A cloud of dust stirred as the wheels of Van Higgins' car spun. It was thick and soon Raylan was unable to clearly see the vehicle as he aimed his gun at it. Unable to see that the wheels were spinning in place instead of moving the car forward, generating more and more dust.
Inside the car Boyd held the parkingbreak on while simultaneously pressing the gas pedal. He glanced behind him to where Ava and Zachariah sat, wide-eyed and afraid, in the backseat.
"Jump out!" he shouted, "Into that hole over there!" he pointed towards the deep hole he had dug into the packed earth of the desert.
The mother and son turned and saw it from the window beside them. Ava grabbed Zachariah with one arm and pushed open the car door with the other.
They two leaped out of the backseat, diving into the hole in front of them.
Boyd soon followed.
When they were all underground, tense and silent, they heard the boom.
Ava and Zach had never heard such a blast. Boyd, of course had. He knew all about explosives and explosions.
It shook them all, deafening them for several long minutes.
Zach cried and Ava held him close.
The white smoke from the explosion filled the air. The debris from the blast had not fallen into the hole, but the smoke and dust did.
The Crowder family coughed; eyes, noses and mouths full of dust and smoke.
When they could hear again, Ava spoke.
"You were planning this all along." She said to Boyd, who sat across from her in the deep, dark hole. His bald head still looked strange to her, especially now that it was covered in a layer of redbrown dust that mimicked buzzed hair.
"It's the only way they'll stop chasing us." Boyd stated, evenly.
"Now what?" Ava asked.
"Now we get out of here while the smoke's still covering us." Boyd answered. "We're going to Mexico. There's a highway down the hill, on the other side of a river. If we can cross it we can hitch a ride to Tijuana. If not, we'll follow it to the city."
Ava nodded. Arms still around Zach, she stood.
Raylan Givens watched from the top of the hill with Art Mullen, Tim Gutterson and Rachel Brooks. The desert was burning below; its smoke had chased them up the mountains.
A fire engine and multiple firefighters attacked the blaze with several huge hoses. The last thing they needed was another California wildfire.
"They blew up…" Raylan recounted, still in shock, "…just like that."
"We haven't seen any bodies yet." Tim reminded, turning to him.
"You really think there's gonna be anything left after this?" Raylan gestured down at the fire before them. His voice shook with guilt.
Tim hmmed, gazing at the white smoke and orange flames.
Art placed a hand on Raylan's shoulder. "It was Crowder that set up those explosives. This is on him, Raylan, not you."
Raylan just stared at the blaze.
Later, when the fire was lingering smoke and unrecognizable ashes, Raylan found a novel on the passenger seat of the small car Ava had driven to the Otay County Open Space Preserve. He was sitting where she had sat in the heat, the window rolled down, just thinking about her, her little boy and Boyd Crowder.
He just glanced over and there the book was, sitting next to him.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
The same book he had given to Tim on his last day working in Kentucky. The same book he had read cover to cover countless times over in high school and on.
Working in the mine at nineteen, he had read it with a flashlight on his lunchbreak. It was to remind him why he was working in the mine instead of committing petty crime like his father. To remind him why he would never to turn to crime no matter how hard honest work got. To remind him never to be like his father.
Boyd had asked him if he could borrow it. Raylan had told him no and kept the book safe in his pocket all the workday. Raylan knew who Boyd's father was. Raylan knew Boyd needed the message of staying away from crime. Raylan just believed, at the time, that he needed it more than Boyd did.
Now, Raylan wondered…if he had let Boyd borrow that book back then, would everything still have happened the way it had during their lives?
…Or would Boyd have read it cover to cover countless times over, like Raylan had, and turned his back on his father's criminal ways?
Raylan would never know.
Nostalgic, he opened the novel. Inside it, between its final pages was a note.
Fire in the Hole.
Raylan crumpled it up and put it into his jeans pocket.
He told no one.
Dickie Bennet was apprehended by authorities in Las Vegas, Nevada.
He had found a bag of money in a fancy car parked outside of a dead man's tiny house in Lebec, California. He taken it, hopped into a rented U-Haul, and driven down the highway to Nevada to gamble—since he had been lucky enough to get out of prison early and avoid getting killed by Boyd Crowder, he figured he was on a winning streak.
The police found him the next morning, penniless and passed out drunk on the strip. It was not until a few hours later they realized he was an escaped inmate from Tramble Penitentiary.
