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In a way, the world Mia dwelt in now fit the world she had been living in for the last decade.  All of the anxiety, all of the worry, feeling as though every set of eyes carried some latent hostility… all of that remained the same now, unchanged except for the fact that it now made objective sense.

She’d had to leave her cell.  It was small enough that it would have been cramped with two women.  It had four.  Marilyn, who some inmates affectionately called ‘Valley Girl’ for some reason Mia hadn’t yet worked out, did not shower until the guards made her, which was once every few weeks, and Mia had her suspicions the woman didn’t use toilet paper.  She slept on the bottom bunk, which, if the cot sagged enough, rested on the floor.  She didn’t like being touched, which was not the best thing when they were crammed into a space.

Mia had sympathy for ‘Valley Girl’ Marilyn.  Either the woman hadn’t had parents to raise her right, or something had happened to her.  So she gave the woman space, and grace.

The old woman was the hardest to deal with, really, in bunk two.  Alternately called Mamita or Elena by other prisoners, she was elderly and dealt with the smell by using heavily scented hand lotion, soaps, and perfumes.  It didn’t cover up the smell.  It magnified it, and made it floral.  Lavender.  And she was almost always in the cell.  Wake up, eat and shower, or shower and eat, depending on the day and the schedule they were in, because the cafeteria was smaller than the inmate population, and then she’d spend half an hour with her group before coming here, using all her scents, urinating, which smelled like the piss of a hundred healthy women, slicing right past the lavender, and sleeping until the next meal, waking up and pissing again, reapplying smells, and so on.

Then Mia, in the third bunk.  She couldn’t turn sideways in bed without her shoulder and arm brushing the metal netting of the bunk above.

And then Adele, who was young, eighteen or nineteen, had mouthed off to a guard to try to look tougher than she was, and gotten stuck in this cell, which might have been intended as a punishment.  She spent a lot of time whining, and talking about her history with her boyfriend.  Not to Mia, but with a few of the other younger women in their block, who seemed to be losing patience with her.  She wasn’t in the cell much.  When she was, she whined about the smells, and every jostling of the bed.

Either way, Mia had needed to get out, because a headache was mounting from the lavender scents.  Even if it multiplied the danger she was in.  Within her cell, she had one angle to watch- the door.  Out here, she was vulnerable from two or three directions, depending on how close she was to another cell.

Now Adele was following Mia to the library.  Which wasn’t usual.  Adele wasn’t a library goer, and she didn’t cling to Mia.  Just the opposite.

Mia’s fellow inmates had made it clear that she had no friends here.  Maybe it would have been possible, but they watched her with angry eyes and gave a hard time to anyone who talked to her.  People had gotten the message, and now nobody approached her.  The book cart skipped her, which was why she was walking to the library.

Their feet banged on the catwalk, joining that cacophony of noise that filled the prison, so she could hear if Adele suddenly started running at her, to close the gap.  Every person who was standing in the doorway of a cell was a potential threat, now.  Doubly so, with Adele behind Mia like this.  If someone was aware of Adele and Mia’s approach, Mia had to figure it out.  Were they about to grab her, push her toward the railing?  That would be how she’d do it.  Adele could help, or use the fact Mia was trying not to fall to stab her in the lower back.

The end of the catwalk had a spiral staircase, enclosed in wire mesh, all coated in rust prevention black.

There was a door that could swing closed at the bottom, used to limit movements in case of any issues.  It was normally locked, and the lock was missing.

Mia pulled on the railing for the extra boost, and for balance, as she stepped past two stairs, stepped on another, and then skipped past another two stairs.  The door swung shut, and she kicked it, hard.

“Inmates!  Do not move!  Do not touch that door!”

Adele came down the stairs double-time, more careful than Mia had been, while Mia fell back against stairs, pulled herself to her feet, and found the woman who’d been closing the door had friends on standby.

Adele’s wider group.  Or the group she wanted to belong to.

Three women weren’t able to push that door shut, but they could keep Mia from getting out.  Leaving her to deal with Adele.  Adele held an improvised blade, a pink safety razor with a larger razor melted into it.

At the bottom of an enclosed staircase with a blocked door.

“You know I can’t see my daughter for the next fifteen years?”

“Longer, after this.  What does that have to do with me?”  If she could buy time with this back and forth, and Adele’s clear lack of courage, maybe the C.O.s would come.

“You took kids from their mother?  You don’t deserve to live.  Nobody here thinks you deserve to live.”

“I rescued them from a shit situation.  The cops were arresting their parents.  You don’t have the full story.”

“Bullshit.”

“You-”

Mia ducked as Adele swung that weapon.  It was more a weapon to slice a throat with, if the target was unaware.  Here, with bars on either side, she couldn’t swing very hard or far.

Mia motioned like she was going to grab for the weapon after one swing, then went low.  Adele’s foot was on one step ahead of her, and Mia was in position to grab for it.  Adele pulled her leg back, but her flip-flop caught on the stair, and Mia got a grip, hauling Adele off her feet.

She’d hoped the young woman would drop her weapon, but she didn’t, so Mia took a step back, pulling her down a step.  The back of the girl’s head cracked against the metal of the next stair down.

In the process, Mia had leaned back against the door.  Someone stabbed, scraping her lower back, but the angle, pelvis further forward than head and shoulder, still holding the girl’s leg, meant they couldn’t reach through enough to get any depth.  Sudden pain in her shoulder and at the base of her neck told her that they had shifted to stab her there instead.

The C.O.s on the ground floor began to deal with that crew.  One hurried to re-attach the lock, sealing the door shut.

Mia got two cuts on the forearm before getting a firm grip on Adele’s weapon arm.  Another grip on her neck- she was able to lift the petite girl.

In frame, she reminded Mia of Natalie.

