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When I’m with people like this, I don’t feel like I’m getting out.  I feel like I’m getting deeper, Natalie thought.

The sirens were whining across the city, and smoke made visibility worse past about fifty feet, but the view ahead was evident enough.  A two-lane road cut through the woods at the base of the hill.  There was fire further down, too far away to see, but close enough that it provided a backdrop of orange light.

Bryan’s blood streaked Mia and Carson Hurst, from duct taping him up, and from him being draped over Mia’s shoulder.  Natalie had helped lift him down, because she was the most able adult, but she’d at least managed to wipe away the blood.

Two cars had been left parked in the middle of the road.  Police.  Natalie was left to wonder at appearances.  What would people take away from this, seeing the Hursts covered in blood, surrounded by smoke, framed by the light, like this?  Would it make the difference, in police deciding to shoot?

Bryan was running out of time.  Even duct taped… he was being jostled too much.  And Davie… did he even have a clock anymore?  He’d lost his people.  She didn’t want to ask, because she didn’t want to hear the Hursts give their explanations, with their expert knowledge, which they’d earned by keeping criminals on the streets.

Which they’d earned by stealing and hiding Camellia, and taking all the steps they’d taken to cover their trail.

The boy was bleeding, Camellia was struggling with even walking, and that had to be the residual effects of blood loss.  Not that Natalie was a doctor.

“Can we use the drones?  With whatever you did with the computer?” Natalie asked.

“That’s a backdoor, and it only really works if they go back into the house and use the computers there.  But I need them to get through the password process because I can’t.”

“And they won’t,” Carson said.  “Because it’s burning.”

“It’s not likely, no.”

There was a pause.

“Carson, your thoughts about the road?” Mia asked.

“You know my thoughts about the road,” he murmured.  “If they’re boxing us in like this, and if we suspect Davie circled around… hunter.”

“Presumably a skilled rifleman with a clear line of sight.  Improvised shield?”

“Shields.  We don’t know where he’s parked.  We’d need shields on either side, kids between us.  And neither of us are capable of holding up something that could stop something high caliber.  Even if we had the material.”

“Then the road won’t work.  We’ll have to cross it at some point.”

“If we wait too long, I don’t think Bryan will make it.  We’re all slowing down,” Natalie said.  They’d been moving without stopping for a few minutes now.  Mia had her leg wound, Camellia was wiped out.

“I know,” Mia said.  “But if we don’t wait, I don’t think any of us make it.”

The fact she was agreeing without raising any issues felt like the most surefire mark that their situation was bad.

Mia motioned.  They moved through the trees, just close enough to the road to see activity there.  Far enough away to not be too visible through the trees.

“We might have been better off delaying another fifteen minutes.  Setting up some distraction on our way to the house,” Carson said.  “We rushed.”

“There’s a chance we’d be seen.  And we thought we’d get out faster,” Mia said.

She glanced at Natalie at the tail end of that last sentence.

A branch snapped as Camellia kicked it.  Carson caught her, to keep her from falling.  Natalie could see his expression twist in pain.

Natalie hurried forward, past Mia, and moved some branches and things out of the way.  To reduce noise.  She held a branch back.

“That will make us easier to track,” Mia murmured, voice muffled by the mask she wore, almost drowned out by the siren wail.

Everything Natalie did was somehow the wrong thing.  Every idea the wrong idea.

This was a custom made torment, just for her.

“I’ll put them back behind us,” Camellia said.  “We’re making enough tracks as it is.”

“You can barely lift your feet off the ground with each step you’re taking, let alone bend over,” Natalie told her.  “I wanted to move stuff out of the way for you, and so Mia doesn’t trip with Bryan on her shoulder.”

“I won’t,” Mia replied.

Camellia’s feet were dragging, and after Natalie had pointed it out, Mia seemed to notice.  So did Camellia herself.  Toe-shaped scuff marks dug into the dry layer of dirt and the wood chips and pine needles that had been shed by the trees.

“Sorry,” Camellia said.  She made a visible effort to lift her feet up more, with emphasis on ‘effort’.  It seemed to take something out of her.

“You’re doing fine,” Natalie said.  “We’re doing the best we can.  I wanted to clear the way.”

“Shh,” Carson murmured.  He motioned.

The ‘shh’ felt like an admonishment aimed at Natalie, specifically.  She wondered if it was.  He was really good at cutting her off every time she had a small victory or affirmation.  Was she noticing because she knew he was an attractive man and a weak part of her was lonely and drawn to that, because this scenario somehow brought up her old traumas, because he was actually doing it on purpose, or was it because none of that was true, and she was fucking up?  Which was worse?

The worst was wondering, being unsure.  Because, like the years she’d spent imagining Camellia’s fate, it weighed on her as if every single thing was true.

At Carson’s bidding, they advanced a little further.  Natalie continued to move things out of the way, as much as she could without rustling.  Camellia halfheartedly, or without much energy, moved some things back.  Natalie stood by the path side, holding a low branch to let Mia, Carson, and a barely conscious Bryan by, before Camellia reached her.  She offered her arm for support.  This time Camellia took it.  Natalie was almost pulled off balance, with the degree of support Camellia sought.

Carson had heard or seen some sign of cops.  Men and women in uniform were holding cloths to their lower faces, or had put cloth there and then used smoke masks to help hold it in place.

“It’s the gas from the bleach and ammonia mixture.  They can smell traces of it or they’ve been warned, and they moved back, they don’t want to come in,” Carson whispered.  He leaned forward a bit, looking.  “I think it’s a straight-line perimeter.  That’s tougher.  If they were advancing, we could maybe find a way to sneak past one group that got ahead of the others.”

A straight line going up the hill.  How far?  Could Camellia even make that trek, if they tried to go back up?  Could Bryan survive the delay?

And the road.

They were boxed in.  A gunman behind them.

They took a moment to rest and it felt like they shouldn’t.  They had to, but they shouldn’t.

“What are our odds?” Mia asked, turning to Carson.  “That Ben and Rider swoop in?”

“This is Rider’s specialty,” Natalie said.  “Extracting people from terrible situations.”

“Low odds,” Carson replied, ignoring Natalie.  “The fire strikes me as the last thing they could think of that might contribute.”

Mia, adjusting Bryan, leaned against a tree.  “Strikes me the same way.”

“Rider’s an expert, Ben has similar training, they work well together,” Natalie insisted.  Her emotions were still high, the imagery of her childhood and her Uncle Earl hung heavy in the back of her mind.  Trying vainly to do something when two cousins who were a bit tall for their age were diminishing her.

