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“Please don’t leave me,” Sterling said.

“We all have our jobs, okay?” Ben said, bending down to be more on Sterling’s level.  “I need to help people.  Your mom’s looking after Ripley.  Our friends from the police are looking for the bad guys.  And your job, little man, is to tough this out.  Okay?”

“I don’t want a job.  I want my mom.”

“I know.  But she was taken away by the police, you saw.”

“Kinda.”

“And I need to go explain how that shouldn’t have happened.  Okay?  This is how we get her back.”

Sterling looked like he was going to cry again.

Ben straightened.

“Please don’t leave me alone,” Sterling said, again.

Ben wasn’t sure how to respond, or what to say.

“Sterling, you won’t be alone,” the woman at the daycare center told him.  “There’s other boys and girls here.  And lots of toys, and people like me, who are helping and watching everything.”

Sterling looked very dubious of her.  He looked at Ben.  “You’re the one who doesn’t leave.  Mom gets busy sometimes, but you stay.”

“I’ve left for work before.”

“But you left and mom stayed!” Sterling said, with insistence.  “Mom left and you stayed, which happened more!  You’re supposed to stay, Ben!”

“It’s bad luck, little man, this is one of the times mom’s left and I have to leave, so you’re here, where it’s safe.”

“It’s all bad luck now,” Sterling said.  “Everyone’s crying, even me, and we can’t go home, and nothing good happens.”

“You have a new sister.”

Sterling had worked himself up to the point where it looked like he wanted to cry and throw a fit.  “She’s a monster.  She’s mean to mom.”

“She’s nice to you.”

That contradiction seemed to be too much for the kid.  Ben could have engaged, to comfort him, but he was worried that if he did, it would be impossible to disengage.  The daycare worker swooped in, at least, which helped in a big way.

“I’m going to go,” he told them.  “I appreciate you doing this, given the short notice.”

“Actually, there’s some important business to go over.”

“Can you cover it with his dad?  He’ll arrive in less than an hour.”

“We can’t.  There are heavy protests in the area, and there’s a chance we relocate with the kids to our sister location…”

He’d seen the protests on the way over. It had looked bad, so he acknowledged the need to listen and keep track.  He let her say what she needed to say, and took mental note of it.

This daycare was, ironically enough, part of the package that Rider had given to him, even before yesterday’s interview.  Daycares had two year long waiting lists, and high fees, so they weren’t normally an option, but licensed marshals had resources, often the very same ones the rich and famous kept on reserve. Immigration had steeply dropped off starting a decade ago, there weren’t as many au pairs eager to do child care or housework to stay anywhere here, and at a time many other daycare centers had closed, some of the ones that had stayed open switched over to a more hourly model.

Ben wondered if Rider would think to look for him or Sterling here.  The man had at least stopped calling incessantly.

Ben got the information, then collected the sheets that had the information printed on them, leaving him slightly annoyed she hadn’t just done this, when he’d asked and paid for an emergency placement.  The ‘licensed marshal’ rate, but still.

“Ben!” Sterling called out.

Ben left.  What else was he meant to do?

He took the stairs, because the power was out.  The difference between the daycare, which had its own generator and air conditioning, and the rest of the building?  Palpable.  The air felt thick.

He hadn’t devoted much thought to his place in Sterling’s life.  A part of him felt like this would… naturally unfold, maybe.  The documentary would go out there.  Camellia Teale would make selective appearances to the media.  Ben made a mental distinction between Camellia and Ripley, here.  Because he’d had his own ideas about who she would end up being.  Natalie, Sean, Ripley, and Sterling would want to be left alone.

Ben would be more willing to put his face out there, and talk about everything that had happened up until then.  He’d… stay in touch.  Run things by them.  There’d be financial aspects.  Touching base.  He’d be a part of their lives moving forward.

That was if they found her.  If they’d found Camellia Teale’s body, there’d be less keeping in touch.  He’d be less a part of their lives.  It would make sense for him to pull away from Sterling, letting the family grieve, while he fielded the media.

He’d never fantasized about the fame or fortune.  This was all just… what he’d expected, in a way.

Sterling calling his name in this situation left him disconcerted.  He’d been in the background of Sterling’s life more than any of his family members that weren’t his mom or dad.  More than the grandparents.

Once he reached the outside, where there was barely any breeze, he stopped and sat on the steps, removing his shoes to get the lifts that were meant to change his gait and posture.  He needed to cover ground, and the lifts would hurt that.

Freed of that minor inconvenience, he walked fast, the lack of a camera bag like a perpetual, unending moment he realized he’d forgotten his wallet.  He knew his way around the city, at least, but as he ventured into downtown, about ten minutes of brisk walking, he could see the elements of the protest the daycare center had worried about.

It wasn’t marching or focused in the daycare’s direction, but there was a possibility it could turn around.  Businesses had shuttered their doors and people were angry about it… but what else could they do, when there were this many people out there, all masked, anonymous, and very clearly angry with the state of things?  It was only the occasional overturned, burning car or trash can, but the fact there was a lingering baseline of smoke in the air meant it took very little to tip things over to ‘orange haze’. Various green spray paints were being used with regularity, to make statements about climate, or people chose to make statements about police in blue, or government in gold and yellow.  The paint added a chemical tang to the air.