“You four couldn’t set up a better chance than this for Adele?  Or were you trying to get rid of her while convincing her she had a shot?” Mia asked.  Then, to Adele.  “You could have cut my throat while I slept.  You’d have gotten further, and you’d be in the same position you are now.”

“Should’ve.”

Mia told herself not to strangle.  Instead, hauling, she pulled Adele to her feet, and walked her up the stairs.

Adele struggled, kneed Mia, scuffing legs with flip-flops, and clawed with her one free hand, while Mia struggled to limit the amount of clawing by holding onto and pulling on her sleeve.  She ended up having to hold Adele down against the stairs, instead of carrying her.

Until a C.O., coming from the far end of the upstairs catwalk, intervened.  Mia waited until they’d taken the blade, then released the girl.

“Solitary, all six of them.”

“Seven,” another C.O. said.  They had a friend block me from getting here.  We can divide some of them into cells.”

Not very solitary, is it?

“I was walking to the library.  I didn’t-”

“No.  Solitary, until we know what’s going on, and why.”

Mia stepped back, hands raised, nodding, breathing hard, still bleeding in several places.  “Infirmary first?”

Solitary first.

They took her into a cell that was smaller than the one she had spent the last month calling home, but more spacious without three other people living in it.  No toilet, just a metal door, concrete painted in thick, nauseating yellow, and a stained mattress with a sheet.

They brought the infirmary to her, bandaged what was bleeding, asked their questions, and then shut the door, while they figured things out.

The biggest issue with prison was the lack of space to think.  Too many people, too much demanding her wariness and attention.  It was boring, but of an unpleasant sort, that meant she couldn’t think or plan.

Hours stretched on.  A tray with food and water was pushed through the slot near the ground.

“Can you let me know if-”

The slot closed.  The person who was delivering the food moved on.

She focused her anxieties elsewhere.  The door had a lip at the edges she could get her fingers over.  There was a vent close to the ceiling.

It was a kind of wide pull-up, with one hand slightly higher than the other.  But it was something.  Ten reps.  Drop to the floor.  Rest, focus on awareness of her own body, potential injury.  Her fingertips had been abraded by sticking them through the wiring of the vent.

Then ten more reps.  A rest.  Ten more reps.

Then the same thing, but backwards.  Leg lifts, push-ups, planking for the core exercise, squats.

It had to be nighttime, but she couldn’t tell.  She washed at the inset sink, then slept.

When the tray came through for the morning, it was empty.  Her shouts were answered with a laugh.

It would be a few days.

⯁

She’d never had to confront the state of things more than when she was an inmate under the state.

Her fingertips were bleeding again.  She’d cut them, using the vent and metal doorframe to exercise, and they were scarring over, but it was inconsistent.

“Hurst!  Move your ass!”

She picked up the arms of the wheelbarrow.

In the end, it had been five days in solitary, while they took their time investigating the issue.  Twice, she’d been visited and asked the same questions, sometimes from slightly different angles, or with details changed.  She’d received only half her meals, and that had gotten to her more than she liked to admit.  She’d focused on her mind palaces, and, exhausted from the lack of stimulation, her mind kept going back to Ripley, and conversations they’d had.

Now she was outside, out in the open, hauling fencing material.  In her case, loads of gravel.  She had to be wary again, aware of individual prisoners, aware that trouble could come from any direction, including behind her, but checking over her shoulder every five seconds made her look weak, and made her a target. She reserved her energy and focus for those who had shovels, and mentally mapped out which prisoner belonged to which group.

It was cold out, maybe sixty degrees, and the uniforms they’d been provided were insufficient.  Not so bad she was freezing, but as hours ticked on and she was doing the labor, her joints hurt, and old injuries reminded her of the past.

The mentality from the government in power was that there was justice in this, in any suffering.  They made prisoners sweat in the heat and freeze in the cold, and would leave them outside without masks if the smoke was bad.  So she suffered.  The cold was as bad as either of the other two.

The whistle blew, and everyone filed inside.

“Hurst.  Visitor,” a C.O. told her, as she passed.

“Thank you.”

She wanted to ask who, but she doubted she’d get an answer, and some of her focus was reserved for watching out for trouble.  If she’d get in trouble anyway, she’d have to be more brutal with the next person to come at her.  She might pay for it in the short term, but she could discourage people later.

When the line of prisoners reached the right point of the hallway, she joined those who were going to the visitor’s area, approaching the plexiglass enclosed stall with one C.O. within, and a gate beside it.  They checked her name and number, then let her through.

The area for visitors was cafeteria-like, and from the smell of it, and the traces of food that hadn’t yet been cleaned up, was an overflow area for the prisoners.  Mia smiled as she saw the face at one table.  It gave her a halfhearted smile back.

“What name are you going by?” she asked.

“Gio.”

Gio looked healthy.  Slightly tanned, black hair tied back into a loose ponytail.  She’d lost a little weight, but still had those wide hips.  Gio had worn a nice dress-style top that came a fair way down, with jeans, with crimping at the collar and some flourish around the shoulders and sleeves, which suited her nicely.  She did know her way around fashion.  Mia was proud.

Mia could smell something that was a bit like mowed grass and earth.

Gio.

“Back to that.  Okay.  I love the top.”

“Thank you.  I love it too.”

“I was worried about you.”

Gio gave her that halfhearted smile back.  “I’m okay.  I’m great, even.”

“Can I ask where you are?  Where did you go?  The roommate?”

“No.  If I’m being entirely honest, that wasn’t ever a plan.”

“Oh really?”

“It was cover.  So I could cut ties and move away.”

That stung.  The smile fell off Mia’s face.  “I’m sorry.  That you had to do that.  Was it because you were moving away from the violence, and everything that happened, or because you were moving away from me?  The family?”

Gio frowned, looking like she was considering her response.

