We were surprisingly quiet on the way home. Although I had a lot I wanted to talk to my mother about, I was a little hesitant to do so in front of Mac. He seemed to be a good guy, and after working with him for a week, my mother seemed to trust him a little, but after the week I’d had, I was a little hesitant to trust him.

 

Maybe after I’d spent a couple of hours with him, without him trying to lock me up, interrogate, or murder me, I’d trust him a little more. Just not right now.

 

Since the campus had been designed with foot and bike paths in mind, most cars and trucks had to stick to the roads around the perimeter, which meant we had to circle the entire campus to get home. I hadn’t noticed how far it was before, probably because I’d been too busy looking at the new sights, but now that I knew how far the admin building was from our home, the trip felt excruciatingly slow.

 

When we finally pulled up to the front door, I fought the urge to bolt from the back of the car and head inside to find my friends. “Thank you for the ride,” I said politely.

 

“No problem,” Mac replied, turning just enough so he could look back at me through the narrow gap between the front seats. Although he had an easy smile on his face at first, when he glanced out the window behind me, his face fell. “You be careful, alright? While I may not be the most well-connected or well-informed agent, taking on all the school’s administration activities has some advantages. Your name has appeared on a number of reports over the last few days, mostly in connection with interview requests from the DOE. Strangely enough, shortly after I stopped receiving interview requests, I received several entry permit requests from the same people. About two full teams worth.”

 

He nodded towards whatever he’d been looking at, so I slowly undid my seat belt and crawled up onto the back seat so I could see. A couple of houses down, just on the other side of the intersection, there was an old school sedan. Although it was a couple of hundred feet away, I could just make out the shape of two people sitting in the front seats, watching.

 

“You think those are agents?” I asked, before sliding back down into my seat.

 

“If they’re not your neighbours, they’re almost certainly agents,” Mac replied. “The entire area is still on lockdown; no one in or out without permission from the higher-ups.”

 

“You’d think that field agents would know better than to park their car in the middle of an abandoned street. They stick out like a sore thumb,” I muttered.

 

“Oh, they’re not field agents. The department of Otherworld Entities consists almost entirely of researchers and bureaucrats. Even though many people think they should be rolled into Rupture Containment, they have enough friends higher up in both the Bureau and the government to keep that from happening.”

 

“So I’m being watched by a bunch of over-entitled scientists?” I said. “Great…”

 

“I can’t believe this,” my mother growled. “I should march right over there and give them a piece of my mind. What gives them the right to spy on us?”

 

As she reached for the door, I leaned forward and grabbed her arm. “Let’s not aggravate them. Like it or not, they’re still BEI agents, and if you go up to them, they may take it personally and invite themselves into our home instead of sitting in the street,” I said. “Besides, they’re not here for me.”

 

Mac gave me a questioning look, so I gave him a small, apologetic smile in return. “It’s a long story, and honestly, not something I want to talk about right now. Not with the DOE sniffing around. Maybe I’ll sit down and tell you about it, once everything finally settles down,” I said.

 

“Sure,” he replied. “I understand why you’d have some hesitation. It’s like they say, it’s not paranoia if someone’s actually watching you.”

“Yeah…” I chuckled. “Anyways, thanks for the ride. I appreciate it.”

Mac shot me a confident smile. “No problem. Take care, kid.”

 

As I pushed open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, I couldn’t help but glance at the old-fashioned sedan sitting down the street. The two people inside attempted to duck down and knocked heads, like some sort of bad comedy movie. I shook my head, stepped away from Mac’s car, and did my best to pretend that I hadn’t seen anything. After seeing the two bumble about, one thing was abundantly clear: whoever those two were, they weren’t trained agents just like Mac said.

 

Hopefully, that meant they weren’t confident enough to do anything more than sit there and watch our house at a distance. I really didn’t want to deal with the Department of Otherworld Entities again.

 

My mother stayed in the car for another minute or so, talking to Mac. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, not without getting closer and putting my ear next to the window. I couldn’t get inside because I casually dropped my keys into my bag when I first got to the clinic, and I wasn’t eager to just empty my stuff on the sidewalk to find them, so I was stuck.

 

“Thanks again, Mac. See you in a couple of days,” my mother declared as she finally climbed out of the car. I waited until she closed the door and turned towards me before I finally walked over.

 

“What did you talk about?” I asked. “You were in there for a while.”

 

“I asked him what I should do if the DOE decides to bother us, and he gave me the contact numbers for a couple of people, including our office manager and one of the lead investigators who is investigating what happened on campus,” she explained.

 

“I thought he said he didn’t really have any contacts in the bureau,” I said.

 

“I don’t think he does, not officially anyway. However, from what I’ve seen over the last few days, Mac is the kind of guy who likes to socialize, and a lot of people like him, but is completely uninterested in the office politics or climbing the ladder,” she explained.

 

“So he’s trying to be a neutral party in the bureau,” I asked.

 

“Exactly,” my mother replied as she dug through her purse.

 

“No wonder he ended up working in a tiny little office out in the middle of nowhere,” I muttered.

 

My mother frowned and glanced up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, that’s not a dig at Mac’s expense,” I said, raising my hands defensively. “I’ve just come to realize that the BEI’s departments are kind of fractionalized, and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone sent him out here because he wouldn’t choose sides.”

 

“You’re just being paranoid,” my mother mumbled as she went back to digging through her purse.

 

“Maybe. Possibly,” I said. “We’ll probably never know one way or another.”

Once my mother finally dug her keys out of her purse, she let out a quiet ‘aha!’ in triumph. However, instead of walking over to the door, she paused in place and stared at me for a couple of seconds. “Tammy, I know we’ve talked over the phone every night since you went into the hospital,” she started. “But is there anything you want to talk about? You told me what happened, but it felt like you were holding back.”

“I have been a little,” I admitted, “and I do want to talk with you, I just didn’t feel like it was appropriate to talk over the phone. Too much has happened over the last few days, and I didn’t feel comfortable discussing it over the phone. Not here, though,” I said, risking a glance down the street. “We should go inside first.”

She nodded lightly before throwing her arm around my shoulders and slowly guiding me towards the door. “It’s good to have you home again,” she said lightly.

 

“It’s good to be back,” I replied.

 

It only took her a moment to open the door and let me into the dark, but comfortable room. The entire house was quiet, almost too quiet, so I stuck my head into the different rooms. “Hey… where are my friends? I thought you said they were staying inside, hiding from the people poking around.”

 

“They were,” she insisted, stepping over to me and sticking her head into my room. “The last time I saw them was before I headed off to work. They’d been huddled around the desk in the office, discussing something. When I asked if they needed anything, Angelica said they were fine and just needed some privacy. Since I didn’t see a problem with that, I gave it to them.”

“Huh,” I muttered as I wandered over to the office and stuck my head inside. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I knew they weren’t in there, but I guess I was just feeling a little lonely after not seeing them for a few days. As I scanned the room, I realized there was something off in the rather spartan office. There was an envelope sitting in the middle of the small, dark wood desk.

 

After a moment's hesitation, I wandered over and grabbed the small envelope, flipping it over in my hand to check the front. When I did, I felt a knot form deep in the pit of my stomach.

 

It said: “To Tamera.”