Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

---

The restlessness and anxiety dogged Mia.

It was done.  It was over.  Things were settling.  The people who had needed to live had lived.

They had an apartment.  It was nice, all open space, except for the bedrooms and bathrooms.  It was secure.  They’d had a proxy rent it for them, and had given false information.  Her old troves of data were too dangerous to use, but the root level access she still had to the hospital databases were still there.  She’d accessed them from a parking lot, mindful of cameras, using the free wi-fi of a coffee shop.  For something as surface level as personal information for an apartment rental, it sufficed.  The only way it could go bad is if the landlords knew the deceased, or if the intrusion into the hospital database was detected and they put out an alert.  Mia’s safeguards would tell her the second the alert went out.

She watched the police going about their business.  The police were running with reduced staff.  There were sixty-five officers in Camrose, split across three major areas – the northwest end, the southeast end, and the outskirts, with the police at the outskirts liaising with the parks service.  Thirty, twenty-four, and eleven officers, respectively.  Or twelve, eight, and five cars.  One to two officers in a vehicle, some didn’t leave the station.

They’d resumed activity after the strike had been called off, and were trying to restore peace.  She’d had six weeks now to gather data.  She and Carson were staying off the streets, for the most part, but when the coast was clear, she did leave to pick up Ripley, and she did leave to slip trackers into the undercarriage of cars.

Five times, she’d taken advantage of opportunity.  Three times, she had made calls, then accessed the car while the officers were distracted.  That was eight out of twelve cars, and she now knew where they were.  Of the remaining four, one was out of service for repairs owing to damage taken in the riots, one was purely on traffic duty and wasn’t a consideration, and the remaining two had been like ghosts, with no detectable activity.  She’d tracked them driving to Ripley’s school, a camera dead zone, planted a camera in a tree that night, and had seen them parked outside as school got out, for the last week.  They had been other places.

She’d identified local detectives, and tracked them now.  She knew their families, their histories, their patterns.  One pair… ghosts.

She didn’t want to track the two police cars or the detectives in any overt way, because if they knew who she was, if Ben and Rider had tipped them off or were doing something behind the scenes, then they’d know to check for it.

Most of the police activity surrounded the civil warriors, and trying to quell the unrest surrounding that.  For some of them, the riots had never ended.  Spray paint appeared overnight with coded and not-so-coded racist and homophobic threats.  Things were broken.  Shops burned.  Ripley’s school had shut down due to bomb threats, and she’d spent a week off school.  Three days, with Mia, Carson, and Tyr.

She kept an eye on other things.  Child services.  Natalie.  She kept an eye out for Ben and Rider, who, by every metric she could measure, had left the state.

She, in her restlessness, not working, living off the funds they’d kept in reserve, stuck at home, rebuilt her knowledge base, with the new paradigms in place.  She was already looking at the Civil Warriors.  Key individuals.  Certain families.  How they moved.  Where the cracks were.  Routines and schedules.  They were the dominant group and they were getting more dominant.

A silent alarm went off in the corner of her display, reminding her to exercise, and she unplugged her laptop, moving it to the face of her treadmill.

Forcing herself to walk as light physiotherapy for her leg.

In the course of moving and turning it on, she woke Carson.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asked, almost groaning the words.

“Some.  But I’m tired.  My body’s focused on healing.  Like yours is.”

“Mmmm,” he groaned.  “On that note, could you do me a favor, and move the treadmill?”

“Is it too loud?”

“Not that,” he said.  He smiled.  “Turn it around, take off those shorts.  Wear the blue underwear that hugs your behind perfectly.  Let me watch that.  That would heal my beaten, abused body, heal my spirit”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Aw,” he replied, followed with a languid smile.

“I would feel ridiculous, and the kids are getting home from school soon.”

He blinked a few times.

“You slept until the mid-afternoon.”

“Fuck me,” he muttered.  He had to work to sit up.  “I should shower.  I want to hug my kids.  I don’t want to stink.”

“You smell fine.  Good, even.  I napped beside you a little bit ago.”

He shifted position, lifting up his t-shirt.  The bandage was still there, with a yellow-pink patch where fluids had leaked out and soaked it.  His nose wrinkled.  “Pus and rot.”

“It’s in your head.  You smelled horrendous for a few days, but that was weeks ago.”

“I want to shower.”

She helped him to his feet, careful with her own leg.  He accepted her help for the first few uneasy steps, then circled around the treadmill and went into the adjunct bathroom.

He’d had sepsis.  Mia had called the Angel of Death, who hadn’t been very happy to get the call.  But the images Natalie had sent of Davie’s victim off life support had been a kind of currency with the woman.  Enough that she’d come, looking after Carson enough to get him through it.

Then again, through the second round of infection, when the wound hadn’t healed and had started smelling.  The antibiotics she’d used had done a number on him, and his healing had been slow.

Mia wondered a bit if being sick like that, and still being bedridden, was his kryptonite.  If that was why the idea of the smell of sickness and infection had stuck to him as much as it did, to the point he thought he smelled it when it wasn’t there.

“Join me?” he asked.

She glanced at the clock on her computer.

“We’ll be fast,” Carson said.

“A week ago, the first time you asked me, I said I shouldn’t and couldn’t join you in there, with your side, my leg.  Then you faked needing help, got me in there with you.  We broke that rule.  I said you should stay sitting, you didn’t.”

“I’d rather hold onto you than the railing.”  He smiled.

“The second time you asked me, you were making overtures.  I ruled out funny business.  Then we broke that rule.”

“I see it as serious business.”

“The third time, I had things to keep an eye on, to see if they were watching Ripley’s school or where she had therapy.  I said you didn’t need to finish me.  And we broke that rule too.”

“You said it would take ten to fifteen minutes to finish you.  It took just under ten.  And we said we’d use the bench seat, and we didn’t break that rule.”

“We nearly broke the bench seat.  It wobbles now.”

Carson reached over to the shower, and gave the seat that they’d installed in the shower an experimental wiggle.  It did rattle a bit, but it held.  “We should get one for heavier folks.  So it takes both of our weight.  And our activity.”

“That shower took thirty minutes.  I’m telling you now, we have twenty minutes.  You’re hurt and recovering.  We have time for you to wash up, rinse, and then groom at the sink.  Are we going to break that rule?  Are we going to go over time and scandalize our daughter?”

He’d already painstakingly removed his shirt before inviting her to join him, and now he dropped his boxers.  He stood there, still muscular from head to toe, but the muscle and weight he’d lost was noticeable.  He had dark circles under his eyes with a yellow bruising to them.  He was still pretty.

“I love you, and I don’t believe you,” she said.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said.

“Tonight,” she said, which made him smile.  She shut the door.  Then she opened it again.  “I really miss having a shower with nozzles spraying from two directions, so one of us isn’t shivering their asses off.”

“When I am up and more mobile, we can get settled somewhere better and I will build that for you.”

She walked on the treadmill, watching things as school got out and Ripley talked with Devon’s stepdad before getting Tyr from the kindergartener’s playground, and walking over to catch the bus.  The cars were there, further up the street this time, but still in a position to watch things.