“I see.  No need to say it, then.”

“I- it’s a mix.  I know my brother didn’t survive the night you were at the house, rescuing Rip.  It’s hard to get past that.  I know it was Davie’s fault, he set the fire.  I know things were chaotic…”

Gio trailed off.  She briefly met Mia’s eyes, then looked away.

“It was our fault too.  The gas.  We let him know he should get away, we offered our help.  But things got desperate, we were cornered, because Rip wouldn’t leave without Natalie, and we used the gas,” Mia said, quiet.  She shifted position.  “Maybe he couldn’t move that fast.  Maybe he was too pressured by Davie or more a prisoner than it seemed.  I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” Gio said.  She paused, frowning.  “It’s hard to get past.”

Falling back to that.

Mia explained, “It was a desperate, ugly fight.  I’m not proud, I didn’t want it.  I don’t fault you for moving away, or having hard feelings about it.  I want you happy.”

“I… think you do.  But I also I think you’re possessive,” Gio said.  “Sorry, I’m saying this awkwardly, but I recited pieces of it to myself in my head for a while, before coming, and it’s hard to get straight.  You’re good to- I don’t want to say ‘your possessions’.  That’s not right.”

“No.”

“Those you’re possessive of.  Which included me.  You jumped straight to assuming the role of parent.  It was weird.”

Mia shook her head a little.  “I didn’t mean to… convey that.  To weird you out.  I think I wanted to jump straight into the new identity, so there was less chance Rip and Tyr overheard anything unusual.  I wish you’d told me, I could have toned it back.”

“You’re scary.  Scary enough it’s hard to tell you things.”

Mia frowned.  Her hands were still stiff from the outside work, and she, hands clasped together, cracked knuckles.  After a few seconds, she nodded.  “If I am, I didn’t want to be scary to you.  I wanted to be scary for you.”

Gio fell quiet.

“I have Tyr,” Gio mentioned.

Mia sat up a bit.  “Carson mentioned that, in a message to me.”

“We’re with the horse piss ranchers.  He’s a little cowboy now.  He loves it all.  Obviously, he misses you, he has a hard time with that.  I don’t know if you have plans to… resolve any of this.  To get out, come get Tyr anytime soon.”

Mia nodded slowly.  She smiled.

Except, for all that the image of Tyr as a little cowboy made her smile, Gio was studying her carefully.  When Mia didn’t say anything, Gio said, “Ripley’s with Sean.  She and Natalie had a fight.  Ripley’s saying she won’t see Natalie until Natalie chills out.  Which everyone is interpreting as a bit of a break, Natalie gets therapy, and then they’ll try again.”

“Okay.  Good, I think?”

“Are you planning on getting out?” Gio asked.

Still pushing along those lines.

“It would be nice,” Mia said.  She looked at her damaged fingertips.

“What happened there?”

“Solitary.  Trying to stay fit and while away the hours.”

“They mentioned you were in when I last called.  I saw Carson a couple weeks ago, I took a few days to think, then tried to reach you, but they said you weren’t available, you’d gotten in a fight.  That you’d be out sometime this past weekend.  I asked what day had the least visitors, they said a Tuesday.  So here I am.”

So today was a Tuesday.  Okay.

A couple was bickering at a table across the room, loud.  Some heads turned.

Gio was frowning, and looked down at her hands.  She had a bit of dirt under one nail.  She picked it out, then brushed it off the table.

The argument escalated.  A guard walked over.

“I thought there’d be booths, each of us with a phone, plexiglass between us?”

“Budget cuts.  And they really don’t care that much about my well being.  Or yours.”

“Spook.”

The C.O.s separated the couple.  One shown the door, the other directed back to her cell.  They shouted, and the nature of the space made the shouting feel a bit impotent.

Mia wasn’t sure how to resume the conversation.  Gio didn’t seem to either.  Mia could smell old ketchup, from when this space had been used as a lunchroom.  An odor she despised.

The door banged as the argumentative woman was escorted out.  The guy carried on shouting from the hallway.

It was Gio who spoke up first.  “I know I don’t have a right to ask, after saying I was leaving, pulling away…”

“You’ve been fair.  It was our failure to help your brother.  If you were mad, or vengeful, I wouldn’t blame you.  I really did try to get him to come with us.”

“I know.  Carson mentioned that.  I was saying, it would be nice, to know if I should, um, look out, I guess.  Can I or should I bond with Tyr?  Or should I assume you’ll show up and try to take him away?  Will you come and want to take me away?”

“If you’re happy where you are, I won’t come for you,” Mia said, leaving the topic of Tyr aside.

“I’m happy where I am,” Gio said.  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what we contribute to the world.  What that gets us.  I like being a helper, providing things people need.  I think that’s important, putting something good out there.  It’s something my dad didn’t do.  He was the opposite.”

“It sounds healthy.”

“It’s hell out there and it’s getting worse.  We need healthy.  We need to do the opposite of what we’re doing.  And maybe what I’m doing is too small to matter, maybe I’m a burden, even, but… I want to feel like I’m moving things the other way.”

“It sounds like you are.  It really does sound good.”

Gio paused, clearly considering her words, then added, “Tyr is happy where he is too.”

“Is there a boy?  Interested in you?  Carson insinuated, but…”

“There’s a boy.  Carson pointed him out a while back, when I first met that group.  His instincts were right.”

“They usually are.  Carson was alright?”

“Not a hundred percent.”

“He’s still sick?”

“Still dealing with side effects of that, I guess.”

“He didn’t mention it to me.”

“I… don’t think he’s the type to?”

“It’s been months,” Mia whispered, mostly to herself.

“Yeah.  I know.  I guess, aside from that, he’s as alright as anyone in prison can be.  Not moving fast but he’s okay.  Happy to talk to me.  I went to him first, a bit like a test run before this.  And I think I understand him better.  I connected with him more.”

