Bear – 6.3

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“Patience,” Mia said, with an eerie calm, as they watched people prepare to burn the house.

The inside of the suit Natalie was wearing was already moist, body heat and sweat making the material stick to her skin.  Her breath fogged up the full-face plexiglass pane, hot, but the air she sucked in through the plastic mouthpiece was so cold it made her teeth and lungs hurt.

Sterling sometimes screamed for her because he thought there were monsters.  She’d sort any wet pajama, wet sheet situation, then take him to her room,  and let him sleep beside her.

These people were monsters, she imagined, in the same way Sterling imagined them.

She’d wondered once if there might be a situation where she found Camellia, and the mom could turn out to be someone who’d been broken by a tragedy, or some mental illness… because who else would do this sort of thing?  If it was someone who cried and begged forgiveness?  Where, she wondered, was the line where she could be the greater person and forgive them?

So much of her life had been spent wondering.  Trying to find herself when it felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest, and the rest of her could barely keep upright.  She’d defined herself around hypotheticals.  What if Camellia was traumatized?  What if they literally couldn’t help it?  What if it was a misunderstanding, somehow?

Then they’d been the opposite of all of that.  Intentional, unapologetic, unflinching.

Unflinching even in the face of this horror all around them.  They were calm and methodical, braving gunshots, poisoning people.  This was a space where every step made Natalie want to curl up and hide from it all, because the danger was everywhere, people willing to overlook the butchering of a child were surrounding them, and these two moved like fish in water.

As if they’d been here before.

“Have you been in this house before?” Natalie asked, and her voice was heavily muffled by the apparatus.  Could they have sabotaged mine?

“No.  We passed through to get to you.  The rest is information I was able to scrape together.  Maps from Valentina.  I searched social media for photos,” Mia said.  “And it was hell, not coming immediately for Ripley-”

It was hell for you?

Natalie felt contempt and hatred on a level she’d never known was possible.

“-but I had to know if there was a way into the vents, an angle we could take.  I needed to be sure we could find our way around,” Mia said.

“What are you thinking, love?” Carson asked.

Love?

“Did you check the stairwell?”

“Pool of open flame.  Contained by concrete and the metal door,” Carson said.

“That would be the gas reacting with the gasoline.  That was the explosion we heard earlier.  I’m surprised there wasn’t more in the ducts.  A part of me wants to wait this out.  If he sets fire to the house, but the basement is reasonably secure, we could hole up here, take computers, watch the drones and see if there’s an opening.”

“It could give him time to get his feet under him,” Carson said.

“It could also give him time to lose them.  Hospitals are overtaxed and out of resources, his doctors are downstairs, he has to have fifty to a hundred people out there with some symptoms of gas inhalation.  Look.”

Carson nodded before she even pointed at the screen.

People outside coughed.

“This is where I need you to tell me if my instincts are right,” Mia told Carson.

“They’re outside the reach of the gas,” Carson said.  “Some gas inhalation.  Probably smoke too.  They’re gathering into familiar groups.  Those groups are finding the like-minded.”

He startled Natalie by turning, his focus turning to Camellia.

Natalie stepped a bit in front of the kids, shielding them from that focus.

Carson barely seemed to notice she was there, his focus on Camellia.  “They’re hurt and scared and frustrated.  They want to be with their friends and family.  They’re building up courage, because they want to leave.”

Camellia nodded.

“If he sets fire to the house, the last Cavalcanti holdout…” Mia said, trailing off.

“They’ll break.  I think he thinks he can rebuild.  He still has the key pieces under his thumb.  Like Bryan’s dad.”

The first flame appeared.  They were acting.

“He’ll move forward with it.  Are we thinking basement?” Carson asked, his voice muffled by mask.

“No,” Mia replied.  “Gasoline is blocking the clearest exit, and I think if we go past the hole they chopped into the floor, especially feet first, we run the risk of tearing a suit and inhaling gas.”

“Then we exit?” Carson asked.

“I think so.  There are three workable exits.  There are also windows, but I’m suspicious they’re bulletproof.  Nobody broke or opened a window when the gas flooded the house, they haven’t shot out any windows,” Mia said.  “We take the best route of the three.  It’s going to be either down the hall and to the left, straight down the hall, or out the front door.”

“Which cameras?”

“Three, six, and eight are down the hall and to the left.  Four, five, and seven are straight down the hall.  One and two are front door.  Nine is-”

“The driveway.”

“You have to reframe it in your head.”

“We may have to shoot our way clear.”

“If we do, we bring all stragglers to our location.”

On camera, Davie Cavalcanti, coughing a little, lit the rag.  He made the opening throw.

Natalie turned.  If that was at the front door, then-

“Wait,” Mia said.

Still so calm.

They were legitimate, actual psychopaths.

No, Mia Hurst was trembling.  Eager anticipation?  It was hard to tell.  Natalie moved closer, pretending to get a look at the cameras.  She saw Mia’s focus.

On the other side of the woman was Carson.  He looked casual.  Downstairs, she’d had a better look at him, without the plastic suit, gloves, booties, hood, and mask on.  A panther of a man, exuding raw sex, easy confidence and competence.  It bothered her, in a clenched-fist in her lower belly kind of way, that the kidnapper had that.  That Camellia said her ‘parents’ loved each other.  That he called her ‘love’ so easy, and the best Natalie had had was being turned down by Ben.  A mug made by Sterling.

It was hard not to drown in the bitterness.  It was hard not to choke on it all.  That her life had been taken from her, to the degree it had.  That she’d been changed as a person into someone this bitter, capable of feeling hate.

Enough that if Camellia wasn’t here, watching, she’d feel tempted to tear Mia Hurst’s mask off.  Let her suffocate on this air.  Even if it meant Carson attacking her, removing her mask, if she could watch that woman die painfully, she’d accept the same for herself.