Once back in custody and back in Kentucky, Dickie made a deal with the Assistant US Attorney David Vasquez. He informed that prison warden James Richland had conspired with prisoner Boyd Crowder to rob a bank in Eddyville, Kentucky, and with three additional prisoners, including Dickie Bennet himself, to recapture Boyd Crowder after he had escaped.
William 'Sumo' Shi, who turned himself in to police in Lebec—explaining that 'Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson' was actually prison guard Dillon Foley—cooperated Dickie's story and received a similar deal in exchange for testifying against the prison warden. Dillon Foley, still masquerading as Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson, used the fake badge to exit the United States into Mexico and was never seen again.
Warden James Richland was arrested and found guilty of aiding in the escape of inmates, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, accessory to armed robbery, and accessory to the murders of prison guard Eddy Green, escaped inmate Gunnar Swift, and the other three men Boyd Crowder killed as a result of being illegally released from prison.
He was sent to the prison he once oversaw, Tramble State, where his former prisoner—now fellow inmates—were eager to welcome him.
Dickie Bennet and Sumo Shi were sent to a minimum security prison to serve the remainder of their shortened sentences as per their deals. Dickie started his own church which Sumo reluctantly joined for protection.
The murder of Van Higgins was never solved.
The medical examiner determined, via post-mortem bruising that appeared hours after the body was found, that the man was not actually hit by a car, but instead beaten to death—most likely by a blunt, metal object like a crowbar.
…or a tire iron.
Zachariah acted as the translator Tijuana. He had his parents had stayed the night in a hotel on the outskirts of the city.
Without the bags of money (stolen from the Eddyville bank and withdrawn from the Lebec bank), Boyd had robbed several tourists for their pocket change, cellphones and other valuables, to be able to afford the hotel stay and food. So much for giving up his life of crime.
Ava had taken Zach down the street so he would not witness this.
Now, this Wednesday afternoon, they sat in a small but busy Mexican restaurant (—was it even a 'Mexican' restaurant if it was in Mexico? Or was it just a restaurant?). The family of three sat at a red-clothed table by the window, listening to the mariachi music playing in the background from the speakers on the ceiling.
Outside, they could see the passersby; locals and tourists walking on the palmtree-lined sidewalks. A tall white arch with crisscross wiring that looked like a spider web rose from the city streets with the same curve as the mountains in the distance rose from the ground.
Ava crunched one tortillachip after another from the basket in the center of the small wooden table. She knew better than to eat all those carbohydrates, but she ate them anyway as she watched her son Zach play with his Happy Meal toy.
Zach sat between Ava and Boyd, across from the window where signs in Spanish and English advertised the restaurant's special today as well as the alcoholic beverage's menu.
Boyd was watching the window beside him. He had not touched a single chip. He was waiting until he saw someone he recognized.
"How do you know he'll even show up?" Ava asked him from across the table.
"I don't." Boyd admitted, still staring out the window at the bustling street of cars and pedestrians outside, "But money is a powerful magnet. It's hard to resist its pull."
"You don't have much to pay him." Ava reminded. The amount he had stolen, even after selling the cellphones, jewelry and watches, had only amounted to less than a thousand pesos—even less in US dollars.
"I will." Boyd declared.
Ava sighed and looked out the window. She already knew what Boyd planned to do.
Behind her, the restaurant was almost empty in that lazy hour in between the breakfast and lunch rushes. An old man sat alone at the bar. Four hungover American tourists ate and drank in a back booth, right by the swinging door to the kitchen.
It opened and out came the red-uniformed waitress holding a tray of food. She crossed the wooden floor of the small restaurant to place the steaming ceramic plates in front of the American family.
Zach had ordered cheese quesadillas. Ava had ordered chicken fajitas. Boyd had ordered a beer because he did not like Mexican food.
"Gracias!" Zach grinned up at the waitress. He glanced at his plate of quesadillas; four sections of a grilled tortilla filled with cheese…but not nearly enough sourcream, "Puede darme mas crema, por favor?"
Waitress grinned back. The little gringo boy speaking Spanish was cute.
"Si." She replied in Spanish, then tried her English, "Of course. Right away." She smiled at the little boy again, then returned with the metal tray to the kitchen to retrieve more sourcream.
Ava chuckled and tussled Zach's brown hair. She was proud of him for learning a second language, especially now that they needed it.