Maybe they would say it was because of the explosions.  Even though those explosions hadn’t been primed to do anything except guide the evacuation in one direction.

The anxiety wouldn’t quit.  She wanted to do more, so she did more, she’d expanded her focus out into the Civil Warriors.  She watched the remaining Cavalcantis.  Most had left the area and the state, to consolidate under the banner of the family members and personalities that remained.

If they were gunning for her, there weren’t any signs of it.  She couldn’t rule out that they might hire another professional.

So she’d revived old safeguards and reset old landmines.  She’d made sure that if they dug for her, or started poking around Ripley as a means of getting to her, she’d know about it.

‘Old’ landmines.  As if the bulk of things hadn’t happened across the span of a few days.  As if it was a long time ago that she’d used any of that.  She’d spent Ripley’s entire life planning, anticipating, and so much of it had been spent so fast.  It had almost not been enough.  It had almost fallen apart.

No, that wasn’t right.  It wasn’t right that it had almost fallen apart.

She slipped past Carson as he got out of the shower, stripped, and rinsed off the sweat of the treadmill.  She dried, looking at herself in the mirror, her hair dyed blonde, applied a bit of makeup, then dressed again.  She spent the next few minutes tidying.  She had some new books she knew Ripley would like and obsessed for what felt like five minutes, but was probably less than one, figuring out how to leave the books there so they would look casual, if she should even give her the books right now.  Did it seem artificial?  Was it?

Tyr wouldn’t give it a second thought.  Even being as tough as he was, Tyr had backslid in development by a bit.  Some bed wetting.  Some clinginess, which was almost nice.  That they’d been absent, and then they’d reunited with him, hurt?  Carson being sick?  Scary to a kid.

She had zero idea how Ripley had slept.  Ripley hadn’t shared.

She brought her laptop to the kitchen table, for those last couple minutes, and put music on.  She was wiping the stove when they came in.

“Heyy,” Carson was faster to respond.  Making this easier, because Mia wasn’t sure how to.  He turned his body sideways so Tyr’s running hug didn’t include a headbutt or embrace of the wound site, then reached for Ripley, who hugged him tight, careful of his side.

Ripley came over and hugged Mia, as tight as was possible- one arm and the force of the hug from the prosthetic arm came from the hug.  It was already heavily stylized, so it looked like she was wearing black armor and a black gauntlet on the one arm, with gold trim.  They’d made a project of it.

A very tight hug, that gave Mia twenty different things to worry about.

“Devon’s dad talked to me,” Ripley said, as she broke the hug.

“Yeah?  What about?”

“Just asking what I was doing, checking up on me.  If I’d heard from you.”

“It’s good he cares.”

“I don’t like lying.”

“I know.  Hopefully things settle, and everyone eases up.”

“There are two police cars parked down the road from the school.  There might be more.”

“I know.  I think it might be because of the B-O-M-B,” Mia said.

“That you set?” Ripley asked.

Tyr piped up before Mia could process or address that, “Bomb!”

“Heyy, great job,” Carson said.  He’d settled into a chair.  “That’s a hard one.  Where did you learn that word?”

“From the book you read me!”

“It was in one of the Good Simon books,” Mia noted.

“Fantastic.  I didn’t know you were learning anything while we were doing that,” Carson said, beaming.  “Are you going to be a reader like your sister?”

Ripley was smiling at Tyr’s excitement and the praise Tyr was getting.  Pure love for her brother.  It was had to return to the topic of the school bombing.

“So,” Mia said, careful.  “It’s a rare day you don’t have rehab or therapy.  Afternoon and evening are clear…”

“Sean invited me over.  We’re doing a car thing.  Devon’s coming.  Which is funny because it’s so not his thing.”

The music still played, soft, in the background.

“Is that okay?”

“Perfectly okay.  I’m bummed I don’t get to spend more time with you, of course.  But it’s fine.  It’s good.”

“Are you sure?” Ripley asked.

“Absolutely.  You don’t have to ask if we’re sure or get permission.  But… maybe a little more notice?  So we can make alternative plans?”

“What sort of alternative plans?” Ripley asked.

The shadow of Ripley knowing what they did lingered over that question, as light as it was.  Was she being falsely bright?  Was she even thinking about it?

“Something with Tyr?” Mia asked.  “Maybe a bit of nature.  Something easy for dad.  Anything like a hike has to wait a little while, until after he’s feeling better.”  She was careful to focus on the after.  That was in the childcare books she’d read, while up at night, trying to figure out a way through this.  A child going into surgery was reassured by talk of a future, compared to the child who only heard adults talking about the surgery, everything that had to be done before, up to that moment, with no talk of an after.  Talk of an after would reassure Tyr.

“We could build a bomb,” Carson whispered to Tyr.

Mia’s eyes lingered on Ripley, as Ripley’s head turned.  Watched her expression.  Wondered.

“Baking soda and vinegar bomb?” Carson asked.

Mia watched for a second longer, then looked over.  Tyr had lit up.

“It’s very ooze-y,” Ripley said.

“I want fire.  And a big loud boom!”

“Of course you want fire,” Ripley said.  “You’re a terror.”

“Fire and big booms might have to wait.  But maybe we can figure something out,” Carson said.  “Your mom is a brilliant woman.  Something safe?”

“We can,” she said.  “Maybe an outdoor barbecue?  We could bring a folding chair for Dad, cook burgers, do some safe explosions.  Give you space to run around?”

Ripley’s expression had darkened, her focus on some distant point, past Tyr and Carson.

Because she was missing out?  Or-

The image flashed into Mia’s mind.  The shackle, the folding chairs in that basement.

Idiot.  You idiot.

“I want to make up a game!”

Ripley visibly flinched at the volume she’d been fine at a moment earlier.  She glanced at Mia, as if for reassurance, and there was a second of bewilderment, before a quick smile.  She didn’t flinch away from Mia’s hand as Mia reached over to give her shoulder a reassuring rub.

Carson engaged with Tyr.  “We can bring sports stuff and balls.  That sound fun?  Then if the bugs get bad or we get tired, we can come back and watch a movie?”

“Yes!”

“Volume down two notches,” Mia said.

“Yes.  I know what movie I want to watch, already.”

“Tyr, my man, you have horrendous taste in movies,” Carson said.

“No.  I have great taste.”

“Monstrous, awful, taste.”

“I’m going to get my stuff, grab a warmer sweater, and catch a bus,” Ripley said, while the back-and-forth continued in the background.  She paused.  “I love you guys.”

“I love you so much,” Mia told her.  “Can we spend your next free day together?”

“Yeah,” Ripley said, smiling.  She seemed to like the idea.  There was no sign that she was searching for an excuse or pulling away.  She was being pulled in multiple directions at once, and that was different.

Ripley hesitated before leaving.

“What is it?”

“Blair wants to hang out.  She’s got a boy she likes, so she wants to get clothes and get gussied up, her words, for that person.  I don’t really know about that stuff, I kind of wanted to ask for Valentina’s help with it.”

“I’ll let her know you’re asking.”

“And I don’t know when that’s happening.  Shopping with Blair.”

“Okay.  Like I said before, do what you need to do.  Let me now in advance, if you can.”