If Camellia wasn’t here.

If Sterling, beautiful boy, wasn’t waiting for her.

She choked back the hate.

“Why are we waiting?” she asked, restraining her tone.  “The house is burning.”

“Those two,” Mia said, pointing to two people standing a short distance from Davie, “are the most dangerous men within a mile of us.  Hired professionals.  I want to see what they do.  Especially if people turn on Davie.”

“Pressure’s ratcheting up,” Carson murmured, barely audible with the mask.  “They should.”

“This is usually your area of expertise,” Mia said, touching his arm.  “But even I can tell, here.”

On the screens, other people standing around the house were getting upset.  Some of that was directed at Davie.

Davie, in view of a drone, motioned.

One of the two men came with him.  The other came back toward the house.  Camera two, where others were spreading the flame.

Natalie jumped as one of those attempts at spreading it hit a window, with a dull flare of orange.  Out of sync with the drone camera.

“End of the hall, to the-” Mia Hurst ordered, and Carson joined her for the last word- “left.”

They went.  Natalie made a point of trying to usher the kids, going last, with both in front.  Bryan and Camellia.  There was a moment of confusion, because Mia was also trying to guide them and let them by, and there were too many of them to squeeze.  The look she shot Natalie was cold.

Carson put a hand on Mia’s shoulder.   “Natalie.”

“What?”

“The jugs.”

“Don’t you dare try to slow me down, lock me out- or in-”

“I’m hurt, Mia’s hurt.  You’re capable of carrying them.”

“I can,” Camellia said.  “Or I can try.  If mom can take one-”

It took Natalie a second to realize Camellia meant Mia.  It hurt as much as if she’d been abruptly stabbed in the chest.

“No,” Carson told Camellia.  “You have your arm full with the oxygen tank.  Bryan too.  The ground will be uneven.  Natalie.”

Natalie hesitated, then stepped into the room.  Before they’d all come up, Carson had lifted up two jugs of undiluted cleaner and they’d left them by the hole.

She grabbed the jugs, pressing a hand to the duct tape at her wrist to make sure nothing was leaking, then lifted them.

They’d paused by the glass door, checking the coast was clear.

Natalie put the jugs down- a few seconds of reprieve, and moved a bit further down the hall.

“Natalie,” Mia Hurst called out, voice low.

“What?”

Mia shook her head.

Natalie wanted to do it anyway.  What was at the end of the hall?  A teenage girl’s room, a bathroom, and a closed door.

Then the door opened, and she decided it was better to stay close.  The sirens ongoing, blaring in the background, but they came across twice as loud the moment the door was open.  The suits they wore meant Natalie couldn’t even enjoy the breeze of the outdoors, after being cooped up in the basement.  Trickles of sweat ran down her back, her arms, into her gloves, her eyes.  She could taste it on her lips.  The cold air of the oxygen somehow made it worse, as if her body couldn’t tell what temperature it was supposed to be, and overcompensated the wrong way.

Was she tasting bleach and ammonia in the air?  The gas?  Or was that imagination, the too-clean air of the oxygen tank and the taste of the freshly unpacked plastic suit playing with her senses?

The space that was down the hall and to the left wasn’t a backyard, but a kind of atrium, modern, with glass panes on four sides.  A patch of the outdoors, contained within the building, with a small water feature, trees, and collected plants.  They cut past it, to the narrowest band of house, pausing so Mia could check the phone she held, before pushing a side door open.  People had moved around the perimeter of the house, keeping their distance from the fumes that apparently leaked out.  The people who were closest had shirts pulled up and held around their mouths, eyes squinting shut against the It looked like there was a crowd there, and the crowd was entirely focused on other things, like the fire at the front of the house, and the people at the head of the group.

They jogged across to the treeline.

Carson turned and pointed his weapon.  Natalie flinched, at first because she thought he was coming after her.  Then because she realized who he was reacting to.

There were people in the woods, hidden in shadow, not visible by drone.

Two young men.  One had his gun drawn, but it was pointed more at their feet than at them.  Carson had drawn faster.

Natalie’s heart hammered.  Her breath fogged the pane of her mask, and she wished, dearly, that she could see what was happening with any clarity.

Carson slowly moved his gun to one side, relaxing.  With his free hand, he motioned.

The one Cavalcanti soldier with his gun drawn slowly lowered it.

“Live and let live,” Carson said.

“Can barely hear you,” the one without a gun said.

“Live and let live,” Carson said, with more emphasis.  “Yeah?”

“You’re saying that when you’ve killed our cousins?  Tried to gas us?”

“He took my kid.  He took her arm,” Carson said.  “What the fuck else is a guy supposed to do?”

Not yours.

“We should kill you for what you did.”

“You want to make this a thing?” Carson asked.  “Your boss did it for kicks.  You really want to keep this going, so a freak like that can have his fun?  We did what we did to get this far, get my kid.  Now we can leave, we leave you guys alone.  You figure out what you’re doing about Davie on your own time.  Or I start shooting, one of you maybe gets a shot off, maybe we die, a bunch more of your cousins die too.”

“You’d die,” Mia said.  “For someone that’s not worth it.”

“Fuck you.”

“We go, you guys rebuild, or we fight, this drags out.  Your choice,” Carson said.

His voice didn’t waver.  Neither did the gun.  He sounded a bit like he could be someone at the bus stop, asking how her day was.

The one with the gun tensed. The other one put a hand on his gun arm, keeping him from raising his weapon.

“Fuck off, then.”

Carson motioned to their group.

They retreated.  were moving down the hillside.  Or mountainside.  It was halfway between each.  She focused on keeping Camellia steady and making sure Bryan was okay.

Carson lingered long enough to be able to react if they did anything, then hurried after them.

“Turned too fast there,” he said, voice muffled by the mask.  To Mia.

“You alright?”

“Nope.  Your leg?”

