's glow. Tiny blue specks flickered in the darkness, signalling the presence of another card reader beside each door. Along the corridor, framed posters buzzed with colourful motivational slogans. "Know which room we need?"

    "His card says office 13. Fitting," Gemma said, rubbing the tension out of her sore head. Whether it was Jacob's office number or the squeaky-clean corporate family messaging around the building, Silverlake took any chance it could to make light of her brother's death. Even the squeaking door handle to his workspace seemed to be laughing at her. "Here we are."

    The office was a cramped cell served by a single slim window. Trapped within bland white walls, its cluttered cabinets, boxes, and office equipment left little space for both girls to stand inside at once. A thin layer of dust encrusted the desk and its contents, yet a rugged black laptop covered in scuffs and scratches had eluded the dirt's grasp. Ill-secured piping clunked against the wall with every gust of night air.

    Setting her phone on the desk, Avery hopped into the office chair and slotted the laptop's charger into its port. "So, what dirt do you think we'll dig up here?" she asked as she cracked the computer's bulky lid open and switched it on. "A sketchy outfit like Silverlake has to have some shit to hide. What if they're guarding a crazy underground weapons lab?"

    Gemma stroked her chin and rocked her head in thought. "Or...Silverlake's a front for the shadow government, and they're using artificial brainwaves to force the population into obedience."

    The desk chair drifted around, and Avery's eyebrow curved upwards as she twirled a lock of hair between her fingers. "That's a good one. I knew I felt a sweet anti-authoritarian vibe from you."

    "Oh, did you?" Gemma asked, pausing her inspection of a tall filing cabinet's drawers. "What other vibes have you picked up?"

    Avery turned back to the desk and chuckled to herself. "Like I'm gonna tell you before I know if I'm right. Where's the fun in that?"

    "But you are finding it fun."

    "No promises."

    Silence settled between the girls, its calm breached only by the laptop's low hum and the clunking of locked steel drawers. A string of composed taps preceded a musical sigh of accomplishment from Avery's lips as the computer's desktop flashed onscreen. "Thank you, Jake, for using the same two passwords for literally everything."

    "Guess Jacob skipped the 'security' part of his security training," Gemma uttered with a huff, and she abandoned the unresponsive filing cabinet for a tall, slim locker nestled behind the door's arc. "See anything interesting on there?"

    "Not unless you're super into boring corporate infodumps." Avery slumped in her seat, her finger flying across the laptop's touchpad as she sifted through Jacob's email inbox. Her focus snapped after one disappointment too many, yet the slender, sticker-clad shell of a flash drive in the back of the laptop caught her eye. Tentatively, she clicked through some windows and cocked her eyebrow. "That's weird. There's a bunch of work folders on this USB drive."

    Though the locker's door resisted Gemma's pull, she found the key nestled between two binders on top of the unit. "So? Silverlake probably backs all their stuff up."

    Avery swung her seat around, the laptop cradled in her hands. "Yeah, but this isn't a Silverlake drive. It's Jake's."

    "He used his own drive here?" Surprise drove Gemma's key-wielding hand into the broad locker door, splitting the room's air with the harsh shriek of colliding metal. "Why would he do that?"

    "Looks like he was downloading video files, and lots of them." Swiping over the laptop's touchpad, Avery tapped her foot as she hunched closer to the screen. A sharp gasp stilled her lively leg. "Wait, this is..."

    A quick turn of the key opened the locker before Gemma, and little of note rested in its walls. At the unit's base, a folded Silverlake-branded jacket lashed against her vision with its bold silver and blue fleece, a glossy lanyard spooled on top. The remainder of the locker lay empty, save for a set of folded papers that poked out from the highest shelf. Curious, Gemma pulled the documents free.

    "No way," Avery whispered under her stalling breaths. "This can't be for real."

    The girl had not seen the papers, yet the words she spoke perfectly echoed Gemma's thoughts. On several crumpled sheets of corporate notepaper, long lists of names, addresses, and phone numbers unfurled over the lines, many crossed out, some circled. Even through the dark and her brother's instantly familiar scrawl, the information chimed with her. The circled addresses were her foster placements after Jacob left, and the names included those of her foster parents. Most painful of all, etched in strong, swiping strokes on every sheet and tied to every circled location was her own name.

    Subtly, silently, Jacob had been tracking her through the system for years.

    A heavy shunt shook the building, and light bled into the outside corridor from the foyer. "Shit. Time to leave," Avery said, slamming the laptop shut and sliding the flash drive from its port. She sized up the casement window's dimensions, cracked its single door as far open as possible, and turned to see Gemma's unmoving body. "You good, girl?"

    Gemma's grip tightened around the papers. "He knew. He knew all along."

    "Who, Jake? What did he know?" With her phone in hand, Avery glanced at the documents in Gemma's hand. One pass of her light was all it took for shock to steal the breath from her lungs. She laid a hand on Gemma's arm and stroked spots of warmth through her jacket's chilled fabric. "I meant what I said before, Gem. I've got your back. We'll figure this out together, okay?"

    "Yeah, sure." Gemma surfaced from her thoughts and shook the fog from her mind. With a press of her palm on the back of Avery's hand, she returned the girl's slight smile. "Together."

    At Avery's insistence, Gemma shoved her way through the narrow window first. Though a tight fit, she wriggled her way outside onto the grassy ground. She looked back to see Avery's leg flailing before her, her shirt snagged on the crooked handle. The corridor lights flickered on behind the girl, and Gemma rushed to the window. With one focused, fierce pull, she prised the flannel fabric free.

    The rough grass scraped against Gemma's neck as she fell backwards, and a flailing hand struck against her wrist. She followed the hand to its owner, finding Avery splayed face-down on the grass. "Sorry," Gemma said, chewing her lip. "You okay?"

    "Pretty chill for a gal that just ate dirt, thanks," Avery said as she rolled onto her back. Dusting her top off, she locked eyes with Gemma and cracked a laugh. "Your escape, though? Beyond silky smooth. You'd make a killer jewel thief."

    "Maybe I already am." Gemma flicked her hair, already numb to the pricking pain along her neck. "Would that fit my vibes?"

    A snorting laugh shattered Avery's composure, and she waved the girl away as she fixed her beanie. "Nice try, Haywood."

    With a snap, the office's window swung shut. "A real jewel thief would know to hide their escape route," Nathan said, offering his window-shutting hand to help Gemma to her feet. "Find anything weird?"

    "You bet we did," Avery answered as she hopped off the ground. She sneaked out of the window's view and, with a flourish, produced the flash drive from her pocket. "We'll spill the details back home, but long story short: Liz is right. Jake was pulling some shady shit."

    Nathan covered his eyes and sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that. He was hiding so much from us...why?" Folding his arms, Nathan paused by a tree, his head tilted low to cloak his pensive expression in the night's shadow. "Silverlake must've forced him into it. I wouldn't put it past them to keep watch on their enemies in town off the record."

    "Silverlake aren't just watching somebody, Nate," Avery said, keeping her hissing voice low. "They're watching the whole damn town."