A/N: Welcome back, readers and lurkers. I do truly have all those affected by Hurricane Sandy in my thoughts and heart. I hope all of you out there are safe and sound. Please, enjoy. =)

Chapter Fourteen: Courtyard Massacre

Isaac's first reaction was to stasis the leaper. Good thing he did, too, as two more landed on the ground, long tails writhing and whipping around. He hit those with stasis and focused on dismembering the first leaper. The sound of combat and terror echoed through the stairwell and over his audio.

"Maheer, Will! Use your stasis!" he said and kept firing the limbs off the leapers. He put down the three swiftly. "Run like hell if there's more!"

"OH, GOD!" someone screamed from behind him. "AUUUUGH!"

Something heavy collided with him, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall ass-over-head down the stairs quite a ways. Fuck, ow. How he didn't break his damn neck, he'd never know. Knees and elbows and back banged up, rattled, his fall stopped when he rammed into a wall on a landing. His visor shone dim light, enough for him to check the arms that clung to him.

The leaper's body pinned him, the tail swaying around, fangs gnashing, blood and spit dripping on his visor, and where the fuck was his plasma cutter? His muscles bunched, complaining, but he didn't relent until he stuck a foot between their bodies and kicked. The leaper roared, wiggled around, but not fast enough. He grabbed the tail, jammed a foot into the base of the leaper's skull, and twisted up with everything in him. With a sickening crack, the tail popped out of socket, and went limp. Then to finish the job, Isaac stomped the shit out of the arms scrabbling on the floor, not relenting until both arms separated from the leaper's torso.

Desperately, he searched around for his cutter or a weapon to use with TK, but he was drowned in the darkness. He couldn't find any other beams of light. "Is everyone okay? Will, Maheer? Alice?" His foot hit a stair and he stumbled, slammed his palms hard to the floor. He forced himself up. Screaming closed in him all around, but without the flashlight, he couldn't fucking see anything. Light came from nowhere, shone on him.

"LOOK OUT!" someone else screamed from somewhere above him. "DUCK!"

Isaac ducked, heard a blade-tipped tail whiff over his head and ping off the wall. Scrambling, he took the stairs under him on hands and knees. Then light blinded him, startled him when he thought it was R-sec. The sharp report of his plasma cutter cracked through the dense noise, and a large mass thudded to the floor behind him. Vaguely, he heard a child's wail and the stampeding of fast-moving feet on the metal stairs. If they were from the living or dead, he wasn't sure.

"Hurry!" It was Grace with the plasma cutter. She hauled him to his feet and shoved the tool into his hands. "We've got to get out of here!"

Together, they took the steps as quickly as they dared, fairly airborne around the corners. The stairs were interminable, his eye was throbbing, and he didn't realize how filled to brimming with Necromorphs this building had been when lurkers burst out from a vent. He halted, on his toes, and shoved Grace back up the stairs to the next landing to shoot stasis at the lurkers. But when he activated the module, none was available. Shit.

"Grace! Reach into my back pocket and find the stasis pack!" A few missiles grazed by and crackled on the wall beside them.

"What?"

"NOW!" He felt Grace's hands reach into his pocket and shift around, but in the wrong pocket! "The other pocket!"

"There're a million pockets back here!" she cried. Again her hand wiggled in the wrong pocket.

"Left! LEFT!"

Finally, he felt her fish in the correct pocket, grasp something and withdraw it. "How does it work?"

As he explained it, a squealing lurker leapt to the area of floor in front of them, having realized prey was up a level on a landing. Isaac shot off one of the three tentacles over the hideously deformed baby, but it fired another round of projectiles. Those were too close to dodge; besides, Grace would be safer behind him. So he manned up. The two missiles hit him square in the chest. He hollered- -that shit felt like a forceful knife stab- -even though the sec-suit absorbed the impact. Breathlessly, a dull roar of blood in his ears, he concentrated on the two remaining tentacles.

"GOT IT!" Grace said.

Now he was in business. "You run past. I'll hold them off as long as I can. When I tell you, you go!" Before she could answer (or argue), he put stasis on the lurker in front of him, dodged the corner and granted the second one the same favor. "GO!"

Grace, slipping by like a sylph, darted around, and hoofed it further down the stairs, disappearing out of his sight. He finished off the lurkers and followed after her retreating footfalls. Then he heard her shriek; a second later something thumped hard. Temples rumbled with the force of blood rushing in his veins.

"Grace? Gracie, you all right?" Rushing forward, chasing after his flashlight beam, he tripped into bits and pieces of body parts, and meaty, spiny chunks that were evidently leapers. His light ghosted across the next landing and spotlighted Grace on her ass. "Grace! Get up!"

He came to her side. She stared forward, vacant. "I…I stumbled…and fell…"

When he swept the beam over the floor, he regretted it. Will had been decapitated, his body torn asunder, blood splattered from ceiling to floor. Another body slumped in the corner, fairly fresh, and not one Isaac immediately recognized. He noticed that Will's pulse rifle was not at his side. Some other parts- -a leg or two, an arm- -were scattered about in fresh patches of blood.

"The others are ahead of us," Isaac told her quietly. "And we've got Necromorphs behind us. We should go."

Grace nodded, and accepted his help in standing as she wiped away tears with the heel of her hand. Blood smeared to her cheek. "I meant to tell you- -Reginald's gone, too. One of those things…"

"I understand. We should be very close to the ground level." He pressed a hand between her shoulder blades. "Let's go."

As they descended the stairs, Isaac heard his own harsh breathing and palpitating heartbeat. Alice, nor Maheer, had linked with him, but perhaps they were in trouble or thought he was dead. Most of his worry was on what was behind them- -how many more leapers were on the hunt? One thing at a time, Clarke, he reminded himself. Get to the ground floor, first. To his relief, he and Grace crossed three more landings before a beautiful white holograph indicated an unlocked door.