Mia didn’t love hearing that, but she could push those feelings down.

“He’s easy to bond with, but I’m surprised you say you understand him.  I was married to him for five years and I find him a bit perplexing, still.”

“Carson and I were talking.  I’m still waiting for the day the mental images and stuff in my head start feeling like a bad dream.  Some days, they feel more real than reality.  I think Ripley and Tyr are wrestling with stuff too.”

Mia nodded.  “Makes sense.”

“And I’m tired of things hanging over my head.  You’re one of those things.  Sorry.  I don’t want to worry every day that you’re going to come up and mess up the trust I’m building with these people, or if enemies will come after you, or…”

“I have no strict plans to get out anytime soon.”  No escape plan.

“Carson thought you would have one.”

“That’s his misplaced trust in me, I think.  I… if I’m entirely honest, you were my plan.”

Gio’s eyebrows drew together a bit.  Concern?

Mia explained, checking there weren’t any listening ears close by.  “The process is smooth.  I can give you some names, already on the app, you can contact them, give them our basic information.  The rest falls into place.  Fund them, I’ll pay you back, you can take the full amount in that account as payment and a parting gift.  You can drop off Tyr for Carson and I, we’ll take him and go.  No pain, no hassle, no collateral damage.”

Gio shook her head slightly, eyes on the table.

“You’d have to stay off the radar for a short while.  But hopefully seven figures would help make that easier to bear?  I know money can’t replace your brother-”

“I never had him.  As a brother.  We… barely bonded.  It’s not that.”

“Then… not your brother, but the opportunity to know him, in a world after Davie.  Unless Davie is why you’re upset?  I understand those things can be complicated.”

“No.  No, that, at least, isn’t too complicated.  That was good.  Was it really Natalie?  That wasn’t cover for you or… something?”

Mia nodded.  “I have to assume it was Natalie.”

“Huh.”

Mia really wanted to push, to say something, but she made herself stop.  Gave Gio the space.

Gio ventured, “If something messy happened, like you getting out, or taking Tyr, the horse piss ranchers would be upset.  Or if I helped you get out, and it led trouble to the rancher’s doorstep.  I might lose everything I’m finally getting and building,” Gio said.  “I don’t think I can help you get out.”

That didn’t feel like the whole reason.

“I’ve spent the last few months wondering about things.  Playing things back in my head, over and over,” Gio said.

“Me too.”

“And I’m here to… I guess-”

“Make sure none of that is hanging over your head?”

“Um, yeah,” Gio said.  She sighed.  “But also to explain my reasoning.  And to try to figure out parts that don’t make enough sense.”

“Ask.”

“The big one right now is… you’re so good at so much of this.  Why… why are you here?  You’re more careful than that.”

Mia rubbed her knuckles again, with fingertips that were scarring and scabbed over.

“With no escape plan?” Gio pressed.

Besides you, but you’re ignoring that.  “It made sense in the moment.  I think, without Ben and Rider being there, I’d have been fine.”

“But-”

“I know,” Mia replied, pre-emptively.

“It wasn’t a big leap to think they’d be looking out.”

“I know,” Mia reaffirmed.  She leaned over the table, resting on her forearms.  “A quiet part of me might have wanted to get caught.”

Gio studied her face, glanced down at Mia’s hands.

Mia explained, “I don’t think I wanted this, exactly.  But Ripley was pulling away, bit by bit.  You were nine tenths of the way out the door.  It used to be, a while back, I’d get anxiety that was so bad I couldn’t lie still in bed and I’d have to get up and pace.  I’d feel it like a low flame at the back of my brain.  It would twist my stomach, make it hard to breathe.  Especially when Rip was young.”

“I felt a bit like that living with my dad.  Especially with the Addi situation.  Not those exact feelings.”

“I know.  I think that might have been part of why I loved you so easily.  I started to feel that again.  My world slowly falling apart.  Carson wasn’t healing, I didn’t have work, Ripley was barely around.  You weren’t.”

Gio was quiet.

Mia explained, “I spent a while with a lot of space to think.  In solitary, especially.  Which was because of self defense, to be clear.”

“Yeah,” Gio replied.

“I might have subconsciously wanted to get caught, not for this, not to be punished, but because, that if I could lay it out there, make my case, people would be on my side.  Should be?  Maybe then I’d lose the inherent disadvantage that comes with being in my position?”

“Was that why you went after the Civil Warriors?  Because nobody except other Civil Warriors are on their side?”

“Maybe that would even the scales?  I don’t know.  That makes sense.  Like I said, I’m not sure it was that conscious a thing.  It felt like it should be true.  That people would agree kids were better off with me.”

“Like, in front of a jury?”

“Or arresting officers, or even Ben, somehow, or… I don’t know.  Really truly-”

“With the way you bombed a school?  With-?”

“Gio,” Mia cut Gio off.  “It wasn’t a plan.  It was a sentiment.  That I had to make a move fast, because Natalie was about to scuttle everything.  Then, if I got caught, then it seemed as if, okay, I should be able to explain.  That I gave them a better life.”

“I was talking to someone at the ranch.  About the kidnappings.  They compared it to kids getting taken from Indian parents to residential schools, or to be adopted.”

“I didn’t take them because they belonged to a group or culture.  I took Rip because her mom was horribly insufficient.  Your dad and Tyr’s parents were terrible monsters.  Breelyn and Jadelyn’s parents were insufficient and monsters.”

“It’s still sketchy, some of the same mentality, some of the same ideas, that you should be able to take someone’s children because you’re better?  That sense of superiority?”

“Which is wrong when it’s applied as a blanket to a group, but when I’m actually better equipped?”  Mia asked.

“Are you though?”

