Project Sapling: Part2:9

Chapter 12

Rickie Dahl sat perched on Will’s big oak desk, leaning on one hand, the other holding a thick file folder. “Got something for you,” the secretary said, lifting one eyebrow as Will entered the office and sat down at the desk. Today Rickie was wearing a soft silk shirt with a perfect bow tied at the collar, soft satin trousers, and a matching satin double-breasted vest, all in the bright sky blue that matched the secretary’s eyes so well. It had taken Will years of work, and drink, and quitting drink, to shake the shivers at the sight of a body dressed head to toe in blues...

“Oh?” Will propped his chin on his fist and his elbow on his desk, grinning at Rickie. “Something juicy?”

“District corruption up North. You’re going to love this. One of the juniors has been working overtime to compile this. Colville territory – didn’t you say you had a friend up there?”

Will sat up.

“Missing sheriff’s deputy, trail of gore leading a hundred miles through the mountains outside of Colville, heading west, Tip Line call about departmental corruption in Colville local government, complete with additional missing person’s report and a protection request from the missing deputy’s brother – also a deputy. Coincidentally we have an Abuse-of-Prisoner filed by a Minor-Involved-Crimes Agent last week, involving the now-missing deputy as chief offender, that got shuffled to the bottom of the pool because the system failed to flag it as involving a minor, and an admission to the Pediatric Intensive Care unit at Boise a few days ago with identical injuries to those listed in the AoP, around the same time as the disappearance of our deputy. The Rawjob who spotted the whole mess and decided to pull everything happening in the district already got a tidy little raise...” Rickie handed over the stack of paper.

Will opened it, flipped through incidental briefs of each of the reported items, choked at the content of the AoP, and then stared at Rickie for a moment, face betraying a mixture of rage, frustrated shock, disgust, and amazement. “Double it. And thank you for bringing this to my attention, Rickie. Prep me up the case file with full printouts while I make a few phone calls, will you? Looks like I will have a reason to stop back by after all...”

Once the phonecalls were made and the briefcase prepped, William headed north. By the time he arrived back in Colville, the bar had opened for the day. He parked his little car off the mainstreet and walked back to the bar, grinning up at the pretty heavy on the door again. She smirked back down at him, waving him into the bar with a mock salute.

“TINY FED!” The barkeeper shrieked in amusement as he walked in. “Heh. Welcome back.” She fixed him with a wicked grin and propped one elbow on the bar, examining her nails. “Didn’t expect to see you back so soon! What’s up, did Felix go missing suddenly as well? Heh.”

“Oh, no!” Will pulled the strap of his briefing bag over his head, setting it on the bar. “You’ve got a missing sheriff’s deputy and a long trail of blood into the hills, didn’t you know? I warned you I’d be back if I was ever working a case up here. On that note, you said something a little... funny... last time I was up here – something about ‘Goodcop-Badcop’?”

“What about them?” The bartender purred. She was smirking at him now, having propped her chin on her hand and staring bemusedly at him. “Wasn’t Goodcop who’s missing, if that answers any of your questions...” She shrugged. “Whole town’s felt a little safer for the past few days...”

“Actually, it does, thank you.” Will unzipped the soft leather bag, pulling out the files related to the case. “So is it usual around here for people to be booked up for the night on throwaway charges? I’ve got about fifteen times you and your missus were taken in for alleged public intoxication only to be shown verifiably sober by analysis.”

The bartender laughed. “I did just say the whole town feels a little safer, didn’t I?”

Will made a note on a fresh pad of paper, nodding. “Thank you, that’s what I thought. What about – it looks like this arrest was the other deputy J.S. St. Thomas? Different Badge Number. Am I looking at brothers here? Fill me in a bit.”

“Twins, yes. Jackson Stewart there, you’ve got Goodcop, decent officer, might be the only good man on the force. Jacob Scott on the other hand, that’s who’s gone missing a few days ago, and who likes to haul me and Trina in on nothing for no reason.” The barkeep Lorine was still still leaning on her hand smirking at him.

“That’s what I thought, thank you.” Will made another note. “What makes this one stand out to me is it looks like the kind of trumped-up bullshit the other would pull out – hauled in a couple of out-of-towners who were getting loud over badly done laundry on suspected public intoxication and put them in the county lockup overnight. Booked them on behavior likely to cause a breach of the peace.” Another note. “You said that this Jackson Stewart might be the only good officer on the force? What did you mean by that?”

Lorine shot him a look that said he must be either concussed, or just very dumb. “It means that poor Jackson is scared for his life right now that his fellows on the force are going to pin his twin brother’s whole host of terrible crimes on him if they are found out, and very scared that they are about to be found out.”

“Oh good. I’ve arranged to meet with him here, if you’re not opposed?” Will gave her a wicked grin of his own.

