"Is your friend going to be alright?"

Mercy chewed her lip nervously and stared down at the brown bag lunch in her lap. She hadn't touched the ham sandwich I'd packed. I didn't think my cooking skills were so hazardous that I risked contaminating a sandwich and potato chips. Maybe, like me, Mercy didn't have an appetite.

I sighed and dug a pudding pack out of my lunch bag. I needed to eat. Torelli would be by to get me soon, and I'd be wiped out by the second stop if I didn't eat something.

"I think so. The doctor says she's going to need to rest for at least a day or two."

Rosanna hadn't moved from the bed since arriving home. I wanted to curl up next to her and wrap my arms around her. I didn't. I was afraid my bad luck was contagious and something worse would befall her if I did. Her face was unreadable. I couldn't tell what she was feeling. Anger? Sadness? Regret? She'd only cried for an hour when Ken had arrived home and she'd had to tell him about the baby.

Ken was avoiding me too. I wasn't sure if he blamed me for what had happened. Maybe if I'd kept a closer eye on her, she wouldn't have decided to shoot up. I nixed that idea as soon as it occurred to me. Stalking Rosanna to make sure she went to meetings was only going to push her into a state of resentment. She'd have done it just to prove she could. It was still tragic.

And I was about to work with a guy who peddled pain and misery for a living. Cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine were Torelli's main staples. Well, one of them. He also oversaw prostitutes. I supposed I should have been grateful he didn't want me in that side of the business. Still, I was finding it hard to accept the choice I'd made. What if the drugs I delivered caused someone else to miscarry, or to overdose? Did that make me a murderer?

No, I didn't think so. They made their choices, right? I didn't have it in a syringe, ready to inject it into unwary passersby. Most of my job didn't even involve distribution on a street level. As Torelli had explained, I'd be running them across state lines. Torelli had people in Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, and Michigan that I'd hand the drugs to. I wasn't going to see the devastation firsthand.

That didn't mean it wasn't happening.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Mercy asked. "I can run upstairs and ask Mom."

I'd told Mercy the truth, at least part of it. I was going out to fundamentally change my appearance. I'd run away from home, and now there was someone after me. Most people would have encouraged me to go back home, but not Mercy. Maybe it was because her home life was so awful that running away sounded reasonable. I'd told her Torelli wanted to help, and that he'd set me up with a new identity. It was true. I just wished he were the benevolent father figure I'd painted him as. He was more like a creepy uncle.

"No," I said, glancing back at the apartment complex. The building was made of dull red brick. It reminded me of a school, or a prison. There was no sense of homecoming attached to this place. "Later, okay? I think I should do this on my own."

Mercy gave me a shy smile. "Alright then. Show me when you get back. I want to see!"

I fought the urge to rumple her hair like I would have with one of my younger siblings. I was surprised to find that Mercy was older than me by a year and a half. She wasn't a kid, by any stretch of the imagination. She'd be sixteen soon, while I was still months away from being fifteen.

"Sure. And we can watch a horror flick when I get back,"

"Rain check?" she asked, glancing back at the apartment too. "Dad's getting home early today, so we can't watch it at my place. And I don't want to upset your friend."

Rosanna loved horror films as much as I did, but I let the matter slide. There had been enough real-life horror to last us all for a few months.

"Sure."

Torelli's van pulled to a stop outside the gates and Tony leaned on the horn. I scowled at them. They were scumbags already, did they need to be rude scumbags, too? I got to my feet, brushed off my skirt, and hoisted the backpack I'd borrowed from Ken onto one shoulder. I didn't have a purse, and I was afraid of carrying the falsified documents out in the open. Torelli leaned out of the passenger side window and shouted at me.

"Today, kid. I'm getting grey hairs!"

I remained stubbornly rooted to the spot. I tried to focus all my mental energy on turning his hair grey. Nothing. I'd been trying with sporadic success to access the magic I'd used in the library. It appeared the only thing I was good at was turning myself invisible. That was sort of lame.

I finally gave up the staring contest and, clutching my lunch in one hand and my empty pudding cup in the other, I trudged toward the gate. When I finally reached the van, Torelli was giving me a funny look.

"What's that look for?" I snapped.

"Nothing," his reply was equally as sharp. "Get in the van, kid, I don't want to spend any more time on this than I have to."