“I’ll let you know when I can’t put one foot in front of the other.  I won’t slow us down.”

Mia said that, but Natalie could see that they were moving more slowly than they could have, otherwise.  That Carson paused, as they reached a spot where a fallen tree with dirt packed up to the side of it turned a bit of slope into a sharp drop-off, and helped Mia down.  That Mia then stopped, back to a tree, panting for breath, while he helped the kids. He offered a hand to Natalie, who refused, jumping down and skidding on dirt, instead.

Then it took a second longer to resume moving after, Carson slowing to make sure Mia was keeping up, Natalie and the kids slowing because the two adults blocked the way.

“Are you feeling okay?” Natalie asked Camellia.

“Dizzy.”

“Hold onto my arm.  Careful with the suit, though.  Grab where the duct tape is.”

“Can we take off the suits?” Camellia asked, doing as instructed.  “I’m hot.”

“Not yet,” Carson said.

“They’re not going to pretend they didn’t see us,” Mia said.

“No.  Best way to cover their asses.  They can say they saw us run by.”

Natalie saw him turn his head.  Whatever expression he wore on his face, the angles of hood and mask didn’t let her see.

She kept Camellia steady as best as she could with a jug of cleaner in her hands.  Hair had fallen across her face and was damp enough with sweat it stuck there.  She gave her head a firm shake, flicking it, and it fell across the bridge of her nose and cheekbone.

“I was hoping there would be something we could use,” Mia said.  “Some areas looked promising from the air.”

“What?” Natalie asked.  Her arm was tired, with Camellia hanging off of it, and a heavy jug in her hand.

“A shack, or a bit of concrete where runoff comes out.  On the drone cameras, there were some square-ish shapes.  I thought it might be something.  If we pour chemical into the dirt, it will get absorbed into the ground.  It won’t be as useful.”

“We should have brought a tarp or plastic sheeting,” Carson said.  “Next time, hm?”

Mia made a small amused sound.

Natalie, spooked by how they could joke about this, kept her mouth shut.  It didn’t help anything.

“Natalie, how long can you hold your breath?”

“What?”

“If we had you take off your suit?” Carson asked.  “We could use it as a tarp.”

She felt a chill.  It redoubled when Camellia looked at her, then at Carson Hurst.

“You’re not funny, dad.”

Natalie closed her eyes.  Sweat stung.

‘Dad’.

“No, you’re right.  Not funny,” he said, in that same tone he’d used when talking to the men he had at gunpoint.  Casual.  Easygoing.  “In my defense, my side really hurts.”

“I don’t like that side of you.  The scary part,” Camellia said.

“When I’m scary, it’s for your sake.  Or it’s to scare away someone dangerous, so we don’t have to do scary things as much.  Or it’s to protect a client.  Someone who needs and deserves a second chance.”

“That’s how you justify it?” Natalie asked.  “You have answers for everything?”

Camellia squeezed her wrist.

“I don’t like that side of you either, Natalie,” Camellia said, quiet.

As if it’s equal. 

As if it’s fucking equal. 

As if him being an actual sociopath is in any way equal to me being deservedly angry at having you ripped from my life.

“Sorry.”

Camellia’s smile was barely visible, past the fog of Natalie’s exhalations inside her mask, Camellia’s own fog, and the mask that she wore, hacked together with the smoke mask, with duct tape to hold it firm and the gaps covered in liberal amounts of sealant.

“Do you have a knife?” Mia asked.

Carson had one outside the outfit he wore.

“Keep moving.  Look out for a patch of flat ground.  Dirt.”

All Natalie wanted to do was take Camellia and run.  It was hard to think of anything else.  But she looked.

“There,” Bryan said.

“Good looking out,” Carson told the boy, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Here.  Pack the dirt.  Some will spill, but if we pack it enough, it should hold liquid better,” Mia said.  “Use the jugs-”

She reached for one jug.  Natalie flinched.

Mia moved a bit more gently, plucking the jug from Natalie’s hand.  “We can’t delay.  One of them will be on our trail.”

“I can’t bend over, I’ll watch,” Carson said.

Mia used the base of the jug to ram the ground, packing looser dirt down.

Natalie got up, moved over some, and found a rock.

She could visualize smashing Mia Hurst’s head in.

But as she approached, she saw Carson watching her.

Camellia watched her too.

She used the stone to help, smashing the ground with redirected aggression and frustration.

“Bowl shape,” Mia said.

Natalie obliged.

Mia placed the one jug in the center, then used the box knife, cutting the jug.

She uncapped the other, and prepared to pour it.

“Wait.  That’s going to overflow.”

“That’s why we made the bowl of packed dirt.”

“Pour into my arms.  Pour half, fill to the brim, put the other jug down.”

Natalie made a cradle of her arms.

“No.”

“We could have me hold some of the liquid, I could let some out, you could catch it in the half-empty jug-”

“It would damage the plastic and adhesive tape.  Even a little damage could lead to gas exposure.  Ripley said she wants you alive.  We took the hard road already, getting you out this way, we’re not going to get you accidentally killed,” Mia said.  “Packed dirt will do.”

“Hurry it along,” Carson told them.  “I might have seen one of them.”

Mia emptied one jug into the other.  It overflowed.  The liquid of the two large jugs mingled in the one jug and pooled at the base.

Natalie felt like she could taste it, and held her breath, backing away, pulling Camellia with her.  Her arms felt buoyant after carrying the jugs this far.

“Will that produce enough gas?” Camellia asked.

“Not enough to cover the whole area.  But we have reason to believe one of them is tracking us,” Mia said.  “This way.  The way is harder from where he is to here.  Lots of fallen, packed trees.”

Mia rose to her feet as she talked, and right at the end, put weight on her injured leg, and dropped back to one knee, skidding on the loose material and dirt of the slope.