“Oh, do I have a choice if you’ve already arranged the meeting, then?” Lorine shot back, arching one eyebrow. “You should have alerted the proprietor, you know.”

“I thought I just did? Unless I was mistaken and you are not the owner of this establishment? But to answer your question, well, I could take my meeting elsewhere, but is there an elsewhere in this town? Certainly can’t call in at the police department, not this case.” He laughed.

“Not really, other than the laundromat or the post office,” she answered, still smirking. Those were not places for a private conversation. The bar at 1:15 in the afternoon, on the other hand, was deserted other than the barkeep and the security standing outside.

The door creaked open, slowly, clearly the work of someone who didn’t want to be there. Jackson St. Thomas, eyes wide and clearly sleepless, glanced around the bar before entering, just as slowly as he had opened the door. His gaze landed on Will, who turned to give him a grin so predatory that Jackson’s hackles immediately rose.

He was used to the local crowd mostly avoiding him due to his face, but on those occasions when he had the opportunity to drive down south and spend a few days away from the radius of his brother, this was exactly the sort of grin that the more forward of the old barqueens would give him before asking whether the uniform was real or held together with velcro. He was distinctly not looking forward to fending off the advances of some overly-flirtatious out-of-towner who couldn’t hold off from stopping in the only bar in the nowhere town when he was supposed to be meeting with a Fed in just a few minutes. The whole point of a meeting here so early was that no one else would be here.

Well, Felix might have been, if the idiot nephew hadn’t broken his truck...

With a sigh, Jackson sat down at the bar, giving the bartender an easy smile – She and her wife were good people, and he liked them. “’Lo, Lor. Water.”

“Good afternoon, Jack. What brings you in so early, we’re barely open. Nice bruise!”

Jack raised a hand to his cheek, still discolored from the idiot nephew’s idiot fist, and glanced over at the loiterer, willing him to get up and leave. “Thanks. Idiot nephew’s work. Meeting someone here in a bit...”

Will was still grinning at Jack as though he were about to bite. “So, you’re Jackson? You’re waiting on me, then.”

It was clear that Jackson did not believe him, even before he voiced his disagreement. “Uuuh... doubtful.”

Will’s grin became somehow worse, and he produced his identification, pushing it down the bar at the shocked Jackson. “I think you’re mistaken.”

Jack picked up the black leather fold with the gold badge and photo ID that told him that this man was in fact the Agent he had spoken to over the phone, and let himself relax. “I am wrong. My apologies. So, Agent MacKenzie, how is it that I can help you?”

“Actually, I think the question is how can I help you, officer? I listened to your call to our Tipline, and frankly, you sounded terrified. I’m not here looking for your help, Jack, I’m here offering you a hand out of this. Talk to me, Jack. I can take care of things.” Will leaned in to speak directly to Jackson, whose shoulders began to shake as he handed back Will’s identification.

“Where to start...” Lor had delivered the requested water, and he clutched at it with a shaking hand. “I... My brother is dead.”

“And you’re worried that you will be next?”

“It’s not just that... I mean, I am, honestly, but...” Jackson ground his jaw, grasping for words. “I’m about to become a scapegoat. My brother and I...” He lost the words again, and Will filled in for him.

“You’re identical twins? Then if there were physical evidence of your brother’s indiscretion it could be pinned on you? You’re afraid you’re about to be framed for your brother’s crimes?”

“It’s that or lose their hold on me, so yes.” Jackson produced a file folder of his own, handing it to Will with a look of sheer pleading. “I was told in no uncertain terms that these would be traced back to me if I ever attempted to do anything to stop them...”

“Them? Not just your brother, then? You can give me names later, but I’ve been told at least once already that you’re the only good man on the force. And you’re afraid of retaliation for contacting us about all of this?” Will had to hold back his horror when he began reading the papers Jack had handed him. “Your brother did this? To a child? And there is evidence?”

“That the men I work for promised would lead directly back to me, yes.”

Will closed the file, blinking several times to scrub the sentences he had just read from the forefront of his mind, and pulled a folder of his own out of his case, putting away what he had been given, making a note on his pad, and handing the folder to Jack. “Sign here, here, and here. Thank you.” Handing a pen to Jack, he waited until the man had done as he asked before continuing. “Alright. You are now officially my agent, and I am requesting your cooperation in the upcoming investigation into district corruption. Should you feel the need I am authorized to put you up in lodgings near the Branch Office in Spokane, at Federal cost. Given the information you have just supplied to me, I recommend it.”

Jack gulped. This had not been the level of protection he had assumed would be available to him. “Ah, yes, um, that is a good idea, I think.”

The next few questions were basic housekeeping on the level of Jack’s name, residence, profession, and other such information.

