Cameron let Mallory half carry him down the block, then he leaned against the wall, panting, and looked at her. "I can take it from here."

She arched an eyebrow, staring at him in disbelief. "No, you can't," she said simply, taking the pause to press a hand to her side. Now that everything was starting to calm down, she could feel the sting starting to turn into more of a throb.

"Really, I'm fine, I don't have far to go."

"Then why wouldn't you want help getting there?"

He shook his head. "Just…it's fine, I'm fine. Thanks for coming last night. It's good to know you still have my back." He turned and went to take a step, and he ended up falling on his face. She was kneeling beside him in a second, wincing as she watched him press his hands to his stomach, his eyes shut tight as he weathered the waves of pain now that the lidocaine was wearing off.

When his breathing evened out, she sat back on her heels, shaking her head. "Why are you being so stubborn about this? You can barely stand, much less walk by yourself."

He sighed, leaning his head on the wall of the building behind him. "Fine," he agreed after a moment. "Take me back to Belle Reve."

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. "You can't go back there. Cam, you just made a move against your father. You won't last ten minutes if you go back."

He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Tana…"

"No, Cameron, I won't bring you back there. Not when you're this weak. Look, I know a place you can lie low for a while, recover. It's in the middle of nowhere, I told you about it before, the Ken–"

"Mallory!"

She froze, but it wasn't the anger in his voice, or the underlying tone that it was covering up that shocked her into silence, it was the name. He never called her by her real name. Something wasn't right, she was sure of it now. She studied his face, and the real, panicky fear she saw in his eyes unnerved her more than anything else that had happened that night. "What is going on with you?" she asked. He looked away, and she pressed further. "Who are you afraid of?"

He shook his head slowly, still not meeting her eyes. "I…can't tell you," he said. "I just need you to trust me, and bring me back to prison."

She shook her head slightly, twisting her lips in confusion, frustration, and indecision. "Fine," she said after a moment. "Stay here for a sec, I'm going to go find a zeta tube, there should be one around here somewhere." She jogged around the corner, glancing at the photo booth that she knew was there as she pressed her comm to a private channel.

"Zatanna."

"Hey, Z, it's me. Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what?"

"Can you meet me by Belle Reve? Bring a bike or something so we can get out fast if we need to."

"Uh, ok? Can you tell me what's going on? Or why you're going to a prison when you're wanted?"

"Z, please, just do this for me, I'll explain everything later," Mallory promised.

"Ok, I'll stop by Red's and pick up the scratched SUV," she said, referring to the unmarked car Roy had bought for missions.

"K, let me know when you get there." They signed off and Mallory went back to Jr. "Come on," she said, helping him to his feet, "I found one."

He looked up, the concern for her back in his eyes. "T, let this go," he pleaded.

She just stared at him for a moment, then started dragging him down the street. "Come on, we have a long way to go, and we're both still wanted by the government."

She brought Jr as far as the front gate, dropping him off and flying away, doubling back and hiding in some shrubs to make sure that they brought him inside relatively gently. Once he was inside the gates, she slipped through the woods until she found the clearing Zatanna told her she was parked in. She saw her friend in the driver's seat and slid into the passenger side. "Thanks," she said.

"Yeah, no problem," Dick said from the backseat.

Mallory groaned, looked over her shoulder at him, then at Zatanna. "What is he doing here?" she asked.

The magician shrugged. "He found me when I got here, I thought you called him."

They both turned to look at him and he shrugged, smiling. "You hung up on me weird, I was worried."

"Ok, so how did you know where I was going?" Mallory asked.

"I looked at the tracers, saw the others were here."

"Ok, seriously, where are these tracers?" Zatanna asked, pawing at her costume for the alleged trackers that only the Bats seemed to know about. Mallory, however, latched onto a different part of the sentence. "Wait, 'others'?"