Carson gave her a hand in getting to her feet.

“Are you going to be okay?” Camellia asked.

“I’ll manage some-”

The sharp sound made Natalie think first of someone putting their weight on a branch and snapping it with incredible force, and she was halfway into a frantic thought about that giving away their position when she caught the echo.

A gunshot, from far away.  The sound echoed through the woods.

Bryan fell.

Natalie reached for him, hampered by Camellia holding onto her other arm.

It was Mia who grabbed him, throwing herself bodily over him, rolling, and, gripping one arm, stood up again, so he was dangling behind her, his arm bent awkwardly over her shoulder.

“Get back!” Mia snarled.

Natalie, in the face of this ferocious woman practically lunging at her, did.

Another shot rang out.  Natalie had no idea if it hit a tree, dirt, or carried on so far that she couldn’t hope to hear or see any sign of it.

“Mia,” Carson said.

Mia was panting for breath.

“My love.  My wife.”

“He shot a child,” Mia snarled.

“I do think he was aiming for me.  Focus.  Your suit’s torn.  Let’s get clear of the gas.  Can Natalie carry him piggyback?”

Natalie wasn’t sure she could.  “Where is he hit?”

“Chest,” Mia said.  “I’ll carry him.”

“You’re injured.”

“I can do it.”

The boy drew in a wheezing breath.  Natalie could barely see his face, with the angle, and the fog against the hard plastic pane.  But the eye she could see looked scared.

“Okay, then,” Carson said.  “We need distance.”

“Yeah.”

Camellia had said her dad scared her, when he got a certain way, made a joke about leaving Natalie without a suit.

She’d said Natalie scared her, when Natalie had gotten upset.

Did this qualify?  This side of Mia?

Because it sure as shit scared Natalie.

It scared her that Mia, with a hole through her thigh, one arm seemingly useless, stuck in a sling with the oxygen tank in the crook of her arm, supported by the sling, could carry a kid that probably weighed a hundred pounds, marching forward like it was nothing, periodically turning, even, to check their pursuer wasn’t lining up a shot behind them.

“He stopped.”

“Are you sure?” Mia asked.

“I think the smell of the chlorine gas spooked him.  He was standing on a rise, lining up a shot, then backed off, lifted his gun away.  Might mean there’s trouble on the road.”

“My phone’s in the left pocket.  Check the drones.”

Carson navigated around Mia, who was still jogging forward.  Who didn’t even glance at him, as he fished the phone out.

Purely focused on moving forward.

He checked.

“Drones are still stationary, but they’re transmitting.  That tells me the operators aren’t set up yet,” Carson said.

“Alright.”

“Or it’s a trap,” he added.  “It’s been a bit.  They’ve had time to get everything running again.  Even leaving some of the tech behind.”

“Alright,” Mia said, again.  “Keep an eye on that, in case they move.”

“Can do.”

Doggedly focused on moving forward.  Natalie couldn’t see, but she could imagine a vein standing out at the side of Mia’s neck, from the strain.  Dripping with sweat just the same as Natalie.

Monstrous.  This was Natalie’s opposition.  This was the same woman that, if nothing changed, would be coming for Camellia, with every tool and bit of grit at her disposal.

Mia saw Natalie looking.

“I care about kids,” Mia said.

Camellia squeezed Natalie’s arm.

That wasn’t why I was staring.  Or scared.

I’m fucking angry about your way of ‘caring’ about kids.

“I had a head injury, when I was a child.  I think it broke the part of me that’s meant to put walls up.  That’s meant to shut things out, so I can be… okay with it all.  I spend every day quietly terrified.  For Ripley, for Tyr.  For Sterling.  For Bryan here.  Constantly.”

Natalie was busy trying to breathe, and was bewildered Mia was able to string that many words together, considering everything..  Drawing in air through her nose, breathing out through her mouth.  Trying to see as her mask fogged up.  Her mouth felt dry and cold, little points of sensitivity still distracting her in the moment.  Her skin and hair were drenched as surely as if someone had emptied a bucket of salt water over her, and plastic clung to her, making it worse.

What Mia was saying deserved a response, a retort, but Camellia’s hand on her wrist was tight, and she could remember that part of herself that had wondered where the line was, for forgiveness.

She didn’t think it was here.  No fucking way was it here.

But Mia had mentioned a head injury, and between that thought about the line and the scenarios that had run through her head a hundred times, that deserved to be worth something, Camellia’s hand, and some desire for an explanation for where the last eleven years of her life had gone… Natalie Listened.

“I think of the little girl who was just outside active fighting, between Cavalcanti soldiers and Civil Warriors.  I know you have your view of me.  But I can’t… not care.  It makes me restless, I turn that restlessness into work.  Being stronger, research, money.”

“Crime,” Natalie replied.

Camellia squeezed her wrist.

“Saving people who want to get out of the life.  Most do.”

“And the ones that don’t?  You give them a chance to keep going?  Keep hurting people?”

“What’s the saying?” Mia asked.  “Better for ten guilty people to go free than for one innocent man to be captive?”

Natalie barked out a laugh.

“Do you know how many people are out there, with parents that don’t care?  With nothing?  They get pulled into gangs or crime out of desperation, then end up with no way out?  Some under Davie Cavalcanti.  That’s imprisonment of its own.”

“That’s convenient for you.”

“It’s convenient because I looked for it.  I saw the people in need and catered to them.”

“Earning a lot of money.  Enough for traps, guns, people you hire…”

Camellia squeezed her wrist again.

“Is it so bad, for ten people to go free, finding their way to a new, better life, if one person ends up abusing that privilege?”

“I think you’d have to ask their victims.  Imagine, authorities closing in around Davie Cavalcanti, and someone gives him that chance.  After he did what he did to- to Ripley?”