"Put your toy away so you can eat." She instructed, picking up the miniature Infinity Gauntlet from the table and placing it in her lap.
Zach pouted, crossing his arms. "But I don't have enough sourcream yet."
"Just eat what you have." Ava said, "She'll be out with the rest by the time you need it."
She picked up the folded paper napkin next to her son's plate, unfolded it, and tucked it into his buttoned up shirt. Zach squirmed as his mother forced the napkin into his collar.
None of them had had a chance to change clothes since they left the United States. Ava was still in her shorts and t-shirt, Boyd was still in his jeans and tanktop (and still bald), and Zach was still in the buttondown and khakis he had been sent to Rosa and Luis' ranch wearing.
Zach lifted a section of quesadilla off of his plate. Melted cheese oozed out, falling as the quesadilla rose towards his mouth. Some of it landed on the napkin Ava had tucked into his collar.
"Careful, it's hot." Ava warned as Zach took his first bite, "And don't forget to chew. Whoa, that bite's too big! You'll choke!" She reached towards the quesadilla in Zach's hands.
Boyd groaned, finally turning away from the window. "Goddammit, Ava, is it like this every time you two sit down for a meal?"
"Watch your mouth." Ava warned Boyd, glaring across the table at him.
Zach was already snickering at the use of the expletive. He had stopped chewing to do this and the partially chewed tortilla was visible in his partially open mouth.
"Chew with your mouth closed." Ava told to Zach. "Here, let me cut it for you."
Zach closed his mouth and resumed chewing while Ava lowered his arms so the bitten quesadilla returned to his plate. Then, she picked up the fork and knife next to her plate.
Zach grimaced, but allowed his mother to cut his quesadilla, already dived into four sections. His fingers were greasy with cheese.
Boyd rolled his hazel eyes at this. "You're coddling him. He'll never grow up to be man if you—"
"Zachariah is four years old." Ava interrupted to remind.
"Four and three quarters." Zach corrected her.
"When I was four years old—" Boyd began.
"Four and three quarters." Zach corrected him.
Boyd took a breath. He nodded at Zach, then turned to Ava and resumed "When I was four and three quarters I was already cutting up the deer my daddy shot so my momma could cook it for venison. By the time I was five I was shooting the deer myself."
Now, Ava rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and when you were ten you fought a mountain lion with your bare hands and won."
"Maybe I did." Boyd stated. He picked up his tall glass of beer and took a sip of the amber-colored liquid.
"It's eleven in the morning, Boyd." Ava informed, "You shouldn't even be drinking that in front of the boy."
"And you shouldn't be arguing with me in front of him." Boyd returned, "When did you become such an uptight—"
At that point, Waitress returned with Zach's extra sourcream in a tiny plastic cup. She placed it on the red tablecloth next to his plate.
"Thank you!" Zach thanked her, this time in English.
"Comer con gusto." She accepted, this time in Spanish.
Both Ava and Boyd smiled at Waitress politely until she turned and walked away, back into the kitchen behind the swinging door. Then, Ava face Boyd.
"I can't have you undermining my authority with him." She hissed. "I've been doing this for almost five years. Alone—"
"And why is that, again, Ava?" Boyd snorted, "Have you already forgotten during these 'almost five years' the reason you been 'doing it alone'? Because I sure as hell haven't."
"Boyd!" Ava cried. "Didn't I just say no cursing?"
Meanwhile, Zach dipped his quesadilla pieces—cut by Ava—into his sourcream. He listened to the adults argue, quietly, pretending like he did not notice.
It was the most interesting thing since the explosion yesterday afternoon.
"It's just a word." Boyd shrugged, sipping his beer again.
"Just a word?" Ava tested, raising a blonde eyebrow "You of all people know how powerful words can be and I know you have a large enough vocabulary that you don't need to curse in front of a four year old boy."
"Four and three quarters." Zach reminded, for the third time.
Ava turned to him, face pink in embarrassment. "Honey, the grownups are talking."
Boyd chuckled, shaking his head down at the glass in his hand as he set it back down on the table.
"Why don't you eat your fajitas, Ava?" he suggested, "They're getting cold."
He gestured at the metal plate of shredded chicken in front of her. It was still steaming.
Ava gritted her teeth. She picked up her fork.
Zach dropped a piece of quesadilla. It fell from his fingers, slippery with grease, onto the hardwood floor below.
"Goddammit!" he cursed.