I slid the door open with more ease this time. I guess being scared and half-starved can really take it out of a girl. Torelli nodded his approval when I automatically buckled myself into the middle bench seat. "Good. I'm glad you see things my way, kid. It'll make this whole thing easier."

"I still don't understand why you're hiring me," I said. "You could have anyone running these drugs."

"Not just anyone could make 'em disappear, though," Torelli said. "I want you to keep working on your disappearing act, kid. If you get pulled over, I want a cop to find nothin' in the trunk even if it's full to bursting with product."

My stomach did a nervous little flip-flop. I still hadn't managed to make myself vanish for longer than ten minutes, and that was when I was well-fed and calm. I wasn't sure I could vanish anything outside of that.

"I'll try."

"No, you will do it," Torelli corrected me. "And you're gonna learn quick."

"I don't know how I did it," I begged. "If I had a teacher, maybe…"

Torelli pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I'll keep an eye out for summat like that. In the meantime, you keep practicing on your own."

"Fine. Where are we going first?"

"Salon uptown," Tony said. "My gal works there. She'll get you nice and prettied up. What did you want your hair done for anyhow?"

"So she won't be recognized by the fuzz, you idiot," Torelli snorted. "She's probably classified as a missing person. If she turns up lookin' like herself on a fake ID, somebody's gonna think she was forced into a trafficking ring."

"I am being forced into a trafficking ring," I muttered. "Just not the human trafficking kind."

Torelli glanced back at me. He looked torn between amusement and irritation. Eventually, amusement won out. "You made the right choice in cooperating, kid."

I hadn't had many choices. If things had been different, I would have run home and confessed everything to dad. Somehow, I knew he'd forgive me for what I'd agreed to do for Torelli. He'd get the situation sorted out with that calm, confident demeanor he always had. But the Blackened Denarius had changed all of that. Now I had a fallen angel squatting in my head. It was like a time bomb. I wasn't sure when it was going to go off, and I didn't want to be anywhere near my loved ones when it happened.

"Right," I muttered. "Yippee for me."

Tony's girlfriend was a beautiful woman. She was a few inches shorter than me and very curvy. She had thick, dark curls that bounced when she walked. She had a full mouth that most supermodels envied, and kind eyes. I wondered how a sleazeball like Tony had managed to win such a classy lady. Did she know what he did for a living? Was she okay with it?

"Tony tells me you're takin' a photo op today," she squealed. "Oh, I just love making up his girls!"

Well, I guess that answered that question. Tony's girlfriend was in on the whole thing. I forced myself to smile at her, noting that if she jumped any higher she'd be in danger of punching herself in the face with her large bosoms.

"I'm not one of Tony's girls," I said. "I'm just a runner. I need to get ID. Can you make me look different? A little older, anyways?"

"Sure thing," Tony's girlfriend adopted a more businesslike manner and led me further into the shop. There were a lot of women inside, and they looked like older versions of me. Most were blonde, well-dressed, and pretty. They looked like they could afford to be here. I reevaluated my opinion of the place. I knew that the mob owned certain establishments in Chicago. They'd never truly gone away. They'd adapted and changed with the times, just like everyone else.

Somehow, I didn't think this was a mob establishment. I recognized one of the women under the hair dryer. She was a late night tv personality. I didn't think Torelli had enough clout to own this entire place. Maybe his boss, Gentleman John Marcone, did. But my intuition told me that the only one here who was in Torelli's pocket was Tony's girlfriend. That was interesting. If John Marcone approved of this, why would Torelli be taking great pains to take me somewhere that Marcone's people didn't work? I almost asked, but thought better of it. It could be useful later when I was in a less precarious position.

Tony's girlfriend, whose name tag identified her as Jeanine, sat me down in a chair and turned me to face the mirror. Without makeup, I looked my age. I still had a bit of baby fat on my cheeks, and I had the gangly, awkward shape of a developing girl. No one was going to believe I was eighteen. Jeanine examined my hair critically.

"You sure you want to get rid of the blonde?" she checked. "Some gals pay top dollar for what's coming out of your head naturally." Jeanine glanced pointedly at the women in the shop.

"I'm sure." It was too recognizable. I looked just like my mother, with a head of thick, ruler-straight blonde hair. I didn't want there to be even a passing resemblance to my former self on these new documents.

Jeanine shrugged. "Suit yourself, honey. What'll it be?"