"Yeah," he said, and pulled up a holographic screen that showed a cluster of dots marked with symbols that represented people. When he zoomed in, however, his, Zatanna's, and Inferno's symbols were groups together by the gates, and Artemis, Beast Boy, Vigilante, Terra, Geoforce, Nautica, and Aquaman were grouped together on the other side of the prison.

"What are they doing here?" Mallory asked.

"You didn't call them?" Dick asked. She shook her head, explaining quickly the reason she had gone out the night before, and why they were there. "Huh," he muttered, closing the screen. "So, what are we doing? You want me to hack the prison?"

She shrugged. "Sure. I just wanted to sit for a while and keep an eye on who comes and goes. I know Jr didn't break out, which begs the question…" Her comm clicked on and she paused, pressing it. "Inferno here," she answered to the private channel.

"Hello, Inferno," a strange voice said.

She stiffened, and her friends leaned forward as she took the comm out of her ear and held it out so they could hear it. "Who is this?" she asked.

"That is above your clearance, for the moment. I know about your little escapade with Icicle Jr last night. I think we need to talk. Fly into the front courtyard of the prison in one minute and I will explain what you need to know."

"And I'm supposed to take your word for it that this isn't some trap to arrest me?" she asked.

"That is exactly what you are supposed to do," the woman said, and the line clicked off.

The girls looked back at Dick to see if he had traced it, but he closed his screen, shaking his head. "Signal was scrambled, I didn't have time to sort it out."

Mallory bit her lip, thinking for a second, then pushed the door open.

"What are you doing?!" Zatanna asked, making a grab for her friend's arm as she stepped out.

"I'm going in," Mallory replied simply.

"You have to know that's a bad idea," Dick said. "You're one of the most wanted people in the country right now, and you're following a strange voice into a prison. What about that seems safe to you?"

She half shrugged. "Since when is it about 'safe'?" she asked, then she shook her head. "There's something going on here, and if this is legit and they're willing to explain it to me, then fine. If it is just some elaborate plan to catch me, well, they'll have to put up a pretty good fight. Besides," she added, smiling, "I have plenty of backup between you guys and Artemis's squad."

Her friends still didn't like it, but they sat back in their seats, no longer trying to stop her. "Keep your comm open, ok?" Dick requested.

She nodded, putting it back in her ear and closing the car door. She walked back out to the road and took off from there, flying over the gates into the first courtyard. She still half expected to be shot at, but no one made a move against her, they didn't even seem to notice her as she landed in the empty area. Well, almost empty. Kaldur was leaning against the wall by the door, and he raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw her.

"What are you doing here? You should not be here, of all places," he said, standing up and glancing around like he was waiting for the army of guards they were going to have to fight back.

"I was invited," she explained. "I found Jr out last night and brought him back, and I was asked to stay. What about you?"

"Almost the same. The team found Black Manta, Captain Boomerang, and Monsieur Mala in Russia last night. I brought them back and the warden told me to wait here for someone to come up to explain it to me."

"So, what are you going to do? Call a press conference?" Mallory asked.

"Tell the world that Belle Reve is not as escape proof as advertised?" he finished for her, looking down as he considered it.

"I wouldn't recommend it."

The heroes looked up at the voice, matching it with a familiar face. "Amanda Waller," Kaldur said, hardly sounding surprised. "What is the former warden of Belle Reve doing here now?"

"My job and my duty," she replied, coming to a stop in front of them before adding, "when you people aren't getting in my way."

"Does that include sending Icicle Jr out on that suicide mission last night?" Mallory spat, glaring at the woman.

"When the situation calls for it," she replied calmly, looking down her nose at Inferno.

"So it was an op," Kaldur said. "Manta, Mala, Boomerang, Junior, all working for you."

"Not for me, for the US government, which I represent," Waller told them.

"By tapping into Belle Reve's previously untapped source of meta abilities," Kaldur finished, not even trying to hide the disgust in his voice.