Natalie was breathing hard, and some of that was exhaustion, but it was also emotion- an inability to calm down.  All of this- Ben had called it the centipede’s dilemma, after Sterling had talked about being too aware of his tongue at the dentist.

Natalie felt like that now.  Every breath had to be measured in through the oxygen.  Every exhalation fogged her view.  Every movement had to be made with an awareness of her impaired view, and some mindfulness about protecting her suit.  Not that Mia and Bryan were concerning themselves a lot with that, but… still.

“Let me see your leg,” Carson murmured.

Mia moved her leg closer to him.  He tore the fabric open, examining it, and peeled bandage back.

Camellia watched without flinching.  Natalie couldn’t, even when it was someone she hated to the depths of her being.

“It’ll be nice when we can take this gear off,” Natalie murmured.  “I’m not very good at the breathing part.”

“Me either,” Camellia said.

Why was being self depreciating the only way to get some connection with Camellia?  Conceding to hold a branch for Mia and Carson.  Now this?

Still, she’d take it.  “Ben and I were telling Sterling it’s called the centipede’s dilemma.  The centipede, content to walk his merry way through the forest, was asked by a toad, which leg moves in what order?  And the centipede fell to exhaustion.  Something like that.  From a poem.”

“I get that at the dentist.  It drives me crazy, I never know what to do with my tongue.”

Natalie, caught off guard, had to suppress a laugh, and a flare of warmth and relief in her upper chest and head that made her feel momentarily dizzy.

“What?”  Camellia asked.

“Sterling too.  At the dentist.  It drove him crazy.  It’s why it came up,” Natalie told Camellia.  “You are his sister.”

My daughter.

“After my head injury, I had to relearn all skills, even simple motor functions, like writing, and buttoning up clothing,” Mia said.  “It felt like that.  In a way, a lot of things still do.  A mix of things requiring intentionality, and simple things that trip me up.”

You couldn’t even let me have that? Natale thought.  You took eleven years of my time with my daughter away from me.  You butt into this moment too?

“I remember you talking about that.  Makes more sense now, after this,” Camellia said.

“Okay,” Carson said. He’d replaced part of the bandage.  He put stuff back in order, then peeled out duct tape, as slowly as he could, to avoid making too much noise.  He sealed the outfit around the hole.  “I don’t think we can delay much longer.  We should-”

“I see you.”

“No,” Camellia’s voice was small.  Nearly a whimper.

Davie Cavalcanti.  His voice was tinny, and too loud, like it came through a megaphone.

Natalie’s eyes scanned the trees.  She couldn’t see him.

“You must have realized you’re surrounded. I’ve got eyes on you.  The fire is being taken care of.  It wasn’t a very big one.  The gas isn’t very strong.  Our drones have the ability to see the fumes.”

Mia, pulling out her phone, brought up the drone cameras.

Sure enough, there was one with a view of the trees.  Heat imaging.  Only glimpses of them were available through the relative coolness of the foliage, but a glimpse of bright red stood out.  They were centered in the camera.

A drone in the sky.  She could barely see it past the smoke and in the dark.  It was one of the massive ones he’d showed off during the dinner.

“I have to ask you two.  What was the point of all of this?  And I don’t mean this frankly insane attempt at attacking my home and family or framing me.  I’ll have you know the police have already confirmed that the scene you put together is a digital forgery.  The faces you tried to use are of people the police have already confirmed to be safe and sound.”

Carson looked over at Mia.

“He’s putting the limbless bodies on us.  He thought we’d take pictures and spread them around, to ruin him further,” Mia murmured.

“When I ask what the point is,” Davie’s voice came from a speaker on the drone.  “I mean the business.  You give people second chances, then drag them into this, use them as mercenaries?  Put their lives at risk?”

“What’s the point of what he’s doing?” Natalie asked.  “Why isn’t he shooting us?”

“He wants us alive. He has a veneer of acceptability with the police.  And he’s covered his bases.  We won’t shake that,” Carson said.

“We should move.  In case he changes his mind about shooting us,” Mia whispered.

Mia lurched to her feet, bringing Bryan with her.  Natalie gave Camellia a hand.

“Is it the money?” Davie asked.  “Ill gotten gains?  Your bank accounts are locked.  We’ve found at least two of your hiding spots.  One of them had laptops we’re working on breaking into.  Are we going to find bank accounts?”

Mia looked up at the sky, reacting to that.

“Whatever you’ve squirreled away won’t go far,” the broadcast voice taunted them.

Carson tried to stand and couldn’t.

He leaned back against a tree, looking up at Mia.

“No,” she said.

“What?” Camellia asked.  She seemed a bit dazed, but pulled herself together.

Davie’s voice went on in the background, talking about money.  The loss of the house.

“I think…” Carson took in a deep breath.  His expression looked pained for a second.  “I might have one more burst of activity in me.  I think I’d rather spend it shooting people who are after you.”

“And leave you behind?” Mia asked.

“No,” Camellia said, with a surge of emotion, a single syllable word made three by a hitch in her voice.

They were already spotted.  The fact Camellia was being louder than she should didn’t give much away.

“I was thinking about it,” Carson said, leaning back.  He moved his hand, pulling the material at his side taut.  Even through shirt and the plastic material, Natalie could see how grim his side was.  With stitches ripped open and the edges of the wound torn, it looked like some chihuahua sized animal was yawning midway through eating something alive- all blood, the bristling sutures sticking up and out, pointy and uneven edges, and raised flesh.  Blood soaked the surrounding clothing.  “Stiff to the touch.  Might be sepsis.  Heart’s racing, while the rest of me is moving slower, I’m chilly and sweating, and this whole business feels hot-”

He prodded around it, then winced.

“I need you with us,” Mia said.

“I’ve done a lot of stuff without second guessing you, without flinching, without any doubt,” Carson said, he put his head back as far as it would go.  “You’re brilliant and amazing, and I love you more than anything.  I love the kids.”

“Dad,” Camellia started, voice hitching, and she swayed-

Mia reached for Camellia, but Natalie was already putting her arms around her daughter’s shoulders.  Support, to keep her from collapsing.  A hug, because she didn’t want Camellia sad, whatever the reason, but it also meant she didn’t have to see Camellia’s face, and feel that knife twist as the girl felt something for Carson Hurst.

“-your crimes are well documented, your associations known.  State and federal authorities know about you-“

“No, sorry, I can’t accept that,” Mia said, ignoring Davie’s rambling above and around them.  “I need you with me.  I need that burst of energy with us.  Because I can’t keep going much longer.  I need your brain.  You complete me.  So get up.”