“Yes?  I’m not saying I’m not flawed, but Rip and Tyr’s parents, your dad, Breelyn and Jadelyn’s parents, they were that bad.”

“It’s complicated,” Gio said.  “Stuff that’s hard to get past.  Hard to take in.”

Mia was frustrated.  With Ben, too, she’d laid it out as plain facts.  She’d gotten a fallback sort of argument there, too.

She tried not to let that frustration show.

Mia took a deep breath.  “In the end, it wasn’t a fair fight.  They didn’t even come after me for Rip.  Part of Natalie’s plan to keep the media from jumping on that, was she wouldn’t pursue me for that, I guess.”

“I know.  I saw.  Fraud and the kidnapping of the Civil Warrior kids.  Media hasn’t caught on to the Ripley-Tyr connection.  No teachers have called to tip them off.  If there’s even anyone to call, like that, or if they know about you and the case.  Things are a mess right now.”

“And they shouldn’t.  Media shouldn’t, teachers shouldn’t.  I’d rot here before I let them ruin Rip’s life.  Natalie has her faults too, but she…. handled that well.  But by doing it that way, Ripley and Tyr off the table, I couldn’t… couldn’t make the arguments, or reveal the information about the timing and discrepancies with the police report.  Things Ben had written down, even, I saw when Carson and I looked through his office.”

Gio nodded.  “Ben was threatening to sue.”

Mia raised her eyebrows.  Then she lowered them.  “Suing Natalie.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think that’s happening.”

“No.  But it came up.  He put years of work into this.  Now he can’t make his documentary.  He’s bitter.”

Mia cracked her knuckles.

Natalie had played the man.  Mia doubted it had been the original plan, but after all of this…

“Revenge for being so shortsighted with the judge, the Cavalcantis, and stirring up the Civil Warrior business?” Mia asked.

“Maybe.  I think it’s more that Ripley comes before Ben, in Natalie’s priorities.  So she’s protecting Ripley.”

Mia sighed.

“I feel like I’m the person best positioned to know the most,” Gio said.  “While not being stuck in the middle of it.  On the outside looking in, a bit.”

“That’s very possible.”

“I guess that’s my worry, a bit?  That things shift and I go from being someone who’s mostly objective and watching from the sidelines, to being in the crosshairs?  I don’t want to be in the crosshairs, I had my taste of that with Addi.”

Mia studied Gio’s expression.  With measured words, she asked, “Why would you be in the crosshairs?”

“We’re moving,” Gio said.  “Not because of you.  Because the situation’s bad.  The Civil Warriors were emboldened after the kidnapping attempt, they haven’t lost any steam since.”

“They like being the victims and the aggressor at the same time.  Where are you moving?”

“Away,” Gio said.  “I know you can probably find us.  Especially if I keep the phone.  But I still don’t want to like, put it out there.”

“You don’t want to tell me?”

“I don’t want to be on your bad side either.  So… it gets complicated, if you want Tyr, or if you expect certain things from me.”

Mia frowned. “He’s my son.”

“You should still leave him where he is.  On the ranch, with me.  He’s got a group of people who adore him and are acting like parents.  A village.  I’ll do my best to be family to him.”

“He’s my son, Gio.  His parents were monsters.”

Gio’s forehead creased.  “How would I know if that’s the truth?”

“Because I’m telling you. Because I’ve always been honest with you, even when it cost me.”

“Even if you were- even if, he’s stable.  That matters a lot.  He’s cared for, cared about, he’s doing great.  He’s got a whole wilderness.”

“That’s insane,” Mia told the girl.

Gio gave Mia a long look, then said, “I don’t think you should uproot Ripley from the new life she’s building, either.”

“There’s no way she’s happier with Sean-”

“I’m not saying that.”

“And Natalie?”

“I”m not saying that either.”

“So stability is more important than her happiness?” Mia asked, heated now.

“No, I’m not saying that either.  But I talked to Ripley.  I think she’s still wrapping her head around you.  More honestly, with the therapist now, because you were arrested, she can talk about stuff.  She’s taking a break from Natalie, so she doesn’t have that-”

“Whispering in her ear?”

“More like… energy.  Sean goes more with the flow.  Acts like you don’t exist.  But Ripley’s thinking about things and I think, if you show up, you won’t like her reactions.  She’d ask you for space, the same way.  You’d push her away, instead of bringing her close.”

Mia’s hand shook a little, until she gripped it hard in the other.

A part of her wasn’t surprised.

“Unless you locked her in a basement, like the one we had Addi in, but-”

“That’s not me.”

“I know.  Yeah.”

Another part of her felt like it had been lost to something bottomless, so cold it numbed.

Gio looked scared.

The girl spoke up, “Can you give me some feedback?  Some clue about what you’re thinking or feeling?  Are you mad?  Are we enemies?”

Mia could remember that feeling of loss, back when she was a child, recovering from the partial amnesia.  The disconnection from everything she’d been and had before.  The loss of ability.  Huge chunks of herself.

This felt like that.

“Not enemies,” Mia said, her voice soft.

“Do we have time?  I feel like there’s some deadline, and they’re going to call an end to the visits and send me home?  It always happens so fast in the movies.”

“Two and a half hours maximum for this visiting window,” Mia replied.

“Ah,” Gio said.  She sounded a bit disappointed.  Maybe she’d wanted a way out.

“Gio,” Mia said.  She reached across the table, laying her hand over Gio’s.  Gio flinched a bit.  “I love you.  I might not have been your family, but you were mine, for a little while.  I’m not your enemy, and I’m not a good enough liar to be angry and hide it.”

“You’re harder to interpret than you think you are.  You give off this vibe, like you’re about to lunge across the table and tear my head off.  Especially now.”

“I’m hurt.  Worried.”

“Okay,” Gio said.  Still on guard, still ready to pull her hand away from Mia’s, if something moved too fast.