Then, the prodding began. He had been the one to report his brother missing – what had made him go looking? A pattern of skipping out on work sent Jack to his brother’s house when he failed to report in. A pattern of failing to report for duty? Tendency to skip out and take the idiot nephew up the mountains fishing. Nephew? Clair’s boy, little slow. And this would be the nephew arrested on the second? Yes, made some stupid stunt in class and got himself in trouble. And was Jack aware of the Abuse-of-Prisoner report filed on his behalf the next day?

That had caused Jack’s face to go slack. No. No he was not. “And that’s what brought you up here when I called you?”

It had been. And had Jack been aware that his brother would be the one on night duty at the jail? No, he had volunteered in the span between arresting Oscar and getting him booked. And after that? Jack had been called in to the laundromat to deal with rowdy out-of-towners. And had Jack known that those two were a Pediatrics nurse and a Minor-Involved-Crimes Agent?

Jack had emphatically not.

As though on cue, the pair arrived through the door. “G’day, Lorine!”

“Hey, welcome back! Green tea and black coffee?”

“Please, and thank you.” They were followed into the bar by Trina, who locked the door behind her, coming to take up her own place at the bar when Louis and Leonard did.

Will checked his watch. Perfect timing.

“You’re the Fed?”

Will introduced himself.

***

“Hold on. Don’t do anything stupid. I’m not here to hurt you.” I held my hands up to show her I meant it, eyes very wide. She had seemed intent enough on me a moment before, but was losing focus, beginning to look behind me more than at me. “You’re the girl I tried to talk to on the chopper out, aren’t you?” I asked, frantically, trying to focus her back on me. This could only be the Religious Ramblings Girl from cubicle five, definitely the same girl who had sat half-invisible next to me for the ride out.

She dropped the match.

“Father, see? Holy Fire, to Cleanse me Pure...”

The circle of gasoline around her feet caught, and I stood frozen to the spot, horrified. Anything like that, for instance.

“You’re the one who’s been setting fires?” I asked, stupidly, before turning to look at my training officer, who was also staring in horror. “Mac, she’s ours! DO SOMETHING! This is the girl I was trying to talk to!”

MacKenzie shook her head, speaking slowly and distantly as though dreaming. “She did this to herself...”

I looked back to the girl now ringed with shoulder-high flame, standing motionless and face gone strangely euphoric at the epicenter of the fire, and shucked my backpack with a single dogged determination: NO.

Unthinking of the heat of the flame or the depth and probable speed of the river behind her, I pelted full speed into the fire, colliding with the cackling girl full-force and propelling her backwards out of the fire and off the short cliff she had been standing on moments before.

We landed in the water with a splash, and I felt her wrap herself around me as we hit, legs latching firmly around my hips with a strength I hadn’t suspected. The water was quick, but not so quick that we couldn’t right ourselves and stand up, gasping in the chest-deep water.

“What...” she seemed confused, and I wondered how much of what had just happened she remembered.

I wondered if she was somehow sick.

I grabbed her once again, pulling her to me into a hug, keeping the river from pulling her away form me – the rocks were slick under my feet, and if she wasn’t well... “Never do that again,” I ordered, voice shaking. “I just saved your life,” I clarified. “I own it now. Never do that again.” I forget where I had head that, but I had liked the idea that having saved a life, it was now mine to keep safe.

“WHAT?” She did not seem to agree, or perhaps understand. She shoved me back, and suddenly was holding a pistol above the level of the water, both hands shaking as much as I knew I was. “Don’t touch me!” she yelled. “Stay the hell away from me you filthy savage!”

“WHAT did you just call me?” I knew I must have looked just as angry and ugly as my father did when someone insulted him. I ground my teeth, turned away from her, said something stupid that I didn’t mean. “Should have let you burn!” No one deserves that.

“What did you learn?” MacKenzie offered me a hand as I scrabbled up the riverbank.

“Not fucking worth it,” I muttered, taking the hand. She wasn’t on fire, my job was done, I knew not to try to do that again and expect gratitude.

“Good Greenjob. You learn quickly.” She began to walk away, and I picked up my pack to follow.

“WAIT!” It was a desperate wail, as she slogged out of the water and toward the rocky shore.

“WHY?” I turned to glare at her, still angry. “I’m doing you a service just by walking away.” She didn’t know just how close to punching her I had come for that insult. “Why shouldn’t I have just drowned you for that comment?”

“You can’t, I’ve got a gun!” she declared, all too confident. She had scrabbled partially up the embankment, but the stones under her slipped and she splashed back down into the river with a tumble of small rocks.