Ava gasped at him, "Zachariah! Don't you ever say that word! It's a bad word!"
Zach grinned, sheepishly. "Sorry, mommy…" He was not sorry.
Ava then turned to Boyd. "See what you've done!"
Boyd held up both hands. "If you react that way he's just gone wanna say it more."
Zach leaned down sideways to lift the fallen piece of quesadilla off the floor. Ava jolted.
"Leave it, honey." She said, pushing his shoulder so that he sat upright in his wooden chair again, "You can't eat that. It's got germs."
"Jesus Christ." Boyd groaned, clutching his forehead with one hand. He used his free hand to pick back up his glass of beer and take a long gulp.
He turned to stare out the window next to him again.
Finally!
A chubby, tan skinned man in a poloshirt and shorts was approaching the restaurant. He crossed the street full of cars and then the sidewalk full of pedestrians.
Corey Flores.
The Crowe's smuggling contact in Mexico.
But who was the curvy, tan skinned woman in leggings and a croptop walking next to him?
Corey opened the door to the restaurant, its bell ringing to signify a customer's entrance. Instantly, the waitress emerged from the kitchen again, hurrying over to greet them.
Corey pointed at the table by the window where Boyd, Ava and Zach sat. Waitress nodded and let Corey and the woman walk past her, over to the table.
Boyd stood before they could reach it, standing between them and his family.
He smiled, extending a hand to shake.
"Didn't you used to have hair?" Corey questioned, brow furrowed. He had almost not recognized Boyd.
"I like the bald look on men." The woman commented, flipping her long black hair back.
"You like the pale look on men." Corey corrected, under his breath.
Boyd smirked "Nice to see you again, Senor Flores." He then, turned to the woman, "And who is this pretty young lady that feels the need to flatter me?"
"My sister." Corey stated, flatly. "Carrie."
Boyd's eyes widened in surprise. "…oh." He remembered what Danny Crowe had told him he and his brother Daryl had done with Corey's sister.
Carrie rolled her brown eyes. "Dios mio, I have one fun night and everyone in the world has to hear about it."
"You've had more than one." Corey muttered, rolling his eyes. He knew his sister flirted with the Americans just to piss him and their father off.
Carrie elbowed him in the gut. He winced in pain.
"You wouldn't have had a threesome with two gringas?" she scoffed, "One blonde, one brunette—"
"Enough!" Corey snapped at her.
Boyd was laughing. Ava and Zach watched curiously from the table behind him, unable to hear the topic of conversation.
"Carrie, I hate to be the one to inform you that your past lovers are dead." Boyd said, "Danny Crowe was killed by his own knife, Darryl by his own sister."
Corey blinked in surprise. "That explains why I never heard from them."
"I never expected to hear from them again." Carrie shrugged.
Corey groaned, "Why are we wasting time talking about this? We came a long way from Valle Hermosa—"
"And I know you didn't come all this way just to tell me you came all this way." Boyd cut him off to reply, "You came for my money, so I need to get what I came here for so I can give you what you came here for."
Corey turned to Carrie. Carrie reached into the purse draped by her hip, pulling out three passports.
"They're complete, except for the photos." She informed Boyd, "I have my camera with me. I'll need to take your pictures but we have to find a place with a white background."
Boyd nodded. "The hotelroom should do."
"Now where's my money?" Corey demanded.
"You'll get it." Boyd assured, then adding, "…there's just one more thing you'll need to help me do."
"Oh and what is that?" Corey inquired, narrowing his eyes skeptically.
"Rob a bank." Boyd declared.
Ava was smoking on the concrete balcony of the hotelroom, leaning on the railing, gazing out at the bright lights of the city and the dark night, cigarette between two thin fingers. She sliding glass door behind her was shut (but not locked) so that the smoke and the noise from the city outside did not travel into the room and wake her son.
Zachariah was sleeping in one of the two beds inside. The lights were off.
It was after nine o'clock at night.
Ava wore the nightgown she had bought with the money Boyd had stolen from the tourists. She had bought all three of them new clothes.
Ava did not hear the hotelroom door open, but she did hear the glass door slide. She spun around, instantly, dropping the cigarette over the ledge. It fell, its trail of smoke rising in the opposite direction.
Boyd smirked at her from the doorway. His bald head reflected the city lights.
"He doesn't smell it on you?" he chuckled.
Ava grimaced, glancing past Boyd, through the glass, at the sleeping Zach, tucked into the kingsized bed that made him look ever smaller than he already was.