“And Natalie said her sister is in town next week.  She wants me there for at least one dinner.”

“Mmmmaybe you spend your next free day with us, and then you go to Natalie’s for dinner, and hang out with Blair after that dinner?  Maybe Natalie would like to take you guys to the mall?  She’s pretty stylish.”

“Maybe that’d be good.  I don’t like being at Natalie’s too long.  It’s a weird energy.”

“Bad weird energy?”

“I shouldn’t have said that.  That’s the sort of talk I should bring to the therapist, not you, so it’s fair,” Ripley replied.  She took a second, then, with fresh energy, as if hitting some internal reset button, said, “That’s a good idea.  Natalie, then Blair.  If we go to the mall I can tell Blair and Natalie’s sister how Natalie held me captive upstairs.”

“Go easy,” Carson said.

“Maybe focus on taking it easy, keeping it copacetic,” Mia added.

“I know.  I am.  Yeah.”

“If you like the idea, that’s great.  Run it by Natalie, then let me know what day it’s happening?”

“Oh,” Ripley said, distracted by the books.  “These are great.  But I already have these two.  Sean took me to the bookstore.  He asked what I needed to make the room at his place mine, in case I stayed, or needed a place to retreat to,and I said-”

“-a bookshelf,” Carson said, at the same time Ripley did.  Mia might have, on another day, but the idea of Ripley staying with Sean had startled her.

She found her bearings, and replied, “Ah, great.  Not a problem.  I can return them.”

“Sorry.  But this third one looks great.”

“No need to apologize.  It’s good.”

“I’m going to go.  I keep delaying.  I do like talking to you guys about stuff.  You get stuff in a way others don’t.  Even my therapist.”

“If you need to change therapists so you can communicate with someone better…” Carson trailed off.

“It’s okay.”

Another quick hug, then Ripley hurried away.

She’s not running away from you, Mia told herself.

Mia called after Ripley

“I know you got a bunch of new sweaters to wear with your overalls this fall, but if you’re going to be elbow-deep in a car engine, maybe wear an old one?”

“Good call.  But I want to look nice-ish.  Tattered sweater chic?  I’ve got sweaters with holes in them.”

“Sure, maybe pair it with nicer overalls!  Those wash easy!” Mia called up, though Ripley was already gone.  To Carson, she said, “Is that a thing?  Are tattered sweaters in fashion?”

“She’s using words like ‘chic’, now,” Carson murmured.  He had Tyr on his knee, watching a video on the laptop, now.  Mia hoped Tyr had climbed up, and that Carson hadn’t lifted.  “I wondered if she and Blair might date, as they got started with that stuff, or if she’d get jealous if Blair dated.  I had the vibe they’d stick within their friend group, at least at as they started dating.  They’re so tightly bound together.”

“Still don’t have a bead on Rip,” Mia murmured back.  “Not seeing any signs of interest in that direction, or any direction.  Let it happen how it happens.”

She refilled Ripley’s water bottle, and had it back in the bag in time for Ripley to come back through the kitchen, wearing a bright yellow sweater with some pronounced gaps and irregularities in the weave, one strap of her overalls connected at the front, black denim with gold threading, like her arm, other strap dangling.  She checked her water, found it full, and flashed a smile at Mia.  A brief one, that faded into some form of anxiety.

“Is this really okay?” Ripley asked.

“It’s great.  Live a full life.  Enjoy the car stuff.”

Ripley smiled.

Then she was gone, bag slung over her shoulder.

There were two days a week where she didn’t have other obligations.  Prosthetic therapy once every two weeks, to learn to use the prosthetic arm, and adjust it.  Doctor’s appointments on weeks she didn’t have the prosthetic therapy, to make sure the stump was healed, and to see what could be done about the phantom pains.  Natalie took her to those.  Regular therapy twice a week, to deal with the events of a month and a half ago.  Sleepovers with Blair and Devon at Blair’s or Devon’s on Saturday afternoons and Saturday nights.  Once at Natalie’s, but they hadn’t repeated that.  Sleepovers on Saturday nights almost always segued into an extended or bigger friend group hangout on Sundays.

School ate into the days.  Ripley dropped by in the afternoon, after school.  Some days she stayed until after dinner, then went to Natalie’s.  Sometimes she left before dinner, like she was now, and they wouldn’t see her until the next day.  It was too hard and raised too many questions if her drop-off routine or schedule changed up too much on school days.  So she slept at Natalie’s.

During the holidays, as the plan went, she’d stay overnight with Mia and Carson.

Valentina slept here, technically, but she’d gotten ID from Mia that said she was a year older than she was, and had reconnected with an old school friend from the pre-bullying, pre-Addi days, telling that friend a story about witness protection against the family or something.  She hadn’t volunteered much information, and Mia hadn’t pried.  They were making noises about renting together.  Mia saw her two or three nights a week.  Usually in passing.

From her internet activity, she was looking for the woman who had abandoned her to Davie Cavalcanti’s so-called ‘care’.  It would be a hard search.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned the folding chairs,” she murmured.  “I hate myself.”

“It caught her off guard, but I think a lot of things will, for a long while,” Carson said.  “She bounced back well.  She still loves you.”

The anxiety worsened.

It felt like her family was slipping through her fingers.  Things hadn’t almost fallen apart, with the Davie situation.  Something had broken, and now it was slowly crumbling.

It was hard not to transplant the mental picture of her own mother’s face onto Ripley’s face, when Ripley showed those signs of doubt, or anxiety.

You scare the shit out of me.

She got her phone out.  She was considering her options when she noticed Carson studying her.

“Natalie,” she said.

“Be careful,” he said.  “This is good.  The way things are is good.”

It didn’t feel good.

It wasn’t like him to say that.  To second guess her.  Was that the sickness-as-kryptonite, or…?

She put the phone away.  “I”ll call tomorrow.  We made plans with Tyr for today.  Barbecue and a bomb.”

“Yesss!” Tyr reacted, smiling with an excess of teeth showing.

And I’ll hope she doesn’t answer.

⯁

Natalie had answered.  Mia had set the time and location.  A place she’d secured in advance, with cameras watching, to avoid any traps.

Natalie dressed the way she did to convey force, drawing the eye.  Business casual with a slight emphasis on the business- a dark green-blue suit jacket, gold jewelry, hair styled, makeup done.

Mia dressed to hide, as much as a woman of above-average stature could.  She still looked nice, but she didn’t want to draw eyes or be remembered.  A white blouse, a light jacket, understated makeup, and jeans.

The restaurant had one and a half floors enclosed by old fashioned stucco walls with ropes of garlic dangling.  Pasta was being made where people on the ground floor could watch – mostly families.  The unused half of the second floor was a patio with lots of olive trees around it, letting it be a more secluded spot.  There was only a gap in the trees that left a view of the water outside the city.  Many of the trees had cameras in them.  Mia had hired someone to climb them and situate the cameras.  She had eyes on the inside and eyes on the stairs leading through the alley to one side, the street above, and the street below.

Mia took off her sunglasses as she settled at the table, laying them beside her phone, which had the surveillance videos on them.