Ben wore a mask, but it didn’t protect his eyes, and it didn’t fit very well with the fake beard he still wore- mostly because taking it off would require taking everything off.  He mostly held it down with one hand, moisture in his eyes, from betrayal, from smoke, from paint fumes.

He moved with the flow of the protest, cutting diagonally across it.  He mimed his own anger, fitting to what others were doing, and when someone pushed paper into his free hand, he took it.  He cut past a group of younger people who were pulling on the metal grille that had been drawn across the front of a convenience store.  They collectively hauled on it, shouting something about being thirsty, wanting a drink.

Bad luck for the store, that this many people had convinced themselves it would be open.  Ben was willing to bet they’d succeed in tearing the grille down and raid the place.

He had a bad feeling about the bus routes.  He didn’t have many great options for transportation, but…

He heard the crash before anything else, and started jogging.  He wasn’t the only one.  At one of the places bus lines converged, a bus had been stopped, then the collective of people had pushed it over.  It had landed against a parked car, and, as Ben got close enough to see it, scraped its way down to a position where it lay across the ground.

Some spray painted the undercarriage.  Some cheered.  some cried out in dismay.

Eyes streaming, Ben stood there, unsure of where to go or what to do.  Going out in the direction of the daycare, there weren’t any routes taking him where he wanted to go.

He looked at the papers in his hand.  There were guidelines.  A mission statement, where to meet, who to leave alone, the color coding for protest colors, which was apparently tied to the spray paint.

People were ignoring the guidelines, going by what Ben had seen at the convenience store, they’d be looting if the convenience store wasn’t locked, probably, but that was the nature of this sort of thing.  Leaderless, a response to a bad, ongoing situation.  Unfocused.  There was too much going wrong, too many things to point to.

Things were bad.  Ben knew that.  They were all frogs in water, and as fast as the water heated up to a boil, they were finding out the rest of the frogs in the water were not only unwilling to move out of the way or help the situation, but were actively fighting to pretend things were as they had once been.  Cool and pleasant.

So he didn’t begrudge them a rattling of the shutters, looting, or spray paint.  It was natural, it made sense.

He just wished they hadn’t tipped over a bus he could’ve used to get out of here.

Was there a way to harness this?  Focus it?

He had his phone.  He had the information Gio Cavalcanti, now Valentina, and Mia had sent him.  One clear map of how the Cavalcantis were tied into things.  A clear outline about the state of the government, law, business, and everything else.

If he gave that to this crowd, what happened?  Did it focus them?  Give them targets?

They’d focus on the government part of it.  The police.

There was no leadership for him to reach out to, to barter.  Information for help.

He had the message from the ex-soldier.  Given to Sterling, with the idea Sterling would give it to Ben, no doubt.  Ben seriously doubted Sterling was expected to act on it.  The location of three young women who were being kept hostage.  A short note, saying Mia and Carson didn’t want to barter using them.

He would’ve wanted to ask for help.  If there was a leadership, he could’ve asked who they knew, if they had resources.  People to handle more serious things.  Maybe they would’ve had something.  Ex-military who cared about climate, racism, police brutality, and collapse of civic institutions.  Maybe they could’ve assigned people to him, enough he could pull those hostages out.  Go to the Cavalcantis.  Offer a trade.

Someone came running up to Ben, tackle-hugging him.  She was streaked with sweat and the sweat had picked up smoke and paint particulate, especially in her hair and eyebrows.  Her eyes were wide open and unblinking behind the goggles she wore as she pressed her hard lower-face mask to the side of Ben’s, near his ear. More to be close enough to be heard than some kind of masked kiss.  But he still didn’t hear her voice on her first attempt.

He’d been standing there stunned since the bus had fallen.

“Stay angry!” she raised her voice, to be heard over the ambient noise.  Her voice was muffled and distorted by the mask.  “Keep moving!”

He started walking again, because it was too conspicuous if he didn’t.

He had no idea what that would look like. The trade with the Cavalcanti family.

Would they give up the leverage over Mia, that Ripley gave them?

Or would they -he hated that he was even considering this- let Natalie go?  When she didn’t mean anything to Mia?

It would mean Sterling had a mom.

No, there had to be more to it.  A way to make this work.  The ex-soldier seemed to think so, or he wouldn’t have provided this information.

An angle that only Ben could use?  One not open to the Hursts?

A win for Natalie and Sean would be the best way to hurt Mia, but Ben doubted that’d be enough for a man like Davie Cavalcanti.

His phone buzzed.  He checked it.  Rider again.

Just as he was returning it to his pocket, it vibrated.  A text.

Rider:
I know you’re there.
I have your camera & footage.

Ben stopped in his tracks.  Someone behind him bumped into him, and he was so on guard, he immediately thought of pickpockets, or people who’d plant stuff on him.

It was neither.  Just a man in a black shirt, with his little boy on his shoulders.  He’d brought his kid to a violent protest.

Rider had Ben’s camera.

⯁

“It wasn’t me,” Rider said, as Ben approached.