“You’re here to check I’m not coming after them?”

Gio shrugged a bit.  She didn’t look happy.  “Yeah.  Or me.  Or doing anything for revenge against someone.  I don’t want to feel like- like some bomb is going to go off, and bring a lot of chaos with it.  Or that you’ll show up all of a sudden.”

“You won’t help me get out?  There’s no way to convince you?”

“No.”

Mia withdrew her hand.  She wanted to sit back, or get up and pace, but the benches had no backs, and the C.O.s wouldn’t let her pace.

“I want to put good things out into the world.  And I don’t think you’re a good thing.”

“I was a good thing for you, wasn’t I?”

“You saved me.  If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be in my father’s basement, butchered, waiting to die.”

“Is it because of your brother?  Because-”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“I think I have a pretty objective view of everything, while still knowing most of the people who were part of this.  And I don’t think you’re right.  I don’t think people are happier, overall, if I do something to get you out, or if you get out and you find the kids.”

Mia realized she was clenching a fist and unclenched it.

Gio looked so scared, now.

What was she supposed to say?

She’d wondered if she’d been driven by some desire for this all to be some kind of referendum on the subject of the kids, and she hadn’t even convinced Gio?

Mia had to remind herself to unclench her fist again.  Her hand shook a bit, and when she tangled fingers together for a second in an effort to pin them down and get them to be still, her joints hurt all over again.

“I thought I did a good job with Rip and Tyr.  Putting them out as positives in the world.”

“You did okay.  They’re great.  They get some credit for that.”

“But that’s not enough?”

“Was what I did to Addi more you than my dad?” Gio asked.

“Were we together that long, at that point?” Mia asked.

“I don’t know.  But I think about it and he was brutal, he was cruel, but it was calculated.  What I think I felt and did to Addi seemed a lot more like the way you went after some people who were in your way, who you were mad at…”  Gio looked more nervous.  But she shook her head.  “The person I agree with the most might be Natalie.  The way I lost my mom, how dark things became, after, I think I understand her.  If she figures stuff out, gets that therapy, I… I’m pretty sure I’m on her side.”

Mia couldn’t completely hide her expression.  The hurt.  She looked at the wall, instead, studying it.  “You didn’t know her.”

“No.  No, you’re right.  Maybe that makes it easier.”

Mia shook her head slightly, and she was tense enough the gesture was tight.

She hadn’t expected this conversation to go this way.

“Is that it, then?” Gio asked, anxious.  Then, not for the first time, she said, “You’re still really hard to read.”

“You can go if you want to go.  You’re safe.  I’m willing to fight to protect my kids, but- I’m not the type to go after someone like that.  If I was, I would have gone after Natalie well before she showed up in Camrose.”

“Things change.”

“I’m not evil,” Mia said, meeting Gio’s eyes.

Whatever Gio saw there made her look away.

“Look after Tyr, then.  And Rip.”

“That’s the plan,” Gio said, very quietly.

“I’ll see you all in twenty years.  Less with good behavior.”

“Okay.”

Gio looked ready to run.  Mia didn’t want her to.

“Gio.  The app, if you go to the grid layout, has a box in the bottom right, no icon.  Press your finger down over it,” Mia said.  “The password is Four boys, comma, three girls, comma, in the treehouse.  No spaces.  Capitalize every word.  No numbers as letters, a long character string is good enough.”

“I already know.”

Mia looked up from the phone to Gio.

“I hired someone to check what was on the phone and look at the source.  I wanted to, before I made any plans to move.  We found there was more data, then worked out a way in.  I don’t know the particulars.”

“Okay.  That’s smart, checking.  Good thinking.”

“Yeah?  I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, or if I should tamper.”

“This isn’t leverage, it’s not a threat.  When you started pulling away, I saw you were looking her up.”

“I tried to do that at the library, when you didn’t have access,” Gio murmured.  “One night, I ctrl-clicked the wrong bookmark folder, instead of clicking a link.  Opened everything in that folder.  I tried to stop it, but I guess it triggered some flag.”

“Yeah.”  That hadn’t been it, but it wasn’t worth pointing out that Mia had been looking over things.  Mia explained, “I intended to find her, then let you know when I knew enough.  I didn’t want to get your hopes up and then disappoint.  With the unlock there, you should have access to more resources.  Be very careful.  Some of our resources and accounts got found or flagged, when they investigated me for the identity fraud.  Some is illegal and needs a careful hand.  Do your research before using any of it.  I’d say to contact me, but…”

Gio met Mia’s eyes.

“This is it, is it?”  Mia asked.  “At least until I’m officially out?”

“Can it be it, without the second part?  Can you leave them be?  All of us?”

“Could you leave your birth mother?” Mia asked.  “Don’t- that came off wrong.”

Gio paused, then nodded, stiff.

“What I made for you originally was sanitized and simplified, so it would be accessible.  You now have access to the rest.”

Gio stared at the screen.

“Don’t accidentally click anything,” Mia said, with a lighter tone that felt surreal, considering her loss, here.

“I’m not sure I want to touch any of this.”

“That’s a good instinct.  Still, it’s options, if you get into trouble.  As part of that, you should be able to find the folder with what I was able to find on your other mother.  I think she used someone a lot like me, to hide.  There isn’t a lot.  But it’s a lot more than you had.  If I ever get out, I can help chase that down.  I promise that’s not leverage or me trying to manipulate you.”

Gio put the phone down.  Her hands were showing her nervousness, now.  Or she was feeling something big, after that.

“It’s goodbye, then?” Mia asked, fighting to keep her voice under control, so it wouldn’t crack.

“Please don’t come for them.  Leave us alone.”

Mia was silent for what felt like minutes.  It wasn’t that long.  It was like the solitary confinement, in how time distorted, maybe.  Maybe it was the same thing, but without the four walls.  Being alone.