“It wasn’t like that.  It was always the plan that when Ripley was older, sixteen to eighteen, when she was emotionally mature enough, we’d show her the files.  Let her see each person.  What they did, why we worked to give them a second chance.  Even where they ended up, if she needed to.”

“Were you ever going to tell her about me?”

“Yes.”

“Your version of events, or were you going to put us in touch?”

Mia had to readjust Bryan, behind her.  Conveniently, she didn’t come up with an immediate response.

“An accurate version of events,” Mia said, and, past that fog inside her mask, which was beaded with condensation or sweat that had shaken free of hair or face, one eye stared over at Natalie.

“All this talk of second chances,” Natalie said.

“Yeah,” Mia said, like she knew what the follow up would be.

“Where the hell was mine?  Where the-” Natalie started, and she choked on the words, inhaled hot air and surprised herself.  “My daughter.”

“Natalie,” Camellia said.

“No, I feel- I deserve this.  Others- assuming we come out of this alive, others deserve to know.  Do you know how many lives you affected, you absolute monster?  How many people were scared for their own children?  Felt dread?  How the ripples spread out, past me, past Sean, to our families, friends?  The relationships that broke down?  The connections that came apart?  The number of hours, for me, for others, spent imagining the worst?  So you could play house?”

They’d stopped progressing down the hillside.

“We should keep moving,” Carson said.

“No.  It’s not just me.  I want to be able to walk away from this and tell those people the truth.  This might be our one chance to get an answer from her.  if Mia here doesn’t shoot me in the back, before she does whatever she’s planning.”  She turned her full focus to Mia.  “Ca- Ripley calls you mom.  She has a name you gave her.  She dresses how you-”

“She dresses how she wants,” Mia cut in.

As the words poured out, it felt as painful as the first moments she’d realized Camellia was gone.  “No, no you had your influence!  You chose the clothes she wore when she was young, you encouraged, whether you knew it or not, what she liked and didn’t like!  You modeled your own looks and styles when she was young and looked up to you!  You got to try out styles with her, and when I try and give her clothes, I’m the bad guy, because you took all of that!  Even now, you gave her- no, you took her first haircut.  Her first words, first steps!  First smile!  The shopping trips!  First movies!  Precious moments!  That’s grotesque!  You’re grotesque!”

“She wouldn’t have had those things if I hadn’t found her.”

“Fuck you, no.  That’s not true.”

Mia’s tone changed.  “It’s all about what you lost.  Why does it seem like you’d rather have Ripley dead, and you accused of manslaughter, than have her alive and living a better life with someone else?”

“She’s alive and well?  She’s missing an arm because of a criminal-”

“A criminal-” Mia reached out, almost grabbing Natalie by the throat, before stopping herself.  She would have dropped Bryan, who was draped over her shoulder.  She clenched her fist.

Natalie’s heart hammered in her chest.  She stood a little taller, chest and head more in reach.  Almost daring Mia, now.  Her breath came out in pants.  Choke me.  Or tear off my mask.  Show her who you really are.

Instead, Mia talked, saying, “Your idiot journalist tipped off the Cavalcantis.  He thought he could work with them to get in our way and stop us.  Which led to them getting you and Ripley.  We would have been fine if you hadn’t appeared in our lives.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” Carson said.  “I even had words with him on the bus, we watched helplessly while they took you away.”

Natalie shook her head.  Sweat droplets shook free of her forehead and flowed into her eyes.  She blinked, and sweat mingled with the tears that had already welled up, earlier in her rant.  “It’s not a binary.  It’s not two options, you take her or leave her in the car to die.  There were other choices.  That didn’t involve devastating whole families and lives, lying to her, involving criminals… any of that.”

“We should go,” Carson said.

“You keep saying that when I say something you two don’t have an answer to,” Natalie accused.

“I keep saying it when there’s an expert hunter with government training and a rifle taking a roundabout route past the gas cloud to chase us, and a whole army around us,” Carson said.  “And Bryan’s bleeding.”

“You’re right,” Mia said.  “I’m not doing great myself, I should have thought about that.  Bryan.”

“I know.  That’s why I reminded you.  Part of being a team,” he said. Was he deliberating trying to take jabs at Natalie, or did it just feel that way?  “How are you managing, Rip?”

Camellia sniffled.  She was crying.  It took her a second to get to the point she could get words out.  “Woozy.”

“You lost a lot of blood and you haven’t eaten.”

“We ate with Davie Cavalcanti,” Natalie clarified.

“I didn’t eat much.”

Mia was already forging her way downhill again.  “What I was going to say, before you got upset-”

Fuck you.

“-is Ripley wants compromise.  A form of dual custody.  I’m open to the idea.”

“So you get eleven years with her.  Then we share the time after?  You get away scot free?”

“It’s what Ripley wants.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants.”

“She knows enough.”

“She knows what you’ve taught her.  How you raised her.  No.  You’re criminals.  You’re dangerous.  You barely blink when you kill people.  You don’t cry.”

“It’s what she wants,” Mia repeated.

“And what happens if she turns eighteen, and she turns to me, horrified-”

Natalie’s foot hit a patch of moss that wasn’t thoroughly connected to the slope below.  She skidded about four feet down the slope before finding firmer grass and weeds underfoot.

She’d managed to catch Camellia.  Camellia nodded, and pushed off of Natalie’s shoulder to get upright, before Natalie straightened.

“-horrified,” she had to remind herself of what she’d been saying.  “Saying she was so young, she’d been brainwashed, she didn’t know any better, how could I let her be around people that dangerous?  That’s a choice a parent has to make, sometimes.  Knowing best.”

“She wants Blair and Devon.  She wants her friend group.”

“She can have them.  If she’s not with you.  You’re known criminals.  No remotely sane parent would let you host a sleepover, or pick up a child from their house.”

“Compromise would-”

“Fuck you.  You’re deluded.”