The meeting place was just off the main protest area, an outdoor patio area in a triangular patch of shade, beneath a corner of a building that was held up off the ground by a singular pillar.  The shutter that food was delivered through was closed, plastered with a mix of ice cream advertisements and protest messages, the chairs and tables all moved inside, excepting one table that had a bike chained to it, with the chain extending to a bike rack.  Something gross had been left to melt across the tabletop.  A blob of orange candy or wax.

Ben told himself that if this was a trap, a shout to the people protesting could draw help.  Vocally accusing Rider of being a cop could turn the tables.

Less so if Rider drew a gun… so Ben was prepared to back away swiftly and call out if there was any motion in that direction.  He kept close to the pillar, for cover, glancing back over his shoulder.

“Even if I believe you, which is hard to do, you said we could trust them.”

“I was wrong.”

“Good people paid for you being wrong, there.  We have no idea what’s happening to Natalie or Ripley.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t push for information,” Ben said.  “I figured it’d tip off Natalie.”

“About me and the judge?”

Ben shook his head slightly, ready to negate that, that wasn’t what he meant, but- that too.  “Some.  Other stuff.  Who Davie Cavalcanti is.  But I guess I need to know about the judge, too.  What was it Mia said in the car?  Angel Circle.”

Rider visibly winced.

Ben remained silent, studying the man.

“I really do see you as a friend, Ben.  One who isn’t a marshal.  Someone I could have in my corner at my wedding, who cared more about the wedding than about the bachelor party, know what I mean?”

“I really don’t want to take the conversation that direction, Rider.  Start by being honest.  Then we can talk about the state of our friendship.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“The bad part.  What are you holding back, the most?” Ben asked.  “What do I need to know?”

“I told myself you knew already, before you asked just now.  You were in training, you would’ve gone down the same track as me, for licenses, testing.”

“Knew what?”

“The language.  ‘Circle’ means webring.  ‘Angel’ means-”

Ben put up a hand, stopping Rider.

He put the other hand up toward his mouth, but bumped into the mask.

“Do you want to know?” Rider asked.

“Tell me what’s relevant.”

“Girls who didn’t want to be mainstream porn actresses became managers.  Running the circle.  Two did it with the idea of shutting things down.  They reached out to us.  Someone leaked to the people running the circle.  The people at the top reached out to Davie.  Davie got there while we were still organizing and making calls to see who’d take the bounty, or who’d do it for free.  He Cleaned house.”

“To what extent?”

“Found the women who were reaching out to us.  Like what you had in the file.  But different.  Maybe he was figuring that shit out.  Refining it.  People at the top disappeared.  The ‘actresses’ were left behind, doors unlocked.  We got some that night we raided the building.  Others, I found over the course of months, figuring they’d run for it and become homeless.  Months of me trawling the streets, dropping off food and things people needed, asking, earning trust.  I don’t want you to think I don’t or didn’t care.”

“You were willing to work with him?”

Rider hesitated.

“Because of the judge?”

“The judge was saying to-” Rider started.  “I thought maybe Davie had a kind of honor, that as brutal as he could be, he left the girls behind.”

“What was the judge saying?”

“Pressuring.  Emphasizing how fragile the status quo was.  That Davie was a necessary evil.  A world where we made that deal with Davie was one where we got more, were better equipped, had more resources.  He made it sound like he was leaving it up to me to weigh the options and decide if that was a deal I wanted to make, but it was pretty obvious what decision he wanted me to make.”

Ben shook his head.

“Ben,” Rider said.  “Reading between those lines and making those calls is what gets us the power to act, to call a judge and get permission to do half of what we did, the past twenty-four hours.”

“Reading between those lines and making those calls is what got Natalie and Ripley taken by the same kind of man who worked with that group!  A man who butchers women who actually try to save people!” Ben shouted.

“Ben-”

“Fuck you!”

“You made that call too.”

Ben clenched a fist, approaching Rider.

“If you swing at me, I’ll defend myself,” Rider said.  “I’m bigger and stronger than you.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Ben said.

“Let me finish?” Rider asked.

Ben remained where he was, fist still balled up.

“After you talked to me, when I was sitting on the toilet, I was on the fence, still.  I called the judge.  Mentioned the dismemberment in the pictures you had.  Didn’t mention you had that- don’t worry.  Just said I’d called a contact and I’d heard.  The people running the webring, that I’d been thinking about for seven years?  Apparently got the worst of Davie’s attention.  So I thought, again, maybe there was an honor to what he did.  Or does.  There was a… massive kind of relief, hearing.  Maybe that changed how I read things.”

“And now?” Ben asked, unclenching his fist.  “Do we still think that?”

“I grilled a couple of the guys I’d brought in, the ones who didn’t disappear right after the cops swept in to take Ripley.”

“And Natalie,” Ben said.  “They took Natalie too.”

“Sure.  Yeah.  I’m not so clear on the ‘honorable’ thing anymore.  Sounds like he likes hurting people in a big way, and doing what he does gives him access to a lot of people that won’t be missed.  Or he likes doing it to peers.  Or as a fear thing, to keep people in line.  I don’t know anymore.”