Someone guffawed a few tables away, oblivious.

“Please,” Gio said.

Mia wanted to cry, or throw a table at the guffawing stranger.

“Have Ripley reach out when she gets to be your age.  A visit would be nice.  I’ll take a phone call.  She deserves closure, or continuation.  I’d like another chance.  Tyr too.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve done well.  If you get stuck in the search for your mom, you could reach out.”

“I don’t think I’m going to.  Sorry.”

Mia was fighting with herself, trying not to react in a Natalie way, or show the emotions she was feeling and ruin what little remained in the process.

“Okay.  You did a good job, finding the ranchers.  It sounds good for Tyr.  Make sure he gets an education.”

“Okay.”

“I know coming couldn’t have been easy.”

“No.”

The answers were getting smaller.

“Good luck finding your mother.”

“Thank you.”

Mia wanted to offer a hug, but she wasn’t sure she could avoid breaking down if Gio said no.

“Goodbye then.”

If Gio said something, it might have been inaudible, with the louder conversations in the room, and that lingering ringing in Mia’s ear from the gunshot.  It might have been that Mia’s focus was elsewhere, to the extent it was like a small blackout.  It might have been that Gio said nothing at all.

Gio went around the corner, and then she was gone.

Mia took a second, until a C.O. started to approach.  She submitted to the pat-down, then made her way back through the gate, signing her name.  It all felt surreal, in that same way Gio had described.

Back to her block.  She reminded herself to be wary, but it was hard to remember why she was supposed to care that much about her own well being.

Up that spiral staircase.  She wanted to lie down.  Even if her cell had two kinds of stink to it.

Someone got in her way.  Angel was a woman with a doughy face and a broken nose that had a red mark across the bridge.  One of the four who’d held the door shut.  The only one who had remained in this block.  The biggest of that group.  Taller than Mia, as it happened, but not as muscular.

People saw the possible confrontation and jeered from afar.

This was a hell of noise and people.  The commotion around this place played into the buzz of a headache.

No, she couldn’t tolerate this after all.

Mia didn’t slow down.  Angel pulled her chin back, chest and stomach pushed forward, to bump Mia, not letting her pass.  Angel’s friends -she’d lost her gang, but she still had some friends- jeered.

Mia reached down, one hand at the Angel’s thigh, and hauled.

Angel elbowed her in the head, hard.  The ringing in Mia’s ears doubled in volume, after. The second elbow was slightly off target.  Angel aborted it early to grab for the railing.

Didn’t matter.  Angel went over the railing of the second floor cells, virtually upside down as she passed the railing.  The angle of things and the speed with which she passed ripped her hand away from the railing.  Too lax, too late.

A fifteen foot head first Fall onto concrete.

⯁

The sound was deafening in the small room with the nauseating yellow paint.  They repainted regularly, because bored inmates scratched out messages into the paint, but traces lingered.

Solitary.  Alone.

Much longer this time, she had to assume.

She couldn’t help but replay the conversation in her head, over and over again.

Had there been a better way to handle it?

Was it better to be cruel?  To force Gio’s hand?

That wasn’t what she wanted.  She didn’t want to get her kids back through cruelty.

She paced.

She’d lost them.

She’d lost everything.

It still didn’t feel as though she’d done anything particularly wrong at any point.

She paced.

What were her options?

She paced.

Hours passed, without a clock to count them by.  She rubbed her shoulder.  She’d fucked it up again, lifting too much weight at an awkward angle.  Maybe a torn muscle.

The throbbing pain made her feel connected to Ripley, with the phantom pains.  She hadn’t asked how those were going, after the past few months.  If Sean was looking after it.  Now it bothered her that she didn’t know, wouldn’t know.

Her ears rang incessantly.  The more aware she was of it, the louder it got.  She wondered if she had a concussion, from the elbow.

She didn’t want to sleep, if that was the case.

Couldn’t exercise as she had before, with her arm like this.

In her anxiety, as time passed, she picked at the scabs in her fingertips.  One started bleeding freely.

Hours passed.  She paced.

Was that too much blood?  Was she not getting sufficient vitamins?  Protein?

As if in answer to that question, food arrived.  But the person who brought the food told Adele and the ringleader of the four who’d held the door, who were in another cell further down the hall, that Mia was there.

That Angel had gone over the railing.

They shouted, cursing her out, and it was ignorable, at first, but they didn’t let up.

Mia remained where she was, forearms against the wall, face buried against them, as if pinning her arm in place with her face could alleviate the arm’s weight on her shoulder  and help.  It didn’t.

But an interminable amount of time passed.

There was no time here.  Her thoughts were too scattered, her heart too hurt, for the days to be countable.  The mind palace she’d so painstakingly built- built for Ripley and Tyr, it had been left as rubble.  ‘Today is meal twelve, day four, tomorrow is day five, meals thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen’ became confused, four and five crowding together, losing meaning, even threatening to jumble with the twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.  Then, when it all came unstuck, she wasn’t sure if it was day four or five anymore.

Day fifteen.

The lights went out.  Pitch darkness.  Others all up and down the hall hooted and jeered, laughed.

There was something nervous in their voices, as they did it.

Days nine, ten, eleven.

She assumed.  She had to assume, because there was no window, and there were zero meals.

The C.O.s didn’t come.  Someone found a way to burn something in their cell, setting off a fire alarm that synced up with the ringing in Mia’s ears, filling the entire space with smoke.

Someone else flooded their cell. Mia wondered if they were trying to staunch the smoke, or create another sort of emergency that might draw attention.

The water even reached Mia’s cell.  Less than an inch deep.

Day twelve.  Maybe.  Mia drank water, and tried not to move much, so she wouldn’t be so hungry.

“Who’s down here?  Is this fucking toilet water?” a woman called out.