“Is it a crisis?  Lingering danger?  Unresolved business with the Cavalcanti family?” Natalie asked, looking at the phone.  She looked at Mia.  “Civil Warriors, even?”

“None of the above.  I’m keeping an eye on things.”

“I’m tempted to get up and walk away right now.”

“Don’t.  For Ripley’s sake, if anything.”

The waiter approached.  Mia turned her phone face down.

“Is this everyone?” he asked.  When Mia nodded, he asked,  “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“I’m so tempted to drink, you couldn’t imagine,” Natalie said.  “Ginger ale.”

“Red wine, please.  A local pinot noir, midrange?” Mia said.  “And water.”

She took the menu with a ‘thank you’.

After the waiter was gone, she flipped the phone back over, studying the contents.  Back at home, Carson was her ‘operator’, watching the cameras with another, constant set of eyes, on bigger screens with better resolution than a phone at arm’s length provided.  He’d alert her to wider problems.

“Are you in touch with Benito Jaime?” Mia asked.

“No.  He’s upset.  Our arrangement means he can’t release the video.  Ripley and I won’t cooperate.  I talked to Sean.  Sean won’t.  He’s confused but… he’s always been good at compartmentalizing.  Knowing you, you’re keeping an eye on him.  Keep doing that, just in case.  At the slightest hint of him doing anything with the footage, even a leak, my lawyer can go after him.”

“Okay.”

“Is that why you called?”

“How is Ripley sleeping?”

Natalie sat back in her seat, looking out in the direction of the water, lips pursed.

“What we’re doing is for Ripley’s sake.  When the tables are turned, and I have her for the holidays…”

“I was hoping we could renegotiate that.”

“I do want her to stay with us.”

Natalie had a momentary look on her face, drawing in a breath, like she would have hit Mia if Mia wasn’t sitting across from the table.  If they weren’t in a public place.  If Mia wasn’t more dangerous.

Even considering what Natalie had done to Davie Cavalcanti.

“We can negotiate,” Mia said, quiet.  “We won’t leave town.  You’ll see her daily, on some level.  We… if she wants to visit friends, you could give her the car rides.  The same way we see her daily now, while she’s in school.  Constant phone contact.”

“You can’t undermine me,” Natalie said, still not making eye contact.  Neck and jaw rigid.

“Have I?”

“I wanted her for a day, next week.  While my sister is in town.  You tell her to hang out with her friend?”

“It wasn’t my intent to undermine your time with her.”

“Really.”

“She-” Mia paused.  The waiter.  She flipped the phone face down again, and took her wine.  She could say this with him in earshot. “I thought you would want to go shopping with her.  She liked the idea.  I recommended it because you seem to know fashion.”

“So gracious,” Natalie said, with enough venom it seemed to startle the waiter.

“Um, are you ready to order?”

Mia ordered creamy chicken Madeira rigatoni.  Natalie asked for bruschetta.  An appetizer.  Probably so she could leave sooner.

“I’m willing to negotiate on the holiday.  For your peace of mind.  I’d like to share information between us.  So we both know how she’s doing, when to go easy.  When she’s less rested.  For her sake.  Not for mine.”

The way Natalie’s mouth opened, teeth parted, jaw moving slightly, it looked like she was chewing on the response she wanted to give, but wasn’t voicing, and it tasted awful.

Instead, Natalie forced her expression back to something approximating normal, and said, “She has screaming fucking nightmares.  What do you think?  Scares the shit out of Sterling.  And me.”

“Okay.  I figured.  She seemed tired.  She smiles less.”

“No fucking kidding.”

“She’s bonding well with Sean.”

“Pisses me the fuck off,” Natalie said.  “The man barely helped look for her.  Said it hurt too much.”

“I think a big part of it is that he’s not associated with any of the bad stuff.  He’s not a reminder.”

“The bad stuff,” Natalie put a vicious sort of emphasis on the ‘stuff’.  “Yeah.”

Mia paused, studying the camera stuff.  Giving Natalie a moment to reel things in, or take stock.

Maybe that was a vain hope.

“Are the nightmares getting less frequent?” Mia asked.

Natalie did that ‘chewing on a response’ business again, before glaring across the table at Mia.  “Are you deluded?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I still can’t tell if you’re doing this on purpose.  Are you an idiot?  Or is this a psychological game, where you act like this is in any way normal?  You’re a monster.  You took eleven years with her, and you act like it’s a favor, that you point her my way for a shopping trip?  Are we pretending we’re in some way equals?  Co-parents in some awkward little divorce?”

“For Ripley’s sake?  Yeah,” Mia replied.  “We should pretend.”

“The fact I told you about the nightmares in the first place makes me feel gross.  Violated.  You keep swinging that stick.  For Ripley’s sake.  For Ripley.”

“It’s what we agreed-”

“I know!”

Natalie’s raised voice turned heads.  The patio was mostly empty, but there was an elderly couple at the other corner of the patio, and people inside, looking through the wide open, curtain-framed doors.

“Yes, it’s important, Ripley’s sake.  It’s not the be-all and end-all,” Natalie said, that trace of venom in every word.  “I don’t trust the police to do anything.  I don’t trust you to not have contingency plans and escape routes.  I worry that Ripley wouldn’t forgive me if I said something.  I have no trust left in me, I feel like I’ve had her stolen from me again, every moment she’s not in my care.  I hate you so much, so often, it might make my life years shorter.  So here we are.”

“Are the nightmares getting less frequent?”

“Fuck you.”

The words were said with enough hostility and volume that more heads turned.  Mia shifted position, folding her arms and crossing her ankles under the table.  She let her hair be a partially see-through curtain that kept people from seeing her face.

Mia pointed out, “She senses the hostility.  The resentment.  She doesn’t feel comfortable at your place.  Something to look out for, maybe.”

“So if I say the slightest, most minor of unkind words about you, she gets upset.  But I’m supposed to believe she talks about me with you?”

“No.  She talks about us with the therapist.  Slightly tweaking details, I’m sure.”

“You hack your way in, look at the therapist’s notes?” Natalie asked, with a note of derision.

“No.  That’s not really my skillset, and I wouldn’t.  I overheard.”  Easier to say that than to put Ripley in the crosshairs for letting it slip.

“Of course you did.”

“I’m letting you know for her sake.  So you can adjust, before she gets a bit older and can make even more choices about where she stays or what she does, custody-wise.”

“What sane, healthy human being could be in my shoes and not feel what I feel?  Not resent?  Not hate?  You took my child.”

“You lost her.”

“Fuck you.  No,” Natalie sat forward.  “You do not fucking get to say that, that’s a lie.  I was tired, I was anemic, with blood clots the size of my fists coming out of my stitched-together vaginal canal, stitches in my clit.  From pushing my daughter out.  I had zero, zero help.  Zero second chances.  And the moment, the moment I was weak, distracted as I begged for help, one moment, you preyed on that.  You stole my girl and derailed my life.  You pervert.”