I thought about it for a minute. I'd always liked the scene look. I'd been experimenting with temporary tattoos and temporary hair dye for awhile now, always washing them away before my parents had a chance to see it. I wasn't living under their roof anymore. I could wear whatever I wanted, and no one would make a fuss. Rosanna might even like it. But unnatural colors would draw the eye and make me more identifiable. My job was to be as unobtrusive as possible. So that left me with three options.

"Red," I decided. "I want to go red."

"Fire engine or-"

"Ginger," I cut her off. Mercy would probably like it. We'd look like sisters. I smiled at the thought.

Jeanine pouted, as though I'd ruined all her fun, and retrieved the necessary supplies from the back. When she returned, she was already mixing the dye. For the next several hours, my hair was plastered to tin foil and soaked in dye. Jeanie didn't remain idle. She chatted merrily to me about the soaps she liked to watch while she applied copious amounts of makeup to my bare face, and by the end of it I was up to date on every episode of All My Children that had ever aired.

She carefully washed my hair, draping a towel over my face to protect my makeup, and then escorted me back to the chair to blow dry and style it.

"Are you ready?" she was nearly shaking with nervous energy. I was a little scared, to be completely honest.

"As I'll ever be."

She spun the chair around so I could see myself. At first, I wasn't sure who I was looking at. When it finally sunk in that I was staring at my own face, I was startled. Somehow, she'd managed to contour my face to look like I was in my twenties, at the very least. My hair wasn't as naturally beautiful as Mercy's, but it was eye-catching. In a blouse and skirt, I looked like I was ready for a day at the office, not headed into ninth grade.

I whistled. "That's amazing, Jeanine. Thank you."

Jeanine shrugged and gave me a satisfied smile. "It's what I do, honey. Don't be afraid to come back if you want to do something more adventurous next time."

"I won't."

Torelli handed Jeanine two bills that looked suspiciously like hundreds and told her to keep the change as a tip. We left the salon at a quarter past noon. Our next stop was someone's home. It looked a little shabby from the outside, but the interior was well-kept. The walls had never seen anything but primer, but that was just fine. The halls were lined with photos. Photos of exotic locales I'd never seen, photos of plants, insects, and people. The man who greeted us was balding and middle-aged, but in much better shape than Torelli. He offered me his hand.

"I'm Wayne Huber, it's nice to meet you," he said.

I took his hand. "I didn't exactly give you my name."

He reminded me a little of Father Forthill. He had an easy, reassuring presence. Being around Torelli was going to give me an early ulcer. If this man had been my caretaker, I thought I might actually like the job. Mr. Huber gave me a warm smile.

"That's what we're here to do, right? I'll help you spitball some ideas for a name while we work, okay?"

He led me into the back room. It was almost completely empty except for a stool in the middle of the room. The walls were covered in cloth, of the sort you'd see in school pictures. One wall sported green cloth, the next black, then grey, and finally a light blue. It was this backdrop that Mr. Huber guided me toward.

"Standard blue background," he explained, ushering Torelli from the room with a wave of his hand. "Most state driver's licenses put subjects against a blue background just like this one."

Mr. Huber set up a digital camera. I took a step back, putting myself as close to the wall as possible. If it was magic I was doing, I didn't want to ruin this nice man's camera. Harry was a death sentence to technology newer than the 1950s, and it followed that if I were developing magical powers, I might be, too. After he'd erected the expensive looking equipment Mr. Huber turned back to face me.

"Right there. That's perfect. If you could face forward and look directly at me, please."

I forced a smile as he snapped the photo. He took a step back, and peered at the result. He did that several more times, and then finally found a photo he was satisfied with. He turned the camera off, ejected the SD card and bid me follow. I did, at a distance, so as not to wipe the card clean of data, and he led me into one of the back rooms. This one had several computers inside, and I played it safe, hovering in the doorway. Mr. Huber didn't seem to mind. He was intensely focused on the work he was doing.

As I watched, he doctored a driver's license and a passport, using the photos he'd taken. He swiveled back to face me when he'd finished doctoring my altered face onto the documents.

"Alright, let's figure out that name. Do you have any preferences? Anything you wanted to be called besides your first name?"

I thought about it. I'd always been Molly Carpenter. Doffing the name was necessary, but not comfortable. I'd gone through a phase when I was very little where I demanded to be called Princess Leia, but that would be a dead giveaway that the ID was a fake. I needed something that sounded natural.

