Anah waited for David to leave before drawing in a breath, and saying to Troy, "You did not tell me you were having problems with your mother."

"We're not 'having problems,'" Troy said. "Just a disagreement."

"A disagreement strong enough to result in you potentially being excluded from family gatherings."

Troy glared at Anah. "It gets annoying after a while. David's right; my mother's never been able to see things the way I do. I was stuck taking care of her after Dad died. David goes off to college, and I was home, keeping things running. I never thought I was actually going to leave until the war started."

"She did not want you to go."

"No, but I couldn't go on like that."

"You felt trapped. The war was your way out. As awful as war is, it was your perfect opportunity to escape and make things better for yourself."

"Yeah, and it wasn't like I just abandoned Mom. We had cousins who could help out. I know the farm ended up getting sold during the war, but I also knew I sure as hell wasn't going to run it when I came back."

"You wanted your own space."

"Exactly. What is the problem with that?" Troy bit his tongue, then clenched and relaxed his fists. "No, why does everyone want to shove me in with others, when I have expressed time and time again that I want to make my own damned decisions about who I spend my—" Troy's face reddened as he raised his voice, "miserable, worthless life with?!"

Anah was silent for a few moments, her expression somewhat blank. "Go inside, dear."

"Why?"

"Just go inside." Anah's voice dropped to a whisper. "Please."

Troy wanted to tell her that he still had work to do, but something about Anah's tone told him that disobeying her would be a bad idea. He headed back into the house, still fuming, and not bothering to take his jacket off. He couldn't just sit and do nothing, so he headed into the room next to his office, where he kept his guns, ammunition, and cleaning supplies. He pulled his M1911 from its spot on a shelf in a safe, ejected the round already in the chamber by racking the slide, and took out the magazine before disassembling it on his workbench. It was unusual, yes, but taking something—anything—apart and putting it back together was better than letting his thoughts fester while he tried to calm down.

Anah let him work for a moment before saying, "You remember what I told you about your past bursting out at the worst time?"

"I remember," Troy growled.

"Well, here it is." Anah paused, watching Troy press down hard on a button under the barrel of the gun, then rotated a small piece in order to take the recoil spring out. "I sensed a great deal of anger in that pressure you just applied."

Troy said nothing as he took the slide off the gun next.

Anah was quiet again for a few moments. "I did not know that was your life up until you enlisted."

"And now you know. Please be quiet."

"This is serious."

"Quiet. Right now. I'm not ready to talk to you."

Anah remained quiet for all of ten seconds, continuing to watch Troy disassemble the M1911. She telekinetically prevented him from losing a spring when it began rolling toward the edge of his workbench. "When will you be ready to talk with anyone?"

"Anah, for the love of—shut up! Not now!"

She waited until the gun was disassembled, then began moving downward until her head was parallel with Troy's chest, getting a much better view of what he was doing. Troy was staring at the pieces on the workbench, not paying much attention to Anah as she moved back up to his shoulders. "You are still very much enraged," Anah said.

Troy's hands were shaking. He kept staring down at the disassembled gun, muttering things he had heard from his parents over the years. "'Why can't you do anything the way we showed you? Why do you have to give everyone such a hard time about the simplest things? Why don't you want to go to college? Your grandparents didn't leave Greece to come to a land of greater opportunities so every future generation could do the same damn thing they did.' I can't please anyone."

"I imagine your mother was not happy when she learned you were not interested in the GI Bill," Anah said.

"Oh, by that point, she didn't care. No, nobody cared."

"Put the gun back together, dear. I sense your thinking is disorganized and irrational, and the sight of something in pieces is not helping."

Troy bit back a string of curses at Anah while putting his M1911 back together. At some point, the cobra had relinquished her hold on one of the springs, and it was free to roll around on the workbench. Anah watched that spring attentively, and Troy wasn't paying attention to it at all, blinded with frustration and a fountain of memories that had started gushing uncontrollably after his brother left. One wrong move, and the spring had dropped to the floor.

He let out a single, loud curse, but managed to resist the urge to slam his fist on the workbench.

"The barriers in your mind were not so impenetrable after all," Anah said. "Whenever you are with Moffitt, or any of the others, including Dietrich, you were much happier than you are now at home."

"Moffitt respected me, even though I didn't trust him at first. Tully and Hitch looked up to me, and they adapted well to how I ran operations. Dietrich… Dietrich didn't even like me, but he still respected me, because my tactics worked, and got a lot of his men killed." Troy glanced at Anah. "Is that all I'm good at? Killing people?"