Carson let out a soft half-laugh.

“I know we fell into a relationship, we crossed paths when we found Tyr.  You stayed.  And I love you.  I know I don’t say it often enough.”

“That’s alright,” he said.  “I know.”

“If it was just love, me and you, I’d leave you to die how you want.  I’d miss the hell out of you.  But it’s not.  You stayed when our children are in the picture.”

They’re not yours, Natalie thought.  She squeezed Camellia harder.

“So you don’t get to stay down,” Mia told him.  “You don’t get to leave them fatherless.”

“Mia.  My love, my wife-”

She bent down, grabbed him by the collar, which included grabbing the breathing tube, and hauled.

The angle was awkward, and Mia had a scary strength to her, but Carson was a full grown man, and Bryan was still folded over one of Mia’s shoulders.  Another eighty to ninety pounds, maybe.

Natalie felt Camellia move, like she wanted to contribute.  Instead, making sure Camellia wouldn’t fall over the moment she let go, Natalie stepped in.  She lifted.

I don’t want you to die in front of Rip.  You’d be a fucking martyr.  Nobody would ever live up to you.  Not Sean, not me.

She wasn’t sure how true that rationale was, in her head.

That distilled anger that had chased her since she’d thought back to her time with Uncle Earl and her cousins, back to her pregnancy, and back to the origin of all of this, it helped.  With Mia, she lifted Carson up.  He leaned back, against the tree, now standing.  He bent over like he might throw up.

“Now we keep moving,” Mia said.

“Love…”

“No choice,” she told him.

“Okay.  My suit tore.”

“And?” Mia asked.

“I can smell the chemicals in the air, but it’s faint.  I feel like shit, but it’s not because of what I’m breathing all of a sudden.”

“It probably wouldn’t affect us.  Let’s keep the suits on,” Mia said.

“What do we think about the oxygen tanks?” Carson asked.

“Makeshift bomb.  But I don’t know what we’d achieve.  They have eyes on us.”

“If we break through the perimeter, we could cut a straight line through forest.  Keep going until we can’t keep going.”

“Bryan would die,” Natalie pointed out.

Carson looked over at the kid.

“So would you,” Mia said.

“Which isn’t an option.  Right.”

“Then we stay closer to the road,” Carson said.  “It makes a repeated ‘S’ shape going down the hill.  We get past, go around the curve.  Keep going down, it’s not far to the nearest parking lot.  Both of us know how to steal a car.”

“They’d chase.  Catch up with us,” Mia said.  “And they still have eyes on us.  We’re not fast enough.”

Carson looked skyward.

If there was a drone up there, Natalie couldn’t see it against the hazy night sky.

“Ben and Rider might be close,” Natalie said.

“Then that’s what we might try,” Mia said.  “Get past their lines.  Make it as far down as we can, call, as late as we can, in case they’re packet sniffing- eavesdropping.  And hope they can reach us before the police do.  But the moment we start disconnecting our oxygen tanks, and he catches that on the drones, Davie’s going to take that to mean the gas isn’t that bad, and send the cops in from every direction.

“Which means we have two,” Carson said, keeping his voice low, head bent.

“Two?” Natalie asked.

He indicated them with subtle gestures.  Bryan, folded over Mia’s shoulder like he was, had the tank pretty much in his lap.  Draped over her, it was out of sight.  And Mia had hers tucked into the sling that kept her arm stable.

“You want to take Bryan’s?” Natalie asked.

“I don’t want to.  But this is where we’re at.  Any ideas on how to do this?” he asked Mia.

“Phone?” she asked him.

He offered his.

“We’ll have to move as fast as we can.  This isn’t predictable or reliable,” she said.  “Duct tape.”

He had it at his belt.  He gave it over.

Davie was still talking.  Still taunting.

“-your own mother, Ripley’s supposed Grandmother, or she’d have to be, die alone.”

Camellia glanced at Mia.

“Don’t look, don’t react.”

“And you don’t seem to be about stopping me.  You’d have done better by Ben and Rider if that was the case.”

“Take Bryan?” Mia whispered.  “While I”m building a bomb?”

Natalie nodded.  They checked the coast was clear, because they didn’t want to be caught tampering with Bryan’s oxygen tank.  She took Bryan, carrying him in more of a fireman hold.

Natalie backed off, putting trees between Mia and herself, while carrying Bryan and supporting Camellia.  Bryan was so warm, and his breathing came out as wheezes and soft, wet coughs, but each cough prompted his entire body to curl up around her head.  Plastic rubbed against plastic.

“Leaving them out here, just the two of them?  Putting them in this dangerous a situation?  What did you expect?”

“He’s saying what he can, trying to get into our heads,” Mia murmured.  She worked, crouched, in a patch of thick foliage close to the edge of the road.  “Be ready.  A prick in the battery pack will cause electrolytes to flow into it.  Which release heat, which cause more openings, until fire.  And fire and an oxygen tank… There’s a chance this goes off in a minute.  And there’s a chance it doesn’t blow up at all.”

“Be careful,” Carson told her.

They lied like they breathed.  Leaving details out.  Mia didn’t mention that there was a chance this blew up in Mia’s face.

She nodded.

“So my question, Mia Hurst, is that if you aren’t about the second chances, the money, the ideology, keeping kids safe…

Natalie led Camellia further away.  Carson followed, not moving the arm he had pressed to one side, but using the other to push against trees, as if it was easier to careen from one tree to the next, stumbling, than to move under his own power.

She didn’t want them to be martyrs.  Natalie would always be second place to these ‘heroic’, brilliant, strange, eerily strong people, whose failings and flaws would be downplayed and ignored.

“…and if you aren’t about family, putting them in this situation, this danger, then what the hell are you?  What are you doing?  Except ruining lives.”

“Ruining yours,” Carson muttered.

Mia, jogging, caught up with them.  “Move.”

So they moved.  Mia took Bryan when they had thicker tree cover.

“One bomb, planted at one corner of the perimeter.  Next, further down.  Smoke, fire, distraction.  Maybe a chance to cross the road,” Mia muttered.

“What do you think happens after this?  Because I reached out to police, and news.  They have the full story.  The kidnapped girl, found.  Maimed by the Hurst kidnappers in their big attempt to recover her.  I promise you, she’ll be famous.  Her identity, in these vital adolescent years, will be the kidnapped girl.  The media will adore it.  They’ll never let up.”

Mia, pausing long enough to help Carson forward, glanced at Camellia.

“Don’t hesitate, you said.  Don’t react,” Natalie reminded her, hissing the words.

