Max could remember Deliah – so blonde and distant and dangerously beautiful, like the stretch of a blizzard for miles around – but she didn’t know her, only of her. Tim had his sister to piece him back together, but Max only had herself. There’d be nobody to put her together if she got lost, leapt, and shattered.

It was the job that kept her grounded. She’d been called to New Haven again because of her skills. Tim was a job, but he was also a challenge and a test to see how she could hold together. A test. Max had been passing tests all her life and exceeding Agency expectations since the age of sixteen. She would not fail now. She would not fail at her job, nor would she fail Tim. She could hold him together while holding herself away. She would not fail herself.

20 tracks