Sighing, I fire up Katrina's laptop, opening the special shell program she's set up for me over the past few days. Both of us are tired of the constant harassment.

Every day it's the same. Another e-mail from Isis, another malware that has to be excised, another picture attached, and another short message. Katrina's automated the whole thing now and taught me how to do it so she doesn't have to bother with it any longer. “Besides, I'm getting tired of seeing her strip via e-mail for you,” she told me yesterday as she watched me run the scripts and do the excision. “Seriously, this bitch is angling for you. It's actually very Fatal Attraction in its own way.”

“She's definitely playing head games,” I mutter to myself as I finish the script and see what's in store for me today. I gulp as the image pulls up, and I see that it's Isis totally nude from the neck down. Can't help it. I remember how good you used to be. Sure we can't get one last little fling in?

With trembling fingers I put the image in Katrina's image analyzer, just in case we can find a clue as to where Isis is. I doubt it, Isis knows what she's doing, each image is taken in a blank background. This one is taken on a bed with white sheets underneath her lean body, and I shake my head as I close the script and shut down my e-mail, opening up a normal web browser to check the Times-Picayune to see what the local news is. After a picture like that, I can use some sports scores or maybe rumors about what the Saints are going to do this off-season.

What I see instead turns my stomach. Local chauffeur third victim of sniper in past week. Michael Barr, 41, of New Orleans, was the third victim of what some are already calling the “Delta Sniper,” after the infamous Beltway Sniper pair of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, who terrorized Washington, D.C. in 2002. Barr, a driver for the Top Star Limousine Company, was preparing his car for work yesterday when he was shot in the chest by a large caliber round. New Orleans police stated that Barr was shot from at least four hundred yards away, and that while they do not have any clues yet, they are working with forensics officials from the FBI to identify the exact type of weapon used.

“I can tell them what type,” I whisper to myself, looking at the crime scene photo in the Picayune.

“She hit again?” Jackson asks behind me, and I turn, seeing him coming out of his room dressed for a workout. He and Katrina are working hard at what they can, although I can sense everyone wishes they could do some firearms training. When your enemy is reaching out and touching her targets from hundreds of yards away, working joint locks and takedowns seems like a waste of time. Still, it gives the two of them and Carson something to take up their time and energy, which is just as important if not more important than the actual skills. Fear is the mind-killer, and all that. “What is that, four?”

“Five actually, if what Darcy told Katrina the other day is correct. Three sniper hits, and two others who were associates of Peter DeLaCoeur, all dead in the past ten days. She hit Mike yesterday.”

Jackson, who'd had Mike drive him around for years, probably interacted with Mike more than any other member of the DeLaCoeur staff. He goes silent, then shakes his head. “Damn. Mike. I hadn't thought of him in a couple months at least. After that last time he drove me, Peter had Mike not interact with me at all. I mean, he wasn't a friend or anything, but he did try to look out for me when I had my head up my ass.”

“That he did. I don't understand this one, either. Isis would not have put a bullet in Mike without instructions from Peter to do so, she doesn't kill without orders. But Mike was one hundred percent loyal, and Peter intentionally kept him in the dark,” I muse, running my hand through my hair. “Mike spent most of his time running you, Margaret, and Andrea around town. He only drove Peter on legit business. What was he doing on a hit list?”

Jackson shakes his head. “Maybe Peter's just gone over the edge. After the Grammercys turned on him and we put Orloff in the ground, we did push him. Maybe it was just a push too damn far.”

I shrug. “The good part though, if Isis is doing all of these, then she is also keeping other people off of the contracts. I bet she has put the word out, New Orleans is her territory for now. Whatever the case, I need to talk to Katrina. She and I need to coordinate our tracking of this bloodbath.”

“Mind if I ask why?” Jackson asks, rolling his wrists to start to loosen them up. “Not saying that Isis isn't dangerous, but what's the point of tracking what she's doing down there? I'm sure Jeff and the boys from NOPD already have the feds involved, and they've got files on Isis, they probably already know who she is and everything down to her favorite color for Jimmy Choos.”

“Last I knew, Isis Bardot's never been fingerprinted or anything approaching normal identification,” I reply, tapping my lips with my index finger. “She's even more of a ghost than Katrina. Fake IDs, all of it. Twenty years ago she had passports from half a dozen countries. Nowadays, I am betting it's even more. Hell, I don't even know for sure if her real name is Isis Bardot or not. When we were active in Kurdistan, the locals from Aisha's village did recognize her, and she's certainly related to Aisha, but as for the Bardot part, or the part about how she ended up being only a half-sister, well... I just don't know.”

Jackson hums. “How did that happen, anyway? Dad fucked around on mom?”

I shake my head, standing up. “According to Isis, it was actually that she and Aisha shared a mother. She was just a Kurdish woman who was working on the air base, working while her husband and daughter were living in Kurdistan, and they had an affair. She got pregnant, but her father kept her safe until after Isis was born. Being a married woman who had an affair, her mother abandoned her to her father, going back to her Kurdish family afterward. It wasn't until after she was back in Kurdistan that she revealed the truth to her husband. He accepted Isis as his daughter for a while, but soon sent her to live with her real father permanently. It could be true, it could be bullshit. I don't know. Doesn't really matter anyway.”