But Mia had.

“They’ll put cameras in her friend’s faces.  The teachers’.  In the face of everyone she knew or could know.  Thousands of videos on social media.  Do you think Ben Jaime is annoying?  Dozens, amateurs, will be crawling over her life, trying to build careers off of her pain.  The wounds will never heal because they’ll be constantly prodding at it.”

It felt like Davie had caught something of Mia reacting to what he was saying, with the way he was seizing on this.  Almost gleeful in it.

“Mom,” Camellia whispered, to Mia.  “It’s fine.  We’ll ignore it.”

Mia nodded.  But the look in her eyes didn’t go away.

Mia’s reaction was more fitting than Camellia’s.  It wouldn’t be fine.  Natalie had experienced only a taste of that media circus, when things had gone south with the Camellia Pink/Teale Blue charity.  How bad it could all get.  How oppressive it would be, invading every corner of one’s life.  How that kind of negative scrutiny played off of every bit how humans were social animals.

How, if they looked at every bit of you, from corner to corner, your earliest days to the now, your hopes and dreams, dug into who you were as a person, and then said even the smallest negative thing about you, it felt like every last one of them had judged you and found you wanting.

The same if it was something you’d put your heart into.  For Natalie, that had been the charity.  Wanting to find Camellia.  Then, if she couldn’t have that, wanting others to have their own finds.  She’d put her soul into her work, every waking moment, some days.  Her everything.  And they’d condemned it.

She knew how that judgment or that condemnation could break your heart.  How it could make you want to die.

Mia wouldn’t have experienced that.  She’d evaded her whole life, built a new life, covered her trail.  But, Natalie had thought, maybe in the course of that, she’d gained some awareness of what it could be, and what she was avoiding.  Maybe she’d even watched what Natalie had done and experienced with the charity.

“There will always be pity, when they look at her.  Because of what you did.  She’ll wonder, every time she makes a fast friend or finds a boy that likes her, is it because of that minor celebrity?  Is it because they feel sorry for her, or they think they can use her?”

No.  Mia looked like it was only occurring to her now.

The only way it was ever going to be escapable is if you got rid of Ben and I… or if we forfeited Camellia altogether.

“It’s okay,” Natalie said, supporting Camellia.  Telling Camellia, who didn’t seem to understand.  “Its handled.”

“What are you talking about?” Mia asked.

“It’s handled.  I was in the wings when two people got their children back.  I saw what happened, I played a bit part, I’ve been thinking about the aftermath of this for years. I’ve made plans, taken measures.  Cam- Ripley doesn’t have anything to worry about.  None of what that man is talking about.”

“My name is Ripley,” Camellia said.

“I know.”

“You almost said that other name.  The horrible one.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want the news and stuff talking about it like he’s saying.”

“They won’t.”

“Or using that name so much that people at school start using it?”

It looked like Camellia was realizing how out of control this could get.  This angle wasn’t what Natalie had expected but… she was realizing.

“I promise you, that will not happen.”

“It might if you slip up and use that name.”

“I used it because it’s the name I’ve thought about and used in my head every hour for your entire life.  I’m tired, we’re all tired.  Let’s focus on getting out of here.”

“I don’t think you can stand in the way of something like that,” Mia said.  “The media juggernaut.”

“Watch me,” Natalie replied, even more pissed off now.

It was all so fucked up.

The sirens were still going, but, Natalie realized, Davie’s voice had stopped coming through the drone that was tracking them overhead.

“Careful,” Carson murmured.  He really was struggling, going downhill faster than Camellia had, and Camellia had lost an arm.  “Feels like killer instinct.  Stick to thicker groups of trees.  Don’t stop moving.”

“I might need to,” Mia told him.

“If I can’t stop, you can’t stop.  Feels dangerous.”

“Feels?” Natalie asked.

“This is what Carson’s good at,” Mia responded.  “I believe him.”

“Oh, thank you, love,” Carson murmured.

“I’m tired,” Camellia said.

She felt tired.  She was hanging more and more off of Natalie, pulling on Natalie’s arm to get her feet high up enough, any time the ground was anything but flat.  When her balance wasn’t perfect, she swayed, pulling, or leaned into Natalie.

“Get to the road.  I wanted to go further, to split them more.  But-”

The moment Mia started to move back down toward the road, there was a distant crack.

A rustling of leaves.  A ‘pff’ sound, and pine needles scattered.

From overhead.

“This way,” Carson said, and he very nearly fell over, trying to pivot.  Only the fact there was a rock outcropping sticking out of the slope kept him from falling across the ground.

Mia and Natalie tried to give him a hand.  Another shot fired.

This one hit the rock Carson was leaning against.  Flecks of rock and debris made Natalie come very close to losing her balance, pulling Carson over with her.

Camellia shrieked, and the sound felt like it came from far away.

She hadn’t been hit, Natalie realized, as she fumbled her way to a standing position.  Just scared.

“No, Weiss,” Davie’s voice came through the drone’s speakers.

“Fuck me.  There,” Carson said.

He could barely lift his hand to point.  He got it four-fifths of the way.

Natalie only belatedly realized why Davie had said what he’d said, and why Carson had cussed.  Further up the path was a man in green, bringing his rifle to rest against his shoulder as he stepped out of view.

“He’s a sadist,” Carson said, quiet.  “He likes hurting people.  It’s why he wanted to say all he said.  Then… fell silent.  Dunno why.  Maybe people brought him information.  He saw we- organizing.  He wants us scared, low.”

Mia had the phone with the drone cameras on it.  She motioned.  They moved.  Trying to move to where the trees blocked the drone as it slowly drifted through the air above them.  Trying to stay out of sight of the hunter.  ‘Weiss’.

Carson held onto branches for balance.  “He’ll shoot the person he thinks causes the most hurt.  Probably nonlethal, if he can manage it.  Probably Ripley.”

Natalie pulled Camellia closer.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.  “Don’t mean to scare you, Rip.”

“I don’t think the first bomb is going off,” Mia said.  “Means we have to drop this one, double back.”

There was another shot.  A miss.  Or something to keep them scared, if Carson was right.

“Might be hard,” Carson said.  “I’m not sure-”

“You’ll manage,’ Mia said.

He scoffed.

“You are in our sights,” Davie’s voice came from the drone.

Ripley let out a shuddering breath, shrinking closer to Natalie.

Such a terrible moment, and a beautiful one.

She thought of Sterling.

“If you move, if you take any further action to threaten that child, or point that weapon at her, we will fire.”

