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“I think someone tried to follow me into the stairwell,” Devon’s father said, as he walked into the room with lunch.

“What did you do?” Ben asked, alarmed.

“I went upstairs, then straight to the security office.  They left.  Then I asked the security office to turn off the cameras.  Since people theorized that might be an issue.”

“I mentioned it, yeah,” Roderick said.  “That was good.”

Ben went to get his laptop.

In the course of the morning, as they’d gotten settled, he’d done some research.  An image search for the man who’d called out ‘Mary’ on the schoolyard had turned up an article.  Ex-military, dishonorable discharge, wanted for questioning in two shootings.

Disappeared.

He showed Devon’s father.

“No.  Someone else.”

“Then they have more help than we thought,” Rider said.

“I have zero idea how secure the hospital’s security cameras are,” Ben said.  “I’m having to constantly reframe who Mia Hurst is, in the big picture.”

“Us too,” Devon’s father said.  His wife went over to his side, giving him a side hug.  “I won’t say I especially liked Mia.  She made it hard to like her.  But I respected her, I trusted her.  There was never a time when I thought I didn’t agree with her parenting choices.  Not that I can remember, anyway, right?”

“Nothing jumps to mind,” Devon’s mom said.  “I wouldn’t say we’re critical, anyway.  There’s so much of that going around already.”

“Natalie thought they could’ve become friends,” Ben volunteered.

“I did not say that,” Natalie said, with a vehemence that caught him off guard.  It caught the kids off guard too.  Drawn out by the smell of fast food, the kids were emerging from Cammy’s room, only to face that.  Sterling looked very concerned.

It’s on film, Ben thought.  But it wasn’t diplomatic to say that much.  His heart hammered, because she looked so pissed, and he hadn’t expected it.  Would this throw a wrench into his work?  The denial of reality?  He hadn’t expected it to get worse, now that Cammy was found.

“Oh, sorry.  Staying up most of the night, I’m confused- I’ve interviewed a lot of people.  I should check my facts better.”

“I’ve marked the bags with everyone’s requests,” Devon’s dad said.  The bag was filled with foil-wrapped sandwiches, piping hot.  There were little bags of assorted fried things- fries, onion rings, sweet potato fries, and fried pickles.  “Here’s yours, little man.”

Sterling took his, which was marked with a big ‘PLAIN’.  It looked like ham and mayo and little else.  Ben cringed internally.

“Thanks for going out there,” Ben said, turning his focus to Devon’s dad.  “And for being here.”

“Rip’s been good to Devon, I’m… hoping it’s a good thing we’re here?  Familiar faces?”

“Yeah,” Camellia said.

“That’s not her name, ‘Rip’,” Natalie said, quiet.

“Actually, before we have that talk,” Blair said, around a mouthful of food, before a hard gulp.  She held up a hand.  “Mmmph.”

Camellia gave Blair a few thumps on the back.

“Mph.  Ahem!” Blair stood straighter.  “We’ve been discussing things all morning, and I’d like to put myself forward as Ripley‘s representative, with Devon seconding.”

Ben glanced briefly at Natalie, and saw she was too busy eating to comment, but it sure did look like she wanted to.

“Ahem.  Hi, I’ve been busy on the phone, but I’m the child’s official representative,” Eve, the child services worker, said.

Blair seemed to take a half-second to adjust, then bounced right back with, “That’s great.  Join the team.  I don’t know if you have anything important you need to say first?”

“Nothing at the moment.”

“Great, so if I come up with something that needs an official version or something you can back up, maybe you chime in?  Because I think there’s some important stuff.  Yeah?”

The worker, for someone who worked with kids, didn’t seem particularly enthused.  Ben watched with a bit of interest.

“It’s a crazy situation, and we’re worried about Ripley.  And Ripley’s worried about Ripley, I think.”

“A bit,” Camellia said.

“Her name is Camellia.  Or Cammy, if you prefer,” Natalie said.

“No, I understand where you’re coming from, but I think the number one first thing, it’s kinda important,” Blair said, and she walked around Camellia, sandwich in one hand, hugging her friend from behind with the other, spilling some sandwich contents onto the floor accidentally in the process.  She thumped her fist against Camellia’s chest.  “In here?  She’s Ripley.  She’s Ripley to us, her best friends.  So as a compromise, can it be Ripley for now, until it’s a way less crazy situation?  Have I talked about how crazy this is?”

Camellia put a hand up, over Blair’s fist, holding it where it had thumped her heart.

“You mentioned.  I love the love you’re showing to your friend, but can you not spill on the floor and her shoes?” Blair’s mom asked.