"No, and your life is not miserable or worthless. It was that type of thinking that led Dietrich to make the attempt on his own life."

"Dietrich had a whole bunch of other reasons why he wanted to die. I don't want to die. I… don't know what I want."

"Are you certain you will find what you want by remaining alone?"

"Anah, I can't have Shauna seeing me like this."

"But she understands how you feel, better than anyone else you know. All you must do is tell her."

"Yeah, I'm going to walk up to her tomorrow and say, 'Guess what, I have problems with my family, too!'"

Anah sighed. "That is not what I meant. Allow it to come up naturally. I know you are angry, and I know you have left this issue completely unresolved for seven years. Your relationship with your family is tangled and messy. You have fond memories and awful ones. You do not know if it would be best to cut contact with all of them except for David, yet it is obvious that you view Moffitt, Hitch, Tully, and Dietrich as your family now, more so than the people who raised you. They accepted you, without question. Mostly. Moffitt questioned your methods a handful of times in the beginning. Even though you had orders to shoot him if he was captured during one mission, and threatened to shoot him when he wanted to find his father, he remained loyal to you, because he knew you would not actually do it. He trusts you, and I never questioned his judgement on that."

"Did you?" Troy gave her an accusing look.

"Maybe once or twice. I found you a bit too bold, reckless, rash, impulsive. I worried you would wind up getting Moffitt killed. Then I got to know you better, and saw just how deeply you cared for all three of the men under your command." Anah found the spring under the workbench, and lifted it up with her mind. She set it on the workbench. "Keep working, dear. Put the gun back together, and visualize it as your mind. Put things back in order. Make them comprehensible, functional."

"That sounds stupid."

"Just give it a try. Look over the sea of your jumbled memories. The ones that give you joy, and the ones that give you pain. Organize them. Understand them, and how they have shaped you into who you are today."

"I really don't know who I am, Anah. I don't think anyone does."

"Well, you will not know until you put the pieces back together. Go on."

Troy still thought Anah's idea was stupid as he continued putting the M1911 back together. Surprisingly, she didn't whisper anything in his ear the whole time. He really didn't want to visualize anything as his memories, but he decided to satisfy Anah by trying.

"Why don't you want to go to college? Your grandparents didn't leave Greece to come to a land of greater opportunities so every future generation could do the same damn thing they did."

"I'm enlisting, Mom. I'm sorry, but this is what I want to do. I can't spend my whole life here. Why? I'm so damn miserable, that's why!"

"Corporal Troy? I'm Lieutenant Ponson, Australian Army. I'm going to show you everything you need to know in regards to desert warfare. Judging by the look on your face, I'd say you have a lot of potential. Now, show me your skills in a jeep."

"I am Colonel Beckmann, Corporal. Your escape attempts are bold, I will give you that, but we cannot have you causing headaches for our commandants in Germany. Hold him still, guards, it is time for his first lesson in obedience. Do not give him any food or water afterward. He will only be rewarded when he is pacified."

"The doctors are shocked you survived, Corporal, but I'm sure this news will cheer you up; you're getting a promotion, and your own unit. Congratulations."

The gun was nearly back together. Troy put the slide back on, then began putting the recoil spring back inside. Several more memories played in his mind. Meeting Hitch and Tully. Meeting Moffitt. Being chained to Dietrich and fleeing into the desert with him to get back to their own lines. Being temporarily blinded.

Troy pulled himself out of his memories with a shudder, recalling his nightmare from a few nights ago where he was wandering around the house, completely blind.

Anah looked as though she was staring into space, her ultramarine blue eyes glowing a little. The glow faded, and she returned her attention to Troy. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Things… still don't make a lot of sense, but they're a little less cluttered now." Troy looked over the completed gun. He pulled back the slide, making sure it had been put back on correctly. It moved back into place smoothly. He slid the loaded magazine inside, and racked the slide to chamber a round. Lastly, he ejected the magazine, topped it off with the cartridge laying on the workbench, and put it back in the gun.

"This will not resolve itself in the next hour, or overnight, or even next week. It will take time. A lot of time, and I am aware—"

"Patience is not one of my strong suits. Tell me something I don't know."

"There is quite a lot you do not know." Anah glanced at the finished gun. "Do you feel better now?"

"I don't know. Everything just feels like… organized nonsense."

"Everything exploded and now you are trying to put it back together."

"I guess you could say that."