I turned around. “Your gun is supposed to keep you from drowning... how?” I demanded, going to stand on the riverbank above her. I dropped my pack again, and trotted back down the stony slope to join her once again in the river. I did my best to ignore the fact that she was once again pointing her vaunted gun at me. “I just saved your life!” I yelled, and this time I did punch. She reeled, and I grabbed her by the collar, plunging her backwards into the river before pulling her back up to growl into her face, glaring, and taking the gun from her now-unresistant fingers. “I can take it just as quickly!” It had been a cliched line from a pulp novel I had read last summer, that was it. “So give me a good reason why I shouldn’t?”

She didn’t seem to be able to look straight at me, glancing anywhere but my face, finally landing on MacKenzie, standing at the top of the riverbank watching the drama, fists propped on hips.

Mac smirked, and rolled her eyes. “Don’t look at me, this is between the two of you,” she called, sardonic.

I pulled Cubicle Five closer to me, baring my teeth in a snarl as I forced her to look at me.

Even then, practically touching my nose to hers, she wasn’t really looking at me. More like through me, or... I wondered, momentarily, if she even comprehended that I was a person and not a hallucination. Why was she alone?

“So this is to be my test?” the words slipped out of her like a sigh, as though she didn’t quite realize that she was speaking. “If she drowns, she was Honest Woman, and a Servant of God...” No, no this was not voluntary speech.

“What are you babbling about?” I demanded, realizing that she had gone limp, and I was now holding her up out of the water by her collar. I rearranged my grip, slipping my injured right arm under her shoulder to hold her, releasing her collar. The more she spoke, the less angry I felt, and the more sheer concern for the girl in my arms flooded back to me.

“For if she drowns not, then Witch! And Fire, to Cleanse her...” She had gone utterly limp in my arms, the words drawn out of her not of her own volition but by some unseen force. “For God sees, and Knows, and Saves those who are His Servants from the Inferno, but Cast ye unto the Fires those who speak Falsehoods within Truths...” Dad may not have been religious, but I doubted very much that this was in the Bible. Her eyes had rolled up toward the heavens, eyelids fluttering, and she spoke with a breathless intensity that spoke to far more than simply a religious upbringing.

“Kid? What...” It was in all likelihood that she was either older than me, or exactly my age. There was no possibility I was older than her, given that I was barely of age for this run by hours. Still, she was small, and seemed to weigh almost nothing in my arms, and the words slipping endlessly out between her lips were being spoken in such a small, frightened, very young voice.

I looked back up the hill to where MacKenzie stood, waiting. “I think she’s sick.”

“I thought you had learned your lesson. Not worth the fucking effort, Greenjob.” MacKenzie scowled at me, clearly eager to get on with going.

I wasn’t.

No.

Whatever was going on here, it was bigger than my ego. I didn’t even know if she had seen me, there in the water. I could have been anyone, a figure out of myth, or her own parent, and she probably would have reacted the same.

I looked down into the unseeing, uncomprehending face of the girl in my arms, grimaced, and opened them, letting her fall with a resounding ‘sploosh’ back into the water now tugging about my knees.

She sat up, sputtering and angry.

That was better than empty-eyed and ready to drown. “I won’t drown you here, no, but I do still own you now.” I smirked at her, my worry for her subsiding a little bit. She had focused in on me with full attention.

“SAYS WHO?” she snapped, glaring up at me.

“Says the fact that now I have all the guns,” I informed her, glaring down at her, displaying the weapon for her to see. “And the fact that you seem to want to come with me, for some unknowable reason, given your apparent opinion of me...”

She glared up at me in return for a moment, then frowned, rearranged her face, and looked down. She spoke quietly. “I... I guess that wasn’t a very nice thing I said before?”

I snorted, and arched an eyebrow at her. “Wait, was that supposed to be some sort of apology?” I demanded, looking away from her. Alright, so she had been raised to be a rude human. That wasn’t her fault, was it, any more than it was my fault I was raised to be a fighty one. I laughed. Well, we would see.

“I... Yes?” she hazarded, then sniffed, and I realized that the water continuing to stream down her face was no longer from the river. Oh.

“I just literally walked through fire – twice – to save you.” I laughed a little, amused that she was suddenly this calm and coherent after a second dip in the river, when thirty seconds before it had been pure madness and talk of lighting herself on fire. “You can do better than that.”

She flinched away from me, suddenly wary again, and giving me a look of sudden fear and distrust. I must have said something wrong, though I wasn’t sure what yet. She gave me a look up and down, clearly doing an amount of mental math, and then narrowed her eyes at me, giving me a look of cool, calculated nihilism. “Just so we’re clear, if you plan on using me as a bed bunny, I’ll take the river. Or a bullet. Your choice.”

I blinked, twice, flinching away from her as well, unable to control the look of disgust that rolled over my face, then looked away, groaning. “Why, because you don’t want to be used as a bed bunny, or because you don’t want to be used as a bed bunny by a ‘filthy savage’?” I demanded, before I could stop myself.

