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When Hindley stared, it was automatically intense. She couldn’t help it, and I knew that because I watched her like a hawk when she wasn’t looking.

”Does anyone want to take a wild stab at why I called you in here?” she asked. Her question sliced the air like a sharpened blade. The twins sat on either side of me. I was waging a silent war against them by sitting in the middle, although I wasn’t the target of this inquisition. Hindley”s gray eyes narrowed at them. She was the cold, tough-as-nails woman I always wanted in my life, growing up. Medals, plaques, and pictures with heads of states decorated the wall behind Hindley. She never smiled, even when meeting royalty. It was more of a confident tilt of her chin, and a slight rise to the corner of her mouth.

Tough, strategic, nerves of iron… I wanted to be something like our Iron Lady in the Chicago office. She folded her hands on her desk. Every action she took was meant to inspire respect, and her presence stunned even the boisterous twins into a tense silence.

I forked up the answer, since the twins clearly were not going to try their luck with her. ”Taylor and Taylor disrupted the exercise and showcased insubordination.” It was simple and to the point. Hindley leaned forward one inch and studied my two siblings, her eyes raking over them with a slow, analytical gaze that was designed to make younger soldiers sweat. The twins stared bravely back but didn”t offer one of their typical wise remarks as a response. They were smart, when they needed to be. The Bureau wasn”t a playground.

”You”re right,” Hindley said, with a nod at me. ”They derailed the exercise and failed to understand the point of working in a team, which is why we do these drills. Taylor and Taylor, if you act like that again, I”ll make sure this ends up on your records, in addition to whatever punishment your Captain believes is suitable for today’s work. Are we clear?” She arched one eyebrow, challenging them to say anything other than a resounding yes. My shoulders lifted. It was the same line of reasoning I’d used to explain the point of the exercise, which felt validating to hear.

”Yes, we understand,” Jessie said. Jordan nodded right after her, but there was tension brewing on their faces. I had a sixth sense for this sort of thing, when it came to my siblings.We would have a discussion later about how the twins felt about their place in the Hellraisers.

”There”s a code of conduct that you”re expected to follow. You’re soldiers, and the rules are there for a reason,” Hindley continued firmly. ”Even as part of the Hellraisers, you”re held to the same standard as any other Bureau soldier. The two of you are dismissed.” Her hammer of justice came down hard. The twins grumbled unenthusiastic but polite responses and marched out of the room. Before the door closed, Jordan let out a mock cheer. I contained my eye roll as the door shut. I would find both of them later and hand them that attitude back tenfold.

But… they were young. I remembered those days. Hell, I was still young. And the twins aresomehow brilliant and stupid at the same time. A surge of frustration and compassion ran through me all at once. I stamped out any thoughts of my siblings as Hindley turned her attention on me. It was my turn now.

I sat up straighter in my chair. I liked Hindley. She was different than Bryce. When Bryce mocked us back in the day, it was more like the tough love that I was used to among my siblings and sparring partners. When Hindley directed words at me, they were expertly crafted and delivered. She rarely showed approval. And maybe that”s why I fight for it.

”Well, now that that”s over, I should tell you that I was going to call you in here no matter what. Don”t fret. I see that brow furrowing.” She smirked the tiniest amount, putting my nerves at ease, but her tone remained short. It was one step forward and two steps back, forever, with my new commander. ”I was impressed with the way you handled those annoying vloggers. With another captain out there, I couldn”t be sure that our bait wouldn’t end up as monster food. Unfortunately, Dan and Jessica got out on bail, but the judge gave them a hefty bail to pay on top of their upcoming trial. Their crowd funders, or whatever they call them, apparently raised the money for the duo.” At this statement, she tapped her pen against her desk at an annoyed tempo. Damn. I was hoping those lame vloggers would get what was coming to them, but I guessed that woman was more popular than I thought.

The reprimand is coming soon, surely.

She had to be angry about the exercise. I tried to gauge if she wanted me to comment on the vloggers. There was nothing more we could do, besides put more surveillance in the Leftovers. Maybe I could get the tech guys to improve our camera system. Or maybe Hindley wanted me to sweat in this chair right now. She definitely was going to lecture me about the way things had gone down with my siblings, right? I’d told them off in front of everyone because of their hijacking of the drill, but they had seen my point of view in the end.

