No, you won't disarm my heart/
The last gift you'll ever get from me/
Is the combination or the key/

"Candice has proved to be very cooperative," Mr. Bennet said. "That is, if we are to assume she isn't lying or holding back, which would be a dangerous assumption at best." He glanced around at the other people in the library; they were a formidable bunch, he had to admit—once you looked past their first appearances, you began to see the straight-backed vengeance in their postures, the jaded tenacity in their eyes. Yes, they would do quite nicely. "In any case, I don't think we have any choice but to follow her information—we'll simply have to do it with our eyes wide open."

"What have you learned?" Angela wanted to know, voice full of focused purpose that belied her domestic appearance.

"She didn't know much about the file we needed," Nathan told her, "except its whereabouts. It's in Las Vegas as we thought, in Linderman's offices—she was able to give us some location specifics that should be helpful."

"Based on this," Mr. Bennet continued, "there only seems to be one course of action that's feasible. After we're sure he has complete control of Candice's ability, we need Peter to infiltrate Linderman's office as Candice and take the file."

Peter gave a muffled groan, which was ignored by everyone but Claire, who leaned over and patted the top of his head solicitously.

He tag-teamed off to Nathan, who caught the thread with ease and kept going. "Her information will be very helpful in this. She has a lot of details concerning the layout and workings of these offices—it seems that she and Linderman were very close for some time."

"How close?" Claude asked, picking up on the implications of Nathan's word choice.

"Well," Nathan said helplessly, "it appears they were lovers."

There was a crash from the other side of the room as Peter fell out of his chair. "No," he said vehemently, gesturing at them from the floor. "Absolutely not."

"Oh, come on," Claude said gleefully. "Be a team player, here, we're all making sacrifices."

Peter struggled to his feet and retreated back to the bookshelves, glaring at all of them as if he suspected they were about to charge. "No, no, no," he repeated loudly. "There is no way, I will die first."

"You just might," snapped Nathan. "It would do you good to remember that you're the one who's the problem here, Pete. We're trying to save you and we're trying to save New York City, and the only person we have access to is Candice. If you've got another solution, I'm sure we'd be glad to hear it."

"There might be something," Claire interjected hesitantly, self-conscious as they all turned their attention on her, laserlike. "Peter could use the Candice form to get to Thompson, and then we could take Thompson, and Peter could pretend to be him to go see Linderman." Feeling slightly foolish for thrusting her ideas under the scrutiny of so many hyper-intelligent adults, she defended, "I mean, we're trying to take down The Company anyway, right? Isn't that the point?"

"Absolutely," Peter agreed quickly. "I like her idea much better."

"I actually like it, too," Mr. Bennet said slowly. "As I understand their relationship ended some time ago, Thompson would more likely be able to access the file."

"That's true," Nathan said. "Besides—no offense, Pete—but I wouldn't put money on your ability to play Candice for any amount of time. Thompson is a far safer bet; that's very smart, Claire. It must run in the family." Claire grinned sunnily at him, thrilled he was comfortable enough to tease her.

"You are, however, going to have to impersonate her for a time," Claude reminded, "in order to get to Thompson, and you're going to have to give a damn convincing performance. You know what that means, right?"

---

When Peter came into her room, Candice thought he looked so adolescently mutinous that she nearly laughed at him. However, there was just enough real anger in his eyes that she wisely refrained, not wishing to be snapped in half or impaled by a bedpost. He didn't say a word to her, didn't even look at her, only stormed over to the armchair, sat down, put headphones in his ears, and began to actively ignore the world.

Apparently he'd lost the argument. She'd heard him and his brother outside her door, quarrelling in a distinctive sibling fashion about whether or not Peter needed to be around Candice. Nathan had argued that he needed to acclimate to her, to know her so well that he could pick up her smallest habits without thinking. Peter hadn't had any sort of persuasive counter beyond "I don't want to" and "I really don't want to," so he'd here he was—she, of course, knew why he didn't want to be around her. She wondered if he was afraid of her, or simply hated her; either presented interesting possibilities.

She was content to watch him for a while, admiring the picture he made—any photographer would have loved to capture the sight of him curled in the chair, legs braced asymmetrically against the wall, head bent in fierce rebellion with his hair cutting soft lines across his eyes. Before long, though, this pastime paled and she began to feel restless, minutes stretched by his presence, rubbing and bothering as they hadn't before.

"Hey," she said experimentally. There was no response, and that irritated her—she wasn't used to going unnoticed. "HEY," she said, more loudly. This time, his eyes snapped open and he gestured innocently to his ears, indicating that he couldn't hear her with a faux-apologetic shrug. He closed his eyes again and settled back into the chair, but Candice had had enough. She removed her left shoe, took swift aim, and threw the black heel at his head. She missed slightly; it hit him in the shoulder, and he started violently as it struck, pulling out his headphones and looking at her with stunned consternation. That's better, she thought with satisfaction. "I'm bored," she told him matter-of-factly. "Pay attention to me."

"Right, that's both of your shoes you've tried to kill me with, now," he said, irritated. "Any other weapons concealed on your person I should know about?"

She let her body slide back into seductive-pose languor, making ridiculous eyes at him. "Why don't you come find out?"

He winced painfully—he'd walked straight into that one. It had been very hard to explain to Nathan why he didn't want to be alone in a room with Candice. It was difficult to justify, short of telling his brother that she'd kissed him—and given Nathan's last reaction, that didn't seem like a good idea. "Why did you kiss me?" he asked her abruptly.

She did a swift evaluation of all possible answers she could give, and chose the easiest one. "Because I think you're sexy."

"Uh-huh. Well, I'm flattered—"

"You should be."

"—but you do it again, and I'll kill you."

She was surprised at his forcefulness, but the feeling was quickly overtaken by angry, obstinate contrariness, fury that he had the audacity to tell her what to do, chafed to explosion by her own helplessness. The buildup momentum of her pique took her off the bed and across the room, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him out of the chair. "So kill me," she hissed, and kissed him, a harsh violent kiss full of frustration and challenge.

She let him pull away when the door opened behind them, but it was too late. Nathan was frozen halfway into the room, staring at his brother with slackjawed horror. "Peter," he said. "What the hell is going on here?"