“Will he do it to Natalie and Ripley?”

“Hell if I know.  But if I have to wonder, it’s going to eat me alive,” Rider said.

Ben felt like he was being eaten alive.

“Hey!” someone shouted.

Ben tensed at the interruption.

“You with us?”

Ben paused.  Then he realized that his time moving through the crowd, he’d picked up some stray particles of spray paint across his clothes.

“Be careful, civil warriors just picked a fight with us, there’s fighting nearby.”

“Thanks,” Ben said.

The person moved on.

“Shit’s easier in the movies,” Rider said.

“This isn’t a movie, Rider.”

“You don’t think I know that?  You don’t even want to know what I’ve seen.  Angel Circle wasn’t the worst, not by far.  We’re undermanned.  Ninety percent of it’s a response, it’s too late, it’s… a fucking fight, sometimes.  That Angel Circle thing?  Part of the reason we were late is people wanted to hold out for a better bounty.  Part of the reason is it’s an absolute crapshoot, who you get.  We got someone who sympathized with Angel Circle, and it all fell apart.  You get the shitheads who take it too seriously, the people who do it purely for the money.  The good ones filter out.  Like you filtered out.”

“So you want it to be a movie?  You want to be called Rider, and you want to be the hero, coming in guns blazing, saving the day?”

“I don’t fucking know, Ben,” Rider said.  He looked like he wanted to sit on the table with the gunk on it, but decided against it.  He didn’t seem to know what to do with himself.  “I wanted to save people in trouble, and being a cop?  Not it.  It’s a gang with world-class PR at this point, and most of that PR is trying to dodge oversight and sustain itself at this point.  This seemed like a good route, good money.  And I fucking… look at a woman, and she looks like so-and-so, and oh, that next woman, she reminds me of someone who cried like things were never going to be okay again.  And-”

The man stood there, arms wrapped around his chest, fingers at ribs, rather than having them crossed.  Full-body tense.  “-I’d like to think I’m one of the good ones.  Top… twenty-five percent.  Because I… fucking lose sleep, I keep a phone with me in case someone in need calls.  I fucking come to you and do an interview and help, even though you’re not paying much, I call in favors, I walk you through this as best I can, which I know wasn’t fucking good enough, because look at how it ended!”

He raised his voice at the tail end of that.

Arguing with himself more than he was arguing with Ben.

“Maybe faking it, pretending to be a badass, and acting like there’s a happy ending possible in every situation, it keeps me going.”

“Maybe,” Ben said.  He thought about adding something to that maybe, reconsidered, then said it anyway, “Maybe it’s what fucked us up.  Overconfidence.”

“Fuck,” Rider swore.  “Take your camera-”

“Ours.  Yours and mine.”

Rider paused, then nodded.

“I will take my camera, though.”

Rider hesitated, then walked over.  He pulled the strap from over his head, then handed it over.

“You want me to get lost?  You want help?” Rider asked.

Ben remained silent, thinking.

“If I betrayed you, and all of this was a lie… why wouldn’t I have left already?  What do I gain?” Rider asked.  “Why not scrub the tapes, make what money I can, leave with the judge happy, and keep my distance from you?”

“Not what I’m thinking.  Just… thinking.”

It was hard.  He could hear the violence.

“Help wouldn’t be the worst thing,” Ben admitted.

“Okay.  What’s your plan?” Rider asked.

“Fuck.  I’m not even sure.  I think I know where the Hursts are keeping hostages from the Cavalcanti family.”

“Okay.  If we get them, what then?  How does that help Ripley?”

“And Natalie,” Ben stressed.  “Sterling’s mom.”

“Right.  Sorry.  Question stands.”

“I don’t know.  I thought about going to Davie… but he wants to hold onto his leverage over Mia.  Ripley’s that.  It’s why he went that far, called in the cops.”

“Yeah.”

“If I gave the data I got from Gio and Mia Cavalcanti to the protest here, revealed the whole Cavalcanti interconnection with government… it’d be too unfocused.”

“Would help them.  Might give them focus.  Might be giving them a hitlist, from what I saw of that data.  Devastating.”

“But doesn’t turn them into a tool we can use to crack this problem.  Doesn’t get Ripley and Natalie out.”

“Puts them on the back foot, might take away resources.”

“Resources they’d want tomorrow, next week, next year.  Long term things they’re building.  It doesn’t get Ripley and Natalie out, doesn’t work now.  Besides, the protesters would be debating and investigating the data, they’d want to dig through all of it.  There’s no leadership, nobody to whip them into gear.  It’s diffuse.”

“Yeah,” Rider said.  “Okay.  I have two ideas in mind.  Do you have a car near here?”

“No.  I was going to bus, but-”

Someone was using a bullhorn nearby, but not so near Ben could make out the words.  There were gunshots, distant.  Crowd screamed.

The tail end of that crowd was maybe a block and a half away.

“I do.  Let’s go, I’ll run it by you in the car, where it’s quiet enough.  Draws on my experience.”

⯁

The place wasn’t heavily occupied, from what Ben could see.  He used binoculars borrowed from Rider, watching through windows.  One woman, it looked like.