“Please don’t-” Camellia murmured.  “Don’t get so angry you’re swearing at each other.  If you need to argue, okay.  I know this isn’t easy, or- I don’t know.  I really don’t.  But swearing doesn’t- won’t.”

Natalie put a hand over Camellia’s.

Camellia pulled away, touching trees for that point of reference to keep herself balanced.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Natalie said.  “Before Carson interrupted.  The decision you made, it wasn’t binary.  You could have called for help.  You could have let me know.  And you could have given me a second chance.”

They carried on down the hillside.  Natalie checked behind them.

Mia pulled her mask off.  Her hair was plastered to her head with sweat.  She wrinkled her nose, then put the mask back on, shaking her head.  “Almost, not quite.”

“Changing the subject?  Don’t have an answer for me?”

“No.  I have an answer.  Out of respect for Ripley, I’m withholding it.”

“Sure.”

“Sterling,” Camellia said.

“What?” Natalie asked.

“Sterling.  I said it to you before.  I’m guessing that’s what mom was going to say.  You wanted a second chance.  You had Sterling.  And he’s not happy.  You don’t spend enough time with him.  You don’t know enough about him.  When you have him and you’re around family you spend time with the family, and ignore him.  He’s lonely.  That’s what he said.”

“Would you rather Ripley was with you and miserable-” Carson said.

“Fuck you.”

“Or with us and happy?” he finished, in that same light tone from earlier, muffled by the mask.

“The teachers of Sterling’s Pre-K noticed it and wrote about it in emails.  The child services worker at the hospital wrote it.  She didn’t write about the situation, but she wrote about your relationship with Sterling,” Mia said, not even looking Natalie’s way.  “She said he seemed lost, and Ben provided the support.”

After Camellia had been taken from her, she’d keened, rocking back and forth on the floor.  She hadn’t eaten.  She hadn’t washed.  Her mother, distant as she was, had bathed her, as if she was a child again.  Then the people had fallen away.

The pain had been so great that people hadn’t known how to help… so they’d stopped.

If she’d twisted the truth at all, it was about how the ripples had spread.  What that looked like.

But she herself had felt the pain that nobody should feel, more than ten or a hundred people could’ve or should’ve borne.  She had wanted to die.

Now she watched as Camellia moved ahead, unsteady on her feet, until she was in line with Mia.  Checking, in the break in the conversation, on Bryan, who wheezed away.

Camellia looked over her shoulder at Natalie, one side of her mouth pulling back in a kind of apologetic non-smile.

This moment felt like dying, more than wanting to die.

For Camellia to say those words.

“It’s not fair,” Natalie said, words choked.  “That you get to break me, take my joy, take my hope, my love, do the amount of harm you’ve done… then use that struggle to say I don’t get to have her back.  That I have hate in my heart that you put there.  That I’ve struggled, because you put that struggle into my life.  You can’t tear my heart out, then blame me for- for wanting it back so badly I lose track of-”

“For five years?” Carson asked.

“No that’s- I’m tired, I was up late, watching Ripley, making sure she didn’t stop breathing, with the blood loss, or shock.  I’m not good at thinking or putting words together in these situations, that shouldn’t count against me here.”

Tears flowed.

She wasn’t sure if it was better or worse, that they were focused enough on the path ahead of them, that they didn’t look her way.

⯁

“Hello Natty.”

Natalie shrank back.

“Go on.  Give your Auntie O a hug.”

Natalie hesitated, but someone -not her mom- stuck a foot out and gave her a prod in the butt.  She stumbled forward, hands immediately going back to smooth her nice skirt, and her hands weren’t up in a place to defend herself as her Auntie O descended.  Tall and round-faced, with heavy makeup, including crimson lips that looked like costume wax lips more than anything else.

Natalie was lifted off the ground, by hands under her armpits, then pulled into a hug.  Aunt O rocked her left and right, her legs dangling.  The woman smelled like wine and cigarettes, but mostly wine.

“Kiss, kiss,” the aunt said.

Natalie went for a cheek kiss.  Her aunt, holding her, maneuvered instead for a lip-on-lip smooch.

“You’re almost too old for that,” Auntie O said, before awkwardly lowering Natalie to the ground.

Natalie started to move away, hand smudging her mouth, while some adults laughed, loud and wine-y.  It felt like the thick lipstick was on her face, now, and rubbing didn’t make it better.

She started to duck away, but her mom caught her, first by the arm, then pulling at her waistband.  “Hold on, hold on.  Your grandmother wants to know what brand this is.”

The collar of her shirt was pulled back and folded, so her mom could read the label.

“Kara’s.”  Her mom released her.

“I’m going to remember that.  It’s so hard to dress these kids.  Natalie must be a challenge especially, she looks more like she’s six than…”

“Eight.”

“She’s such a doll.”

Natalie was released, but another uncle was bending down.  “Where’s my hug?”

“Give him a hug,” her mom said.  “She’s so shy, sometimes.”

She dutifully gave her uncle a hug.

“How are you?  How’s school?”

“Okay,” she mumbled.

“Good.  Your grades are good?”

She shrugged.

“Her grades are very good, she’s being modest.”

“What books are you reading?” an older cousin asked.

Surrounded by people that dwarfed her, she found herself tongue-tied, her mind a blank.  She shrugged.

“She’s reading at a high level.”

“Do you want to come talk about books?” the older cousin asked.

“Or boyyys?” another relative asked.

Hands seized her from behind, pulling her backwards into another hug.  She yelped a bit.

“Go easy, Earl.”

“I’m easy,” Uncle Earl said.  He smelled like beer.  His arms were wrapped around her ribs.  “How are you?”

“Fine,” she mumbled.

“Come-” the older cousin started.  But then Natalie was lifted off her feet.  And, hands fumbling around her, was flipped upside-down.

“Go easy, Earl!  She’s not like your kids!”