“I never-”

“You pervert.  You sprayed yourself over her, you took her body, you took clothes, you wiped bodily fluids off her, you bathed her, and you did it all for your own selfish, warped desires.  I don’t even want to ask if you breast fed her, because if you say yes then I’m going to vomit on the spot.  What the fuck is that, if not perverted?  You took shopping trips and so many intimate mother-daughter conversations, you graffiti’ed yourself and the people you surround yourself with all over her and that can never, ever be wiped clean.  You shaped her and you molded her, and there will never be a day I look at her and don’t see some piece of you in her.  That’s perverted.  And you take half of the time that remains?  And I have to sit here and take it, because any other action I take would lose her?  You’re a perversion, a sick joke of a person, and however you dress, however reasonable you pretend to be, whatever you buy her or tell her, however you manipulate things or make yourself new identities and digital records, you’ll never be anything else.”

Natalie gripped the table cloth with both hands.

Mia glanced down at the phone that was showing the video feeds, to be sure this wasn’t a distraction for some other ends.  It didn’t seem rehearsed, at least.  It said more about Natalie than it did about her, that she could see things through that lens.

“No response?” Natalie asked, letting go of the table cloth.  “Coward.”

Mia had to measure out her thoughts before speaking, to be sure she wasn’t causing more problems than she was fixing.  But she felt the need to point out, “Carson told me that he talked to you about you being my bogeyman, for eleven straight years.  I mentioned it, briefly.”

Natalie glared.

“You’re not, anymore.  You’re fading away, Natalie.  To me.  To Ripley.  You’re a…” Mia sighed, searching for phrasing.  “…an insignificant woman, with no career, no hobbies worth talking about, no parenting skills, no passions except for hate.  Nothing to teach except anger, resentment, and that hate.  She doesn’t want that in her life.  She’s good.  I was trying to support something between you two for her sake, to find one thing you were good at, and nurture it.  And this is how you respond.”

“Don’t do me favors.”

“Not you.  It’s for her.  All of it.  Maybe one day you’ll look back on this as a missed opportunity.  That I was doing you a favor, and you let it slip by because you were blinded by hate.”

Natalie met Mia’s eyes. “Have you heard what I did to Davie Cavalcanti?  Or seen pictures or-?”

“Pictures.  Yes.”

“I think of doing worse to you.  I see… a glass, or a salt shaker and I think of picking that thing up and smashing or cutting your face until the improvised tool breaks, and then going, constantly going, until there’s no way anyone would realize there was a face there at all.  In the quiet hours of this fucked up compromise, this fucking hostage situation I’m in, where I can’t act without losing her?  Because she’s still too attached to you?  I think about it.  Over and over again.  I’ll give Sterling extra special attention, and distract myself, engage with him, I try, but then he wants to do something himself, without me right there, or Ripley will be there, or I’ll be working, and then that stops.  It becomes that empty quiet again, where Ripley isn’t in my care, I think about why, about you, and I think about erasing your face from the world with the nearest tools at hand.  It’s addictive at this point.  Or obsessive-compulsive.”

“That would explain the energy Ripley picked up on.”

“I’m in therapy, but-” Natalie made a disgusted sort of snort-laugh, one-note.  “-What the fuck kind of sad-ass band-aid is that on the gaping wound you’ve left in my life?  What the fuck can time in that armchair do when every second she spends with you is salt on open wounds?”

“It can’t hurt, at least,” Mia said.

“I’m waiting,” Natalie said, sitting back.  “Waiting for her to let something slip to a friend, parent, or therapist.  Or for the therapist to get past the fiction and get to the heart of things, and say something that helps her realize.  Waiting for you to slip up and go back to crime, then end up on the wrong side of a bullet.”

“I’m not.  I won’t.”

“You should.  To give me a shot at hearing some news report, telling me you died.  That’d be kind of you.”

“I’m not involved and even when I was, I was excessively careful and steps removed from things.  Davie was an outlier.  Equipped with technology, tools, and reach nobody could have anticipated.”

“So you’re not keeping an eye on things?  The civil warrior situation?”

“I’m watching.  But I’m not involved.”

“You should be.  They’re out of control, growing in number, doing a lot of damage.  Terrorizing people.  You have the tools to do something about it.”

“If that’s an attempt at bait, it’s pretty sad.”

“It’s truth,” Natalie said.  She sighed heavily.  “I’m so fucking tired of this.  Of you.  I’m waiting for the world to put this right. somehow.  Then maybe that wound can start to heal.”

“What if that never happens?” Mia asked.  “What if she goes to therapy enough she feels mostly okay, then stops going… and with everything in order and the therapist’s guidance, she prefers me and Carson to you, still?  If the therapist never realizes.  If I’m too careful?  What if the world is unjust and doesn’t want to put things right?  What if everything settles, she grows up, and looks back on everything, and she still finds you too miserable to be around?  Too focused on keeping that wound open, when she’s tired of pain and hurt?”

“Then maybe I have nothing left to lose,” Natalie said.

“Why does Sterling never get counted?”

“Sterling might prefer Sean to me.  Maybe he notices the wound and maybe I’m bad for him.  If i end up in a position where I’ve really truly lost her, maybe, and I’m not saying it’s certain, because I do think about Sterling, but maybe I might as well flip the table, expose everything, go after you.  If I’ve really truly lost her, there’s nothing holding me back, right?”

Mia took a sip of her wine.

“And you can’t come after me to stop that from happening any more than I can target you.  Because the cost would be losing Ripley.  So if I’m fading?  You should be scared, scrabbling for some way to keep me relevant, to prop me up, give me time with her.  Do whatever you can.  Because I am that spiteful, I am dangerous, the moment I lose her.”

Natalie let out a soft half-chuckle, with zero humor and a fair amount of hate, adding,  “If I have nothing left to lose, if it really comes down to it?  I will scrape your face off this world with her watching.  Most of the parents in this world would break into fucking applause if I did, if they heard about it.  They’d thank me.  I should be ten times the bogeyman because I’m fading.”

Mia wasn’t sure to say about that, so she sat in silence, periodically glancing at her phone.

The waiter came with the food.

He seemed to sense something in the air because he stopped a few paces away from the table.

“Can I get that to go?  A simple cardboard container is fine,” Natalie said.

“Me as well?” Mia asked.  “Something came up.”

The waiter, a bit bewildered, took the dishes as fast as he’d come.

Natalie got her things and stood.  “I’m not pretending you didn’t win.  You won.  You took her and you shaped her into someone who doesn’t even know she’s being used as a hostage, buying my silence. You stole eleven years of time with her and you get a share of the time that remains.  But it goes both ways.  You cornered yourself, too.  You’ll give me time.  You’ll compromise.  You’ll bend over backwards to make sure I don’t fade in importance.  You have to.  That’s the price of your ‘win’.”

Natalie walked over to the bar area and stood by to wait for her food, while Mia remained sitting for a few minutes, finishing her wine, thinking.

Well.

This is untenable.

⯁

Mia, lying propped up in bed with the laptop across one thigh and a pillow, head on Carson’s shoulder, watched the police navigating Camrose.  She had taken off her jeans for comfort, and after she’d rubbed at the tender spot where she’d been shot, he’d taken over.  She appreciated that, as high-libido as he was, when he gave her a foot rub or a massage, he didn’t cheat and try to make that into something else.  On another night, she would have been the one to move his hand to her inner thigh.  Instead, she laid her hand over his, stopping him from massaging the thigh muscle around the wound without quite touching the spot where the bullet had gone in.