It felt too easy.

How much of that was the feeling that this should go like a movie did, and how much of it should be expected?  The Hursts had other focuses.  There was no denying they were dedicated to Ripley.  She’d been taken.  They’d be in panic mode.  Whatever that looked like.

He thought of the house.  Their escape.

“The Hursts like traps,” Ben noted.

“That they do.”

“Wouldn’t want to go through a window.  Or a side door.”

“Or a front door, for that matter,” Rider said.

“Fuck me,” Ben swore under his breath.

“Let’s move,” Rider said.  “I want to see things from another angle.  Keep your head down.  Should be easy for you, short man.”

Ben sighed a bit under his breath.

But he did keep his head down.

Most of the buildings on this block were abandoned, some were in poor shape.  This one had water damage on every floor.  Could have been some irate tenant plugging the drains and flooding things as they left.  Could have been weather, windows left open, rain drumming the side of the building.  Could be a giant hole in the roof.

It felt eerie, when floorboards had a sponge texture.

They circled around a building, staying out of sight, and moved to the end of the block before they tried to get a view of the building from a side angle.  They could only see upper floors, but…

“Open window,” Rider said.

Ben nodded.

“You want to do this?”

“Have to do something.”

“Yeah.”

Rider kept his bug detector on, volume turned down.  Sure enough, as they approached the fire escape of a neighboring building, there was a faint record-scratch squeal.

The ladder had something rigged to it.  A twist tie that might’ve been designed to break if enough weight was put on the ladder itself… and an explosive, attached to it, dangling from a wire.

Ben gave Rider a boost, and Rider cut the wire, carrying the explosive to the ground, to where he could examine it more closely.

“Homemade,” Rider murmured.  “Weighted bottom…”

He unscrewed the top.  Ben leaned away from it, as if being two and a half feet away from Rider would be safer than being two feet from him, if that thing went off.

Rider tipped contents into his hand.  “Aluminum can for the body.  Core of something explosive.  Packed with irregular metal beads and metal filings.  Drops, hits the ground, impact drives the mechanism into the explosive.  Sends a load of grapeshot everywhere.  Loud, and if you survive it, you still have to pick out the pieces from the wounds.”

“Same as the house, maybe.  Or close to.  Seems more like the sort of thing she just had, than something tailor made for this entry point.”

“Yeah,” Rider said.

“Gives us an idea of what to keep an eye out for.”

“Fuck me,” Rider whispered.

Rider gave Ben the boost this time, so he could be up high enough to cut the twist tie and then softly wiggle the ladder, easing it down low enough they could both work with it, without it sliding down all at once, with a metal-on-metal screech from hell.

They climbed the fire escape, then Ben used his phone to peer over the edge of the roof, keeping it close to the already black pole of the fire escape, using video footage to get a view.

The woman was going back and forth in the house.  Willowy, long-hair tied back, wearing mundane clothes.  She didn’t look like a soldier.  Or a danger.

Rider motioned.  They crossed the roof.  It was a short jump to get to a window that had been left open.

Ben opened his camera bag and got an extendable rod.  The sort people used for selfies.  He put his phone in place, locked it, and then saw Rider giving him a ‘are you for real?’ look.

But it was cheap, weighed a third of a pound, took up barely any space, and it got use.  In this particular case?  It was perfect.

He was able to stand at the rooftop’s edge, with Rider holding the back of his belt, and stick it out.

Avoiding touching the edge of the window.  He scanned the window itself, and the room, turning it slowly.  Then he withdrew it with care.

Then he reviewed the video.

Injured.  Two.  Both sleeping.

A third bed that was empty.  There were red bloodstains on white sheets.

“Risky.  They’re not restrained.  If they wake up, call for help?” Rider whispered.

“What’s our other option?  Maybe the only reason the window isn’t trapped is there’s friendlies in there?  You want to gamble, opening another window?”

“They wouldn’t trap it the same way.  There’d be a risk they’re in the room when someone tries coming through.”

“But it might be trapped,” Ben whispered back.  He restarted the video, to study it.

“You want to try it?  Going into that room?”

Ben nodded.

“I’ll go first.”

“No.  You have that phone you keep.  I don’t…”

Ben thought of his mom and dad, and his sisters.  People he video called on holidays.  They didn’t understand what he was doing.  Or why.  To them, his documentary was a video project that would never see fruition.  A way of postponing the rest of his life.  Which it might be.  They said the words someone was supposed to say to support him, but he caught the hints and overheard the conversations where they worried about him.  Where they didn’t get it.”

“…if something happens to me, tell my parents I was doing something that mattered.  I trust you to handle the Natalie and Ripley situation, if there’s a way.  If something happens to you, and I ended up with your phone, I wouldn’t know how to follow up.”

Rider considered for a second, then whispered back, “Yeah.  The only reason I’m saying okay is if you end up held hostage, I think your odds are better with me out here, than me as hostage with you outside.”

Ben nodded.

It was a stomach-dropping lunging step from the edge of the roof to the window.

The trap was in the windowsill.

It wasn’t attached to the space below, or the windowframe.   A slightly tilted piece of wood, set so it could slide right off.