That question broke her into sudden, ragged sobbing, unable to pretend her tears were just the river any more. The next few words were choked out between the broken sobs, face screwed up into a mask of rage and shame and fear and shocked disgust. “Because I – I don’t – don’t want to be – be raped again!” Another flurry of panicked sobbing and she blurted out the last sentence all in one rush. “Is that really too much to ask?”

I looked away, my own face screwing up in disgust and revulsion. Of course. Of course. Was that why she was alone?

“Is that really what you think I’m...” I couldn’t finish, my words drying up of their own accord and my knees going out from under me. “No,” I choked out, landing in the river next to her. “Nothing like that, kid.” I sat there, feeling the cold of the river sink deeper into my bones, and looked pointedly away from her accusing glare. “I can promise you this, miss... Uh...” I couldn’t just keep thinking of her as Religious Ramblings Girl or Cubicle Five. “Miss?”

“Cole. Erica Cole.” When she spoke, it was calm, and coherent. Her sobbing had stopped. I wondered if she believed me.

I turned back to look at her. She looked... Well, at least not terrified of me anymore. I cleared my throat, and attempted to smile at her. “You won’t get that treatment from me, miss Cole. I’m not my uncle Jake. You don’t have to worry about me on that front.” With that, I hauled myself up out of the river, and extended my uninjured hand to her. “If you are willing to keep yourself civil and stop insulting me, then come will me, and I’ll keep you alive if you keep me alive? No one can survive out here on their own.”

“I was doing fine on my own,” she snapped, suddenly folding her arms over her chest and scowling again.

“And then you set yourself on fire,” I reminded her, indicating the still-burning circle of grass. The flames were subsiding now, and seemed to have been driven back away from the spotty forest and onto the cliff-edge by the wind, resulting in not much more than the charred circle on the ground. “Now I’ve saved your life, and I probably shouldn’t have. I’m probably wasting my time.” It was mean, but she had been mean. MacKenzie, back on the shore, had already assured me I was wasting my time. “But I’m stubborn like that, and once I have something I like to keep it.”

Once again, I extended my hand to her, doing my best to smile. I know it must have come out more like a smirk. “Like I said, I just saved your life, so it’s mine now. But you can have mine, so we’re even, right? I won’t throw away what’s yours, and you can’t throw away what’s mine, alright? Do you understand what I’m asking?”

A simple contract, the agreement the same for both sides: Keep Living. “You take my hand, and I’ll do my best to keep you as safe as I possibly can, because your life is the most precious thing I could possibly have, even if you yourself don’t see it right now. Got it? Trust me...” I kept my hand out, open, waiting, until finally she reached out, closing her right hand into my left.

Contract sealed.

I pulled her to her feet, then out of the river and up the riverbank, two people succeeding where she had slipped on the sliding rocks earlier.

MacKenzie was waiting for us at the top, displeasure evident. “Are you going to be keeping it?” she asked, flatly.

“You were the one who told me no one could survive out here alone, sir.” I glared. “Where’s her training officer? Why is she alone?”

“She seems to have been doing a pretty good job of it on her own,” MacKenzie shot back with a smirk.

“She was setting herself on fire!” I bellowed, frustrated, gesturing back past the girl to her now-flickering circle of flame. We had been in the field for four days, and she had been setting herself on fire. That was not my definition of ‘pretty good job.’

MacKenzie rolled her eyes, sighing deeply. “Fine. But you’re feeding it. And keeping it from messing the carpet.”

Whatever joke she had been trying to make fell flat for me. “What?” I asked, confused, and she shook her head, smirking at me now.

“Nothing. Joke. Never mind.” She turned her attention away from me. “You, girl, come here.” I could see the wheels turning in her mind, coming to the same conclusions I had: Something had gone very wrong to leave this girl in the bush alone.

The girl – Erica, I reminded myself, a type of flowering, low-growing evergreen shrub, also called a heather – held up both hands in submission, and, while not advancing on MacKenzie, did not move when MacKenzie advanced on her. A moment later, MacKenzie had unceremoniously unzipped the girl’s jacket and pulled out her dogtags. “Heh, yep, this the.. Huh?” MacKenzie’s face drained of color, and her head snapped up, glaring into the terrified face before her. “Erica Cole? As in Arthur Cole’s daughter?”

The girl’s knees went wobbly, and she fell, knees hitting the rocky ground abruptly, with a keening wail of despair.