“Making it sound good for the police, then,” Carson said, eyes closed as he rested for a second.

“We need you to release the boy into our custody.  We will do this one by one, retrieving hostages and arresting those who surrender.”

Picking someone who couldn’t move under their own power.

Natalie wasn’t even sure the bombs would have worked.

This wasn’t so different from what she’d been thinking about before.  Giving her all, and then feeling destroyed when that was attacked.

She felt destroyed right now, and she wasn’t nearly as hurt as anyone else.

“Ripley,” she said.  “I know I’m asking a lot.  I know I’ve messed up.  I’m not used to situations like this, I-”

“Neither am I.  And you made it so much harder.”

Natalie closed her eyes.  Took a second.  She nodded.

“I don’t think it was every a situation that was going to be easy, but-”

“But you made it harder.”

“I did.  I’m sorry.  I really am.  And I know I’m asking a lot.  But could I hear you call me mom, just once?  Or mama?  Anything- anything works.”

The sirens wailed in the background.

Foliage rustled as Mia twisted around, checking the hunter wasn’t approaching.

“I don’t-” Ripley started.  She stopped when Natalie opened her eyes and looked at her.

The sirens finished winding down from one of their wails, others picking up the cry as the prior ones faltered.

“I wouldn’t- I don’t see you-”

“It’s okay,” Natalie said.

It took her a second.

“This is your final warning.  Do not point that weapon at Ripley.”

“Don’t take her out of Sean’s life,” Natalie said.  She stood up, putting herself between the drone and Camellia, raising a hand.  It felt ridiculous, as if her hand could stop the bullet if he decided to pull the trigger.  Which he could and would do, for jollies.  “Give Sean a chance to know her, give her a chance to know him.  Give her her friends.  We were talking, when we were chained up.  I know how important they are to her, now. With my things, at the place I’m renting, there’s contact information for an Alison Rouse.  Between her and Ben, they can handle the media frenzy.  Tell her I sent you… tell her…”

Natalie wished, desperately, that she’d shared something with the lawyer.  Something personal and vital that would shed some light on things.

She’d barely shared with Sean.  The man she’d thought she would marry, eleven and a half years ago.

“Tell her I cried in front of her and I had a dribble of snot from my nose nearly to my lap.  That I said to say that, so she could know I sent you.”

“What are you doing?” Mia asked.

“I don’t know.  Trying to buy a chance.”

“Specifically?”

“I’m walking over there,” Natalie said, taking the first step.  “If I can get his attention, get him talking to me… he’s watching and directing the drone stuff, right?”

Mia stared at her, then nodded.

“Get Rip out of here?” Carson asked.  “Be careful.”

“You have to follow.”

“I know.”

Mia lurched to her feet, and reached for Camellia.

Was there an other way?  Natalie couldn’t carry Bryan as far as they needed to go, or handle the bomb.  Neither could Carson.

She’d thought about dying before because of those two monsters.  Now she faced a very real possibility… she’d die for them?

No.  For Camellia.

Ripley.

“There’s a solid chance he puts bullets in each of your limbs.  That you end up in that basement.”

She’d already felt like she was going to ugly cry, sobbing with her face screwed up.  That didn’t help.  She was on the verge.

“If I do…”

“Don’t believe anything he says that you don’t see with your own two eyes.  If he doesn’t show you Ripley, verfiable, not a manipulated image, then he didn’t get her.  We got away.”

“Okay.  And if I get through…”

“He wants pain.  He wants to be the architect of that pain.  He wants control.  More than he wants the pain.”

Natalie’s mind felt so numb with the emotion that burned inside her that she barely felt like she could string two thoughts together, let alone commit that to memory.

“Fuck you, so much, for everything you’ve done, everything you contributed to,” she told him.

“Sure,” he said, as if those words meant anything at all.

“Give Sean a chance.”

“We’ll see.”

He was a monster, as bad as Davie.  He couldn’t even lie?

She swayed on the spot.  Hearing that, she didn’t want to leave.

But what would staying achieve?  Carson was right.  Davie would shoot Camellia.

She looked in the direction she had to go.

“You scared the shit out of her.  Out of Mia.”

Natalie met his eyes.  Looking past her fogged mask, past his.

“I asked her once, about the second chances.  Where you stood, with that.”

Natalie swallowed hard.

“She said,” Carson murmured, “that if you got your second chance, she’d lose hers.”

Natalie felt her skin crawl, as she digested that.

“She’d dedicated her life to helping others.  It bothered her for a long time.  Ate at her.  Until she came to that resolution.  That if she helped enough people, she could be selfish this once.”

“Are you bullshitting me?”

“I’m actually not.”

“Or trying to fuck with my head, right at the end?  Telling me some lie, to-”

“I’m not.”

Natalie’s face screwed up.  She felt hate like she hadn’t yet.

“I’m not sure she even remembers.  I think she might have blocked that out or pushed it to the back of her mind.  The same way you did with the fact it was over thirty minutes that you left that child in that car.”

Natalie shook her head.

“Yes.”

“You’re saying this like you want me to change my mind and go after her and try to murder her.”

“You won’t.  You’re more a mom to Camellia Teale than you are a killer.”

“You’re calling her-”

“You’re attached to your daughter.  That girl with Mia isn’t her.  Same DNA, but… she’s not your Camellia.  Mia took that when she took her and raised her.”

“How are you okay with that?”

“Oh, I like the idea she’s done so much good that it makes it okay.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the world worked like that?”

A complete and total monster.  He didn’t flinch.

A gunshot made her jump out of her skin.

“But I’m biased.  I love that woman.  I think that gunshot’s telling you to go,” Carson said.  “Drone’s right above us.  Focused on you.  If he’s curious, sate that curiosity.”

She turned, raising her hands.

Heart pounding ten times more than she’d ever experienced before.  To the point she wondered if she could have a heart attack, right here.  Or be sick, inside her mask and this outfit.

She walked out to the treeline.

Behind her, Carson staggered in the direction Mia had gone.

Then, resolute, knowing that there was a very real chance he would shoot her and maximize pain, drawing things out, she stepped past that threshold, where solid wood provided some protection and cover.

Past that first shallow ditch, which was awkward for a jump but too wide for a step.  Onto that narrow strip of gravel with grass growing through it.  Onto road.

With arms raised, she didn’t want to peek out past her arms and the material enshrouding them.  She wondered if her arms would even slow the bullet or protect her.  Even if they didn’t, she didn’t want to lower them.

She reached that dotted yellow line.

The crack of the rifle shot stopped her in her tracks.

She heard the shot before she felt it.