"With this out in the open—well, open to me—the choice is yours; are you going to keep hiding, or are you going to confront the things that have been troubling you for the last several years?" Anah waited for Troy to respond, then said, "I believe I have found a simple answer for you, the largest root of your dilemmas—you are afraid of being trapped in a place where you have little to no control. That was your life at home. People tried steering you in directions you did not want to go, and you fought them at every turn, whether it was college, looking after your mother, Colonel Beckmann, how you ran the Rat Patrol. You had no control for so long that you defend your independence with the ferocity of a mother bear defending her cubs."

Part of Troy wondered if Anah chose that comparison deliberately because of the story Shauna told him a few days prior.

"Am I wrong?"

"No. You're… absolutely right. How do I fix it?"

"That, I do not have an answer to. Not a simple one, but one thing I will say is that this is something Shauna can completely understand, and you need someone in your life who understands. Not just someone who is able to listen and advise, but someone who knows exactly what you have been going through."

The violent eruption of thoughts and memories was draining, emotionally, and somehow physically. Troy had hoped the exhaustion would make sleep easier, but instead, his sleep was fitful and wrought with nightmares, including one where he was being berated by Dietrich over pressuring him to talk about his difficulties when Troy was adamant not to share his own.

In the morning, Troy awoke from his restless sleep to find Anah curled up on his chest. As soon as she noticed he was awake, she lifted her head, and said, "Good morning."

"Don't lie to me. You saw everything. It's not a good morning," Troy muttered. He moved Anah to his nightstand in order to get out of bed.

"I did. I have never seen a more chaotic set of dreams."

"Look," Troy said, quickly changing topics, "I'm not sure now is a good time to talk about this with Shauna."

"When will be a good time?"

"I don't know. Hell, I don't even know how I'm going to bring it up."

"Get dressed. I will go make your coffee and breakfast, dear. You will feel better."

"You made breakfast yesterday."

"And I will make it again today."

Troy sighed. "Fine. Just don't use everything in my kitchen."

Much to his surprise, Anah kept things simple, only making a couple of eggs, heating up some of the leftover bacon, and putting only two slices of bread in the toaster. She kept glancing toward the door as she served Troy, and slithered up onto his shoulder to see out the window. "Shauna is early today," she said.

"What?" Troy looked over his shoulder out the window. Sure enough, Shauna's truck was pulling into the driveway. "Why is she early?" He moved to stand, but Anah tightened herself around his neck.

"Eat your breakfast. I will greet her."

"Absolutely not." Troy crammed one of the slices of toast in his mouth, and Anah swatted his hand with her tail.

"Do you want to choke? Slow down."

"You're not helping!"

"It is rude to talk with your mouth full."

"Anah—"

There were three knocks at the door. Troy stood up, and tried pulling Anah off his shoulders. She kept winding around his arms, making it impossible to put her anywhere.

"Go back to the table," Anah said.

"No! You're not greeting Shauna," Troy hissed.

"And why not?"

"Because this is my house. Get off!"

Instead of getting off, Anah darted into Troy's shirt, and flew out of his left sleeve, wrapping around the doorknob and unlocking it telekinetically. Troy had one hand around Anah's long and slender body, so the first thing Shauna saw when the door opened was him struggling with a cobra.

"Good morning, Sam," Shauna said, a little confused. "Is… everything alright?"

"Oh, yeah, everything's fine."

Anah released herself from the doorknob and started climbing back up Troy's arm, perching on his shoulders like nothing happened.

"Hello, Anah." Shauna folded her arms over her chest. "Before I forget, I'm both cross with you, and grateful."

"Oh?" Anah asked.

"Cross because you faked my handwriting to write an 'invitation' for Sam, but grateful because neither of us would've asked the other out anytime soon."

"You are most welcome."

"Any particular reason you're early today?" Troy asked.

"No, not really," Shauna replied.

"I will leave you two alone." Anah dropped down from Troy's back, slithering back to the kitchen.

Silence crashed over the house. Shauna didn't look sure whether or not to take off her coat. "Should I… start working?"

"Not unless you want to," Troy said. "Did you have breakfast?"

"No."

"You wanted to see me that bad, huh? Please don't do that." For once, Troy wished that Anah had made extra this morning, but figured he couldn't go wrong with the abundance of leftover pancakes in the fridge. He had to get rid of them somehow.

"What makes you think that's why I came early?" Shauna asked.

"I don't know. Why else would you come early?"

"Maybe I wanted to see Anah."