"To run hazardous missions we wouldn't risk our people on, yes," she said. She shifted her gaze between them and added, "You are taking a harsh tone, considering you have lost people of your own. I wonder what Tula would say, if she were alive to object. Or Mr. West." The heroes stiffened at the names, perceiving the underlying threat she carried with them. She smiled with satisfaction at their reactions. "Oh, yes, I've done some reading of my own."

"Do not take our restraint as agreement," Kaldur said firmly when he saw that she was thinking she had won. "There is nothing you could say that would justify loosing Manta and the others on the world."

She narrowed her eyes, seeing now that the fight wasn't done. "There are carrots, and sticks. Very persuasive sticks."

Mallory's mind flashed to the incision on the back of Cameron's neck, the terrified expression on his face when she mentioned it, and her eyes widened as it hit her. "What did you do to them?" she demanded. "What did you put in them?"

The woman glared at her. "All you need to know is that there are measures in place should any of the participants step out of line."

"Measures. You mean bullets, don't you? Or, I guess explosives are more likely," Mallory said, her hands tightening to fists at her sides.

Waller's glare intensified as she realized that she'd been found out. "Our operatives know that they are extremely expendable," she said, which was all the confirmation they needed to know that it was all true.

"And she wanted to compare it to losing our people?" Zatanna said quietly over the comm. "Tula and Wally and the others made their own choices, sending these people out into a fight that isn't theirs under the threat of having their heads blown off, that's murder whether they detonate the bombs or not."

Mallory stayed quiet, sorting through her own feelings about this. On one hand, she didn't entirely disagree with it. If someone had to die, shouldn't it be one of the scumbags in that prison instead of one of the heroes who sacrificed enough to help people every day? But then she reminded herself that Cameron was in there, and there was no way that she was letting this monster in a uniform send him out again with a bomb in his neck. "Take it out," she said firmly.

"I don't know what you mean," Waller said, though she clearly did.

"Then let me spell it out for you," she said, her voice so low she was almost growling the words out. "Take the bomb out of Jr's neck. He's not like the others, not anymore, and what you've managed to do in just one night is threaten to kill him, coerce him into making war with his father, fight until he was inches away from death, and leave him for dead, and now you've put a target on his back for any thug or criminal his dad has ever done business with. I want the bomb out of him, and I want him moved somewhere he's not going to be in danger every second of every day for the rest of his sentence."

Waller arched an eyebrow at the pyrokinetic. "You are hardly in a position to be making demands, Inferno. I press one button, and you'll be behind bars along with your little friend, your own inhibitor collar around your neck."

Mallory's eyes glowed red through her mask, and with one more step she seemed to tower over the woman at only two inches taller. "Try it," she warned. Kaldur put a hand on her arm, his firm touch warning her to tone it down. She grunted, but she did take a step back, and Waller clasped her hands behind her back.

"Your friend only owed me the one mission, he'll be prepped for surgery as soon as he is strong enough and the…stick…will be removed, and he'll be released within the month."

Kaldur took the lead, getting them back on track. "And what happens to the rest of your…Suicide Squad, should they be caught or killed?"

"They're disavowed. Task force X does not officially exist."

"Then why reveal it to us?" he asked.

She stepped closer to the heroes, showing them that she wasn't scared of them. "Clarity," she said simply. "You expose my operation, and I expose your little playgroup. Given current public opinion, your family has way more to lose than I."

Mallory's eyes widened and the word, and she and Kaldur exchanged a glance, both wondering the same thing: just how closely had this woman been watching them, and for how long?

"Big talk," Gar said on the open channel that Dick must have set up at some point. "She's bluffing."

Kaldur and Mallory each looked down for a moment, and the line settled into the same heavy silence that came over them. Finally, the Leaguer looked up, holding Mallory's gaze. "We all have secrets to keep."

Alex pushed the door to his exam room open, holding it open for the mother of three to herd her children out to the waiting room, scrubbing at his eyes once they were out.