It struck the road right in front of her foot.  She could feel the impact of it through her sore feet, which only had socks on, velcro straps keeping the hard soles of the suit firmly against the bottom of her foot.

“Don’t move.  You have three guns pointed at you right now.”

Weiss, the hunter, hadn’t been that far behind her.  He approached her.

The three guns would be him, his fellow hunter, who stood beside a car, smoking, and the drone in the sky, which watched Natalie.

He patted her down, head to toe, a handkerchief, of all things, pressed to his lower face.

“My draw is faster than yours.  Don’t try anything.

“I’m not going to.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Pulling off the gear.  The oxygen tank was examined, then thrown aside, left to roll down the grassy slope and into the ditch.

He had her remove her mask.  Hair was still stuck across her face, plastered down with sweat that felt icy in the driving wind, and then prickled when hot smoke blew up the hill from the fire Rider and Ben had set to her.  Into her eyes.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, in response to smoke, and everything else.

After the initial patdown, outside the suit, one cloth held to his mouth, he moved the strap with the adhesive that covered the zippers and other built-in gaps, unzipped, and did another, thorough body check.

She could smell the concentrated fumes, with everything gone.  Her lungs hurt, dragging in hot, warm air instead of breathing the air from the oxygen tank.

She’d already had everything in her possession taken away when she was brought into captivity in that basement.  She’d had Camellia, though.  Ripley.

Weiss signaled his partner, further down the road, by a car.  The partner raised an arm in response, fingers splayed.

Now, with nothing, the individual fibers of the socks catching on the small edges of the road underfoot, tiny bits of resin, she walked the rest of the way across the street.  Weiss kept a gun trained on her as she hopped the ditch.

Davie walked from a bit further east to meet her.  There were officers with him.

“You’re not the little boy we asked for.  The mayor’s son.”

“Bryan.  He’s shot.”

“That was a stupid thing to do.”

By you, by your guys.

“I’m wearing socks with pine needles stuck to the bottoms, I’m sweating so much it feels like someone poured a bucket of ice water down my back.  I’m empty handed.  I don’t feel very smart.”

Davie smiled.

“Are you taking responsibility for the shooting of the boy, then?” one of the officers asked.

Natalie shook her head, mute now.

“Take her into custody, put her in the back of a car.  She’s a co-conspirator.”

“I wanted to let you know, Bryan’s not able to move, everyone’s hurt.  Everyone’s hurt and tired, if you can organize a medic, someone to take Bryan away-”

“Don’t engage.  Don’t spoil our investigation,” Davie told the officers.  “Don’t talk to her, don’t feed her information.  Don’t give her anything.”

“They’re broken, defeated, they want to negotiate a surrender.  You win,” Natalie said.

“We can negotiate with the lines of communication we’ve already opened.  No need for you to be a part of this.  Back of the car.”

“Move,” an officer barked.

Natalie cooperated.

She didn’t try to say anything.  Davie was watching and listening.  Her head hung.  Her hurt was evident.  The fact he wasn’t willing to be baited into a longer conversation…

It made her contribution to all of this feel so minor, every emotion became bitterness.

Ripley had acted more upset about Carson not being able to get up than she had over Natalie preparing to die.  Or worse.

The hunter had left.

The officers on this were focused on the situation, with only a couple nearby, monitoring the car, with one window rolled down to access the radio, which had been moved to the front seat, so they could reach in.

“Adult suspect three has been apprehended,” one reported, to the radio.

Natalie endured another rough pat-down from the woman officer, while the male read her her rights.  She acknowledged them in turn.  Then she ducked into the back seat, hands cuffed in front of her.

The officers stepped away, talking.  The window on the driver’s side was open, but Natalie couldn’t make out the words.

This was it?

She’d bought a small amount of time.  Was she meant to fight?  She’d– she’d never fought when she should have.  She’d gotten him to smile.

Had she thought that getting him to smile again, or getting him to laugh like he had before that macabre dinner, might curry favor, or distract him?

She hadn’t– she hadn’t thought at all.  She wasn’t good at thinking when a bad situation jangled her nerves.

Why hadn’t she said something to the officers?

Were they trustworthy, even?

Or was she going to get put in that basement and left to think about what she could’ve done for decades?

The male officer walked around the car, to the open window.  He stopped there, looking at her.

“You’re subdued.”

Natalie nodded.

“You good?”

“Not especially.  Water would be nice.  I sweated gallons in that suit.”

“Yeah.  You won’t try anything?”

She shook her head.

“Give me a sec.”

He popped the trunk, came back with a water bottle and a plastic straw, and motioned for her to lean forward.  She did, eyes closed, forehead resting against the metal grille.  He put the straw into place, and she drank, greedily.  The entire bottle.

“Won’t be long.”

She finished drinking, slurping.  “If they’re asking for another hostage, it probably won’t work.  People are hurt.”

“We’ll see.  I hope you’re wrong.”

“They had us on camera, with the drone, and asked for the person who couldn’t move.  Accused us of-”

“Can’t talk to you about that.  It’s out of my hands, anyway.”

Right.

Right, yeah.

“Thank you, for the water.”

“Finished that right off.  Don’t go asking for a bathroom break in five seconds.  I’d rather have the crew back at the station hose out the back seat than make this complicated.”

“I’ll try not to.”

He crushed the bottle before recapping it.  The noise made Natalie flinch.

“What do I recognize you from?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“Or where, or why do you seem familiar?”

“Oh.  I was in the news when my daughter was taken.  The Pink-Teale campaign?  For missing kids.”

“That’s it.  Yep, that’d be it.  That was a horrific image you used for the posters and stuff.”

“It wasn’t ever going to be a happy picture.”

“Whatever happened with that?”

“We had a bad year with funding, government shutdown, no grants, no bonds, police striking, no headway, I was focused on other things.  Someone looked at the numbers, where it was all allocated, with the numbers we had, and it looked-”

“I meant-”

“-bad.  Crushing.”

“I meant with you.  How’d you get from there to here?”

“An amateur journalist offered to help find my girl.  I went with him.  We found the culprit.  And right when I thought I had her, we got stuck in the middle of something big and ugly.”

“They’re saying you hurt kids.”

“I… fucked up with my daughter.  I thought it’d go differently.  I hurt her.  Emotionally, I guess.  Got it wrong.  And I’m worried if I stayed, I’d keep getting it wrong.  Makes me want to die.  Which is why I was- I was willing to walk over.  Despite the risk.”

