Lance stood dumbfounded for a moment. How could what Pharis was saying be right? He had been on the edge of death only moments before, how had he recovered so much as to get away from the hospital?

'Sure, he was injured, but he's still Dani. The hospital is run by normal people; good people, sure, but they don't have a hope of out-classing or out-foxing my brother. He isn't the type to be forced into doing anything he doesn't want to.'

Another thought occurred to him: if Dani had escaped the hospital, he might be gone for another three years. Lance wouldn't see his brother for quite some time in that case, not that he was sure he would see him at all ever again.

Lance thought of the three long years he'd spent without any of his family and instantly knew he didn't want to go through that ever again. No matter what, Dani was still the only family he had left. Life without any family would be very lonely indeed.

So that only left him with one choice, really. Lance had to go after him. But to know where to start would require a visit to the hospital to gather any clues Dani might have left. So, he would start his search there.

"I've got to go after him," Lance said, turning to look at Kit.

"We're coming with you," she replied.

Dragon sighed as he leaned his back to the wall, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "This is starting to get really frustrating," he murmured through clenched teeth. "No one's seen anything useful. What they have seen is what we already know."

Wild Child folded her arms and leaned on her shoulder next to him. "Relax," she chided. "We know that with his dislocated shoulder, burned face and all of his bruises, bumps and scrapes, he'll stand out, wherever he goes. We'll get a lead on him eventually."

"I hope you're right. I can't let him down again. I have to help him."

As they spoke, Dust approached from down the hall, flanked by Pharis. "Accordin' to 'is doctor, Dani waited until his shoulder was set and he had been bandaged up all over to make his break for it. He took 'is clothes, including 'is coat, and vanished."

"So he's out there, barely patched up and severely injured, and it's all my fault," Dragon mumbled, turning away from the team. "Great."

"Please stop doing that," Wild Child said, somewhat agitated. "It isn't helping anyone."

Dragon ogled her with eyebrows raised, but knew she was right. "Ok. Sorry. Maybe I should take a break and get some air."

She nodded. "That might be helpful," she said, her gentility returning to her voice.

Dragon stepped toward the end of the hall, where the nearest elevator was, but as he did, the phone in his front pocket began to ring. He stopped and pulled it out to check it. "It's Lieutenant Mulcagey, I better answer this," he told them. He hit a button on the front and put it up to his ear. "Hello, Lieutenant."

"Hello," came his deep voice. "Is this Dragon?"

He nodded, even though he knew the Lieutenant couldn't see it. "It is. What can we do for you, Lieutenant?"

"I've got another task for your team. And I've finally discovered some interesting things about the artifacts from the museum."

That caught Dragon's attention. "The ones Serenity Segeal was after?"

"The very same." The smug satisfaction was audible even over the phone line.

"Interesting. A little quid-pro-quo?"

"Something like that," the Lieutenant said.

Dragon was a little desperate. On one hand, he was busy cleaning up his own mess with his family, while on the other, he finally had a lead to go on in the museum case. He really wanted to tell the Lieutenant to wait his turn, but he would be playing with fire if he did.

He could send the other Titans to do Mulcagey's errand, and chase Dani on his own. But that would mean leaving Wild Child, Dust, and Pharis without a leader for a time. Dragon was the one who had asked them to leave their own lives to forge a new one as part of a team. With them already down one person, if Dragon skipped out on them , how much would be left bonding them together? They needed their leader.

And they needed him a little more than Dani did. Dani would survive, if nothing else, and they would both live to make up another day. For right now, it was necessary for him to lead them in doing their job, and track down Dani afterward.

"What is it you need from us?"

"Child Protective Services are ready to look after those homeless kineticist kids your team found, we need you to escort them."

"Homeless kineticist kids?" Dragon asked. As he said that, he noticed Wild Child's head perk up and her honey-golden eyes latch onto him. He looked up to meet her gaze.

"Yeah, about that…" she began.