“Technically they’re my shoes, we’re the same size,” Blair said, hanging off Cammy for balance, arm still hooked around her, as she leaned to one side to look down at the mess.  “Shh-oot, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Camellia said.  Ben saw maybe the first genuine smile she’d had given, that hadn’t been while she and her friends had been sequestered in the room alone.

“No, I did make a mess, but I can get paper towels and clean that up later.  Can we stay on this?  Because I have a list.”

“Okay.  How long is the list?” Blair’s mother asked.

“Four things.”

Something about Blair reminded Ben of himself.  Or maybe even the self he’d wanted to be as a child.  Except he’d never been that unabashedly talkative.

By contrast, Cammy looked drained.  She’d been emotional earlier, and last night, but the entire experience seemed to be weighing on her.  The only times she seemed to light up or ease up were around her two friends and their parents.  Which made sense.  But he hadn’t expected this, either.

“I would very much prefer to make the shift into calling Camellia by her actual name,” Natalie said.

“Okay, and I get that, but what about the compromise of waiting until later, after things settle, before doing that?”

Devon spoke up, adding, “It could be good to wait because if things get scary like they did at school, and you call one name, she might not respond to it.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Blair exclaimed, a little loud.  “That’s so good!”

She jostled Devon, as if trying to shake him until he got as excited about it as she was.  Spilling more sandwich.

“I’m real close to not replying to that name ever,” Cammy said.

“I’m going to cut in here,” Eve said.  She was a stocky woman, wearing a very plain navy blue suit and blouse.  It made Ben wonder how much she really tried to appeal to the kids she worked with.  “I think there are some very important concerns we should address-”

“No, but!” Blair interrupted.  “W-”

Her mom put a hand on her shoulder.

“-But,” Eve said, glancing at Blair, one eyebrow quirked.  “I think the best thing to do, for Ripley’s sake, is to use the name she wants.  At least in the short term.  Things can be worked out later.  If it’s a safety concern at some point, for example.  But it might be, as the boy says, a safety concern if we change it too abruptly.”

Blair reached out to give Devon a jostle.  He smiled a bit at her.

Natalie bit her lip, as if she had to, to hold back, looking aside, and heaved out a breath.

“Team advocate, woo!” Blair cheered.  “High five!”

Eve didn’t give her the high five.  “I’m not taking any sides here.  I’m only looking for the best way forward.”

“Ack, arg,” Blair flopped over onto a part of the table that didn’t have food or bags on it.  Playing up the rejection.

Okay, a bit awkward and forced, but then again, she was eleven.

“Yes?” Eve asked Natalie.

“I might get it wrong.”

“Don’t,” Eve said, with emphasis.

“I wasn’t finished, I was going to say I will try.  Really truly.  I hate this, though.”

“I promise you,” Camm- Ripley said, voice lowered, “I hate all of this more.”

“What else is on your list, Blair?  You said four more things?”

“Three more things.  Sorry, did I say four more?  Because-?”

“What are the four things?  Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I think we were planning on getting Ripley somewhere safer soon.”

“Rod- Rider-” Ben quickly corrected, then winced as he saw the dark look Rider shot him.  Devon had caught that, from the grin on his face, but the other kids hadn’t.  “-was saying the longer we stay, the more chance they have to take action.  The best thing to do would be to find a way to get out, without them tailing us.  In a car they don’t know is ours, for example.”

“Okay.  Let’s tackle that immediately after we address the other concerns.  Three other concerns?  In twenty words or less, each?  Don’t count, just keep it short, okay?”

“I had presentations prepared.  Things I was going to bring up,” Blair said.

“I don’t know if we have time for that.”

“It’s better to be fast,” Blair’s dad said.

“Ugh, this is painful, I worked so hard-”

“Blair.”  Firmer voice now.

“She can’t lose touch with us.  Don’t separate us.  It’s not just us three either.  Stookey, Jose, Cyn…”

“That can be hashed out later, once we know what the situation looks like.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“We will do our absolute best,” Blair’s dad said.  “Next?”

Blair looked unhappy, and Ripley looked more unhappy still.  Devon was a harder read.

“We talked it over and we think there should be a rule against badmouthing Ripley’s mom.”

“By which you mean…” Natalie started, talking over two other people.

“Mia.  It’s not fair when it’s one sided and she’s not here to defend herself or explain, and it’s not fair to Ripley either, to have to listen to it.”

“That’s complicated,” Eve said.  “But I think it’s reasonable if it’s not a topic of discussion in front of Ripley.”