On the carpeted floor inside a new bag of stolen money had been dropped.
"I just tell him I burned something while cooking." She explained, "I quit before, while I was pregnant, not even a single puff after I knew for sure. But then it was just so…hard…."
"I know." Boyd sympathized, though he had never been addicted to nicotine himself.
Ava shook her head down at her slippers, blonde hair shaking, too. "No, that's not what I mean. I mean it was hard. I was all alone, far from home and everything I knew, everything I grew up with. I had to start over from scratch and I had this baby with me and I didn't know what to do."
Boyd closed the slidingdoor behind him and stepped onto the concrete balcony.
"I know." He repeated.
He placed a comforting hand on Ava's shoulder. She shivered despite the heat, but did not shake off the touch.
"Nobody held my hair up when I was vomiting from morning sickness." Ava recounted, "Nobody held my hand when I screaming out in pain giving birth. I was alone, Boyd, and I know that was my fault—my choice, but you should've never put me in the position to make that choice—"
Starting to shout, she was interrupted by Boyd grabbing both sides of her arms and looking her straight in the eyes.
"I'm here now." He told her. "I've forgiven you for doing what you had to do and now you need to forgive me for doing what I had to do—what I still have to do—in order to protect and provide for you and Zachariah. And if you can't do that, Ava, you'd best push me off this balcony right now because I ain't gone fight with you anymore."
He let go of her to stand with his back to the metal railing, arms up towards the moon and the stars in the sky. Ava turned to face him.
"I don't wanna fight anymore, either." She sighed.
Boyd smiled. He lowered his arms, but kept them outstretched, offering an embrace. Ava stepped forward into it, closing her green eyes.
"You'll never be alone again." He promised, stroking her back.
Thursday morning was Zach's first time on an airplane. He cried as his ears popped during the plane's ascension from the Mexican ground into the sky. He sat buckled between Ava and Boyd, Ava leaning over to comfort him, on the navyblue cushioned seats.
The three sat in the middle of the crowded airplane where there were rows of three. The seatbelt lights on the offwhite ceiling above them glowed as flight attendants wearing navyblue uniforms settled into their seats up front by the bathroom and cockpit.
The pilot's voice stated something in Spanish through the speakers overhead. Somewhere behind them, another child was crying, so at least Zach was not the only one.
After a few long minutes of tears and pain, the plane and air pressure evened out and the passengers' ears stopped popping. The seatbelt light turned off and the flight attendants rose from their seats.
Zach wiped his reddened, wet eyes and sniffed.
"Mommy, why does it hurt?" he asked his mother.
"Because the pressure changes." Ava explained, "Imagine there are a bunch of little dots in the air, so small that you can't see them, and your ears have a hundred of them inside when you're on the ground. But when you go up in the sky, there are less little dots and now your ears only have fifty little dots inside, and they're ache because they're used to having more."
Of course that was not exactly the correct explanation, but it was something a four year old—no, four and three quarters—would understand.
Zach grimaced, unsatisfied.
"But why does it have to hurt just because there's less?" He pressed.
"Because it's hard to go from having more to having less." Ava said, "It's hard to deal with change." Now, she was talking about more than the air pressure. "But does it hurt anymore?"
Zach shook his head. "No."
"See, that's because your ears got used to it." Ava smiled.
Boyd listened as Ava spoke to Zach. He decided she was a good mother after all, despite being overbearing when it came to eating and cursing.
He glanced at them, then at the flight attendants at the front of the plane. One was preparing the gray metal cart to push down the aisle and offer the passengers refreshments.
Boyd unbuckled his seatbelt so that he could reach into the pocket of the tan pants Ava had purchased him along with the shortsleeved buttondown.
He did not like the color, but he had already vetoed shorts and they were supposed to look like tourists—not a family consisting of two criminals and an unlucky child who had faked their own deaths in the US and fled to Mexico. Ava wore a pink floral patterned dress, and Zach wore shorts and Yo Heart Tijuana t-shirt.
He pulled out a few pesos, obtained from yesterday's bank robbery. He had given half to Corey Flores, and kept the other half for himself, putting most of that into a prepaid debitcard because there was a ten thousand limit on how much cash allowed onto an airplane.
The dark-haired flight attendant pushed the cart forward. It was two rows away.
Boyd turned to Ava and Zach.