"You ok?" the receptionist, a middle aged woman with premature gray hair, asked as she handed the next patient's clipboard to Maria.

He put on a smile, forcing his dull eyes to brighten a little. "Yeah, I'm alright. I just didn't get much sleep last night." As in none, because he was putting in a whole day's work for his superhero friend's supervillain friend. Try explaining that one to a coworker.

The older woman nodded sympathetically, a maternal concern on her face as she shook her head. "I worry about you two," she said, nodding to Maria's closed exam room door. "You're young, you have plenty of time to change the world. Don't burn yourself out too soon, ok? Take care of yourself. You need to get some sleep."

He chuckled. "I'd love to, but right now I'll have to settle for a coffee on my lunch. What's the next appointment?"

"Well, it's not exactly an appointment, but there is a young woman who wants to meet with you, she said she wanted to run through some aftercare instructions."

He titled his head, looking over the half wall curiously, and Mallory, her hair as black as he remembered it, smiled a greeting, holding up a large coffee cup. He felt his face brighten, his mood lifting just seeing her there. "Clock me out, will you, Lisa? I think I'll take this outside." He slipped out of his exam coat and met her by the door.

"Hey," she greeted him, holding out the coffee cup. "I thought you might be needing this right about now."

He smiled and accepted the gift gratefully, taking a gulp before they were even out of the building. "Thanks, I do." He looked at her, part of him waiting for the reason she was there, and the other part wondering how she could change her hair color so completely and so quickly. It seemed like a strange superpower to have. Unless, he thought, maybe the flames ran over each piece with a low frequency, just giving the illusion that it was red when she was in costume.

"So, uh, how's work going?" she asked as they started to walk down the street.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "We both know you didn't come here to catch up." He tilted his head. "How's your friend doing?"

She shrugged, her eyes narrowing angrily for a second. "Fine, as far as I know, which isn't much." He tilted his head in question and she forced her face to smooth out, though her eyes stayed stormy. "I had to bring him back to prison, and the…warden wouldn't let me see him once he was inside. He's strong, though, he'll be fine."

He could tell that the words were more to convince herself than him. "I'm sure he will," he said, hoping to give her a little confidence in the statement. He smiled a little. "So, I guess I'm not getting my shirt back, huh?"

She chuckled, the anger leaving her eyes. "Nope, sorry. Do you want my jacket?"

He laughed, shaking his head. "No, thanks, I'd never live that down if I wore that to work."

She rolled her eyes. "Why doesn't anyone take my offers?" she asked.

"Hey, just because it looks good on you doesn't mean we can pull it off," he replied.

They had made it to the little sidewalk cafe three blocks from the clinic, and they claimed a table far enough away from the other patrons to be able to talk freely. "So, about last night," Mallory started, and Alex leaned forward, shifting the coffee cup to the side. "You didn't…"

"No," he assured her.

She visibly relaxed, relief coming to her face. "Thank you, and…I'm sorry, it wasn't fair to drag you into this."

He nodded, pressing his lips together for a moment as he thought about the predicament. "Yeah," he agreed, then added, "but I don't hate that you did."

She tilted her head, a hint of a smile coming to her face. "So, I told you that I'd explain anything you wanted once we got through everything. What do you want to know?"

"You said that things are complicated with you, but you didn't explain what that meant. Why are people trying to frame you? And, what out of all of it is true?"

She looked down, staring at her hands for a few seconds as she collected her thoughts. "We don't know why they're pulling this out now, but there is a group of individuals that have been working behind the scenes for years, putting pieces of a plan into place."

"People? You said it was Luthor last night."

She nodded. "He's one of them."

Alex let out a breath, the magnitude of just that one powerful man being after her hanging over his head. "And…the others?"

She shook her head. "It's not important, I shouldn't have told you the one I did."

"Why not?"