***

The sun beating off the broken pavement was hot. The little girl was hotter, too hot to stay conscious or coherent, but even when she seemed to slip away, her tiny hands still grasped tight to Maria’s shirt, knees latched around her waist. Maria stopped to gasp for breath, once, twice, barely staying upright, bracing sweating palm on shaking knee... “Good girl, Honeybee.” Two more gasping breaths. “Good clinging, Erica... Just... keep...” She gasped one more time, forcing herself upright and the stars out of her vision. “Keep clinging...” Three more gasping breaths, then she wrapped her arms under the little girls trembling knees once more and took off again at the dead run that only the girl she was now carrying could ever beat in the daily foot-races. Maria fought for every breath – she had already been running miles, sprinting as best she could while carrying a girl not that much smaller than she was. Her shaking legs gave out, and she dropped to crouch on the hot pavement, gasping desperately for air while the scorching blacktop seared one palm bright red. It would smart for days...

***

“You are, aren’t you?” The soldier who had just unzipped my clothing and fished around on my skin clutched at their face with one hand, while I dissolved into yet another mortifying round of panicked sobbing. Oh no, oh no, oh no, this one knew my father. The soldier glared down at me, bending down to affect an almost-impossible angle, staring at me close. A moment later, and I was being touched again, one finger slipping under my chin and lifting it, forcing me to look into incongruously blue eyes in an uncomfortably familiar face. Another agonizing moment of forced eyecontact, and the soldier released me, standing up to stare blackly down at me, anger and frustration and something... else... bubbling over and causing them to look away. “You really are...” Then the something else took over, revealing itself as grief, and I recognized this face.

“Give me your pants, Chris.”

“Why?”

“So I can run. I need them.”

“But I need them?”

“DO YA NEED TO BE HIT MORE? CAUSE I’LL HIT YA IF YOU DON’T.”

“But what will I wear?”
“You’ll take my dress, duh.”

“Oh, okay.”

And then I was being touched again, a hand on my head, pushing back my soaking hair and forcing my face up once again to look up into those crisply blue eyes. Hadn’t they been gray Before? Must have finally gotten inserts like Uncle Will... “Alright, Cole. We’re all on the same side here, so there will be none of your father’s intolerance on my watch. Do you understand?” The hand still holding my head was short-circuiting my tongue, and I simply attempted to nod under it. “Smart remarks like the one you made to my soldier earlier will get you caned.”

I cringed, coiling in on myself in shame and horror and disbelief at the bile that had spilled out of me at the first living soul besides my stepmother to show any care for me since I mouthed off after kissing Maddie.

“Oh relax. I won’t hurt you unless you deserve it.” The scorn in that declaration was palpable.

And then, I was released. The soldier walked away, both hands balled into fists at their side. “Come on. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.” They picked up a backpack and rifle from the ground, and began to walk along the riverbank, gesturing for us to follow.

The other one, the big one who had run through fire and come back down to the water for me, also picked up a pack and began to walk away. I was left, sitting on my knees, wordless and ashamed of myself.

I pelted after the pair, undeterred.

Catching up with the big one first, I shot a look at him as I jogged past, attempting to fix his features in my mind. A head taller than me, skinny, recently broken nose and fading bruises of a beating, angular features and dark hair, reddish-bronze skin and deep set brown eyes. Oh god, I had actually popped off and called this boy a filthy savage seconds after he saved my life...

No wonder he had wanted to drown me. I wanted to drown myself again, suddenly. Why on earth had I let my father’s words slip out of me like that again? Why those words? Had a part of me registered that that the lanky wet stranger declaring that he owned me now was an Indian and mouthed off with specifics again without my say-so? It was becoming increasingly clear that the words and phrases I had absorbed from Daddy would not do for the rest of the world.

I sped up to get past the boy, my shame bursting out of me. He was right. He should have let me burn, and I wasn’t worth it. “I’msorrry,” I blurted out, all one word and tiny, and sped on.

I came up on the other one, the one I knew from Before, and matched their pace, walking silently at their side.

“I’m a witch, you know.” It was said conversationally enough, but the smirk on the soldier’s face was enough for me to know it was a taunt. “So is he. And you with all your matches soggy.”

Oh God.

“So why did you set yourself on fire, chickie? Are you a witch, too?” They were grinning, wide and predatory, and I realized that either they had picked it up from Eddie, or he had picked it up from them. This had to be the one he was always talking shit about with Daddy... I should have realized... “Is that why you’re out here with us sinners?”

“If she drowns not, then Witch! And Fire, to Cleanse her...” The words were babbling out of me again, repeating themselves form earlier, my own guilt spraying out in words not my own. “For God Sees, and Knows, and Saves those who are His Servants from the Inferno, but Cast Ye into the Fire those who speak Falsehoods within Truths... As the Book says, Suffer not the Witch to Live, and Cast her... Cast her to the Inferno...” I petered out, gasping for breath and words that weren’t his.

The officer had stopped, and turned to stare at me, then invaded my space, thrusting their face into mine with a glare. “Is that a confession of Witchcraft? Or a condemnation of me?”

