Page 53 of Fool Me Twice

“Yeah.” Sawyer’s voice is quieter now. Less playfully antagonistic, more tiredly regretful. “Yeah, that’s what Naomi and I figured you’d think. That’s what the Councilwantedyou to think.”

Roma’s eyes narrow. “As opposed to…?”

“Something darker,” Gregorio says, and he nods at Sawyer. “Solomon here was investigating the situation in the background, and when those demons came back to Redwater, she found an anomaly. My job in the Redwater Chain is to track demons who enter or leave our jurisdiction for periods longer than four weeks, and she found a stack of forms that hypothetically would’ve come straight from my office: six TX-203s giving those demons permission to leave Redwater six years prior, and six VX-861s giving them permission to come back.”

“All of which were allegedly signed by one ‘G. Ricci,’” Micah adds, “who, as I think we’ve all figured out by now, hasn’t signed a solid half of the paperwork that Central Office claims he has.”

The words streak through Ez like lightning, puzzle pieces snapping together in her head‍—and not making a bit of sense in the process. “The Chainhidthem?” she repeats, skeptical. “But they were publicly wanted by the Chain for their crimes, especially after the Jackson–Locke murders. Why would Central Office protect them? And why would six unregistered demons even fill out the proper forms?”

“The better question ishow,”Micah says. “As in, how did multiple TX-203s for multiple high-profile demons make it throughmultipleChain departments without anyone sounding the alarm? I sure as hell would’ve noticed, and usually, every scrap of paperwork in Redwater crosses my desk. That means Central Office took pains to make sure no one outside of their inner circle saw those forms.”

“High-level corruption in the Chain,” Obie says, his eyes shifting to Ez. “Just like you thought.”

“Not for nothing,” Ez says, “but Roma and I presumed that corruption was, like, four or five people, tops. Not half of Central Office.”

Naomi nods. “That’s what Sawyer and I thought at first, too‍—that we had one or two Sanctum hunters working with one or two Chain demons. So Sawyer tracked Gregorio down to see what he knew about those forms, I… got involved‍?—‍”

“You mean that you stalked me,” Sawyer says, “and held a knife to my throat until I told you what I knew.”

Naomi doesn’t miss a beat. “But it was sexy, right?”

Sawyer’s lips twitch in a smirk. “Very.”

Roma chokes. Obie scrubs a hand down his face, clearly irritated, and Micah and Gregorio trade weary looks that imply this type of banter is averyfrequent occurrence.

Looks like Naomi and Sawyer rode off into the sunset together after all.

Cass snaps his fingers impatiently.“Focus.What does this have to do with anything?”

His voice is hard. With a pang, Ez realizes that he’s gripping JJ’s shoulder so tightly that it would probably bruise a regular human, but with that dazed expression on JJ’s face, Ez doubts he even notices.

“Buzzkill,” Sawyer says, but she dutifully continues. “We met up with Gregorio and Micah a few times in the lead-up to Strike Team Kappa’s final exam. The entire con made sense from the Chain’s point of view‍—either Kappa killed those unregistered demons, thus ridding the world of six dangerous criminals, or the demons killed Kappa, thus ridding the world of three hunters-in-training.”

“Which was a possibility, by the way, that we werenotabout to let happen,” Naomi adds, her eyes flickering from Roma to JJ and back again. “That was why we pushed you three so hard during practice runs, and that was why we stayed so close during the mission itself. If it was a setup, then we wanted to be prepared.”

“Besides that, the only aspect that didn’t make sense was what the Sanctum had to gain,” Sawyer says, and she grimaces. “Unfortunately, Micah and Gregorio figured that out.”

Ez’s eyes narrow. “‘Unfortunately’?”

“Yeah. It’s not pretty,” Gregorio says. “A few months before all this, Micah was assigned to create a streamlined version of an old form‍—the FX-905b. He ended up visiting Chains worldwide to teach them how to use it.” His jaw tightens. “Which is how we discovered hints of covert communication between the Chain and the Sanctum on every continent.”

All at once, the world goesveryquiet around Ez. Roma goes absolutely still. “What?”

“It’s not just Redwater,” Micah says. “It’severywhere.Sprawling metropolises, tiny townships, and everything inbetween. Forged TX-203s, forged VX-861s…” He winces. “Forged transfer paperwork for neophyte demons. The location codes for their destinations never seemed to exist. Now, we’re pretty sure they were being funneled straight to their local Sanctums.”

“London was particularly brutal,” Gregorio adds. “That was where we found three more families.”

JJ squints at him. “Three more families?”

Gregorio hesitates. Glances at Sawyer.

Sawyer takes a deep breath, meeting JJ’s eyes. “Three more families,” she says, her voice measured and even, “that were murdered by unregistered demons a few years prior, leaving only three twelve-year-old children behind. The London Sanctum took them in.”

It’s like all the oxygen gets sucked out of the room at once. Feeling like she’s moving through molasses, Ez turns to look at JJ, who’s staring back at Sawyer with a concerningly blank expression.

Like the implications of the words are too awful for his brain to even process.

With mounting horror, Ez realizes why Micah and Gregorio insisted on JJ coming to this meeting. She realizes why Micah immediately recognized JJ all those months ago in Cass’s living room, and why both he and Gregorio had a vested interest in him, and why they helped to cover his and Cass’s tracks.

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