”Do you have any concerns about settling into your new role as captain, Taylor?” Hindley asked. I’d told her she could call me Roxy, if she wanted, but Hindley liked rules. It was strange to come back to the formal soldier lifestyle after my experience as a rebel. I missed the casual nature of the Coalition, where we had ranks and roles but no strict code of conduct. After all, niceties weren”t my thing. I preferred a playful arm punch over anything, but a concise list of what I had done well from Hindley made me beam. The promotion meant sacrificing some things. I’m afraid that I’m not as capable as Hindley expects…

If I told Hindley about my concerns as a new captain, she might dislike being forced to be the one to oversee my role. I wanted her to have faith in me. No, I needed her to believe in my abilities. If I confessed my struggles with handling my team, it might make me sound weak.

”It”s been all right, overall,” I said, forcing the words to come out cool and calm. ”I”ll try to do better during the drill next time by making sure my team is actually ready.”

Hindley paused. For a moment, I expected her to pounce on my denial, but she merely gave a polite nod and shuffled the papers in front of her. She was hard to read. I”ll get better at figuring her out eventually. Rome wasn”t built in a day, and neither was a pleasant working relationshipwith a challenging boss. I would do better.

”There”s a new mission,” Hindley announced, and briefly looked at her papers. I had no doubt that Hindley had already memorized everything that was on that page, but that stack was thick. The monster assignments usually came in smaller packets. I shifted, both excited and nervous about what was to come. ”You”re going to take the Hellraisers into the Sierra Nevada mountain range for your next assignment. We”ve sent a few teams to investigate an area near a small lakeside town that was partially sucked into the Immortal Plane during the meld. Until recently, the area wasn”t dangerous and there were few reports of monster activity from the remaining residents. Things have changed.”

She let me process that information. Last time I checked, the worst area was where Lyra and Bryce had gone in western Utah two days ago.

”Is it monster hunting?” I asked, because the papers seemed far too numerous to be just for a simple assignment. My Valentine”s Day paperwork was only six pages, most of them grainy photos that our tech squad managed to get with cameras at the edge of the forest. They’d had to go back and update them with cameras specifically for night photography once we’d figured out the beasts were particularly active after sunset. Luckily, for my last assignment, we’d had Jessica”s grating voice to lure the gator monster out.

”I”m sure there will be some sprinkled in, but the nature of this mission is higher priority than your past assignments. Human survivors have been rescued from this town near the Sierras, but they”ve told us that many people have disappeared. They were with the other survivors one moment, but when the meld finished, they were simply gone,” Hindley relayed.

A shiver worked down my spine.

Kane had disappeared like that. It was insane how one moment I could be looking at him, and the next he was gone. The harvester kids, too. I remembered Chipper”s ghostly touch suddenly vanishing, as if the universe had ripped him away.

”Understood.” I wanted her to tell me the goal, because there could be many, but there was no rushing Hindley. In our short time together, I had learned she liked to explain things properly. This annoyed me, but the whole bureaucratic system annoyed me at times. The Bureau was dragging its feet with explorations of the Leftovers because they had to be cautious. It was dangerous out there. Even the few vampire scouts who came through the safe and established portals feared coming through from the Immortal Plane into the Leftover areas. It was better to send highly trained teams. It”s why Lyra went to Black Rock. Normal human teams wouldn’t be as successful with little to no knowledge of the Immortal Plane and its monsters.

I paused as Hindley looked for a piece of paper in the middle of the packet, and a hard lump of anticipation settled in my throat. Something she’d said stuck in my mind.

”You said it wasn”t dangerous before,” I pointed out. ”What changed?”

She yanked a page from the packet and placed it in front of me. It was a map of the Sierra Nevada mountain range with three circles in red. A total number of survivors sat in a tidy box next to it. Thirty-five.