Jackson hums, nodding. “True. So where are you going now?”

“Now?” I ask, looking around the big main room. “I think I will check our wood supply, then get some exercise. Tell your wife that I’m not ready for our little sparring match, but soon. How is she looking?”

Jackson chuckles and shakes his head. “I've already got a hundred dollar bet with Carson that Katrina hands you your ass.”

I chuckle and pat Jackson on the shoulder. “Good to know. If Katrina can be ready around four thirty, I would appreciate it.”

After getting exercise via splitting logs for forty-five minutes, I shower and change clothes, trying to get my mind right. I know what my duty is. I need to stay here and protect this family, to protect my family. But with every e-mail, every death, I feel a pull to go back to New Orleans, to try and bring Isis down. I may be playing right into her game, she's got to be trying to set me up with her messages, but they're still worming their way inside my mind.

It's not the sexual overtones. While Isis was a past lover, there's nothing emotionally there for her, there never was. She reminded me of Aisha too much. I know I called her Aisha in bed so often that any other woman would have been pissed off. Not Isis, because when I was calling her Aisha, those were the days I gave her more of myself than normal.

So there's nothing emotionally there for Isis herself. If I have any conflicting emotions, it's because I know I love Melissa, but there's still the ghost of Aisha in my mind, and having Isis involved now is stirring that ghost I thought was long-buried.

My talk with Katrina is short, we've both been thinking of the same thing, and I agree that next time she has an online chat with Darcy, I should be there to feed her as much information as I can. Her husband's a good cop, and Jeff could use the information to help the NOPD with their hunt for Isis. Already the NOPD has made the connections between the five deaths in that they all worked for or were associates of Peter DeLaCoeur, so they're keeping their eyes on him. But there isn't much they can do, he's got an alibi for everything, and until they get their hands on Isis there's no way they can tie him to any sniper or killer.

After dinner, I go out into the courtyard of the compound, watching the moon. It's very clear tonight, clear and cold, and my breath fogs upward as I try and think clearly. I'm interrupted when I hear a quiet cough behind me, and I turn to see Melissa standing in her heavy jacket, looking up with me. “I've always loved the moon. It's tranquil and peaceful.”

“True,” I agree, looking up. “I have no idea what the Greeks and Romans were thinking, making the moon goddess the goddess of the hunt and the wild.”

“They were probably scared of the dark,” Melissa says, stepping closer. “And the night does have many hunters.”

“That's true,” I admit. I think about my past and sigh, shaking my head. “Like I was.”

“That wasn't what I meant, but okay,” Melissa says. “Actually, I came out here to check on you. You've been looking a little out of it.”

“I guess I have been,” I admit, feeling a bit ashamed. She's so beautiful in the soft light that's bleeding out from the rest of the house, I want to tell her so much about how I'm torn. I want to go back to New Orleans and confront this ghost from my past. I want to take Isis and Peter out. But I know I can't be sure. I can't be certain Peter doesn't have another assassin out there or a team of them, so the best thing I can do is stay here and gather information, keeping them safe. Isis may have New Orleans on lockdown, but they could show up and hit us here, too. “It’s not easy. Isis is good at psychological operations, and even if you know you are being subjected to them, that doesn't mean they don’t have an effect.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Melissa asks, and I hear the desire in her voice. It's not for intimacy, but instead to feel needed. She's not as physically strong as the rest of us, and today I know she took a big blow to her self-confidence when she tried to chop some wood like everyone else and was unable to split even a single log. I tried to reassure her it was because she'd chosen a log that was too big, and that there's a technique to splitting logs she didn't get, but she's still rattled, and hasn't been even her normal self today.

“Yeah,” I say honestly, knowing maybe it's not the best for my emotional detachment, but right now I need to be reminded of what, and more importantly, why I'm sitting up here at this compound. “Have you ever taken a walk in the woods at night?”

“No,” Melissa admits, glancing around. “Is it scary?”

“It can be,” I admit. “But I will take a flashlight, and I am armed. Don't worry, this part of the forest has more deer than it does bears or anything like that. The animals don't like us, they will stay away. And I will make sure we stay safe walking, too.”

Melissa thinks, then nods. “Okay. Uh, I'll go tell everyone else what we're doing, if that's all right?”

“Just fine,” I say, smiling. “I'll get the flashlight out of the truck.”

Melissa meets me at the truck a minute later, just as I finish checking that the LED light works. I tuck it into my pocket and turn, giving her a smile. I know everyone's watching us. “Come on,” I say lightly, waving. “I think they are worried about us.”

Melissa turns and glances, and I can't help it, I laugh when everyone scatters from the windows. She turns back, trying to smile I think, I can't see her much with the way the light falls. “Yeah, they're worried about us.”

“Well, there’s nothing to worry about,” I say, holding out my hand. She takes it, her eyes going wide in surprise as I entwine our fingers and give her a smile. “Shall we?”