"Nobody wants to see Anah."

Anah looked over at Troy from the sink and hissed at him.

"That was a little mean, Sam, don't you think?" Shauna stood at the table.

Troy picked up his coffee. "She called me a 'donkey' twice and threw oyster crackers at me."

"You mean, she threw a bunch of oyster crackers at you, or—"

"No, she chucked a box of oyster crackers at me in the store."

"Why?"

"Because he was being a donkey," Anah said. "He was insistent on getting canned soup."

"There's nothing wrong with canned soup," Shauna said.

"He needs to learn how to make his own soup."

"I know how to make my own soup," Troy muttered.

"Canned soup still has its purposes," Shauna added. "Anyway…" she began blushing, "you got me. I did come early to see you."

"Even though we're going on a date later?"

"Yes. I can't really explain why I felt compelled to do so. Have you ever done something without quite understanding why?"

"A few times."

"So, you—"

"No, I don't think you're crazy."

"How did you know I was going to ask that?"

"Your tone and the look on your face." Troy gave Shauna a confused look when he noticed she was still standing. "You can sit down, you know. You're welcome to."

"Right. Sorry." Shauna glanced down at the bare table. "Do you not set your table?"

"No. No reason to, because I'm the only person who lives here." Troy found the question a bit confusing, but didn't think much of it.

Anah had disappeared to another room when she finished the dishes, leaving Troy and Shauna to have their breakfast in peace. Shauna was halfway done with her pancakes when she looked over at Troy to say, "Anah made these?"

"Yeah," Troy said.

"They're probably the best pancakes I've ever had. Where did she learn to cook like this?"

Troy shrugged. "No idea, but she loves doing it."

"That's very sweet."

"It's sweet until she uses everything in your kitchen even though you just went grocery shopping."

Shauna grinned. "At least she cares."

"Shauna, did you see the inside of my fridge? I can't eat all that before it goes bad."

"I can take some of it."

Troy glanced around, hoping Anah wasn't listening. She'll take this as an invitation to cook more. "Really? That would be a big help."

"Yes. Maybe Anah could give me the recipe."

"I'm sure she will." Good to know you like her. Troy looked down at his coffee, unsure how to continue the conversation. He could feel Shauna staring at him when he tried to finish his breakfast, and it made him uncomfortable. The first time anyone stared at him while he ate were Beckmann's two most sadistic guards, looking down at him menacingly when he received his first "ration," a thin sliver of potato. It was his reward for not trying to escape during the night, along with a cup of water that had been thrown in his face. He knew the guards were waiting for something, but he couldn't figure out what. When he swallowed his ration, the guards decided to see how much they could mess around with him before it came back up.

Troy pulled himself from his memories before they could show him anymore details. He blinked, then glanced at Shauna. "Don't stare. Please."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Shauna looked down at the table.

"It's okay. Just… don't stare when I'm eating."

"I'm used to it. My siblings and I were always corrected on our table manners," Shauna said. "We were watched like hawks during every meal."

You have a perfect opportunity to tell her about your past. Do it. "When I was… captured by the Germans once in North Africa, I was watched while I ate. These two guards would wait until I was done so they could beat me until I almost threw up. Keyword there being 'almost.' They'd hold me and make sure nothing actually came back up, because they still wanted me alive, but they wanted me as uncomfortable as possible."

Shauna looked disgusted. "Oh, Sam, that's… awful. You… I can't believe you went through that."

"I can't believe it, either." Troy noticed something blue in the corner of his eye, and saw Anah looking at him from the highest point of a bookshelf in his office, her eyes shining brightest in the dimness of the room.

Shauna was quiet for a few long moments, still looking appalled at what Troy just told her. "Are you… alright?"

"Physically, I'm alright. I… just don't want anyone staring at me while I eat because of it." There's a lot more than that. Beckmann had a whole damn checklist of all the different ways he could torture me.

"I suppose you never could meet my mother, then, because she would stare at you to see how 'well-behaved' you are."

"Yeah, I can't have that."

"She is quite small, yet very intimidating. Don't underestimate her when she has any kind of object in her hand, whether it be a rolling pin, or one of Father's belts."

"I was hit with wooden spoons, belts, rulers, and one time I got a riding crop."

"Were you just that bad as a boy, or—"

"Oh, I was no angel, but there were times where what I got wasn't warranted."

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright. It doesn't particularly bother me. I know why I got it worse than my brother. He was the good one. I was the… disappointment."