Blake and Elaine sat the Titans' table, side by side while across from them Wild Child and Dragon sat, while Dust and Pharis remained standing behind them.

"You want me and my little sister to trust those people? After what we've been through?" Blake was asking, sounding both incredulous and outraged. By Wild Child's reckoning, he had every right to be both those things.

"I know how much we're asking of you," Wild Child said, attempting to assure him.

"With all due respect," he half-growled. "I don't believe you do."

Wild Child decided to switch tactics. "Elaine, what do you want?"

Elaine, looking much like a deer when it has caught sight or sound of a predator, blinked and seemed to shrink into her chair. "I just want to be with my big brother."

"Would you like to have a real home, with parents who will protect and care for you?"

"Yes," she said, her voice shrinking with her.

"Then won't you trust me and go with us to meet some nice people?"

Elaine didn't answer. She stared at Wild Child for a long moment, then seemed to check with Blake. Seeing his disapproving look, she slumped back in her chair and remained silent.

Wild Child began to grow frustrated. This wasn't working, Elaine wasn't going to go without Blake, so all her hopes rested on convincing him to go.

"Blake, you don't have to live alone, you can have a family to support you."

"If you don't want us, why would someone who doesn't even know us want us?"

That stung her deeply. HIs resistance made more sense now. He must've thought the Titans had taken them in only to foist them off on someone else as soon as possible. Which wasn't true, Wild Child realized, but she couldn't blame him for thinking so.

"Blake, it's not that we don't want you here. We do." Blake scoffed at that. "No, really. It's just, we can't provide the kind of stability you need. We're protectors of the city, we aren't a suitable replacement for a family."

Wild Child wasn't sure Blake noticed it, but he raised his voice. "You still don't get it. We want to be here, with you!" Wild Child winced at his volume, but didn't turn away. "You understand us! You're just like us!" A long moment passed where no one said anything in reply. "Why can't we stay here? Here, where we're safe? Safe from demented 'scientists' who treat us like lab animals! Safe from street thugs and corrupt police!"

Wild Child's frustration and pain prodded at her, but even through her torturous emotions, everything became clear. Blake was worried for his sister, pleading for a place where he felt she'd be safe. She had no doubt that were he on his own, Blake would have no trouble defending himself, but he had more than himself to care for.

'He's been experimented on, too. They both have,' she thought. 'Maybe there's a reason we crossed paths.' Blake had to know he wasn't alone, that he wasn't the only person he could rely upon. That's what he was really fighting for at this table. 'Maybe I can give that to him.'

"You're not the only one who wanted someone to support them," she said quietly.

That seemed to catch the attention of everyone in the room but Wild Child forced herself to ignore all the eyes pointed her way, except Blake's. He was the one who mattered most right now.

"What are you talking about?" Blake asked, his contemptuous tone subsiding into curiosity.

"I know what's it like to be separated from your family and experiment on. Because it happened to me, too."

All the ears in the rom now perked in her direction as well.

"The name of the company was Gaia Research Industries," she began. "GRI approached my parents, who desperately needed the money, and convinced them they'd pay for everything if they could use us. At first, they were skeptical, but the more the company people talked about the money, the more willing my parents seemed.

Eventually, they agreed to sign a contract. The contract didn't have anything in it about what they were going to do to me. In reality, nothing the GRI team did to me was legal, but it was all kept very well under wraps. They took samples of my DNA, forced it to mutate, then did the same thing to the DNA still inside me. The intended effect was to allow me to bend my body to be more like that of an animals, but they took it too far. I gained the ability to shape-shift, and they kept working on the serum. They kept changing it, giving me different powers.

The entire time, I was given counseling where I was told that what they were doing was the right thing and what I was doing was helping my family, but I haven't seen my parents or my little brother since the day GRI took me away from them. I don't even know what they were hoping to do. What it did was take me far away from my family, left me stranded here in Era City, and once I escaped, I was totally on my own."