She sighed. "Because knowing puts you in danger, and I will not do that to you. You don't deserve to get thrown into this world just because I ran out of options."

"You think you're protecting me, but I don't understand, what do you think is going to happen to me just because I came into contact with you?"

She shook her head. "This morning reminded me of how complicated this world is. Honestly, the more you know, the more you wish you could forget. Or wish you could ignore."

He shook his head, not satisfied with the vague answer but sensing that was the only one he was going to get. "There's that word again," he said. "'Complicated'. So what was so complicated about you bringing a supervillain to my door last night? Or putting those people in the hospital?"

She rubbed a hand across her forehead, irritated at the question. "Yes, I hurt people, ok? It's part of my job, I punch people who are trying to punch me. It was a hard time, right after the Reach left. I lost some of my best friends that year, then it turned out I didn't, but then I did. It's–"

"Complicated?" Alex guessed, his face smooth.

She seemed to pick up on his lack of attack, and she took a breath and let it out in a dry laugh. "Yeah, a little. I had a hard time coping. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly the most emotionally healthy person in the world. I got help, though, and that isn't going to happen again. Not like that."

"And…Icicle Jr?"

She nodded. "Not all of us got a choice on coming into this life, or on what side we were going to be on. I told him if he ever needed help getting away from that life, I would be there."

"And, what about the rest of your friends? How much of the stuff in the media is true about the Justice League?"

"Nothing," she said firmly. "Alex, I may have made some mistakes, but the stuff with the League, everything they claimed we were doing while the Reach were here, none of it was true, it was just them twisting the truth and manipulating people." She tilted her head, looking at him. "That's why it hurt me so much when you stopped wanting to work with metas. You always believed in your heroes, you hung on to that belief for so long. When you finally decided the League wasn't what we said we were, it was like we lost our last bit of support."

She fell quiet, kind of half shrugging as she ran out of things to say, but Alex just sat there. He remembered how upset she'd been when he told her that he'd switched concentrations, but now that he had the context behind it… "Well, good to know my opinions mattered to someone," he said, trying to play it off as a joke. She huffed, not saying anything, and he took another sip of the coffee, making a face when he did. "We've been here longer than I thought," he mentioned, pushing the cold drink away a little.

"Let me see," she said, taking the cup. She wrapped her hands around it, holding it for a few seconds, then handed it back to him. "Try that." He took a sip, not sure why he was surprised when the liquid was warmed to the perfect temperature. She smiled at his face and shrugged. "It's one of the perks."

"What are the others?"

She froze suddenly, putting a hand to her ear. "I'll have to show you some other time," she told him. "I have to go."

"You have a mission?" he asked, a buzz of excitement washing over him as he said the words.

She laughed, shaking her head. "No, I'm still wanted, remember? The League's publicist just wants to go over some stuff. Now. With my luck, she probably found out about last night and wants to 'discuss' it." She stood, and Alex started to do the same, but she shook her head. "I'll be fine, you enjoy your break. After last night, you deserve it."

He watched her walk away, her plain clothes and dark hair blending into the crowd of pedestrians without much trouble. It wasn't until she was gone that he realized he hadn't asked her anything that he wanted to know about her, like how her powers worked, how she got them, what kind of alien she was mixed with, and if she knew she could trust him with her secret. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and searched for her number, and pulled up their texts. He typed out the sentence in a rush, before he could talk himself out if sending it.

'About those other perks, how about showing me tomorrow? I'll be off at five, if nothing crazy happens.' He didn't expect a response, but his phone buzzed before he even returned it to his pocket.

'What, like a superhero kicking down your door?'

He couldn't keep the smile from spreading across his face at her response, and he chuckled as he typed, 'nah, that's just a Tuesday night for me.' He watched nervously as the three dots appeared in the bottom corner, showing that she was typing a response. He almost fell out of the chair when her text came back,

'sure, why not? I'll meet you at 5.'