“I was changing my kid, years ago and she hucked herself over the edge of the changing table while I was reaching for the diapers.  Right onto hard floor.  Took her straight to the hospital.  Bawled like the biggest fucking bitch you ever heard.  My wife didn’t forgive me for months.  Then it happened to her.  Not as bad- carpet. But… shit happens.  Now I dread everything I’m saying being something that’s going to end up coming up in therapy, couple decades.”

“I left her… in a hot car.  I was tired, had no help, I looked away for…”

She blinked hard.  Her voice caught, and didn’t really fight the crack that resulted.

“…too long.  Then she was gone.  My life was over.  Or it felt like it was.  And I couldn’t pull it together enough for my other kid.”

“Then you hurt others?”

Natalie shook her head.  “Just my own kid.  Not understanding.  The life they gave her is still her life.  As… fucked as that is.”

“But Bryan getting hurt like he was?”

She shook her head.

“They seem pretty sure you did.”

“Is the idea that Davie Cavalcanti over there is some… official?  Federal government?”

“No.  Local business.  The chief said to listen to him, cooperate.  Pulled us out of the strike because the mayor’s kid is part of it.  Over at Mr. Cavalcanti’s house for a family event.”

“And the idea is we attacked, took people hostage?”

The officer gave her a funny look.  “Yeah.”

Natalie glanced over.  She was prepared to rest her head against the window, look bored, or try to hide that she was engaging.

Doing that, she could see that Davie, off to the side, was coughing.

Was that why he went silent for patches, when giving his long speech? Natalie wondered.  From the gas?

“Are you asking why because something about this feels off?” Natalie asked, quiet.

“Why?” the man asked her.

Already leaning over, she brought her leg up onto the back seat, and pulled her pants leg up.

The mark from the shackle was still there.  Red, rubbed raw, bruising and a crease where it had dug into her lower leg.  Leg stubble rubbed off.

“He had me in his basement.  My daughter too.”

“That man over there did.”

“Davie Cavalcanti.  Yes.”

“Mariscal,” he said.  Not a shout, but not quiet either.

“Don’t-”

Davie, finishing coughing, was looking.

The woman officer walked over, thumbs hooked at the edges of her vest.

A moment later, her skull shattered.  A bullet hit the top of her head with enough force that it seemed to lift her up another half-foot mid-stride.  Skin separated from bone and bone separated into fragments.  After that initial impact, the area around her forehead and the crown of her head all folded in, toward the brain, in sync with the moment Natalie registered the sound.  She flopped to the ground.  Natalie wasn’t sure if she heard the spatter and small pieces hitting the ground after everything else, or if it was imagination.  The sirens screamed around them.

“I said-!” Davie called out, gun raised.

Natalie shrieked, ducking low.

Bullets went through glass and car door.  But it wasn’t aimed at Natalie.

“-not to engage with her!”

“What?  Fuck me, no,” the officer said.  Audible through the open window.

Davie kept shooting.  In the midst of it all, he said, “Yeah.”

Another shot.

“Thank you,” Davie said, calm.

Two more shots.

“Open my door!” Natalie screamed.

The car lacked the stopping power against bullets.  It barely sufficed as cover.

Natalie curled up in the back seat, hands cuffed in front of her.

The door opened.

And she pushed her way out.

Keeping the engine block between her and Davie felt like a safer bet.  Maybe.  Maybe people would tell her she was stupid, she’d get blown up.  She really didn’t know.

The ‘thank you’ had been because Davie was putting in an order.

The military drone buzzed the treetops, stopped in the air above the narrow clearing with the cars parked partway down it and aimed at the officer.

The man raised his arms.

He was going to give the order.

Natalie grabbed the edge of the handcuff, and staggered away from the car.  Not toward Davie- he was off to the side of her.

The pain she experienced was so bad it made muscles all up her arm jump, signals across her body telling her no.  Emotions blinded her.  An anger that went back twenty-five years, every bit of bitterness and hurt from everything she’d experienced at the hands of the Hursts, the fact Ripley was hurting more than she ever could, in more ways than she could, that Sterling was confused and scared, and anger at herself, that her last exchanges had been ones that hurt Ripley more, and maybe one Ripley would regret, not giving her that ‘mama’.

With all of that, Natalie was able to push past the physical pain.  She dragged a handcuff past her wrist and past her hand, taking what felt like half the skin and meat from the outside edge of her thumb.  Her thumbnail was briefly visible, barely attached, before the moment the metal came free.

Cuffs around one wrist, hand gripping the hinge, other hand bleeding badly, she tackled him to the ground.

This entire fucking time, he’d been focused on Mia and Carson.  Hurting other people to get to her.

Then, in this moment, his focus was on the officer on the other side of the car, in the drone’s sights.  A man with a gun.  While Natalie was small, cuffed, inoffensive.

He coughed, and her fingernails clawed at his face.  Less to do damage, more to- to scrabble upward, to dig fingernail into flesh and pull herself up to sit across his pelvis, to be in a better position to block the gun.  She saw it, and moved to the side, hip against his arm.  Not quite sitting on it.  but close.

With her left hand, cuff around it, she backhanded the phone out of his hand, then punched him.  She saw his face twist away, heard the coarse cough, and punched him in the neck.  More the side of the neck than anything.  The ring of the closed cuff, still with bloody tissue attached to it, punched into flesh.  The hinge dug into the base of her hand.

And then he started hitting back.  In her side.  Grabbing her shoulder.

He was bigger, stronger.  He’d been in fights.  He’d maybe trained.

She was partially on top of him, and the crystal clear thought that this was the man who’d taken her daughter’s arm sat suspended in an ocean of red.

Her daughter.

He was strong enough he was winning the wrestling match, getting her off of him, and she turned instead to adding another appendage to the mix.  Her mouth opened, teeth bared, as she tried to get at his throat.  He grabbed her hair, sacrificing leverage, pulling her away.  Tucking chin closer to collarbone.

Her damaged right hand now free, with more leverage, found its way to his face.  Groped, unable to find purchase, not accurate, as if it wasn’t even her hand.

Every moment she felt hesitation, or awareness of what this situation was, that thought, quietly horrified, numb, pure, cleared the way.  He’d hurt her daughter.

She pushed her damaged thumb into his eye socket.

He moved his head.  She hadn’t had the leverage.  But that eye squinted, filled with her blood, from the open wound.

Fingernails dragged.  He stopped trying to grab for her hair.  Twisted his body.

Kneed her in the side so hard she couldn’t breathe.

Suffocating in the moments after, from the pain, she tried her damndest to put her knee into his groin.  She couldn’t knee it- she was slightly too high up, but if she could put her entire body weight on it, crush–

He drove his knee into her again.  Ribs, this time.