“There hasn’t been a trial or anything,” Ripley said.  “Maybe she was forced.”

“Coerced?  Maybe,” Rider said.  “By who?”

“I don’t know,” Ripley said.  She lost a little bit of… uprightness?  Courage?  She’d slumped, almost defeated by the admission.  “I don’t know anything.”

“Maybe not, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t know who,” Blair said.  “We’d like it to be a rule.  And for the last rule, she’d like to talk to her mom- Mia on the phone.”

“I think we can agree to the first three rules, but let’s wait until things are settled down and we have things better set up before we reach out, okay?” Eve asked.  “For now, you’re Ripley, we won’t badmouth your mother, and we’ll do what we can to keep you in contact with your friends.”

“That last rule might need tweaking,” Rider said.  “If phones can be traced, somehow.  I’m getting the impression whoever’s doing this is tech savvy, and well equipped.”

“Then internet.  For now, let’s talk about getting Ripley situated somewhere that isn’t the hospital, and maybe she can video call her friends after that’s done.”

“Okay.  That’s my expertise,” Rider said.  “We need a car that isn’t mine, Ben’s, Natalie’s, or any of yours.”

He indicated Devon and Blair’s parents with that.

“I think someone in the hospital staff could have something.  If not, you can borrow my car.  Do you have a place to go?”

“Yes, but we should keep information compartmentalized.  That includes whoever is giving up the car.  I’ll share on a need-to-know basis.  Let’s finish eating, I’ll sort that out, and then we pack up and go.  Can you call the key people, so I can give them instructions, before they come, drop of keys, or contribute in other ways?”

“Sure.”

“Ben, with me?  While we sort that out?  Since you have my phone.”

“Yeah,” Ben said.

“Watch the kids?  Nobody leaves.  Nobody disappear.  If there’s any issue, Natalie, call, I have my gun.”

“Okay,” Natalie said.

Ben didn’t like leaving Natalie there.  In an ideal world, he would’ve wanted to have a chat with her, after some of her comments earlier.

“So, before we get down to business,” Roderick said.  They stepped into the room that Eve had used as her office, calling around to try to find accommodations and clarity on the situation.  They were out of earshot of the kids.  “Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“If you call me Rod Rider again, I’m going to put your head in a toilet.”

“I pivoted mid-sentence.  Sorry.”

“Okay.  I understand.  Threat holds.”

“Okay, Rider.”

“And if you put that on video, or put it on tape, and it gets out into the world?  The toilet will be unflushed and you won’t be breathing when I leave the room.”

Ben looked at his friend, studying the man’s expression to try to figure out how much of that was a joke.

“It dies at the first opportunity, on the editing room floor.”

“You were recording?” Eve asked.

“Always.  It’s insurance, protection, and if we get to the point where we’re back to investigating this, having the ability to go back to review any detail is key.”

“Insurance?” Eve asked.

Rider answered, “A lot of this legal stuff with licensed marshals like me has a way of being… a gamble.  A coin flip, even, depending on what court it goes to, and how the judge views the recent, ah…”

“Ugly but necessary changes in the law?” Ben offered.

“Yeah.  A good lawyer, especially one hired with money, which the Hursts may have, will poke holes in every step of the procedure.  If we do things right and it’s all on camera to show we were doing it right, that helps,” Rider said.

“Well, I can’t say I hate the accountability part of it,” Eve said.

Ben knew there was another side to that whole issue.  There was a contingent of the licensed marshals that was very much of the mindset that they were allowed to carry guns, the right judges signed off on most things, and if the guns happened to kill someone, it bypassed the whole part of things where it was a gamble in court.  Then they got their bounty money from the state and from victim fundraising groups that had raised enough money to draw a licensed marshal’s attention, and, as they saw it, it was a good day.

Rider wasn’t so much a part of that, though Ben had known him to sound that way when it came to dealing with the human traffickers.  It was more people who dealt with other crimes, like drugs, illegal immigration, and murder.

“I didn’t want to say it in front of Cammy,” Rider said.  “But there’s only one way she gets the ending she and her friends just asked for, you know?”

“If we arrest the Hurst parents,” Ben said.  “And make sure they stay arrested.”

Eve nodded, though her attention was on her phone and laptop.

“Yeah,” Rider said.  “Ideally.”

But he said that, and with the camera sticking out of Ben’s camera bag at hip level, pointed more towards Eve, he gave Ben a look.

Right.  Ben wasn’t an idiot.  He could follow that line of thought to its conclusion.