”Monsters don”t like to lay dormant for long,” she said simply. ”There”s an increased report of strange activity, happening at a level like the Black Rock area. People are disappearing again from the rest of the town. Your goal is to take your team of hunters, find what is attacking people outside the Leftovers, and eliminate it.” I studied the map in front of me. ”The circles you see are recent interactions with the local environment that two teams failed to make much progress with. The mountain, or whatever mutated part of it that”s left, didn”t seem to want the old teams to go in.”

She talked of the mountains as though they were sentient.

”I”m not letting rocks and trees stop me,” I muttered.

”I”ve included the reports for you to look over.” Her brow furrowed into a light expression of genuine concern. ”You should be warned. The soldiers reported that the landscape appeared to be responding to them.”

While the landscape in the Leftovers near Salt Lake City was strange, I’d never gotten more than a spooky vibe from it. To be fair, I was more focused on monsters whenever I went out to those areas, so I rarely paid much attention to the odd trees left behind in the meld. They appeared as weird as all plant life did to me in the Immortal Plane. I traced the trails that the last two failed teams had attempted. They”d aimed for two different sides of the mountain. Luckily, the first team found the encampment of survivors early on, at the first entry point. Someone had written a big X on the third failed entryway.

Hindley cleared her throat. ”The X represents where a member of the squad lost his life. He was caught in a bizarre landslide that nobody saw coming. It could”ve been a monster pushing an unsteady pile of boulders… which would be worrying, implying that these beasts are more sophisticated than what we”ve dealt with so far.”

So, it could be a killer environment or murderous beasts with higher-than-average intelligence. It was a hell of a mission.I chewed my bottom lip and nodded, accepting the full stack of papers as she handed them over. I would do everything I could to bring all the Hellraisers back home.

”We were impressed with your last mission, so it was decided that your team would go,” Hindley said. ”I’m sending your squad from the Salt Lake City mission, the young Taylor twins, and Sylas. I”m sure you remember him. He spoke fondly of you and the others from his experience in the Immortal Plane.”

Sylas wasn”t a problem, but the twins? My stomach wound in knots as I stared at her, feeling like a deer caught in headlights. I was usually so confident. These were my baby siblings, though… No, not babies. They”re growing up. Was this supposed to be a kind of punishment or test for the twins after they’d mouthed off? I doubted Hindley was that petty, but she probably had other people in the Bureau who were part of the decision to send the Hellraisers.

Hindley read my shock easily enough, though I’d tried to hide it.

”If you”re worried for your siblings, I assure you that it was a calculated move due to their skills. They”re a handful. Other captains have had much worse trouble trying to handle them than you did earlier, and we”re desperate for good soldiers. They”re capable, although they need to learn teamwork with others and how to work independently from one another. You should feel proud,” she said.

I clenched the papers hard in my hand, feeling helpless for a moment. ”They”re… they”re not ready.” It was the only thing I could think to say. If it was already decided, then I needed to speak openly to Hindley. I can’t send my siblings out like this. I may not be ready to look over them like that. I was afraid that she might be jumping the gun on their inclusion in the missions.

To my surprise, she shook her head. ”This isn”t a debate. It”s an order from me to take them with you. I trust you. The Bureau trusts you, Captain Taylor. Your siblings are working harder and performing far better than most new soldiers, many of whom have been training for far longer in earlier programs.” She hesitated, searching for the perfect words. It was true. The twins had started late, inspired by my joining the Bureau and how I’d shirked my mother’s opinion. ”Their skills aren”t the problem, as shown in the physical portion of the drill. It”s their attitude that needs fixing, and you seem best suited for the task. Are you not ready?” She had swung this whole thing around on me. Bryce used to say soldiers were only as good as their captains. If I wanted to have a good team, then I needed to learn how to be a good leader who could balance inner-group politics with mission priorities. It was going to be a difficult process. I swallowed any doubt and put on a brave face.

I was going on this mission. Jessie and Jordan would learn to straighten themselves out in a survival scenario. Maybe this would convince them that drills and exercises were also “the real world.”

”I”m ready,” I assured her. A new wave of motivation rushed through me, and my voice steadied with more confidence as I added, ”I can do it.”

The corners of Hindley”s eyes lifted a fraction. ”Excellent.”

That, I decided, was approval. It was all I was going to get.I held the papers close to me as we wrapped up our meeting. I won”t fail this mission. I can”t.