Ben managed to grab the window frame, and sliced his fingers.  As his body went down, he ran his fingers along that edge.  That sharpness ran all along the frame.  It sliced his fingers at the joint, and sparked a tremulous nerve-song feeling, as it sliced but didn’t sever connective tissue.

His hand slipped, and only that sharp edge catching on skin stopped him from simply tipping backward, unable to hold on with the only hand in position.

Rider came running.  Jumped.  From rooftop, through open window, skipping Ben and the windowsill altogether.  Landing with a lot of noise.

Doing away with subtlety.

He grabbed Ben and hauled him through.

One of the wounded had woken up, sitting up in bed, hand to wounds at his side.  The other lay sleeping, or unconscious.  Or dead.

“Who are you with?” the woman called down.

“Benito Jaime.  Journalist.  With Natalie.”

“They call me the angel of death.  A back alley doctor who owed Mia and Carson Hurst a favor.  I’m unarmed, and I’m tending the people here.  From what I heard, the people who are helping Natalie aren’t the sort who’d shoot a doctor.  Am I correct?”

“You’re aiding and abetting kidnapping.”

“It’s a complicated situation.  Consider me kidnapping agnostic.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Rider asked.

“That my feelings are complicated.”

“You don’t like the kidnapping, but you’ll tend to these people anyway?” Ben asked.

“More or less.  If I didn’t, they might get hurt.  Sores from shackles.  Being unable to move or exercise for long periods of time.  I’m checking for that and making sure they have food and water, and I’m looking after people who are working against the Cavalcantis.  Are you going to shoot me?”

“Not inclined to.  But if you make sudden movements…” Rider threatened.

“I won’t.”

“Angel of death?” Ben asked.

“It’s what they call me.”

“Does you being kidnapping agnostic mean that if we go to rescue the kidnapping victim, you’ll stand by and let us?”

“It does.”

“How do we know you won’t kick up a fuss?”

“I’d rather not be restrained.  I can lie on the floor with my hands on my head until you leave.”

Ben found bandages on a dresser in the same room as the four beds- one occupant still awake and silent, the other passed out.

He bandaged his fingers.

Shit job, honestly, but it staunched the bleeding.

While he did the wrapping, he glanced at the window.  Razors had been nailed to the edges, painted the same industrial dark green as the window frame.

They reached the center of the second floor.  With the way the place was built, there was one floor above them, and a slope meant the floor below was mostly a stairwell and maybe a storage area.

A guy was tied to the coffee table.  Bandages had been wrapped around his head, holding cotton swabs to his eyes.  He had a delivery uniform on.

“Hi,” Ben said.  “Did they blind you?”

“Only like this, so I could drink, without a hood over my head.  I’m pretty freaked out, man.  You’re getting me out?”

“What’s your role in this?”

“Dropped off a delivery and I got between some goon with a gun and a teenage girl.  I didn’t see her.”

Ben cut him free.  The guy hurried to peel the bandages and swabs away.

“Who else?” Rider asked.

“Some injured.  There was a lot of commotion earlier.  I didn’t understand a lot of it.  Kidnappings?  But not us?”

“Yeah.”

“Three girls were kidnapped too.”

“Stay close.  Watch her,” Ben said.  “And watch that door.  One patient was in bed, didn’t look very mobile.  But let’s play it safe.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“And don’t mess with anything.  There are traps.”

“Got it,” the guy said.

With the woman and the room with the injured being watched, they were more free to check the rest of the house.  Ben fell back on what he remembered from the licensing course.  It had been a brutal rundown of activity in the day and lessons at night.  Most failed their first few times.  One of the activities had been clearing a house.

It was knowledge that was a decade old at this point, but he remembered enough to follow behind Rider, covering the angles Rider didn’t.

One girl at the opposite end of the house from the delivery guy.  Her face was bandaged, with blood on the bandage, and she had the same cotton-swab-and-bandage blindfold.

“Please,” she called out.  “Help!”

Rider held up a finger.

Wait?

“We act,” Rider murmured, “our hands are full.  She looks hysterical.  Wait.”

“Please!” she called out.  “My name is Addi Arcuri.  I’ve been kidnapped.”

They rounded the corner upstairs, and could see two  more girls.  Opposite ends.

They cleared the floor first, moving slowly.  It was a narrow property, without much furniture, so it wasn’t hard.

Nobody else.

Since Ben’s hand was fucked, he let Rider focus on figuring out her restraints.  Blindfold off first.

The sound coincided with her eyes going wide.

Attic, Ben realized.  Did police usually clear attics?

The sound was a crash.  The attic hatch opening.  The built-in half-ladder, half-stair fixture slamming down.  Part of that violence was the human body that came attached to it.

Ben didn’t get his hand to his gun before the man came to a stop, a gun in each hand, one pointed at him, the other at Rider.

He was not an attractive man, though there was a life course where he could’ve been, maybe.  A man brined in piss and vinegar, by the look of him, then generously fried by the sun, not tanned.  As if his skin and hair were crunchy to the touch.  His hair was short, he had a mad look in his eyes, and cords stood out on his narrow neck.