The supposedly ideal, tidy way was that Mia and Carson Hurst went to court and were cut off from their resources, and that was that.

The actual tidy way would be if they died.

“I’d like the chance to interview her,” Ben said. Which we can’t do if that happens.

“Yeah.  I figured,” Rider responded.

“I’ll get my boss on the phone,” Eve said.

She did, and she called a couple others- Rider wanted some alternates, beyond the one person passing along their keys, and for each, he gave instructions about how they were to get to the basement.  He’d taken a photo of a map on the wall, and directed them to different points- one to go to the bunker area at the other end of the basement, another to turn down a side hallway toward the lunch area for the cleaning and laundry staff, wait, and then backtrack, one to go upstairs first, and so on.

Ben stood at the back of the office, angling the camera toward the pair.

When they were done and the people were on the way, he flicked the camera off.  Roderick went to go eat.  Ben watched him through the window.  “Can I get you to sign?  Permission to appear in the documentary?”

He had the papers folded in his camera bag.

“Is it really a priority?”

“Natalie and Ripley both get money out of this.  And it helps vindicate Natalie, when she… got a raw deal, from the press and public perception.  Genuinely, she’s a good, caring mom.  And if we can put a big spotlight on the Hursts, even if they get away, it limits what they can do in a big way.  I honestly don’t know if there’s another way to do that with them, with the way things are, big picture.”

Eve seemed like she was receptive.

Then something seemed to catch her attention.  Looking at Roderick?  Rider?

“And you need my face and voice for that?” she asked.

Ben tilted his head.

“I’m no stranger to people like Rider there.  Licensed marshals- different things in some different states.”

“Sure.  I know what you’re getting at.”

“The way he threatened you…”

“I’ve known him for a long time.  Really.”

“Okay,” she said, glancing out the window.

“What does that have to do with you signing?  I don’t mean that to sound like a challenge, sorry, it’s a genuine question.”

“Gosh, you’re good,” she said, smiling a bit.  “You’re cute, you look younger than you are.  I can’t tell if you actually believe what you’re saying.  Killer combination there, Mr. Jaime.”

“I do believe in this.”

“Damn,” she said, still smiling.  “Thinking about the direction that some of the licensed marshals go… how targeted it gets, and you mentioning how Natalie got a bad time of it…”

Eve Thao gestured at her face, shrugging slightly.  Then she gestured at Jaime.

“You think there’s a danger of a race aspect, somehow?”

“I think if this gets mishandled and a certain contingent of people go looking to play the blame game, especially in this cultural climate, people like you or me might get singled out.  Be careful, Mr. Jaime.”

“Did you ask her for permission?”

It was Natalie’s voice, in the other room.

Eve pushed past Ben.

He flicked the camera on, taking stock of the situation.

The kids were saying goodbye.  Devon had hugged Ripley.

“He doesn’t need to ask me for permission,” Ripley said.  “We’ve taken baths together.”

“We were younger,” Devon said, to the rest of the room.  He struck Ben as a sensitive kid- the sort who was accused of wrongdoing and didn’t know that the person doing the accusing might be wrong.  He seemed bewildered, cautious now.

“I don’t agree with that either,” Natalie said.  “Ask first.  Please.”

“I’m really sorry,” Devon said.

“No you’re not,” Ripley told him.  “He did nothing wrong.  You did nothing wrong.  You had permission to hug me.  You have it, forever and ever, okay?  You have permission to sit on my bed and come for sleepovers, I trust you.  You are one of the two people-”

Ripley’s voice broke.  Devon started to reach out to hug her, but hesitated.

Blair stepped in, instead.

“I don’t have any-” Ripley’s voice muffled against Blair’s shoulder.

“Jesus Christ, Natalie,” Ben whispered.

“You were in the other room.”

“I heard enough.  What-”

“I’m going to get stuff,” Ripley said, going to the room they’d wheeled the bed into.  Fleeing from the eyes of adults and everything else.

Blair followed.  Devon’s dad took him aside to chat.

Sterling seemed stranded.  In previous weeks, Ben might have gone over to him to say something, take over because Natalie was struggling, but it was more important that he stay, and handle this in a more diplomatic sense.

“What the actual fuck?” he asked Natalie, voice low.

“We can talk about it later.  I’ll do a interview, even.  But I want you in my corner for right now.”

“Natalie, that’s going to be a lonely corner, with Ripley-”

He could see the change in her microexpressions at the use of that name.

“-Ripley will be running as hard and as fast in any direction she can find that gets her away from you, if you attack people she cares about like this.”