Dragon was the first one to summon the capacity to speak. "Kit, I-I… I'm so sorry. I never even thought…" Wild Child noted the use of her real name, a break in his self-imposed protocol to use only code names when they were on the job.

"I'm ok, Lance. Thank you," she gave him what she hoped was an assuring smile. She didn't want him to think too much about her pain. He deserved not to be burdened with it.

Blake was next. "I… I can't believe there were others at GRI."

Wild Child, along with the rest of the Titans, widened her eyes in surprise. She supposed it made sense, in a way. If both of them had been subjected to wicked experimentation, it would follow that it had been by the same hands. Still, it made her blood begin to run hot with protective outrage over them.

"I mean, I don't really believe it's possible. We were the only ones in that lab."

"I can prove it. GRI labs are where I got these." Wild Child did the one thing she thought she could never do in front of others. She lifted her mask and pulled it down, exposing her face for the first time to everyone gathered. She resisted the reflex to cover her face with her hands, but only after they were already mostly up. She felt the texture of the skin upon her face. The occasional bumps and elongated pocks on her face were the scars from injuries inflicted hundredfold upon her skin.

With her scars finally all exposed, she dared to look around at her teammates.

"Oh," Dust said. "Ye poor lass."

"Kit, what those monsters did to you…I'm so sorry. I swear, I'll make them pay," Dragon promised.

Blake and Elaine stared in stunned silence and the longer they watched her the more itchy her skin felt. She wanted sorely to cover up again with the mask, to retreat to her safe hiding spot under the cloth, but she couldn't. She'd exposed the scars so she could make a point. It was going to undo that sacrifice if she hid her face again.

She felt the harsh judgments of their stares for a long, silent moment more before she couldn't handle it any longer and drew the mask over her face again.

With her scars hidden, Wild Child felt a little more at ease, but apparently so did Blake and Elaine. They finally daunted to speak.

"Ok. So maybe you do understand. Maybe better than anyone else in history," Blake conceded.

"So you'll go with us to the meeting with Child Protective Services?"

"If we leave, will we ever see you again?" Elaine directed the question directly to Wild Child.

She nodded for the third time. "You surely will. Just to prove it to you, I'm going to give you this," she said, producing her black bar-shape cell phone. She placed it down on the table and slid it across to them. "With this, you can get in contact with us anytime, if you ever need anything. If you ever need a friend."

Blake examined the phone but didn't pick it up immediately, so Elaine did the honors for him. She swiped it up and her thumbs twitched happily as she seemed to explore the phone's functions. Blake watched his sister play happily with the device for a few seconds more before turning back to Wild Child.

"You've got yourself a deal."

Dragon lead the team all the way to the police station, where Wild Child and Dust followed Blake and Elaine to the meeting with CPS. Dragon brought Pharis along with him on his own mission.

The two of them had no trouble finding the office of Lieutenant Mulcagey in the police building. Mulcagey's office was a small room, about the size of one of the Titans private bedrooms, with a solid-looking wooden desk in the middle. Dragon gave the desk a once-over. Upon its surface, besides a multitude of files and papers scattered across the majority of the desk, an older-looking computer monitor sat atop a similarly aged CPU. To the side of the computer, Dragon picked up a wooden frame, which contained a picture of a pretty, blonde little girl with green eyes smiling widely. Dragon put the picture down and noticed all the other photos on Mulcagey's desk were of that little girl with him, in varying ages for both of them. Mulcagey had mentioned his daughter when they had first met him, Dragon remembered. But, re-examining the photos, there were only ever the two of them in the pictures. No smiling wife or mother to be seen.

'Interesting.' he thought.

Dragon and Pharis had a seat and waited for him. After a moment, Dragon pointed out what he had noticed about the photographs.

"Oh. Do you think the poor man is a widower?" Pharis asked.

From the doorframe, Mulcagey smoothly and quickly strode in. "A widower?" he asked in his raspy-basso voice. "Nah, I'm just divorced."

Dragon felt ashamed of his nosiness. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant."

