Undone

“Do I smell like an ashtray?” I asked.

Her lips curled unwillingly into a smile. “I’d guess you do, but I’m not getting close enough to sniff you.” She cocked her head slightly, studying me. “You do look more like a scarecrow than usual, es verdad. After Ma

“No,” I said. “I’ll wear what I have.” The thought of wearing someone else’s clothes made my skin crawl with horror. “But I would be glad of the shower.”

“No problem.” Angela opened the screen door for me as we entered the house. “Keep it down; Ibby’s taking a nap.”

Ibby, in fact, was not. The child bounced up from the couch and jumped in place, face alight with pleasure. “Cassie, Cassie, Cassie!”

I sighed. “Cassiel, please.” For all the good I sensed it would do. Angela stifled a laugh.

I had no idea of the human protocol for such things, but I knelt down, and the child rushed my arms. Warm, chubby arms around my neck. A moist kiss on my cheek. “Ewwww, you smell like burning things,” Ibby said.

“I’m about to wash it away,” I said soberly. “Will that be better?”

She nodded vigorously, curls bouncing. “Were you at a fire?”

“Yes, Ibby.”

“Were there firemen?”

“Yes, quite a few.”

“Was it a big fire?”

“Big enough.”

Ibby’s dark eyes widened, and she looked around the room. I didn’t understand at first, until her eyes filled with tears and she wailed, “Where’s Papa?”

I had no experience of crying children, but luckily, Angela quickly encircled her daughter in her arms and patted her on the back. “Hush, mija, Papa’s fine. Hear that? He’s taking a shower right now.”

“Was he in the fire?” Her small voice trembled.

“He was there with Cassiel,” Angela said, and her gaze touched mine for a moment. “But look, they’re both fine. She’s fine, and Papa’s fine. So what are you crying about, Ibby?”

Ibby’s sobs became sniffles. “Nothing. I’m not crying.”

 “Good girl.” Angela kissed her cheek and let her slip back to the floor. “Go play, mija.”

Ibby wandered down the hall toward her room, pausing at the bathroom door to listen to the fall of water. She looked back at me doubtfully, and I nodded. I was trying to convey that her father was, in fact, fine; I couldn’t tell if she believed that, but she went to her room at the end of the hall, and after a few moments I heard music playing.

Angela let out a slow breath. “She gets so anxious when she thinks something’s happened. She knows Ma

I wanted to tell her that Ma

“That’ll make Ibby feel better,” Angela said. She didn’t say, and me, but I understood that to be true. “You probably need something cold to drink.”

I was, in fact, thirsty, and I followed her to the kitchen, where she chatted about meaningless details of the day, as if we were friends. I supposed we were, in a way. I sipped the iced tea she prepared and nibbled at a cookie from a plate on the table.

Ma

Ibby crawled up into the chair next to me and reached out for a cookie.

“Ibby!” her mother said sharply. The child pulled back and looked abashed. “Ask.”

“May I please have a cookie, Mama?”

“Yes, you may have one.”

Ibby surveyed the plate and took the largest. I approved of her strategic approach.

“What did Scott say to you, Ma

“That I should have sent the files off for archiving months ago,” he said. “Some kind of regulations. Like we didn’t have other things to worry about.”

“He blames you?”

“Let’s just say it won’t come out in my favor in the report.”

“Do you think—” I paused, because I realized that this might not be the best moment to pose the question. Still, it needed to be asked. “Do you think someone was aiming for you or Luis, rather than the destruction of the office?”

Ma

“And Luis?”

He didn’t answer. Angela did. “Lots of people got problems with Luis,” she said. “He’s the kind of guy who makes enemies, you know? A lot more than Ma

I understood that, on some instinctive level; Ma

Luis was different. I couldn’t tell what Luis desired, or what drove him, and that made him dangerous to me.

“Mama, may I have another cookie?”

“No.”

“Cassie had two.”

I broke my cookie in half and offered it to Isabel. “Cassiel,” I said.

She giggled.

The laptop that Ma

His perso

Luis was more powerful than I had thought, and better regarded among the Wardens. This was not necessarily a badge of honor; many Wardens were corrupt, and no few of them had used their power for their own enrichment. Power tempts humans in ways that it does not seem to warp Dji

Then again, Dji

In the earliest entries, notes were made of Luis’s gang affiliation. It had been a difficult decision, it seemed, whether or not to bring Luis into the Wardens organization. They had almost decided to go the opposite direction—use an Earth Warden to remove his powers permanently. I knew something of that process. It was painful, and it had a significant failure rate, both in terms of how often it worked and how often the patients died.

Luis was lucky the Wardens had been too selfish to give up a strong talent. But they had kept eyes on him, and still did, from all indications.

Luis Rocha might be well thought-of by his peers, but he was still not trusted by the administration. Interesting. I wondered if he knew.

I learned nothing more from the files, save what I already knew: The Wardens regarded Luis as a much stronger talent than his brother.

When I turned to Ma