Again, Troy noticed Anah watching from the bookshelf. She hadn't moved or said anything.

"Anyone who thinks you're a disappointment is a fool," Shauna said.

"I guess I'm a fool, too, then."

Shauna lowered her voice. "Why do you think you're a disappointment, Sam?"

Troy glanced at Anah again. The cobra dipped her head, as if to tell him to go on with telling Shauna the truth. Troy sighed before turning his attention back to his coffee mug. The coffee itself was now cold. He almost wanted to use getting a fresh cup as an excuse to avoid talking, but he knew he couldn't keep hiding, not if he wanted a relationship with Shauna to work. He did care about her, and he wanted to love her. He just didn't know how, and wondered if he wouldn't figure that out until everything else was cleared.

He thought back to when Dietrich broke down next to him when they were chasing Moffitt's horse after it got loose. Dietrich said he was tired, and Troy could feel that he was tired. It wasn't just an ordinary "I need a long nap" tired. It was something much deeper than that, a strong desire to lay down and take any and all pressure off of his body, to sleep so deeply that nothing could rouse him.

Dietrich was tired of suffering, and so was Troy. Their suffering was different, but having been confronted with everything that he tried to hide and suppress over the years, combined with his severe reluctance to truly bond with his men, Troy was beginning to comprehend the effects it had on him. He wasn't at the end of his rope the way Dietrich had been, but he could feel himself steadily climbing down toward it. It couldn't go on forever, nor could he stretch it out.

The fortress he had built in his mind had been completely blown apart, and he could hear the echoes of memories of Moffitt, Hitch, and Tully saying that it was strange that they trusted Troy despite knowing close to nothing about him. He was this strange paradox of complete trustworthiness and loyalty, but to them it seemed like he had been summoned from the land of spirits, a being with no history, no personal life, nothing. Logically, they shouldn't have trusted him, being so secretive, and yet they did. He had proven time and time again that he could be trusted. Being weak or vulnerable in front of them wasn't an option, for many reasons. He wanted his team to accept him as he was, without the messy knowledge of what his home life had been like, and he didn't want the Germans learning anything about him, lest they exploit it.

They came close with David.

Like his rivalry with Dietrich, it was time to put all of that in the past, but he knew some of it wasn't going to be as simple as just putting it down. There was still a part of him that was afraid of how Shauna would take it.

Shauna's sighing pulled Troy from his thoughts. "If you don't want to talk, I'll get to work. We can talk later." She stood up and pushed her chair in.

Troy looked down at the table. "Shauna, wait. Please."

Shauna stopped and turned to face him.

"This isn't something I'm good at—talking, I mean, especially when it comes to what goes on in my head."

"That's quite obvious."

"Shauna, I didn't tell my men that I was born and raised in Wyoming until the war was over. You wanna know how much they knew about me? Not much. Barely anything. We were always at risk of being captured, and I figured that everyone would be better off if they knew as little as possible, so it couldn't be exploited. I didn't tell them much for other reasons. I wanted to leave home behind. I still wanted to come back to Wyoming after the war, because this is where I grew up and I love it to death, but up until I enlisted, guess what I was doing; looking after my mother, because my dad had been trampled by a horse when I was sixteen and my brother decided he was going to college. That wasn't the life I wanted. I had no idea what kind of life I wanted. Why? Because nobody cared what I wanted. Nobody wanted to discuss what I wanted with me. No, Dad had some grand vision that his two sons were finally going to break tradition and go off to college and actually make names for themselves.

"That was how I had to spend the last three years of his life. Arguing, telling him I wanted my own land and just have a nice, quiet life. He told me, 'You can have your land when you go get an education. Until then, you're not getting it. Frankly, you shouldn't even get married, because then you're just going to repeat this cycle with your children, raising them to do the same damn thing and not move forward.'"

"You spent three years being told that?" Shauna slowly sat down.

"Yep. Three whole years. It's amazing that… I was able to forgive him when he was dying, because despite everything, I never wanted that to happen to him. No sane person would want that. I still learned a lot from him, even though he told me that he regretted it. After that, my mother was in charge of the farm. I thought things would get better. I hoped things would get better. Instead, she started telling me that I should go to honor his memory. Over and over, for eighteen years. She only didn't kick me out because David went to college, she was getting older and less able to do much of anything, and I was the workhorse that she couldn't afford to lose."

"Why didn't you run away or something?"