The man pulled a cushioned office chair from behind the desk and lowered himself into it, then shrugged. "Sorry would have been staying married."

Dragon didn't know what to say to that, so he remained quiet.

"So I've called you down here to show this to you," Mulcagey said, picking up one of the myriad folders upon his desk and holding it out to Dragon.

Dragon accepted it and opened it up. Inside were full-sized photos of the museum exhibits in the hall where the Titans had detained Serenity. The one on top was of a stone dagger inscribed with many sigils and runes. Dragon frowned.

"What is this that I'm looking at?" he asked.

"A stone ritual blade dating back to medieval Ireland."

"A Celtic artifact?" Dragon responded, his tone incredulous.

Pharis turned her head to him. "You recognize it, Dragon?"

"You could say that," he said, nodding. "When I was little, my mother told me lots of Celtic legends as bedtime stories. Most of them were about faeries. One of them mentioned this dagger. The knife was important to the Fae because it held the secrets of ancient rituals of deep magic. The Fae were after it, each for themselves. This, I believe, would be the same dagger from the legend."

Mulcagey shrugged. "I don't know about all that mumbo-jumbo about faeries, but that's the exhibit from the museum we believe Serenity Segeal was after."

"This? Why this, instead of literally anything else in that hall?" Dragon inquired.

Mulcagey leaned back in his chair. "You tell me. You supposedly know the history of the dagger. It's the one valuable thing in the direction she was moving, based on the surveillance footage we acquired from the museum. And it's certainly the only thing she had a hope of fitting in that tiny satchel of hers."

Dragon wrestled with his confusion. What did Serenity want with the Celtic ritual knife, unless she knew what it was? But if she had known what it was, what did she want it for? Obviously, she probably believed in it's magic, she being a pyro-electro-kineticist. But, that didn't explain how she would have known what the knife was supposed to be or do.

His muddled brain hit him with logic and laid out facts for him. Serenity wanted the knife. Dragon believed it was a Celtic artifact capable of great magic. Therefore it followed that Serenity probably believed it, too. But where would they both have heard the same faerie tales about it? As far as he knew, the tales his mother had told him had been passed down from her mother and her grandmother before that. To the best of his knowledge, it was a family story.

So the logical conclusion was that Serenity shared a heritage with him and the story had been passed down in both families. Serenity was related to him, by blood, somewhere in his family tree. That realization cleared a few things up for him. That would have been why Serenity and he had shared a somewhat intimate moment before when he had held her up at the museum and later on at the jail, because they were not only family.

This new development hit him hard, chilling him right down to his bones. They were both part of the bloodline curse. It made sense, as well. Sohlitaire was their mutual ancestor and Dragon was vaguely aware that family trees fork fairly often, so Sohlitaire would likely have many descendants of his who would be bound to Travesty.

It always came back to Travesty. "Oh she is such a pain the neck!" he said aloud.

"Who is?" Pharis asked.

"I'll explain later," he said quickly. Dragon rose, and Pharis followed suit. "Thank you Lieutenant Mulcagey."

Mulcagey gave another shrug. "I scratch your back, you scratch mine. I know there are plenty of kineticists in this city that my people can't handle. I'd prefer if you were there for us to provide your assistance from time to time."

Dragon nodded. "Of course. Can we do anything else for you today, Lieutenant?"

Mulcagey gave a shake of his head. "I'll call you, though."

"Got it. If it's ok with you, we'll head out now." The lieutenant gave his affirmation.

As Dragon and Pharis strolled out of the office, Dragon couldn't help but speed up his pace, causing Pharis to have to almost-jog to keep up with him.

"Where are we going, Dragon?" she asked.

Dragon knew that if Serenity were caught up with Travesty in the same way he was, that killing Travesty as he planned to might affect Serenity in an unforeseen way. He had to be careful with the way he went about this. So, he was going to give her one last chance to switch teams before the final confrontation.

"The jail. We're going to see Serenity one more time."