"Nothing springs immediately to mind."

"Do you have a middle name? Perhaps we could start there."

"I have two, actually. My full name is Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter."

"Amanda is a nice name," Mr. Huber tapped his chin thoughtfully with his pen. "How about Amanda Smith? It's quite a common combination. There are thousands of people with that name."

I shook my head. "My little sister is named Amanda. It wouldn't feel right."

"How about Katherine?" Mr. Huber asked. "It's got a nice, strong quality to it."

"That could work. But spell it with a C, please. My parents spelled mine with a K."

"Catherine with a C, got it," he said, and typed my chosen first name in the space available. "Last name?"

"Lenhardt," I decided. Perhaps I was a masochist. Perhaps, like the catholics in my far distant lineage, I felt a desire to punish myself for my sins. Instead of mortification of the flesh, I was attaching Nelson's last name to my fake identity, reminding myself constantly of what he'd done. What I was going to do.

"Catherine Lenhardt,"

Mr. Huber looked delighted. "Catherine the Brave. Oh, I like it."

That wasn't what I'd intended, but it was too late now. He'd typed it in and was well on his way to finalizing the documents. As he pounded away at the keyboard I examined the room. Like almost all the other spaces in his house, this place was covered in photos. This time they were of exotic animals. It looked like Mr. Huber had visited Africa a lot.

"So how does a good guy like you get mixed up in all of this?" I asked, gesturing toward the front room, where I could hear Torelli and Tony talking. "You don't seem the type."

Mr. Huber didn't pause. "I'm an artist, Miss Carpenter. Or do you prefer Molly?"

"Molly."

"Molly. I have a particular set of skills, ones I can't use anywhere outside of criminal rings. It pays my bills. I pay my taxes and I get two vacations a year. I'm sure you've seen how I spend them."

"So you forge documents because you like it?"

"Because I am good at it," he corrected me. "And because it is the most reliable way to take care of my two sons. They're set to go to college soon, you know."

"And you're okay with being in the pocket of the mob?"

He finally looked up from his work and gave me a sly smile. "Oh, Molly, there's nowhere safer to be than the pocket of the mob. John Marcone takes care of his people. Almost no one gets hurt."

"Except for those innocent kids who overdose. Or those people who get shot up in turf wars. Or-"

"Almost no one," Mr. Huber said with a wince. "Are you sure you want me to finish these?"

"Yes," I expelled a long breath. "I need them."

In the end, Torelli dropped me back at home with a driver's license, a passport, a fake credit card, and two burner phones. Mr. Huber said the birth certificate, social security card, and other documents would take longer to forge. I'd be receiving them in the next two weeks, if all went well. I'd also be getting a car salvaged from a chop shop downtown, and the title in my new name.

It seemed impossible that in only a few short days, I'd gone from having no money, no job, no prospects, and no worldly possessions to having everything I could ever need. If only it hadn't come with the nasty price tag of my integrity.

Rosanna glanced up in shock when I came in. She was clutching a cup of coffee like it was the key to life. Ken was rubbing slow soothing circles into her back.

"Where have you been? What did you do to your hair?"

I'd been able to scrub most of Jeanine's handiwork off of my face before arriving home, so I resembled a drag queen only in passing. I set my bag and all of its illicit contents on the floor and struggled out of my jacket.

"I was at work."

Rosanna's eyebrows lifted. "When did you get a job?"

"Just the other day. I was going to tell you but…" I trailed off, cursing myself when she flinched away from the reminder. Rosanna moved on quickly.

"Where?"

"Torelli's. It's a pizza place about three miles away. It's a bit of a walk, but I'll manage." I imagined what Torelli would think of my lie and barely contained a snort of laughter. "It's only part time, but it's a job."

"Oh." The spark of interest in her eyes died, and Ken's tempo increased.

"I think I'll change and spend the night with a friend, okay?"

"Okay."

I fished out an outfit and a pair of pajamas and stuffed them into the bag. I'd promised Mercy I'd visit anyway. I wasn't sure where I was sleeping tonight, but I was sure that I shouldn't be in the apartment while Rosanna recovered. I changed in the bathroom.

I shut the door as loudly as I could, trying to drown out the sound of Rosanna's tears.