Pain, Ben realized.  The cords were pain.  He was injured- his legs were wounded, and the wound had reopened, maybe, with the violence of his descent.  Or the difficulty of holding himself up.

He’d tied himself to the ladder and planned to come down with it, right behind them.

What was crazier was that it had worked.

“Holy shit,” Rider murmured.

“Hands away from your weapons.”

“You’re The Woodsman.  I’ve seen pictures, heard stories.”

“Yeah?  They gave me a cute nickname?” the man asked.  “Your choice, yours can be sieve, dickless, or the guy who didn’t get shot.”

“Bolden,” the angel of death called up.  “I hear your voice.”

“Yeah.”

“Any issue if I come up?”

“You’re alright.”

“What happened-!?” Ben started.  He stopped when the gun focused on his face.

The woman came up the stairs.  “He wasn’t well armed, and he hasn’t moved around much in the last twenty-four hours.  I know how to handle myself.”

Fuck.

“Bolden?  Let them go.”

Bolden didn’t move a muscle.

“They’re the good guys.”

“There’s no such thing,” Bolden said.

“They’re close enough, then.  There’s no good reason to keep the hostages at this point.  It was only done to provoke the Cavalcantis, it worked, but there’s no use keeping them now.”

“The voice on the phone, she’s the good one,” Bolden said.  “Her right hand man.  They’re good.  I trust them.”

“We know their names,” Ben said.

“Now why would you say something like that?” Bolden asked him, with a note of condescension.  “Now someone’s got to convince me not to shoot.”

“That bridge burned in a big way,” Ben said.  “House burned.  She’ll wrap things up here and move on to a new name.  As soon as she has her daughter back.”

“Yeh.  Maybe.  But maybe I should clean things up here anyway.”

“Bolden,” the angel of death said.  “I’m asking you not to.  I’ve seen too much awfulness.  You have too.  I don’t want you to put that image in Nicole’s head.  Our part in this is done.  Let them go, let them take the hostages, I’ll cut you down.  Once I know the people in the back room downstairs are in okay shape, I’ll leave.  We part ways.”

“Moving very slowly, put your guns aside.  I’ll let you walk away,” Bolden said.

Ben got the gun Rider had given him, with glacial movements.

“A little faster than that, bucko, unless you’re trying to be funny while a gun’s pointed at you,” Bolden said.  “In which case I don’t know why she has faith in you.”

Ben put the gun on the tile.

“It’s not about that,” the angel of death said.  “I don’t know them.  But we need more people out there who are at least trying.”

‘Slide it to her.”

Ben did.

Rider followed suit.

“I can’t turn around, so you watch my back, angel,” Bolden said.

“Okay.”

The angel tossed them keys.  They released Nicole.  Then the other girl- Sara.

“I’ll tell people about the attic trick,” Rider told Bolden.

“Why does it matter?” Bolden asked.  “The only thing that counts is who’s left standing at the end.  Stories don’t matter.”

“Stories are why I’m doing this in the first place,” Rider said.  “After all the bullshit.  After all the struggle.  I want to be like the people I heard stories of.”

“Impossible,” Bolden said.  “Because the stories are embellished.  Dressed up.”

“Yours wasn’t,” Rider said.  “I saw the body count.  I saw you get the drop on us with two legs that are bleeding like hell.  You can’t even stand, can you?”

“If my patient is bleeding, I’m going to ask you to hurry along so I can look after him,” the angel of death said.  “If you want to argue, go on the internet.”

Addi was downstairs, and fell into Nicole’s arms, crying, as they reunited.

Nicole looked a little stunned by everything, not really equipped to provide support.

“They cut my face,” Addi murmured.  “Gio did.”

“I don’t blame her,” Nicole said.

Addi looked at Nicole, stunned.

The delivery guy had been given tranquilizer, and could stand, but needed a lot of support.  Rider handled most of that.  Ben ushered the girls forward.  He’d pulled off the beard and partial bald cap, and he had the more trustworthy face- the girls were less wary of him than Rider.

“Any traps to watch out for?” Ben asked the angel of death, who sat on the top stair, at the top floor.  “At the front door?”

“It was unlocked.  The stairs creak too much to come up quietly, and if we heard someone come in and we weren’t expecting them, we had guns and grenades.”

“Right.”

“Good luck,” she said.  ”

She wasn’t lying.

Ben’s hand throbbed.

Rider said, got the sedated teenager into the back seat.  “We don’t have enough seats.  Six of us, five spots.”

“Addi can sit on my lap.  Just get us out of here,” Nicole said.

“Let me call the judge first,” Rider said, meeting Ben’s eyes.

Ben nodded, and let Rider do just that.  His eyes settled on a car, parked further down the block.  The ex-soldier, who was sitting back, and letting them do this.

 

⯁

“Bring them,” Rider said, into the phone.

Ben motioned.

The girls got out of the car.  They’d already dropped off the delivery guy in his neighborhood.  Ben had his information, for later interview.  The guy had seemed interested, especially when money came up.  Apparently Mia was going to pay him too.

Ben was very interested in that, if it meant there was a way of potentially tracking her.