“I’m not attacking, I’m asking him to-” Natalie started, then she seemed to abandon that line of argument.  “Ben, there’s- I can’t discuss this in the five fucking minutes before we go.”

“Discuss what?”

“I-” she started, she shook her head.  Changed her mind again?  “I’ve spent years imagining the worst.  I’m not about to let it happen now.”

That didn’t feel like it was her real argument, and it was a pretty shit argument besides.

He shifted gears.

There was always an audience.  Always a lens through which to view things.

Figuring that out helped to frame stuff in his head.  To address things.  It helped him calm down when he was stressed, do what he needed to do.

“We talked so much about what this would look like when you got her back,” he said.  The change in his tone of voice, softer, seemed to get her attention, pulling it away from the heat of the moment.

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t look like this.”

“No.  I didn’t think I’d be more scared.  More lost,” she said.

“We talked so much about not wanting you to be the bad guy.  Then Roderick- Rider, he came in and said something similar.  We wanted a gentle landing for her.  This isn’t that.”

Natalie was silent.

“The way the situation is, if you spook her and she rebels or runs, that’s a lot more dangerous than a hug.”

“Agreed,” Rider said, as he approached.  He had his kit together, including the case with the bug detector.

“You don’t have my permission to include any of this in the documentary,” Natalie said.

“Nat.”

“I’m going to get my things together,” she said.

He thought about pursuing, and pressing the subject, but with that last note from her, he was worried she’d push it further.  They’d signed a deal early on, and she couldn’t cut all ties, but a story that ended with the reunion being covered by a text scroll was not the story he wanted to tell.

Sterling was trying to sort things out.  He’d pulled everything out of his bag and was struggling to get it to fit inside, as he packed back up- especially because there were some things they’d bought at the in-hospital store that had toys and comics for kids to take into appointments.

There was an element to it where five year old Sterling didn’t have a lot of guidance, and was trying to do the right thing and not be underfoot.  Ben liked to keep that lens in mind, where everyone around Sterling was a giant, with people like Rider twice as tall as he was.

Not so much Ben, since Ben was shorter than average.  But still.

Ben went to help.

“Hey, guy,” he said.

“Stuck.”

“Here.”  Ben helped him sort, so stuff at the bottom wasn’t blocking other stuff from getting inserted.  The stuffed dragon went in last, because it could be squeezed in before the zipper was done up.  “I bet this has been crazy, and confusing, and a lot of people have big feelings, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a big deal, all of this.  I wanted you to know, you’re doing a super job.  You were really patient when you must’ve been super bored.”

“I wasn’t that bored.  But I want to watch on TV instead of a phone.”

Hm?  Oh, watch shows.  “Yeah?  Hopefully soon.”

He helped Sterling get his bag on, then clipped it across the chest.  “Heavy?”

Sterling was such a wisp of a kid that it looked like he’d tip over backwards.

“Yeah, but I can do it.”

Ben straightened up.  He had his own things scattered around- a lot of them around Sterling’s setup, because he’d been hanging out and helping keep Sterling occupied.

Devon’s dad wasn’t far away.

“Your son’s a good kid,” Ben said.  Part of the reason he commented, was to distance himself from Natalie’s comments.  “My head was filled with daydreams and distraction when I was his age.  You must be proud.”

“My stepson, and I am.  It’s nice, being away from it all.  Very full household, we don’t get a ton of one-on-one time.  I just wish there wasn’t that… tone?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we doing a good thing?  What a question to ask, huh?”

“I’d like to think we are, it’s just the bad parts have a way of getting everywhere.  Bringing out our worst, maybe.”

“I only see one person bringing out their worst.  That’s all I’m saying about that.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, and maybe he’d have left it at that, but the thought struck him, “You’ve been dealing with it for a day, almost.  So have Ripley and Devon.  But for Natalie, it’s been eleven years.  That’s hard to carry.”

“Yeah.  Could be,” Devon’s stepdad said.  “And I’m a stepdad, so I skipped some of the hard parts.  The difficult pregnancies, the dirty diapers.”

“Good deal,” Ben murmured.

Devon’s stepdad only shrugged.  “So, yeah, similar to your idea, it’s only been a day.  It’s only been a few years, for me, that I’ve been the father figure here.  Jumped in late.  But -and this doesn’t go in your video, none of this talk, please-”

Ben flicked the camera off.

“-Thank you.  And Sterling?  Check on your sister?” Devon’s stepdad asked.

“I have a sister,” Sterling said, like it was a late realization.

“And Blair and Devon,” Ben added.

