Sam stopped a few feet away from the billboard. As she stopped to catch her breath, she noticed the shadows moving. She was dealing with someone who had control over the shadows themselves. As if it wasn't ominous enough, the giant billboard had a skull on it and the girl was there at the center of the whole piece. A red streak was on her face, and Sam really, really hoped it was just paint.

She set her face into a neutral expression, something that she had worn when Augustine had ordered a special kind of torture that kept the temperature in her room bouncing up and down between hot and cold. She had simply sat down and waited, staring at her knees until it stopped. The feeling of being burned alive and freezing at the same time was what she felt now, being watched by the girl.

"You said you wanted to talk. To gather more conduits." Sam hoped that the girl couldn't sense the slight tremor in her voice. "You're going to stop the Syndicate, right?" she thought about the masked man she'd seen, how terrifying it was to watch him just absorb the guy's powers. She couldn't let that happen to her. As much as she hated blood powers, they were power all the same. This girl looked tough and at home in the street. If Sam wanted to get through this unscathed, she had to side with her. Her hands unconsciously tugged at each other, the only sign of her nervousness.