“It’s been a week and a half,” Mia said.  “The police and detectives have moved on to other things.  I think it’s time.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait longer?” Carson asked.  “Another week or two, I can be on my feet for more than twenty minutes at a time, I can run, I can drive.”

“Ripley told Blair that she’s doesn’t want to go over to Natalie’s anymore.  That sets a timeline, based on what she said.  If she gets frustrated or upset, she might blow it all up.  I’d rather take steps, control what’s happening, and handle some business on the way out.”

“Okay.”

“Be my ops?”

“I’m game.  I’m itching to get out there and do more, though.  I like how I feel like a badass secret agent when you’re at the helm.”

“There’ll be a lot to do after.  Can you make the call?  We’ll need help, and you’re better at talking to people.”

“Walk me through the plan.”

⯁

The key was to control who was in play.  At a certain hour, there were reduced patrols.  Less cars out on the streets.

Then with one call, timed when a vehicle was in the right area, asking for a welfare check, one car could be pulled away.  Eight thousand dollars bought a hired hand who could delay them further.

Meaning she knew which two cars would arrive, when authorities were called.

She wanted this handled, police tied up in something complicated.  The Civil Warriors were convenient in that way, because they were really predictable, in the broad sense.  She could watch groups online and know when they’d be active, where they met, and what they were doing.  There were buttons that could be pressed to provoke them.

Then, on the smaller scale, they were much more unpredictable.  Messy, even.

Every week they had a hangout.  One girl, Mary Nash, was complaining about forced babysitting on social media.  Every week, members of this subset of the Civil Warriors gathered, to shoot the shit, plan, organize.  It was more a guy thing, so others stayed out of the way.  Some of the wives hung out on their own.

Mia dialed, then put her phone to her ear.

“911, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“Children with a gun.  Just down the street.”

“What street, ma’am?”

“Gateway Avenue, they’ve-”

“Units are on their way.”

“-they’ve been partying and drinking for hours, I wouldn’t-” she put an intentional quaver in her voice, as if she was a little older.  It was easy, because she was a bit nervous, being this close to the field.  “-normally make a big deal of that, but there were gunshots, and I think I saw some younger children with a handgun.  The adults were laughing.”

“Alright, ma’am.  Can I get your name and address?”

“Shauna Waldrop, 1322 Gateway Avenue.”

Shauna wasn’t home.  But a police presence would bring people outdoors.  It would muddle things.

“And your number, please?”

Mia recited the number.  “-seven-five-zero-eight.  I don’t want to make a fuss.  I don’t want to get involved or get on the wrong side of them as a neighbor.  They’re rough people, but if children are involved, I have to speak up, don’t I?”

“It’s good you called.”

On her laptop, she messaged others.  Carson.  Rosales.

“When you say they are rough people, what do you mean?”

“They were rioting a few weeks ago.  They had signs with the smiley faces and the ‘boo’, which seems so silly to me, but apparently it’s a gang thing?”

“One moment, ma’am.”

“I really don’t want to be involved if they’re dangerous like that.”

“One moment, please.”

Mia hung up.

She turned off the phone, then drove around the block.

She slowed as she passed the house, made sure nobody was up and looking out the window.  Latex glove on, she threw a handgun through the window and onto the lawn.  It would be in plain view.

That would be excuse enough.

Back at home, Carson would be managing communication.  Phone calls to specific numbers would, like bombs in the movies, rigged to go off if a phone call was made, would activate devices.  Not bombs, but signal jammers, across both ends of Camrose.

Limiting how many police arrived, among other aspects of this.  Because Mia wanted the response to be immediate but insufficient, at least at first.  To maximize the chaos.  For people to be rushed.

People were so reliant on phones.  Losing those would make the feeling of being out of control worse.

Circling around, Mia parked beside Rosales and Rosales’ minivan.  Rosales might have been one of The Kids, but she’d dressed up.  She wore a suit jacket and shirt, hair in a low ponytail, a bit messy.

Rosales flashed a smile.

“Keep an eye out.”

The police came from the other direction, stopping outside the house.  Two cars.  The dispatcher would be having trouble getting a hold of others.

One car was younger officers from the city, moved out to Camrose to fill a need.  One had gotten a concussion while playing sports during the strike and Mia suspected that had something to do with him being sent to Camrose.  Where things, unique instances of a school bombing or trap-ridden house aside, were calmer.  The other was just new.

If something went terribly wrong, Mia had other plans.  Riskier.

But for now, the officers were engaging with the rougher elements of the Civil Warrior group.

Mia picked up the phone, dialed Rosales.  The pickup was immediate.  “Now.  You’ll see them outside.  Two officers.”

Rosales exhaled audibly across the phone line.  Visibly, Mia could see, where she was parked across the street and around the corner.  Mia put her earbuds in.

As more officers arrived, Rosales got out of the car, approached the junior officers, clipboard in hand.  Mia could hear her.

“They were saying they couldn’t get in touch with you.”

“A woman that lives here called.  Shauna Waldorp?  Waldrop.  1322 Gateway.”

“She called emergency.  Yeah.”

“Have you done a walkthrough of the house?”

“We can barely get in the front door.  They’re crowding us.  They’re drunk, belligerent.  We backed out because more bodies crowding in there wasn’t helping.”

“Have you handled a case like this before, kids involved on this level?”

“No.”

“Yes.  Wasn’t this messy.”

“Okay, so number one priority, as you guys get control over the situation, has to be getting the kids somewhere safe.  If you guys are getting into the house while things are still wild, maybe you get them outside, pass them to us.  We handle that, you go back to helping your colleagues.  When you can, do a walkthrough, look for the weapons that were described.  Might be a toy, might not.  Any drugs or alcohol out in the open where kids could access it.  When things are calmer and settled, we’ll handle a walkthrough of our own.  We have a checklist.  More mundane stuff.  Too many kids in a room, cleanliness, et cetera.”

“According to one woman, they have a regular family gathering, the adults drink, but they have enough babysitters, kids are fed, happy, healthy, having one big sleepover.”

“Okay.  Um.  There’s still the danger of the gun.  On our end, our immediate priority, is going to be getting the kids to the hospital, we’ll pass them on to Eve there.  She can do swabs for gunpowder, drugs, tests.  Make sure they aren’t malnourished.  From there, they go back home unless there’s clear signs of abuse, drug exposure, gunpowder, that sort of thing.”

Mia had the sense that Rosales had lost her stride right at the beginning, there, but she’d found the script again.  She texted Rosales a reminder about one bit of the script she’d skipped over.

“Oh, um,” Mia watched from a distance as Rosales checked her phone.  “A colleague is asking if there’s gang affiliation.  The woman who called said so.”

“Confederate flags, signage, guns, militia affiliation.  They’re deep into the Civil Warrior shit.  Oh, sorry.”

Rosales smiled, laughing, then touched the officer’s arm.  She was young, she was pretty, the officer was young.  It was a good move.  One Mia never would have been able to pull off.  She intimidated most men.  Rosales finished laughing and said, “I’ve heard worse than that, working with kids in bad situations.”

