"Yeah." Ice came through the lines. "I know it's a breach of privacy, but I don't give a shit. Shine is meant to be a safe place and I'll make it safe again even if I have to rip open every fuc - "

Suddenly, the phone was no longer in her hand. Startled, she found Clay had taken it. "Stop yelling at Talin," he ordered.

Scowling, she held out her hand. He returned the phone, but only after another comment. "Yes."

"Yes, what?" she asked him as he handed it back.

"Nothing."

Muttering about chauvinist pigs, she put the phone to her ear. "Dev, I want to find these bastards, too. This e-mail - when did it come in?"

"Four minutes ago. I could send it to your phone but I'd rather do it through a more secure channel. Any options?"

"Wait." Reaching into the plane, Dorian pulled out a sleek silver something from his knapsack before motioning for the phone. She handed it over and he said some technobabble on it before handing it back and flipping open the device, placing it on the floor of the plane.

She put the phone to her ear. "Did you get that?"

"Yes. Give me a second."

She nodded at the device Dorian was messing with. "Very tiny laptop?"

He shot her a distracted grin. "You could say that. This sweet thing is our attempt at creating a Psy organizer. The versions they allow on the market are nothing compared to the goods they keep for themsel - Tell Dev I've got it."

Moving around Clay to stand between the two men, she bit off her impatience as Dorian opened up a miniature e-mail screen. Clay's hand rested on her back, but then Dorian put one of his on her shoulder as he straightened and moved to let her take the central position.

The contact startled her, but it was okay. Dorian was...Pack. Shaking her head at that odd thought, she focused on the message.

Jonquil Duchslaya is alive, but he won't remain that way if you don't fight for him within the next twelve hours. I'm willing to help you with that task, but you must do something for me - something of equal value - in return. The risk-benefit ratio is too unbalanced otherwise.

"That's it?" she said, trembling.

"Yes." She jerked at Dev's response, having forgotten she still held the phone to her ear. "Any way it could be legit?" Dev asked.

She was too shaken up to answer.

"Why use 'fight for him'? It's an odd choice." Clay began doing that thing with her ponytail again and maybe it was that that calmed her down enough to think.

"Oh, God," she whispered. "When we had that bust-up, I told him I'd fight for him if he fought for himself."

"Give me that." Dorian slipped the phone out of her lifeless fingers. "Did you trace the e-mail?" A pause. "You're sure?"

As she waited, Talin's earlier anger grew into an inferno, but this time, it was directed not at a disease she couldn't name, but at this faceless stranger. "Who is this person to demand something for Jon's life? What right do they have?"

Clay's body grew very still. "The language - it's Psy. A life reduced to a risk-benefit ratio." He paused. "Judd's contact must've come through, set things in motion. I owe him."

Glancing up at him, Talin noticed he was rubbing at his temple again. She was about to reach up with her own hand when Dorian spoke.

"Fine," he said, ending the call. "Dev got another hit - the possible mole this time - but he told me that he had someone trace the e-mail. It was easy, because whoever sent it didn't know how to hide their tracks."

Talin didn't dare breathe. "Nebraska?"

"Not only that. They tracked it down all the way to Cinnamon Springs."

Her hand crushed the back of Clay's shirt. "Jon's in that lab." It was a storm inside of her, this need to reclaim what was hers to protect. But no, she had to think. Her brain wasn't fuzzy now - in fact, it was almost dizzying how clearly she could think. Strange, given that the disease had to be escalating. "We can't just barge in. The lab is too huge."

Clay tugged at her ponytail, raising her face to him. "We bring in the pack and the wolves, we can do it."

Talin had never had that much strength behind her. Her mind filled with a split-second montage of the people she had met - Nico, Tamsyn, Nate, Lucas, Sascha, Faith, and Vaughn. That kind of backup, she realized, was both a privilege and a responsibility. "No." It was a painful decision. "We'll lose too many people."

"Pack is One, Tally. We bleed for one another."

"I know." She hugged him, strong enough now to accept the protective violence that was a part of him. "But it doesn't matter. Twelve hours is too short a time frame to mount an organized attack. They might kill Jon before we ever got close enough."

"Or," Dorian said, picking up and unrolling a printout of the lab schematics taken from Judd's data crystal, "they could have a built-in self-destruct mechanism." He tapped several spots on the plan