“Woah!” an older cousin jeered, ducking down so his face was level with hers.

Natalie, bewildered, dizzied, put a hand up to keep her skirt from flipping, another hand down, in case he dropped her on her head.  She almost hit her cousin in the process.

“You’re fine?  Give me more than one word, come on!  More than one word and I let you go!”

“I’m okay!”

“That’s not a response!”

“I don’t know!”

“Earl!  Let her go!”

She wasn’t sure if her mom was repeating herself, if others were saying it, or if it was just dizziness, alarm, and the blood rushing to her head, but it felt like forever before her uncle released her.

Flushed, disheveled, she backed off.

“Come, talk books?” her older cousin offered.

Natalie fled the room, instead.

“Go find others to play with!” her mom told her.

“I have no cousins my age, it sucks.  The older and younger cousins have whole groups,” the other cousin complained.

Natalie didn’t want to find others to play with.  She found the backyard, where the dogs were, and a deck chair.  She was careful not to let them jump on her in their excitement, and the deck chair was huge, but she could pull back, legs crossed, skirt pulled over knees, and give them scratches and head pats.  When they got bored of her, they played with each other.

Her heart rate took a while to settle, after the bustle, and the crush of people.  She wiped at her mouth, then realized a dog had just licked the same part of the hand she’d used to rub her lips.  Leaning over the armrest, she spat a few times.

She wanted to go into the house, to get something, but- she didn’t want to go into the house.  Too many people.

When she straightened, she wasn’t alone.  Uncle Earl’s two kids were there.

⯁

She found her mom in the sea of adults, so dressed up for the holidays that Natalie didn’t recognize her immediately.

She navigated people bigger than her, including her uncle’s friend, who didn’t seem to know how big he was, and nearly swung his beer belly into her head as he turned.

Once she reached her mom, she decided the best way was to squeeze between couch and armchair, to lean in, and whisper, “I want to go home.”

“It’s barely been two hours.  We drove that long to get here.”

“Please.”

“What’s wrong?  Are you not feeling well?”

It wasn’t that.  It was that she was tired already, she felt intimidated by everyone being bigger than her – except her little cousins, who seemed to have ten times the energy.  And Uncle Earl’s kids-

Teasing, poking, prodding.  Trying to get reactions.  Trying to push her limits.  Until she reacted.  But she could push back or call them names, and they didn’t even blink.  And they kept at her.

If she could just sit with the dogs and see a few relatives that would be-

“Come here, there’s space on the couch-”

Natalie was pulled by one arm.  Auntie O again.

“Don’t-”

And once she was close enough, she was grabbed around the middle and lifted.

“I don’t think she’s feeling well, if you grab her around the gut like that, you deserve whatever happens.”

“Oh she wouldn’t do that to me.  Oof, you’re heavy for a six year old.”

“I’m-”

“She’s eight.”

“Oh, you’ve got to tell me your secret, darling.  How do you keep this slim, tiny figure?”

There wasn’t room on the couch, and she was crushed between her aunt’s side and the armrest.

“You’re not supposed to talk about a girl’s weight, you’ll give her an eating disorder!” someone said, from across the room.  Her uncle’s friend.  “Poor girl.  Look at your hair, you’re so disheveled already.  You looked so pretty when you came in the door.  Let’s fix that.”

“It’s fine,” she protested.

“It’s really not, have you looked in a mirror?”

Long fingernails combed through her hair.

“Were you having fun?” another uncle asked.

She started to squirm her way free.

“Let her go, she’s not feeling well.”

“If she gives me a kiss,” her aunt said.

It was a kiss on the cheek, at least.  Or the temple.

Somehow that was the point that made her reach her limit.  Or reach it again.  She’d started crying with her cousins needling her.  Then she’d gone to the bathroom to cry in private.  She’d heard them leave and she’d come here.

Now..

“Are you crying?” a cousin asked, almost jeering.

“She’s not feeling well,” her mom said.  She started to rise out of her seat.  Natalie felt relief.  Then her mom resettled.  She’d been getting access to her purse.  “Here.  Pills.  For indigestion.  Chew.  And go upstairs to one of the empty beds and have a lie-down.”

She fled, once again.

“She’s crying a lot for a kid her age,” an adult said, when she was out of the room but still in earshot.

“She acts more like she’s six than eight.”

“But she’s adorable,” Auntie O proclaimed.  “She’s a treat.”

She didn’t take the medicine, because she didn’t need it.

She found an empty room.  There was a bed.  It was quiet.

Natalie sniffed, found a tissue, blew her nose, and then climbed onto the bed.  Her grandmother’s house had huge beds and thick covers, so it was a task to get onto it.

She tried and failed to sleep.  She felt weirdly hyperalert, every little noise jolting her.  And they weren’t all little noises.  The door opened.  Little cousins.  An uncle ushered them away before they could bother her too much.

Her clothes, fancier ones for the holiday get-together, scratched and itched.

Adults laughed downstairs, and it felt a bit like they were laughing at her.  The way her cousins had.  The way adults had talked about her, as she’d left the room.  It stirred up feelings of frustration and unfairness that made it even harder to rest or relax.

“There you are.”

She sat upright.

Her cousins, again.

They were smiling, but it wasn’t a happy smile.  It was scary.  They scared her, because they didn’t flinch, or react, or care.  The unhappier she was, the happier they seemed.

“I bet she pukes.”

“She’ll cry again, I bet.”

Nobody seemed to care.  Not about her.

⯁

“When something bad happens, and you don’t have any help, any support, you can be frozen at that age, development-wise.  It’s why you’re a fucking twelve year old, Peter.  You look twenty-five, but you never matured past that point.  You never grew up.”

“You need to reach out.  The ideal time to reach out would’ve been thirteen years ago, but the next best time is now.”

Tears came to Natalie’s eyes.  The image on the screen in front of her blurred with the moisture.