The hospital was brightly lit.  The staff looked bushy-tailed and alert.

Private hospital, high fees.  Similar to the daycare.

There was a small crowd in the waiting room.  Rider was already there, talking to them.  The judge had provided a number for the family.

Jaws were set.  Gazes were cold.  The only breaks in that were in the parents.  Addi’s mother and father welcomed her, sobbing, and Addi cried about her face.  Sara’s parents jumped the gun and raced forward, meeting her at the door.  Nicole’s mom was there, and gave her a one-armed hug, a few words, and a single kiss on the cheek, before stepping away.

“I’m hoping this counts,” Rider told the crowd.  “We don’t want any fuss, or trouble.  Davie betrayed us, so we’re not coming to Davie, we’re coming to you.  Bringing your daughters.”

“Is Nicholas Cavalcanti awake?” Ben asked.

“He isn’t taking visitors,” Rider said.  He’d apparently asked and gotten an answer.

So no.

“We’ll give you what you want,” Nicole’s mother said.  “The family owes you a debt.  We put emphasis on that kind of thing.”

“We don’t want a favor,” Ben said.  “We want the family to veto Davie.  Get Natalie Teale and Ripley Teale out of there.”

“It’ll be done. Some of our husbands and sons are out fighting.  It’ll be most effective if we wait, organize, and then approach Davie in such a way that he knows he’s outmanned.  So there’s no fighting.”

“I don’t care how you do it, I-”

“It’ll be done,” Nicholas’ wife said.

⯁

It wasn’t done.

Ben was recuperating, he’d gotten his hand sewn up, but he was exhausted after a night of no sleep, after running around, and after his adrenaline spiking repeatedly throughout the day, pushing his body into overdrive.

Rider had taken the other bed in the motel room.  The only thing on the news was the protest and the clash with the Civil Warriors.  Organized and united militias, many with ties to white supremacists.

They’d said it would be done by midnight.

Rider had outlined two plans.

Releasing the kidnap victims and making an appeal to the family had been something Rider had put a seventy percent chance to.  That they’d listen.  Get Davie to calm down, even.  He’d brought a lot of people home, over the years.

Ben called the number the judge had given them again.  Nicholas Cavalcanti’s wife.  Nicole’s mom.

It didn’t even ring.  The display on his phone read: ‘Blocked’.

Just like that.

“At least we returned people home,” Ben said.

“What the fuck is wrong with them?” Rider asked.  “We saved three of their kids.”

“They’re thugs,” Ben said.  “They ignore any deal that’s inconvenient.  Forget any favors owed, unless someone has the muscle to make them pay up.”

“Then why?”

“Because it was worth a shot.  Even if they didn’t put a lot of emphasis on gratitude or family, there was a chance.  And a chance they were mad at Davie or how out of control the situation had gotten, and that they’d take the opportunity.”

“But they didn’t.”

Ben looked down at his phone.

Rider walked over, looking down at the screen.  “Still deciding?”

“Giving it the proper amount of thought.  Feels right, you know?”

“Yeah.  Let me see?  Look over it for typos?”

Ben handed over the phone.

Rider scanned it, using his finger to scroll.

He handed the phone back.

It took Ben a second to notice.

Rider had sent it.

“Was this an accident?”

“No,” Rider said.  He looked up at Ben.  “I thought it’d be easier on my conscience than it would be on yours.  Doing this, people die.  You’ve never killed.”

Ben wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

The data was out there.  Everything Valentina had provided, repackaged, framed in a quick pass by Ben.  Secondary stuff moved to an appendix folder.  It had taken hours.

Aimed at the Civil Warriors.  Showing them that as hard as they fought against government, they were supporting it.  They were being steered.  Ben wasn’t about to put a lot of money on that steering their ship.  But if they got angry, they now had a list of people to target.

At the Cavalcantis.  Davie was responsible for Nicholas Cavalcanti being shot.  He had wider plans to take over.  Now that was out there.

Rider hitting the button didn’t make Ben feel better.  He’d still crafted the message.  He believed in the truth.  He also knew that once someone had possessed the truth, they could redefine it.

Key pieces of information in there were lies.  Mostly aimed at Cavalcantis.  Like Davie’s ‘betrayal’.  Most of it was stuff that would take a long time to verify, or things that couldn’t be verified at all.

This would proliferate overnight.  Tomorrow, heads would roll.  Ben wasn’t a masterful writer, but he knew the things that provoked reactions.  He knew what audiences wanted.  What they didn’t want.  What would get them riled up.

Police.  Licensed marshals.  Even the judge, potentially.  Lynchpin members of the Cavalcanti family.

Releasing that message was murder, same as pulling a trigger and sending a bullet from a gun.  Indirect, but still murder.

He got his jacket and camera bag, before fitting his mask on.

“Right away?” Rider asked.

“Right away,” Ben said.  Rider acknowledged that and got to his feet, stepping into his boots.

He’d given them a shot.

If he stopped to process or start looking for the fallout in the news and online, he wouldn’t start again, and they weren’t done yet.  He wasn’t giving up on Natalie and Ripley.

Stay angry, keep moving.

---

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