It wasn’t a C.O.  Something about her tone.

“Sound off!  Names!”

“Perpetua Casa-fucking-Nova!”

“Adele Cerda!”

“Pat Maher.”

“Hey, girl.  I was told to look for you, Pat.”

Mia leaned into the door to have a better angle to see through the slot.

She could see a glimpse of a flashlight beam reflecting off water.

“What happened?” Mia asked.  “The power’s been out.”

“We’re under new leadership.  Civil Warriors.”

“Fuck yeah,” Pat said.

“What happened?  Anything big?” Mia asked, trying to stay calm.

“Same as before, but bigger.  A lot of cowards left.  Patriots stayed.”

Mia rested her forehead against the metal.

“You couldn’t come sooner?”

“Shit went crazy.  There were some special ops types in the prison, undercover investigating some human trafficker on the sly.  Three of them took out twenty of us before we locked them in and shut off the water there for a couple days.”

None of that mattered.

Gio would be gone, with Tyr.  Ripley was with Sean, who wasn’t local.  But…

“How big is this?” Mia asked.  “This win?”

“What’s your name?”

“Sheila Hardy,” Mia replied.

“That’s not Sheila anything.  That’s Mia Hurst.”  Adele.

“I don’t know who that is.”

“I’ll tell you,” Adele said.

“Yeah, sure.”

Mia could hear the doors opening, the splashes of footfalls.  A whoop from someone who might’ve been Adele.

“She’s not a friend of ours,” Pat said.

“Oh really?  Do we do anything about it?”

“I say we leave her.”

“I have money,” Mia said.  “I get out, I can send it to you.”

“With a computer?”

“Yeah.  With a computer.  Or a bank.”

“You’re going to have trouble doing that.”

“Maybe, but isn’t it worth trying?” Mia asked.

No response.  She heard the footfalls.  The splashes.

Getting further away.

“Hey!” she raised her voice, banging on the metal.

Without even a distant flashlight beam, it was darkness again.

They won.  I could have stopped them.

How many times had she given them incremental advantages against Cavalcantis, government?  Natalie had wondered out loud about them.  Gio had said she’d emboldened them, if anything.

How far did this go?  Did this reach her kids?

The fire alarm had worn itself out.  In the newfound silence, however, with nothing to compare it against, the ringing in her ears was like a looping sound that seemed to continually get louder.  Worse than the fire alarm.

The other cells along the hallway empty and utterly silent.

She lifted herself up, even with an injured shoulder, to try to get at the vent.  It took maybe three hours, maybe a whole day.  She couldn’t tell.  She couldn’t see anything, heard little, fumbled around.  The water from her inset sink had a mineral taste to it.

But she got the vent cover off.

She tore her fingertips to shreds on the metal mesh from the vent.  Eventually, she got what felt like a good length, twined together.  It was slick with her bloody hands, and she had to be careful, because the water smelled brackish and filthy, so she couldn’t drop it.  She wouldn’t be able to dip her hands into that to fish it out.

The lock wouldn’t give.

The wire from the mesh bent until it was breaking apart.  She didn’t trust it in the lock.  If it got stuck, she wouldn’t get it out.

She had no other resources.  Carson, maybe, but would he even find her here, if he was able?  Would he know to look for her here?  Or would he assume she’d gone for the kids?  Was he healthy enough?

Would anyone come, if most of the prison had evacuated?  Would the assumption be that nobody was left behind?

They’re okay, Mia told herself, in the silence and the darkness.  The outside had to be noise and chaos, but there was no way to know.  The kids are okay, they’re capable.  They have skills.

Skills didn’t matter that much.  If the special ops people were struggling.

They had people.  They’d built something.  Ripley had Devon, Blair, her friends, and their families.  She had Sean… Mia wasn’t sure how much that mattered, But Gio hadn’t suggested Sean was especially disappointing.  Tyr would have the ranchers, and Gio.

Mia sat in shallow water, fingers bent, tips bloody, cut up to some extent she couldn’t even see, throbbing, forearms resting against knees so her arms wouldn’t fall.

What had she built?  What lasting ties?  What bridges remained unburnt enough that someone would cross them and find her?

Hours or days passed.  She couldn’t know.  She was probably a terrifying sight to anyone who might find her.  She couldn’t know.

She’d made and sealed a special kind of torment for herself, here.  If she was right in what she’d told Gio, she’d wanted it.  A judgment.  And she’d gotten it.  Now, as she forced herself to reconcile with it, whether she actually was a monster, she was left to wonder if she was again changing to match her environment.  Silence and darkness surrounded her.  Within her body, pain, anxiety, alarm, ringing, old aches, and chills filled her with unbearable sorts of stimuli and noise.  Stimuli and noise that, she could only imagine, matched the world on the outside.  She couldn’t know for sure.

She didn’t know if her kids were her kids anymore, whatever measure she used to judge that.

When she heard the footsteps, splashing down the hallway, she couldn’t know if she imagined them.  She couldn’t know the day.  Or who it was.

In all of that doubt and wondering, there wasn’t an iota of peace, or a single place to find a moment of calm, for her thoughts to rest easy.

No.

She heard the key rasp in the lock, and the click of the latch.

She was so exhausted from simply sitting that she couldn’t even raise her head on the first try.

She knew one thing, quiet and clear, now, after so much reflection in this darkness, to a soundtrack of terrible noise in her body, silence on the outside of it.

The door opened slowly, with the resistance of water and the pulp of the foam mattress that had disintegrated in water.  Metal from the edge of the vent that she’d torn out scraped against concrete.

Once she was done squinting against the glare of the flashlight, she met the bottleglass green eyes of the man who held it.

She was a monster, and she was capable of doing a terrible amount of damage to people.  She’d come to terms with that, now.

I wouldn’t have let me out.

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