The drone moved steadily around them.

Assuming it was a man loyal to him on the other side… if it had a good shot, it’d shoot her.  She leaned harder into his arm.

Somewhere distant, there was an explosion.  The oxygen tank bomb.

She punched, barely aware of where her punches were landing.  If she hit dirt beside his head, she pushed her hand against that dirt for leverage.  She scratched with her other hand, punched when she didn’t need the arm to hold her upper body up.

Punching the side of his face with the ring of the handcuff, she hit hard enough the cuffs popped open.

She used that hooked end, too wide to be a blade, exactly, and dug.  A part of her wanted to penetrate the eardrum, as a flash of one of the deafened, dismembered people crossed her mind.  But she ended up placing it closer to temple.

And, shifting her weight, she pulled.  She got her other hand around it.  Dragging the spike of the handcuff through skin of temple to cheek.

She almost lost her balance when it came free.  Losing all leverage.  Everything that remained.  She came up too high, in the drone’s sights.  She fell, almost lying across him, against the one arm.

Then, belated, the hooked end of the open handcuff hit something hard.

Teeth.

From temple to cheek, into open mouth, raking hard teeth.  Catching.  Pulling his mouth open.

Her damaged hand was so hurt it wouldn’t open.  So she used her forearm.  Smashing it.  Trying to drive that hook into the floor of his mouth.  And she didn’t quite manage it.

He pulled away, grimacing, coughing, and in the moment that followed, the one eye that was in position to look up or over at her, was the eye that was squinting shut with blood.

Holding that hooked end of the handcuff with two hands, she put it against the side of his neck and pushed down with enough force that it penetrated skin, sinking inward.

A part of her needed to scream, something primal, to let all of the hurt out.  To somehow free those images of the dismembered people from the darkest parts of her mind.  The images of Ripley’s expressions.  The years of worrying, wondering, hating.

But she was too hurt to.  Or the hurt was too big.

A twist, while that serrated edge of the cuff was inside the side of his neck, and then she pulled with all her strength.

⯁

The world was too bright.

Every inch of her seemed to hurt.  Some from fatigue, from trying and failing to sleep on concrete, then marching down a hillside  Some from being beaten, and being too insensate with rage to feel it in the moment of the beating.

It was a hospital.  But there were no hospital noises.  No steady beeps.  People milled up and down a crowded hall.  Someone further down the hallway called for a nurse.

No power, again, she supposed.  Generator not working?

She didn’t want to hear any beeps ever again.  It would remind her of that basement.

So she sat, awkwardly, where no position was comfortable.  A stiff bandage made it impossible to open or close her hand, or to see the damage.  It hurt.  Her face hurt worse.

There was an eerie sort of peace in… whatever this was.  She didn’t know if she was under arrest- no cuffs.  Or if the Cavalcantis were going to exact revenge.  She didn’t know if Mia and Carson Hurst were already in Canada.  Or wherever.

“Awake?”

She started to talk, but found her face too swollen.

“You’re lucky,” a nurse told her.  She was helping another patient reposition.  Someone who’d been burned.

Lucky?  Maybe, if she was here, and not in a basement.

“Not everyone gets a bed.  We’ve got patients lying across rows of chairs.  We are going to be moving some patients into here to clear the hallway.  But some people liked you.  They wanted you looked after.”

Mia worked in hospital administration.  Had it been Mia?

“Who?” Natalie croaked.

“Police?  You saved his life, he said.”

Natalie nodded.

“Get that man’s number, in case you get any speeding tickets, huh?” the nurse joked.  “And something about the mayor’s son?  I don’t know how you begin to cash that in but there you go.  Good for you.”

Natalie smiled as best as she was able, which wasn’t very much.

A horrible sadness surged in her chest, as if the small amount of relief wasn’t allowed, without answer.  She had to fight it, to avoid breaking into sudden, inexplicable sobs.  If she did, her ribs and stomach wouldn’t tolerate it.

“A man, a boyfriend?  He said he’d drop in to visit this afternoon.  He was keeping an eye on things.  He’d bring someone else- I forget the relation.  Then, everything going well, he’ll bring your son?  If you want?”

Natalie nodded as much as she was able.  “Brown skin?  Crazy eyes?”

“Yeah.”

“Daughter?”

“Hm?” the nurse asked.  She was distracted by her work with the other patient, hidden from view by a curtain.

“Sorry.  Was there a girl?  Eleven?  I have a daughter.”

“I don’t think so.  But it’s honestly all a blur.  I’ve been busy, nonstop.”

“‘Course,” Natalie said, past a lump in her throat.

Had she blacked out?  Or passed out from exhaustion?

Had she hurt her head?  She didn’t remember anything from the time between her confrontation with Davie and getting here.

Why hadn’t the drone operator gunned her down, the moment she passed out?  Or whatever else?

No loyalty?  What he’d set up hadn’t mattered in the right way?

It, as an attached thought, was a quietly disconcerting thing to Natalie, that the charity might have been the thing to open the door to the officer looking at her.  Listening to her.

That those instincts, to play along, to wait, might have been some small part of why Davie hadn’t done more against her.

For years, those sorts of things had been such massive sources of regret.

She reminded herself that the Hursts had her daughter.  To keep herself from being too relieved.  Too okay with this.

“Miss Roy, I’ve got other patients to check on, but I will be back…” the Nurse said, as she checked a chart.

Then she looked at Natalie.  Quizzical.

“You are miss Roy?  Or Mrs.?  I believe we got your ID from family…”

Natalie swallowed hard.  The nurse brought a clear plastic bag with things inside.  Including a wallet.  The same sort of bag Camellia- Ripley’s things had been put in.

Lorraine Roy.

To give her a clearer escape route?  To keep enemies like the Cavalcantis from finding her?

“Changed with marriage,” Natalie managed.  “Still not used to it.  I thought for a second you had my mother in law in the next bed.”

“Can you imagine?” the nurse tittered.  She handed over the bag.  “Though you might wish you had a more empty room with just your mother in law in it, after we move people in here.  It’s going to be hell, I’m sorry.  Please bear with us.”

“I’m okay,” Natalie managed to utter the words.  Her teeth hurt.  She wondered if they were loose.  The ID had a list of contact information for people that weren’t her people.  And on the back of that card was a scribbled phone number with four letters.  CMRT.  “Been there.  Clawed my way out.”

“You sure look it, Lorraine.  I’ll check back in on you soon.”

“Mm.”

She stared at the card for a long, long time.

---

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