Rosales went back to her car, picking up some paperwork, and filled it out to look busy.

Mia could hear the officers through the microphone in the metal portion of the clipboard.

“God damn and a half, why haven’t we heard about her before?”

“She was touching my arm but smiling at you.  What signal is that meant to send?”

More officers arrived, and they found the gun as they went around the back, because the front hall was so jammed with people.  One officer came back around to get the evidence bag and then carried it out to the car.  At that point, things got raucous, inside.

The officer who’d put the evidence in the back of the car stopped to check in with Rosales.  Spookier.

“I already checked in with those guys,” Rosales said.  “We can drop the kids off with Eve at the hospital, circle back, do the walkthrough?”

“I don’t know you.”

“I’m from downtown, I started a year and a half ago.  Sandra.”

“Hmmm.  Heard of you.”

“Should I take that as a compliment or an insult?”

“Hah.  Gotta go.”

When Mia had been tracking the movements of the various officers and entities around Camrose, she’d paid attention to child services.  Sandra was an employee downtown, but she worked from home most days and worked in-office other days.  Mostly handling paperwork and child services’ scheduling around the family court.

It was all convenient.  The young officers, the existence of Sandra.  But it was a convenience she’d dug for, worked for, and shaped, by controlling how communication flowed over the evening.

The situation inside got harder handle when the kids were led outside.  People were shouting, calling out for their kids, which made kids upset.  Officers had to hold them back.

At that point, Mia pulled up.

Rosales charmed the officers, while Mia sorted out the upset and spooked kids, then brought out paperwork, for more distraction.  Once the officers saw she was older and taller than them, she faded in importance.

A clipboard, confidence, enough paperwork and procedures to sound legitimate to someone who had a little bit of experience, and a healthy dose of distraction and pressure.

Four kids in the van Rosales was driving.

Mia closed the door.

A toddler in the car seat with a pink onesie, along with the little girl the one Civil Warrior had brought to the riot outside the Cavalcanti place.  Upset.

Mia reached back and smoothed the girl’s hair with her hand.  “It’s okay.  You’re safe.”

With that, the girl seemed a little less upset.

They pulled away.

Rosales called.

Was there a problem?

Mia connected her earbuds to the phone, then answered.  The streetlights weren’t all operational, and Mia’s car and its passengers were intermittently plunged into deep darkness, then brighter light as they drove down the street.  Not speeding, not not slow either.

“I’m here,” Mia responded.  “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.  I’m off to the hospital now.  I’ll drop off the kids.”

“Good.  Watch out for the cameras.”

“I wanted to know, was there a placement opportunity?”

Mia was silent, considering.

“There’s not enough room at the hospital or in care.  The gun thing is going to take a while to resolve.  Do I keep one in custody?”

“Can you give them better care than they’d have, otherwise?”

“Think so.”

“Let’s talk about it later.”

“So I hold onto the one?”

“…Yeah.  Without getting any hopes up.  We’ll talk.  Plan.”

“Awesome.  Thanks.”

That ‘awesome’ made Mia feel uneasy.

A message, now.  From Carson.  It appeared on her phone, where her phone was mounted by the radio.

Strange traffic ahead.  Turn in two rights.

That was bad.  Had the officer Rosales talked to tipped someone off?  Were they now scrambling?  Had a call gotten through, when someone left the dead zone around a cell signal scrambler?

She turned at the second right.  Onto a narrower road.

Another message from Carson.

Turn at next right, stop, hide the car, cut through the woods.

That next right came fast.  She turned, drove between trees, where they were spaced out enough for the car, and got out.

She hit the buttons to call him.  Texts weren’t working.

“They’re moving to block off both ends of the road you’re on now.  I had to send you this way.  Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” she said.  “Is it police?  Cavalcantis?  Civil Warriors backing up their friends?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want to go home,” the little girl told Mia.

“I know, honey,” she said.  “That’s what we’re working on.”

She unbuckled the car seat.

“Mia, you might need to leave the kids.  To move faster.”

No.

She wouldn’t leave them in a car when the weather was cooling like it was.  They’d freeze if they weren’t found, and she didn’t trust that they’d be found.

She held the car seat in one hand, the girl in the other.  A small hand clutched at the lapels of her suit jacket.

Into the woods.  It felt like an echo of carrying Bryan to safety.  Being careful not to hit him with branches.  Weaving through trees.  Burdened.

The  plan had been to get them out.  Mia and Carson had time and money, so she could care for them, maintaining a separate residence.  She needed to do this before she put other plans into motion.

A downhill slope.  She moved carefully.

“It’s too dark,” the little girl said.

“Do you want to know a trick for seeing in the dark?” Mia asked.  “You’re better at seeing things you’re not looking directly at.  Can you give it a try?”

This had been something that had to happen before getting out, and she’d been rushed, because Ripley was preparing to cut ties, and Mia couldn’t guess how Natalie would react after those ties were cut.

And then she had to get out, get Ripley, and do so in a way that didn’t ruin her relationship with Ripley.  So the plan she’d outlined to Carson was that they’d do this, secure the kids somewhere, and then, not long after, she would send a message under the guise of being Natalie, to the therapist, outing them.  Scuttling everything.

Which wasn’t a lie or manipulation- Natalie had threatened just that.  The key difference was that Mia was controlling the narrative.  She’d send it prematurely, framing it in a different way.  Timed, so Ripley could know what was going on, Natalie’s part in it, and cut ties with Natalie.  Sean too, by extension.

It was awful.  There would be so much hurt.  But the situation was untenable.  Natalie was too unpredictable, too dangerous.

If she waited, it would be too much harder, people would be looking for her.  She wouldn’t be able to hide in Camrose, getting food delivered, waiting.

So Mia would rescue these kids from a life with the worst sorts of people.  Maybe she’d all with Rosales, taking Rosales under her wing.  That was… it was very sudden, unanticipated, but it could be good.  She’d need Carson to give her a read on the girl.  Then she’d scuttle Natalie, and get her family out.

If she could get out of here, first.

Get out, get clear of Camrose.  Find a more tenable situation, and give things time.  Time to heal.  Time to acclimatize.  See how Ripley dealt.  How things worked out.  Shape people’s perception of the situation.

Maybe, down the line, she would introduce these two to Ripley and Tyr.  Until then, Ripley would still be in school, she’d still have activities, and a life.

She paused, putting the car seat down, and checked her phone.  Carson was her operator.  He should have been giving direction and updates.

No signal.

The forest might as well have been on fire, because she felt like there was no oxygen in these woods.  Breath froze in her lungs and throat.

The green of the leaves and pines overhead felt otherworldly, with the way the moonlight lit it up.  It felt too late in the evening, like it should be darker, the colors muted.

She wasn’t in a dead zone for cell signal.

When she resumed moving, it was with a different pace and focus.  Warier.

A path had naturally formed in the woods, probably more from woodland animals than from humans, but she did see some beer cans and a discarded t-shirt.  Some younger adults had probably hiked up this way to sit on the rocks overlooking Camrose.  Drink.  Make out.