Maybe Blair’s name put a bit more pep in Sterling’s step.  He ran off, unbalanced by his bag, so he touched a table along the way to steady himself.

Devon’s dad drew in a deeper breath, then sighed.  “Some of my daughters have been through it.  His next oldest sister is on three kinds of pills to get to functional.  One of the older girls is getting tattoos to cover up scars from an attempt on her own life two years ago.  I drove her to the hospital and tattoo appointment.  So I’ve… dealt with other stuff.  I got thrown in the deep end.”

“Yeah.  Damn.”

“It’s not because we’re bad parents.  It’s… all the little things.  Devon telling me he’s feeling down, earlier this year, because the winter finally ended and it was supposed to be nice out, and it’s smoke so bad we need masks.”

“Yeah.  No, I wasn’t thinking in that direction, don’t worry.”

“Either way, maybe you can argue I’m not qualified, I haven’t been at it that long… or maybe I’ve done enough laps around the deep end of the pool I can say, sure, having your kid taken, dealing with that for eleven years, that’s hard to carry… but she needs to fucking carry it anyway.  Her kids need her to.”

Ripley left her room with her bag.  Ben noted the clothes Natalie had bought her had been very deliberately left behind.

“There’s no other choice,” Devon’s stepdad said, stepping away, because Ripley was approaching Devon.

Her face angled, so it was clear she wasn’t talking to him, she said, loudly, words dripping with resentment, “May I hug you goodbye, Devon?”

Natalie didn’t acknowledge that.

“Yeah,” Devon replied.

Ripley hugged him, with a suddenness and force like she was trying to hurt him.  After a moment, he hugged her back, just as tight.

“We don’t lose touch, this isn’t a last goodbye.  Promise, promise, promise,” Ripley said.

“It’s a promise, old man,” Devon said.  An inside joke?

Ripley hugged him tighter, to a degree Ben hadn’t thought possible.

Blair and Ripley hugged as well.

“Video call, soon as possible.  I’m going to be so worried.”

“Yeah,” Ripley replied.

While they said their goodbye, Ripley dictating what to say to other friends, Ben stepped aside, going to Eve in the other room.

She had her eyebrows raised.

His voice quiet, he asked, “Is there any way to push counseling?  For Ripley, Sterling, and Natalie, separately, and then together?”

“You’ve been with Natalie for how long?”

“Since before Sterling was born, technically.”

“You couldn’t have arranged for that before, huh?” Eve asked.

“Is there a way to mandate it, through family services?  It might streamline things.”

“There’s…” she seemed momentarily at a loss.  “…No infrastructure, Mr. Jaime.  The doctors and nurses I’m working with are working on fumes, undermanned and overloaded.  There’s no central agency for child services.  Family court has a two year backlog.  The courthouse almost burned down, so that’ll be more backlog.  There are some independent foster care groups, and we work with the best ones, but it’s in shambles.  Most kids sleep in offices or places like this, with a lack of supervision.  We leave kids with foster parents we wouldn’t have given licenses to ten years ago, because the alternative is nothing.  We have starkly racist, sexist, addicted, and barely functional workers still on the job because we’re so undermanned.”

Ben leaned into the doorframe, taking that in.

“I thought maybe the extreme nature of this situation might get some cogs and gears moving, and that might lead to someone telling me there’s a bed available somewhere.  It didn’t, and nobody had one.  I’ve given this twelve hours of my time, and I’ll be working twelve hours late, unpaid overtime, to catch up.  We keep up a facade, because the alternative is dangerous.  So no, Mr. Jaime.  I can’t appeal to a judge to help get Natalie Teale and her kids family-court mandated therapy.”

“Okay,” he said.  “I’m just trying to find a way forward.”

“If you make a documentary about what I just talked about, Mr. Jaime, let me know, I’d be willing to help you navigate the fine line of drawing attention to the issues without broadcasting to the worst of the worst that the guard posts are functionally unmanned.”

“I don’t think it’d sell, Ms. Thao.  People don’t want a dose of reality.”

She smiled a bit, expression sad, regardless.  “The offer stands.”

She stepped out of the room again.  She’d left the paper there, unsigned.  But as if to signify that she hadn’t forgotten it, she’d taken the pen he’d left on top of the sheet with her.

⯁

The bug detector beeped.

Eve Thao’s car had a tracker.

Rider bent down and checked the wheel hubs, then got down, belly on the parking lot, and checked the undercarriage.  “Not seeing it.”

“They knew we were talking to Eve?” Natalie asked.  She carried a car seat that Blair’s mom had brought when they’d come.