"Zachariah, I'm gone need you to translate when she gets here." Boyd told Zach, "You up to it?"
Zach turned to him, smiled and nodded. He unbuckled his seatbelt after a few moments of struggling (during which Ava let him figure it out on his own) then slide out of his sea.
Boyd was surprised when his son jumped onto his lap. Zach still did not know Boyd was his father. Boyd was also surprised Ava allowed this and even smiled.
She watched Boyd chuckle and adjust his legs so both he and Zach were more comfortable. The two looked up as the flight attendant and her cart arrived.
When they had their drinks, Zach returned to his seat and pulled down the tray on the back of the seat in front of him so that he could set down the tiny plastic cup. Ava and Boyd did the same.
The television screens built into the ceiling blinked on. The inflight movie was about to begin.
It was something family friendly, so Boyd had purchased earbuds for Zach. Ava had refused them for herself; he had already seen Toy Story Four too many times in the two years since it had premiered.
She switched seats with Zach so that he could get a better view of the screen from her aisle seat while she chatted with Boyd, who considered himself too cool and manly to be interested in an animated movie about talking toys.
Earbuds in his once aching ears, Zach focused his green eyes on the screen above. It was the quietest and stillest Boyd had ever seen him (except for when he was sleeping) in the few days he had known the toddler.
"The wonders of technology." He commented.
"You should see him with a tablet." Ava laughed.
Boyd rested his head back against the seat. "There's so much about him I don't know…so much I need to catch up on…"
"There'll be time." Ava promised, glancing at Zach and then looking at Boyd, "But we'll have to take this slow. There're a lot of changes in his life now. He's left the only home he's every known and everybody he knew behind, except his momma, to live in a new country with a strange man whose voice he only ever heard before on the radio."
"He's a kid." Boyd reminded, "They're resilient. They handle these situations better than adults do."
"I know." Ava accepted, "I just wanna be careful."
Boyd nodded. "I understand."
Ava picked up her plastic cup of orange juice and took a sip. "So how'd you manage to get out of prison, anyway?"
She was not worried about anyone overhearing. Everyone else in the airplane was speaking Spanish.
Boyd chuckled, closing his eyes briefly to visualize the memory. "I made a deal with the warden to rob a bank for him."
A burst of laughter erupted from Ava's lips. She immediately covered her mouth with one hand.
"Seriously, Boyd?" She snorted, "Only you could convince a prison warden to do a thing like that."
Boyd opened his hazel eyes to gaze at her. "I don't know about that, Ava, you're pretty persuasive yourself. Who did you convince to help you get out of Harlan four years ago?"
"Winn Duffy, of all people." Ava informed, "I gave him half the money."
"Where'd he run off to?" Boyd inquired.
Ava shrugged. "We decided it was best neither of us knew where the other went, in case one of us got caught one day…he asked me to come with him, though."
Boyd raised his brown eyebrows in surprise. "Really? I didn't think he liked…blondes."
Ava smirked.
"I think he was just lonely." She recounted, "He said his bodyguard, Mikey, got killed."
"If you had gone with him, Raylan wouldn't have found you, I wouldn't have found you and we wouldn't be here right now." Boyd noted, "I bet Duffy was smart enough to leave the country the first time."
"Duffy wasn't carrying in a baby in his belly." Ava dismissed, sharply, "You're not supposed to fly while pregnant."
Boyd smiled in surrender, "I didn't mean it like that, Ava. I mean, I'm glad you didn't go and that we're here right now. If Raylan hadn't found you I never would have known I had a son."
Ava's expression softened, but then turned to sadness. "…I feel bad about Raylan thinking he killed us—killed Zachariah. I know he's killed a lot of people, but killing a little boy would weigh heavy on him."
Boyd sighed. "I know, Ava, I feel the same way, but there was no other choice."
"Do you think he'll figure it out?" Ava wondered.
"Maybe." Boyd mused, "Should we send him a postcard once we land in Costa Rica?"
He chuckled, so did Ava. She leaned against his shoulder and he leaned his bald head against the top of her long blonde hair.
"Maybe one from a different country." Ava suggested, "So he'd known we're alive but not where we really are, and send him in the wrong direction if he decided to start looking for us again."
"I almost wish he would." Boyd said. "...just not until Zachariah's grown."
"Or your hair's grown back, at least." Ava added, reaching one hand up to rub the top of Boyd's bald head.
They laughed again.
Life was good.
For now.