We start off, and I keep to the dirt road at first, letting her get comfortable moving in the dim light of just the moon. As we move, she relaxes, and I'm thrilled when she moves closer, until she's so close I can feel her shoulder brush against my arm as we move. “This is nice,” she finally says, inhaling deeply. “You know, I think that's one thing I do like about here.”

“What's that? The cold?”

Melissa chuckles, shaking her head as she lets out her breath, the mist rising to disappear in the moonlight. “No. The smell. It's different from the farm. There we have trees too, but it's a heavy, wet smell most of the time. Here, it's sharp and clean. I don't think I've ever smelled anything quite like it before.”

I stop and inhale deeply as I close my eyes, trying to see the world through Melissa's point of view, and for an instant, it feels like it's right there. I can smell what she's talking about, the chill combined with the still rich scent of the pine trees that make up a lot of the forest up here, mixed in with the faint tang of the smoke from our fire behind us. It's amazing, and I open my eyes in wonder. “You're right. It's... that's what is special about you, 'Lissa.”

“What do you mean?” she asks as we start walking again. “You've said that I'm special a couple of times now. I still don't see how I'm special.”

I think, trying to find the words I can use to explain how she makes me feel. “'I saw today how you struggled with the log, and how you have spent a lot of time around here feeling pretty much like you don't have a place.”

“Everyone contributes except me. I don’t like it.”

“No, you are special in your own way,” I argue gently. “Like what you just helped me do. 'Lissa, I have spent time in so many different forests I can’t even begin to count them all. Right up until that moment when you said something about the smell, the only things that concerned me about the compound were how defensible it is, or which trees around the property are good for firewood. That's it. But when I’m with you, you remind me of the beauty that makes the world worth being in. So don't ever doubt that you’re not special, that you don't have a place here in the family. Because you are more vital than even me. When BA gets old enough, or when Andrea and Carson have their baby, they are going to need someone to teach and show them the beautiful side of the world. Hopefully, they won't need to learn the skills that I have.”

“You think we'll ever be safe like that?” Melissa asks, stopping and looking at me. “Lately I've been having more dreams that we'll never be safe, and they're scarier than my memories.”

I raise her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles without even realizing I'm doing it. “Melissa, I promise you, there will come a time when you will be safe and secure.”

She moves closer, a shadow in the darkness, and wraps her arms around me, hugging me. I hug her back, and would stay there forever except that my cock betrays me, stirring in my pants as it realizes the woman I've been fantasizing about for the past four months is now holding me. And she isn't holding me for support, but rather because she wants to hold me. I let go and step back, taking her hand again. She looks at me, slightly confused. “What, Nathan?”

“Nothing, 'Lissa. I would like to finish a wonderful walk with a wonderful person though, and then maybe share a cup of cocoa in the kitchen?”

Melissa laughs nearly silently and shakes her head. “What happened to your tea fetish?”

I laugh in reply and shake my head. “I am a tea snob, unfortunately, and we have burned through the little stash of good tea I brought with us. And I’ve seen you drinking cocoa with your sisters.”

Melissa smiles, beautiful in the starlight, and nods. “Okay. You're right, I am pretty much a chocoholic.”

We turn back, and when we get back inside, I make Melissa a mug of cocoa, noting we're going to have to go on a supply run tomorrow, unless we plan on drinking nothing but water in two days. “Here you go.”

We sit quietly, and I find that despite it being too sweet and a bit cloying, sharing a mug with Melissa is nice. The fire is just the right size to give us enough light and heat to be comfortable. “I wonder if they set this up for us.”

“Probably,” Melissa admits, sipping at her drink. “I think I was a bit too open telling them things.”

“I know. Having Katrina threaten to kick my ass was a good hint. I'm not upset about it, I know she loves you. Besides, I’ve been thinking...”

Melissa sets her mug down, and gives me a hopeful look. “Thinking about what?”

“That after this is done... I would like to stay part of this family, if it’s okay with everyone else,” I say, feeling unusually unsure. “I just... I would really like that. Especially since you do help me feel like the world is better.”

“I'd like that too,” Melissa says, and we finish our cocoa. “Thank you, Nathan. I feel a lot better about being here after our walk.”

I nod, smiling. “Actually, Melissa, I have a request. Would you mind if we did this again sometime soon? I mean, it doesn't have to be a walk every time.”

Melissa gives me an angelic smile and raises an eyebrow. “Why, Nathan Black, are you asking me on a date?”

It's been so long since I’ve been on something that could be called a date, but with Melissa I’m actually looking forward to it. “Yeah, I guess I am. What do you say?”

I expect her to stutter, it'd be so normal for her, but for some reason she doesn't, and instead her answer is immediate and strong. Maybe because she knows this is highly unusual for me. “I'd love to.”

I stand up, gathering our mugs. “Okay then, well, I’m going to wash up, and then hit the sack. Goodnight, Melissa. I had a fun... date.”

She smiles, just a hint of her normal shyness, and her eyes sparkle in the firelight. “Me too.”