“It wouldn’t take much,” Ben said.  “Find an employee list, call in, trying to get ahold of certain people.  Who isn’t available?”

“And whose car is still in the lot, maybe,” Rider said.  He got up.  “That’s why I got more than one set of keys.  Hood up, Ripley.”

They’d bought some cheap gear from the hospital, and Ripley, Sterling, and Natalie all wore sweatshirts in bright primary colors, branded with the hospital logo.  With the hood up, it obscured her hair and features.  Rider had a hat.  Ben had a hat and coat.

It didn’t feel like enough on its own, but maybe there was a chance they’d be overlooked as a result, especially with other factors in play.

“What about inside the gas cap?” Ben suggested.

“Or tailpipe?  Or under the hood?” Rider asked.  “Or they got into the car and it’s under the seat.  I’m not getting a strong signal, and I don’t especially want to open the door if it means I end up like the people in your cell phone video.”

The shrapnel.

“So you found out recently you have a new cousin,” Ben said.

“No comment,” Ripley said.

“It’d help us help her,” Rider said.

“Because you’re doing such a great job with me, right?”

Josie had called to fill them in, at her mother’s prompting.

Ripley had been silent on the subject.

One more piece of the puzzle.

He wished there was another quiet moment.  Time with his computer, where he wasn’t also watching Rider, Natalie, Ripley, and looking out for Sterling.

He wished he could trust Rider.  Because in other circumstances, he’d be asking Rider to use police connections and look up arrest records.

The Hursts had money.  They had access to munitions.  They had access to mercenaries.  There was some link to the Cavalcantis.

So… was this teenager a sex worker?  Someone rescued, in a moment of humanity, from this gang that had so much reach and interconnection with everything?

A hostage?  That was hard to line up with what Josie had described.  The Hursts had disappeared for a while.  Then they’d reappeared with the Cavalcantis, in a situation that made it look like they were the hostages, using already existing traps to escape.

“This way,” Rider said.

“I’m surprised you got them to give you their cars,” Natalie said.

“They recognize the crisis, and I think they’d rather it not be in the hospital, like it was at the school,” Rider said.  “And really, the judge gives me a lot of leeway.”

The more he drew on that leeway from the judge, the more Ben wondered.  It suggested a pre-existing relationship, which made the possibility of a connection to the Cavalcantis more real.

That synthetic record scratch made Rider pause.  He chased the sound, and found a camera set in the branches that stuck a bit of the way into the parking garage.  He pulled out the internal battery, checked again, then tossed it out that concrete, glassless window when the remote still crackled.

“This way,” Rider said.

They cut through a building and went to a different parking lot.

“There might be cameras here too,” Ben murmured.

“Yeah.  Let’s take this route.”

Behind the bushes that sat along the base of the hospital.

Did informing the judge and getting permission for various steps mean the Cavalcantis were informed too?  And if so…

…What did that mean?  What was the implication?

“This is an adventure,” Sterling said.  Ben shielded his face by using a hand or his legs to push low branches aside.

Rider pointed.

In the bushes.  A camera was clipped to a branch.  Same style.

He’d spotted it without using the bug detector.  Maybe he hadn’t wanted the sound.

Ben glanced at Ripley, and saw her study it, until they’d moved forward too much for her to keep it in view.  He tried to read the slant of her shoulders.

When he, at the rear of the group, was too far forward to keep the little camera in focus, he moved the camera to studying Ripley’s back.

What did that camera mean to her?  Was it a symbol that something nefarious was going on, or a symbol of how much her parents cared, that they’d try this hard?

“What do you think of the cameras?” he ventured.

“What cameras?” Sterling asked.

“In the bushes and trees.”

“My friend at school said squirrels aren’t real, and they’re a way for the government to track us with camera robots.”

“Yeah?” Ripley asked.  “That’d be a bummer.  Squirrels are cute.”

“Are they a favorite animal?” Natalie asked.

“Humans are my favorite animal,” Ripley said.  “All of them except maybe three in particular.”

“I’m curious what you think when you see them.  What you feel.”

“Being curious about the world is good,” Ripley said.  “Keep it up.”

Right.  Not receptive.

Rider hit the button on the keychain.  A car in the side parking lot lit up.  The doors audibly unlocked.

Rider used the bug detector, checking there were no cameras, before making the short ten minute jog uphill to get up the slope

Natalie and Ripley got into the back seat.  Natalie set up the car seat for Sterling.  Rider adjusted the front seat for his long legs.  All the various bags found the empty space between seats and at the foot of the car seat.

It took a minute.