She fucking hated crying.  But hormones.  Fuck.

Am I frozen?

She felt frozen.

She felt like she was still that eight year old girl, the world a storm of people around her.  Not one person in her corner… or if they were there, like how maybe her cousin Ellie would have been that, if she’d accepted her lonely cousin’s invitations for company, she couldn’t find them for the life of her.

She wanted to tell Sean.

She turned to him, expecting his eyes to be on the screen.  They weren’t.  He was asleep, head lolling back.  Her feet were in his lap, footrub long aborted.

It was unfair in every way, but she was mad at him, in that moment.  For not being there for her.  Hormones, she guessed, were magnifying that feeling.  But she was mad, all the same.

So long as she didn’t act on it.

She carefully extricated her feet from his hands and lap, easing them to the ground.

He stirred.  “You okay?”

“Gotta pee,” she told him, shifting position on the couch, so she was ready to stand.  “Camellia’s headbutting my bladder.”

“You need anything?” he mumbled, stretching a bit.

She worked her pregnant way to her pregnancy-swollen feet, took in a breath, then managed to tell him, “No.”

But he was already asleep again.

That anger flared.

She felt like that child again.  Very small in a big, chaotic world.  Her emotions weren’t hers, it felt like.  It was more like her emotions were the rest of the world’s, to play with, provoke, wound.  Disappoint.  Anger.

How the hell was she meant to do this.

“You gotta protect her,” she told a sleeping Sean, before turning.  She waddled her way to the ground-floor bathroom.

Was she frozen at eight years old?  Was that why she felt so monumentally unprepared?

I won’t let you feel the way I felt.

She reached the bathroom, leaning on the sink.  The tap was still partially disassembled.  Sean had said he’d fix it today.

She did her business, and, weary, content for the moment for her world to be a bathroom with a broken sink, a space so small that she could touch all four walls from where she sat, she took it all in.  She hadn’t expected a stupid drama show to hit at her weak points like this.

Or maybe she was all weak points, and that was the problem.

She’s crying a lot for a kid her age.

She folded forearms and hands around her stomach.

Anger at Sean flared, as she thought about it.  That he should be checking on her.  That that was unfair.  Then anger became something else, and she cried.

She soothed herself and she reassured Camellia, still curled up within her, that she’d protect her.

⯁

I’ll protect you from harm.

She wanted to reach out to Camellia and she couldn’t.  Camellia leaned on Mia Hurst, instead.  The arm that Natalie would reach for was gone.

They made their way down the slope, toward the road.

Carson glanced back at Natalie.

I’ll protect you from people with cold gazes.

Carson checked the cameras.

“How’s Bryan?” Carson asked, his gaze on the screen.

“Wheezing.  Alive.  Not great.”

Camellia looked back at Natalie.  Natalie wondered if her daughter was looking for some kind of reassurance, or balance.  Or something else.

“The drones are moving,” Carson reported.

Mia settled into a resting position, hand gripping her thigh.  She made a pained sound.  “Are they moving like they know where we are?”

“Close to.  I don’t think we can afford to stop to catch our breath.”

Mia nodded.  But she still took a second, eyes shut, hand at her thigh.

“He doesn’t have his family with him.  They’re backing off, taking the side road, off the mountain.  By the other warning station.”

“How many?” Mia asked.

“The police he turned.  And the mercenaries.  I’m not seeing the drone operators.  I think they’re somewhere else, out of range of the drones, ironically.”

“Okay,” Mia said.

She stood.  Ripley looked up at Mia.

I’m going to protect you from feeling how I felt.  Like I was constantly on the brink of tears.  Or fury.

I always ended up crying.  Why?

Ripley made herself get to her feet.  She looked so unsure.  So scared.

Natalie rose to her feet too.

Carson was shaking his head, looking at the phone.  “Fast.”

Fast?

Oh, they had to go fast.

Natalie almost tripped over herself, in her fatigue.

They crossed the road.

They were almost in the trees when headlights swept over them.

Mia’s leg, Carson’s injured side, and the fatigue of trekking through thick vegetation kept them from making the kind of ground they needed to make.  They had to stop too soon.

Before they were fully incapable of seeing the other cars pulling up to the treeline.  Police vehicles.

“Remain where you are!” the voice blared, augmented by some exterior speaker on the vehicle, or a megaphone.

They didn’t remain.

“Do we have a way past the drones?” Mia asked.

Carson glanced down at the phone.

I want to give you at least one person who won’t fail you.

Carson turned.  “Hunter.”

Directly behind them.

“Police.”

Coming down their flanks.

Probably moving through these woods faster than they were.  Uninjured.

“Police.”

Ahead of them, on the next road, at the base of the hill.

“Davie Cavalcanti and the second government trained tracker and hunter.”

Direct ahead.

“He’s waiting for us?” Natalie asked.

“Drove around.  Like he expected us.  And, of course,” Carson used the flat of his hand to point skyward.

Drones.

“Davie, then,” Mia murmured.  “Through, past him, or… not at all.  There are no other options.”

When Camellia had suggested killing the life support for the ‘trophies’, it had been because they were something Davie Cavalcanti prized.

He’ll want more.

There were four or five right here, if they weren’t careful.  If they weren’t lucky.

“Okay,” Natalie said.

They hurried forward, Mia limping, carrying the wounded child.

Natalie would have liked the chance to be the hero there.  But Mia had taken it.  Had taken so much else.

She’d left Natalie the role of villain.  Betraying her own promises to her daughter, then realizing it after.  For bodily autonomy.  For a say.

They made Natalie feel that child all over again.  Every glimpse of Mia or Carson felt like being little, Uncle Earl’s kids cornering her.  Except so much worse.  So much worse.

Only one thing was left.  One promise she’d made to her daughter, before everything.

I’ll protect you from the monsters.

---

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