I was forced to make two choices at once. Cringing away, I decided on the safer of both options. “No, Ma’am.”

That did not elicit the desired response, bit I also was not immediately smacked. “That’s ‘Sir’ to you, cadet. My trainee wants to have you tagging along, fine. Then you’ll address me as ‘Yes Staff Sergeant MacKenzie, Sir,’ do you understand?” The face was not removed from my personal space.

“Yes, Staff Sergeant MacKenzie, Sir,” I repeated, and they did remove their face from my personal space.

“Better. Now. Are you a witch or not?”

I hesitated.

“I don’t know.” It was the only answer I had.

“So you’ve been working miracles, have you?” The wicked grin was back.

I blushed, and did not answer.

Once again the officer turned to glare at me, stopping abruptly to turn too close to me. “Answer the question, Greenjob. Have you been working miracles?”

I shook my head, unsure what to say. Had I? Well... was surviving this long a miracle?

I was still being glared at, and felt myself trying to fade away in plain sight, just stop being seen...

The glare turned back to the predatory grin. “Well you apparently already know how to go invisible when scared – that’s witchy right there.” The grin turned somehow even meaner, and I quailed. “Is that why you’re here? Did your daddy find out what you are? Didn’t have the nerve to live his words, did he? So he sold you to us?” The tone was mocking. If only that were the reason...

My knees went out from under me again, and I dropped to the ground again with another involuntary wail, dissolving into sobbing again.

Shaking their head and smirking at me, the officer continued taunting. Always had been a snarky ass... “God damn, you are still a fussy one, aren’t you? I’ve gotten spoiled on you, Greenjob! This one’s downright pathetic!” They shot that comment at the boy now standing awkwardly a few feet behind us. “Boy, you sure do know how to pick ‘em.” Reaching down, they grabbed me by the back of the collar, hauling me to my feet again and glaring at me once more. “Pull yourself together, Princess. You stay this soft and useless, and you’ll really end up burning, or shot dead, or somebody’s field prize.”

I could not, and continued sobbing, while one of my oldest friends walked away in front of me, also starting to sob.

***

Whatever argument had just taken place had left both of them in helpless tears. I looked from my training officer, heading on ahead at a full pace, to the girl I had just fished out of the river, standing there, desolate. I walked up to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched away, glaring at me.

I answered with a glare of my own, and then added speed, pulling ahead of her. Fine. I came abreast of MacKenzie, and turned to give my glare to her.

“Yeeesss?” She lifted one eyebrow, sneering at me, sobbing now contained and her usual sour mood returned.

“You have to tell us where you’re going,” I informed her, frustration overflowing

“I do?” It was derisive.

I sighed, grimacing, face screwed up with the tension of the past five days. “What’s to stop me from defecting to Cascadia or the BC Militia?” I demanded, finally.

She rounded on me, thrusting her entire self into the place where I was standing, forcing me to back up a pace or be hit with a whole body. I hadn’t yet seen a glare like this one out of her, and it frightened me. She was nose to nose with me, inches away from my face. “They’re an Aryan terrorist organization! You don’t try to join the BC Militia, you just kill them! That’s all you’ll get if you’re stupid enough to try, killed!” She turned away, taking a few quick steps.

I didn’t follow. “And Cascadia?”

She stopped again, hesitated, then turned to smirk over her shoulder at me. “Not a damn thing, Greenjob.”

I froze, face going slack as the words hit me. “Why?” I jogged after her, trying to keep pace with the breakneck trot my training officer always used.

“Officially?” She asked, as I came abreast of her once again. “Me. I’m supposed to be stopping you from defecting to Cascadia. That’s why it’s you and me and the grain – supposed to be you and me and the grain. You’re considered a bit of a flight risk, it would seem. What’s the glare for?”

“’Supposed to be’ keeping me from defecting?” I demanded. I hadn’t realized I was glaring. I looked back over my shoulder at the girl Erica, who was hanging behind us by several yards, appearing to have zoned out of reality once more. Then I looked back at MacKenzie, who was giving me an appraising look I couldn’t quite read behind. “We’re not headed for a downed chopper, are we sir?” Not really...

The smirk returned. I was very sick of being smirked at. “The coordinates I was given were to a helicopter downed in the base of the Cascades.” She grinned at me, and turned to walk on ahead of me. I was sure there was more to this than that. Dad had said things...

I looked from my training officer’s retreating back, to the lagging Erica, frowning. I was about to turn and confront Mac about what came after that, when –

WHUMP!

The ground between me and Erica exploded upwards in a shower of dirt and gravel with a sudden impact that threw me backwards into MacKenzie with enough force to tumble us both to the ground.