“Keep an eye out,” Rider said.

“I am.”

“And Ripley, Natalie, keep your heads down.”

They pulled out of the hospital, then down onto the road that led from it to the city.  Little side roads led to abbreviated suburbs, some rural properties, and some infrastructure that might have been water treatment or power, given how it was fenced off and guarded by a single man in uniform, standing by his car.  A lot of the Civil Warrior stuff had targeted that sort of thing.

A bit of smoke in the air gave things a haze, but overall, it was a strangely blue day, after the gloom of the basement, without even small windows near the ceiling to show the outside.

A large black car had pulled off a side road, following them.  Too far back to make out the model or year.

“Rider,” Ben said, glancing at the rearview mirror.

“I see them.”

“That quickly, huh?” Ben asked.

“We’re being followed?” Natalie asked.

“Don’t turn around,” Rider said.  “Don’t be obvious about it.”

“What are you going to do, Sterling?” Ripley asked, seemingly unaffected by the entire situation.  “Sleep?”

“I slept a lot already.  Mostly I want to run and stuff.”

“Yeah?” Ripley asked.  “Want to get out of the car, and see if we can run as fast as it?”

“Yeah.”

“Or faster?  Wouldn’t it be cool if we could?”

“They’re not getting closer,” Ben observed, of the car, while the kids talked.

“No.  They want to see where we go, probably.  Ben?  In the glove compartment, there’s a locked case.”

Ben didn’t go for it immediately.  He gave Rider a long look.

“I know,” Rider said.  “This might be a shorter job than we’d hoped.”

“Short in the sense of…?” Natalie asked.  She didn’t manage to keep the stress out of her voice.

“No.  I don’t think so,” Rider said.  “In the sense of whether I’m staying for days or months.”

“We’re okay then?”

She didn’t know the context.  What Rider really meant was that this was looking more like the sort of job where the licensed marshal would tie things up with a bullet, than a court case.

They were being followed and there weren’t a lot of great ways to resolve that.

“I can handle this,” Rider said.  “Ben?  Back me up.  All I ask.”

Ben opened the glove compartment, and got the locked case.

“Zero four seven six.”

Ben opened it.  He drew the handgun out of the foam-lined interior.  He kept it out of sight of the kids.

“Emergencies only,” Rider said.

“Yeah.”

It was hard to keep the camera and gun out at the same time.

Ben put the gun away.

“Ben, handle that.”

Ben saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and belatedly realized.  Ripley had unzipped a bag, and was digging into the contents.  His camera bag.

If she tossed something out the window-

That wasn’t her aim.  She probably didn’t know how much she could screw with him if she did.

She’d found the white flip phone.

“Put that way.”

Natalie reached past Sterling to Ripley, and Ripley twisted in her seat, blocking Natalie’s reaching hand with her back.

“I can’t pull over with this car behind us,” Rider said, glancing over his shoulder now.  “Handle it, Ben.”

“Don’t touch me!” Ripley raised her voice.

He sped up instead.

Ben put his seat back, which pressed Natalie down a bit, and rose out of his seat, to reach over.

“Can you get her?” Rider asked.

“No,” Ben said.

“What does it mater!?” Ripley raised her voice.  “If they’re following like you’re very obviously hinting at me, then who cares?  Let me talk to her!”

“Fuck!” Rider swore.

The sudden volume, the frenzy of violence, and people reaching past him was upsetting Sterling.  He looked like he was on the verge of throwing a fit.

The car sharply slowed down instead, now.  There was a brief moment it felt like they were floating, wheels not quite catching on the road, a bit of fishtailing, but Rider managed to steer it straight, then pull over.

He was out of his seat in a moment, opening Ripley’s car door, directly behind him.

Ripley twisted, holding arms close to her body to keep anyone from grabbing her or prying the phone from her hand.  “I want to talk to her!”

She found an opening, hit a button, and shoved it between Sterling’s car seat and the back seat.

Natalie immediately tried to go for it, reaching behind, but the seat was too secure.  She pulled off jewelry, to try to squeeze her hand in.

“Hello?”

She’d put it on speaker phone.

“Mom,” Ripley said, her voice cracking a bit.

“I’m so glad you called.  I want to talk soon.  We’ll find a way.  But Natalie, Rider, Ben?  The car following you isn’t me, and the people after you are the biggest danger you’ve ever known.  The fact I’m doing this instead of seizing the chance to talk to my daughter should tell-”

“She’s not your daughter,” Natalie said.

“-should tell you how serious I am right now.  Drive.  For the time being, we coordinate.”

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