"Didn't have the heart to. The US entering the war became my way out—the perfect excuse to leave. I sent a notice to one of my cousins and told them the farm was in their hands. When I was sent to North Africa, I felt… freer. I still gave a lot of officers headaches, but they liked that I was successful. I finally felt like I had found my place. It wasn't the best place, but I still felt like I could claim it as good enough for me. I wanted to leave everything behind, but it soon became obvious that I couldn't just… drop everything." Troy gestured to the bookshelf in his office. "Anah helped me see that. She and Moffitt told me time and time again that the past isn't something that can be ignored, because it'll come back to bite you at the worst time. For me, it has, and I keep trying to push it away.

"It doesn't help that I've been through things that I can't forget, and that I was raised to put a muzzle on my emotions."

"Well, that muzzle isn't doing a very good job," Shauna said. "I know I felt something from you when we kissed a few nights ago. Even now, I can… I can see you're letting your guard down, that there are so many things you want to feel, but you don't quite know how."

"You're one of only a handful of people I'll trust with any of this."

"Thank you."

Troy felt like most of the debris of the formerly formidable fortress in his mind had been swept away. It wasn't completely clean, not yet, but it was getting there. There was now space for other things. Better things. "So, where do we go from here?" he asked.

"Well, I was going to tell you that I don't blame you for any of the things you did or felt. My parents had a lot of expectations for me, and I didn't follow through on any of them. Like you, I didn't have the heart to run away when I was old enough. When I was sent here to America, I was trapped. I wasn't about to just abandon all of my siblings, especially since several of them were quite young. The next oldest after me was very spoiled and wouldn't know how to look after everyone. I waited until they went back to England in order to stay, but I knew I needed work, and… that was when I found you. You gave me security, even though you didn't know it at the time."

"I'm glad I've been able to help you. You shouldn't have had to go through that, though."

"Neither should you." Shauna reached over to touch Troy's hand. "Now, we're both free and unsure of what to do with it."

"I know what I'm doing with mine. I have friends now, but I can't see them as often as I'd like, and… I thought I'd be able to just spend the rest of my life alone. Now, I'm not so sure."

"I used to think the same thing. I've seen other men, but none compared to you, Sam. It's not something I can put into words. They were missing something… something that made you special above all others."

"You couldn't have fallen for someone a little less broken?" Troy asked with a slight grin.

Shauna shook her head. "No, because you're broken in a similar way I am. I would rather be with someone who understands each broken piece, than someone who's perfect and wouldn't know how to put things back together."

"Makes sense." Troy glanced up a clock. "I… suppose we should get to work. We're already behind."

"Yes. Right." Shauna stood up, setting her plate by the sink.

Troy did the same, and headed into the entryway to put his hat and jacket on. Before he could pull up the zipper on his jacket, Shauna tapped his shoulder. She had that same shy and embarrassed look that she wore outside the restaurant when they were saying goodbye. Instead of going right for a hug, she hesitated, and looked at the floor. "I shouldn't hold us back from work any longer."

"Nothing wrong with a late start," Troy said.

Shauna threw her arms around his neck, kissing him, sending a rush of that same passion and energy from a few nights ago into him. She squeezed him tightly when he leaned in to keep it going. As slowly as possible, they pulled apart. Shauna's voice was barely a whisper as she said, "Thank you, Sam."

"You're welcome." Troy closed his jacket. "Let's get to—where're my keys?"

The hook his keys were usually on was bare. He looked out the window at the driveway, seeing Shauna's truck was there, but his truck was missing. "Oh, you gotta be kidding…"

"What happened?" Shauna asked.

"Uh, my keys are gone, and so is my truck. I wonder what else is missing." Troy looked around, then shouted, "Anah!"

When he got no response, he stormed around the house in search of the cobra. He found nothing, and returned to the entryway. "Well, that's great. Anah's missing, which can only mean one thing—she took my keys and my truck."

"Can she even drive?"

"It wouldn't surprise me if she could."

"Why would she need your truck, though?"

"I have no idea! She's getting her tail shipped to Malta when she comes back. Moffitt's gonna be thrilled with this." Troy cursed to himself. "Why did I let him talk me into this?"

"What do we do, then?"

"Only thing we can do is wait. I've got a spare house key in my office."

"Couldn't we go after her in my truck?"

Troy sighed. "No. We have no clue where she went, and we've got work to do."

"You're not worried about her wrecking your truck?"

"For some reason, not really. I'm more concerned about people seeing her." Troy rubbed his face and groaned, "You know, this day started out pretty good, and then an Egyptian cobra stole my truck."