***

It seemed to take a lifetime to run from the encampment to the PetroMart that had only been a few minutes travel in the car when the caravan had passed by it days previous. By the time they had arrived Maria’s lungs had felt as seared as the hand she had pressed to the asphalt. It had taken a few minutes of sitting inside the air-conditioned convenience store to relieve the burning and be able to speak loudly enough to accomplish her aims.

And then she had to muster up the nerve to do the impossible.

The gas station attendant had insisted on giving the still barely conscious Erica an aspirin and a bottle of cold water out of the bevcase, and pressing a second bottle of water on Maria before offering to hold onto Erica while Maria made the phonecall she had to. That was fine. This was an emergency.

The payphone took her emergency passcode, and Maria sighed in relief. Next was the conversation with the operator, giving the Operation codename and Operative Number her parents had drilled into her mind as deeply as her own name. Another sigh of relief when the call was passed on to their supervisor. “Yes. I need to take someone to a hospital and not blow mom and dad’s cover. Yeah. The Pastor’s girl... Doctors Cartwright say it’s probably pneumonia and that she needs medication. Yeah. Babbling about flying pink bunnies. Yeah, thanks. Okay.”

She hung up the phone, looking back at the gas station attendant, who had overheard every word, Erica having insisted on tottering outside after her in distress, and the attendant limping out after her. He looked a lot like her father, she decided, complete with the fancy eyes.

“Gotta admit, miss, I’ve never met a secret agent who’s under four foot tall before,” he teased, gently, crouched to hold up Erica, who had bent to play with the little pink creature and was swaying dangerously. Maria was busily convincing herself that she was only seeing the thing because she had run so far so quickly that she had deprived herself of oxygen and was hallucinating, and Erica had been describing the things to her the whole run, insisting that they were following them, keeping them safe. “Can you tell me what’s going on, since I already heard, or would you have to kill me?”

Maria hesitated. “My parents are the secret agents, I just have an E-code. If two men in housecars show up looking for us, can you tell them I came here and someone gave us a ride to the hospital? And, actually, could you point me in the direction of Saint Maria Hospital?” The irony was not lost on her.

“Will if you tell me what’s going on?” His tone was still light, and sounded strangely like her father as well. “I saw the Cult going through a few days back... You two are traveling with them? You said she’s their pastor’s little girl?” He smiled, reassuring.

She hesitated again, then sighed. “She may be a spoiled little princess, but I’ll be damned if I let her burn up and die because her father can’t stand the idea of being wrong. Supposed to faith-heal or some such similar idiocy...”

“Tell you what, kid. It’s a full fifteen minutes to Saint Maria’s by car. Give me a couple of minutes to lock up and I’ll drive you myself. I promise I won’t blow your cover.”

Maria almost turned him down, but the idea of a ride to the hospital was too important. Speed over stealth. Life was wasting. She loaded Erica into the car he indicated, and rolled down the window. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, kid. Really.” He started the car, grinning at her. “You just keep on taking good care of that little sister of yours, alright?”

Maria had frowned at him, correcting him. “She’s not my sister.” That much should have been obvious by the fact that Erica was very blonde, and Maria was very not.

“Y’sure about that?”

It wouldn’t be for years that Maria would realize that he hadn’t been talking about blood. By that time she also knew he was right.

The ride really was only fifteen minutes. The gas station attendant was good to his word, and drove them straight there, slightly above the speed limit. Halfway there, Maria noticed that a chunk was missing from his right ear, and asked about it. “Oh, that. I had an earring. Someone took it out for me without asking.”

“Boys can get earrings?” she asked it without thinking.

He laughed. “Oh, well, yes, but I’m not exactly a boy?”

Maria had frowned, unsure what to say other than “Then you’re a girl?”

The gas station attendant had laughed again. “Nope, none of the above.”

That had confused Maria even more. “What are you then? You look like a boy...”

A shrug had been the answer. “I’m me. I look like I’m comfortable looking. You can call me a boy if you need to, I don’t mind. You’ll get it when you’re older.” The conversation was cut off by the arrival at the hospital, but it sent Maria’s head in a hundred directions at once. The hospital had been contacted and was ready for them, hustling Erica into a bed and hooking her up to an array of tubes and beeping machines and bags of liquid. Maria sat next to her, praying that she hadn’t been too late, until their fathers had arrived, lividly angry and frantic respectively from their search.

“So much trouble young lady,” Will had declared, coming to drag Maria to her feet by the ear and then out the door. Arthur, meanwhile, badgered the nurses into releasing Erica to him, and swept out the door after them, fuming. As they separated to their respective vehicles, Will dropped his voice to whisper urgently to Maria, still being dragged backwards by the ear across the parking lot. “Please tell me they pumped her full of antibiotics as soon as you arrived?”

“Of course they did!”

“Good. Good work.”