Something she’d never really enjoyed.  She’d fallen and it felt like pieces of her life had been dashed on that forest floor on the other side of the country, and they’d lingered as gaping holes in her life.  Amnesia, but for skills, not memories… but it felt like she’d had amnesia for the later stuff.  Gaps and lived experiences a person was meant to have, that she’d skipped over or been denied.  The dating and romance part of a relationship.  Bearing a child inside her.

She avoided that natural path, but she watched it.  And sure enough, she saw a climbable tree with low branches, and she saw a camera.  A different brand than the one she liked.

Her headache found its clawed holds on the back of her brain, digging into her raw ability to function.  She felt like an automaton, dragging herself forward, while a terrible sadness took hold.  Like the headache was digging one clawed thumb or gnawing fang into her emotional centers and leaving a black, awful sort of melancholy.

A feeling of loss, or knowing she’d lost.  The same sort of feeling a parent might feel holding a child that was slated to die in a matter of hours.

“Hands up.”

Rider.

She put the car seat down, then, with both hands free, the girl.

She walked away a few steps.

“You stay right there, okay?  You’re safe, you’re going right home as soon as we clear up this misunderstanding.  Okay?” Rider asked.  “I work with the police.”

The girl nodded.

“You were watching me?”

“I was,” Ben said.

He was off to the side, also armed.

Camera in his fucking pocket.  Because of course there was.

“He called me,” Rider said.

“I need you to get on your knees.  Arms straight out behind you, fingers splayed, palms toward the ground.

“The Civil Warriors are a mixed group, but even the best of them aren’t great,” Mia said.

“Kneel.”

She did.

“Arms straight out behind you.”

“They’re ugly people who do violence.  Or they condone the violence of people near them.  Racists.  Homophobes.  They hurt and terrorize people.  Are you okay with that?”

“Palms toward the ground.”

“They’re misogynists.  People who beat down others to make themselves feel bigger.  The dad of the toddler there has prior arrests for drug use and domestic violence.  The father of the older girl had allegations from past girlfriends, one allegation of sexual violence, but she backed out after his friends terrorized her online.”

“I talked to him.  He’s got a new outlook on life after having a daughter.”

“Fuck that.  That’s not even halfway to being enough!” Mia raised her voice.  “How are they going to raise those kids?  To hate?  To serve men?”

“You don’t get to make the call,” Ben said.

“We took six kids.  Four were supposed to go to other homes, proper schools.  These two are young enough, they can learn something better.  They can learn!  Out of those six kids, four are homeschooled or ‘unschooled’, or they’re in daycare run by family who pull that shit.  And the fifth is still in diapers, but you know it’ll be the same!  We’re okay with that!?”

“It’s not your call,” Ben said, approaching.

“Why the hell not!?” she asked, twisting around to one side.  She had a better view of Rider than Ben.

“If she moves like that again, Ben, be ready to shoot her.  We’ve both seen her tear a grown man apart.”

“Why can’t we say that’s not good enough?  They’re denying kids opportunities, growth, a life?  They’re going to be shitty wives in kitchens, doing every lick of work needed to run the house, because that’s what their parents lived!  They’re going to grow up with hatred instilled in them!”

“Maybe,” Ben said.  “But where do you draw the line?”

“I draw the line at being disgusting, ignorant, sleazy people who only do harm!  At being racist or homophobic!  I could show you the online activity of the fathers of these two.  Things they’d say about you, Benito.  Your family.”

“I don’t trust you to make that judgement call.”

“I will show you!  Trust the evidence, or, wait, no, you don’t care about that.  You’re willing to twist the facts to suit your little movie.”

“Almost shot you, when you jerked around like that.”

“You don’t want to shoot me on camera, right?  That wouldn’t look so good.  Or would you edit that out, add another little fiction?”

The handcuffs clicked into place.

Ankle restraints clicked around her ankles.

“Stand,” Rider said, gripping the chain.  “Get the kids, Ben?”

The walk to get out of the woods was a slog.  They wouldn’t listen or engage.  Her footsteps had to be short, which was awkward on uneven ground, and her thigh began hurting.  A dull pain that she knew was meant to be sharper and deeper.

Out of the trees, onto road, brightly lit by streetlights.  Two police cars were parked, lights flashing, siren off.  Members of the family of Civil Warriors stood by.

Natalie had been invited to watch.

“Natalie gets some of the credit,” Ben said.

Mia’s head turned.

Ben shrugged one shoulder.  “You mentioned the child you saw with the Civil Warriors.  More than once.  She remembered it.  We talked it out.  The way she put it, you’re either a fraud, which is one thing, or you wouldn’t be able to let it go.  You downplayed it to me.  I even believed you.  Natalie got me thinking about it again.”

Natalie answered a question from an officer, nodded, then dabbed at the corner of one eye with a tissue.

“I tracked them down, same way you did, probably.  Then kept an eye on things.  Then, a bit down the line, there you were.  Setting up, doing slow drives through the neighborhood.”

He walked her up the steep slope to the edge of the road.

Officers were ready to take her in.

“How’d you do with the other woman with the kids?” Rider asked.

“Got ’em.  I think she drove into the area of that cell jammer.  The guy in the apartment-”

“Carson Hurst.”

“-couldn’t contact her.  She tried to drive around us, hit the spike strip.  She’s in custody.  Kids are safe.”

“And Carson?” Rider asked.

“In custody.  He wasn’t moving very fast or very far.”

“They’d be better off with me,” Mia told Ben.  “I think you know that.  I think you know that if you saw what these people are like online, the crimes this very group participated in, the sort of things they carried out after meetings like the one they were having tonight?  You’d lose sleep.  So you don’t want to look.  You know if I go to jail, and you check in on those two, in five years, ten, twenty, you’ll find them living dismal, stagnant, aborted lives, filled with violence, from men like their fathers, and violence done by them, to people who don’t deserve it.”

“You don’t get to make the call.”

“That’s not an argument,” she told him.

“It’s fact.”

“What happens to Tyr?” she asked.

“What do you think?” Rider asked her.  “Get in the car.  Watch your head.”

“That’s a good question to have asked yourself before all of this,” Ben said.

She didn’t duck down, and they weren’t in a great position to make her.  “You aren’t right here, Ben.  And you’re not quite dumb enough to think you are, either.  You know.”

A cop pulled out the handheld taser.  He pressed the button and electricity buzzed between the contacts.

She got in.

Natalie had approached, and she seemed ready to deliver some biting line or say something.  But she didn’t.  She smiled a bit, eyes wet with- she didn’t seem happy, so it wasn’t happy tears.  Relief?

Rider closed the door.

The last Mia saw, twisting around in the too-small space of the back of the cop car, hands behind her, making sitting awkward, Ben and Natalie hugged.  Celebrating.

She shivered, settling into a slumped position across the back seat, taking it all in.  Something was off.  It took her long moments, her mind racing… then finding there wasn’t anything to take into account.  There were no good options or resources to tap.  She realized what was so off.

The anxiety had stilled.  From head to toe, from every muscle to every nerve, it was like a sudden silence after a deafening roar, louder, somehow, than the years-long roaring had been.

---

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter