(A/N: This fic is set in Beetlemania, when the exotic animal smuggler asks Julian Morneau if he knows the three kids—Henry, Maggie, and Jasper—who stole the smuggler's illegally imported insect. It's from Julian's POV.)

"Those kids stole my bugs," the smuggler snapped, glaring at me from behind the ever-present dark glasses. "Who are they?"

Could I do it? Could I betray three innocent children to a ruthless criminal? Of course, the Henry, Jasper, and Maggie were a little past childhood, and they were far from innocent. They were meddlers. Interfering, prying, busybodies. If anyone deserved to have a dangerous criminal breathing down their neck, it was them. There was no love lost between us, and they knew it. Who could blame me? It was their fault for stealing the bug in the first place.

And yet . . .

And yet . . .

I could picture their faces so clearly in my mind. Friendly Jasper, missing a tongue or ear or toe, because he and his friends had foolishly tried to resist. Clever, clever, Maggie, her brilliant brain paralyzed by terror as she and her friends were threatened with torture. Henry, his supreme confidence that everything would work out, and his utter belief in his own abilities, both shattered by the ruthless man that I had sent his way.

Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to get the bug back myself. Maybe . . . maybe those three friends could get—

one—

last—

shot.

"I have no idea."