Once through, he scuffled to a stop. They'd exited to the main lobby of Human Resources and in a loose semicircle, panting, sweaty, and pale, was the rest of the survivors! He heaved a sigh. There was Alice, a pulse rifle hefted in her hands, and Maheer, who stood at the closed doorway gazing through a hole in the wall. Xandra and Kirilee sat on a padded bench. Splotches of red and white covered Kirilee's face from her upset.

"You made it!" Alice said, approaching them. "We thought you'd been killed for sure!"

"Nearly," answered Grace. "We lost Reginald."

Alice nodded. "Will and two others didn't make it either." She ran a hand over her close-cropped hair. "And we have yet to get across a courtyard and to the top of a building."

Four of their people had met an untimely demise in the stairwell, and their deaths pricked at Isaac's conscience. He brushed away the guilt as best he could and left the women to approach Maheer. "What do you see?"

"Take a look," said the younger man, stepping aside for Isaac. "It is almost like a massacre occurred."

He was right. The courtyard was littered with dead bodies, hooded or destroyed in one form or another, and not by Necromorphs, though an infector would gleefully transform those bodies into slashers. In blood, the strange alien language was scrawled on the ground or on windows bordering the courtyard. Several places burned with patches of fire, where gas leaked and had ignited. Here, too, were abandoned piles of luggage, some green plastic storage bins, and overturned recycle bins. A huge pile of metal refuse blocked two doors on either side of the courtyard, presumably as a barricade. In a straight line across from Human Resources, a friendly veranda announced Financial Incorporated's entrance. The door looked unlocked, but from this distance, Isaac couldn't be sure.

"Quiet out there," Isaac said. He thumbed the grip on his plasma cutter. "We might be able to make it to the other side without setting off any attacks."

"We should be so lucky," Alice said from behind them. "It's a straight shot to Financial Incorporated."

"Not so straight. There are some obstructions we will have to go around," replied Maheer. "But at least we can see where we are going."

Isaac turned from the hole. "We'll go in groups again. I'll go first with Grace, Xandra and Kirilee, and one other. Alice and Maheer, you can split the rest."

Maheer nodded and stepped away, but Alice remained, blocking Isaac at the wall. "I find it strange that you swoop in to save us, but you never told us your name. My RIG won't even display it. Why's that?"

"My name's not important." Thank you, Samson, for covering my ass, thought Isaac. "The longer we wait here, the worse it gets out there. Gather your people and let's get everyone to that shuttle."

Alice's lips thinned, but she understood the urgency of the situation and so trod to form her group. Grace already headed in his direction, and Xandra followed her with Kirilee on her back. A familiar man separated from the others, the one with the goatee, and nodded at Isaac.

"Walter Klein," he said. His eyes glinted grey-blue and a muscle twitched in his jaw. "I hope to hell you know what you're doing."

"Most of the time," Isaac replied, dryly. Walter's expression soured, but Isaac had already reached out to palm the hologram that would open the door. "Stay low and close, everyone."

Isaac jogged out and down a short incline to the courtyard, footsteps tapping through the quiet air. Bare rock had been sand-blasted for a smooth, flawless sidewalk, lined with benches and pretty pots of flowers. Most of the lighting was out, but Rhea had worked in a series of reflection panels framing the courtyard's glass roof so that sunlight beamed in, bright and warm. Up ahead was a huge wreck of black mineral, and something metal twisted and bent out of shape. He crouched behind it, using the cover to assess the path in front of him. A part of the ground was torn up, as though something had burst from underneath it upwards, but aside from a quick detour around, it was a pretty clear way to the Financial Incorporations building.

"I keep expecting for the worst to happen," murmured Grace beside him. "I'm shaking."

"We'll get there," Isaac told her, and continued to jog through the deserted courtyard. He got to under the veranda leading into Financial Incorporated and gestured for his group to stay in a semi-protected corner. "We'll wait for the others here before opening the doors."

The others agreed, pressing their backs flat against the wall as Isaac took a knee to watch the others' progress. Alice headed her group in single file. They followed Isaac's footsteps exactly, similarly pausing behind the wreckage before continuing on. Her group successfully crossed the last leg of the courtyard and Alice stood beside Isaac, her pulse rifle at the ready. Here came Maheer's group, calm and steady on course.

"Alice," Isaac said, not breaking his concentration on Maheer's group, "open the doors and find out if the elevators are functioning."

"Got it." And she left to do so.

Maheer had made it to the obstruction in the path. To Isaac's consternation, a shadowed flitted over the courtyard. Something small and quick. He craned his neck upwards, but the reflective panels put the entire ceiling into a blind spot. Across the way Maheer's head bobbed around, and there was some gesturing from him. He turned to his group. Some more gesturing. Then his voice crackled over audio.

"I think there's a something flying overhead," he said. "Should we run for it?"

"No, don't risk it. Try to edge your way to the path under the verandas. You'll have to go one at a time until you're there," said Isaac. "Move to your left, first. I see some better cover there."

"All right. I see it." He adjusted to a half-stooping position, pulse rifle clamped to his chest. "Here goes."

Isaac watched as Maheer darted from the wreckage to the cover he'd seen and gazed upwards, shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand. Isaac knew that it was for show to keep the others calm- -he and Maheer knew something was hiding in the sun, but, not what. Then Maheer sprinted the last dozen or so meters to relative safety under a bordering veranda for a vidscreen shop. He waved to the next in line. She copied Maheer, and so did the next man. Hurriedly, they circumvented the rest of the courtyard using the outstretched verandas to hide from the infector (Isaac had a hunch) and came safely to where he guarded.

Alice linked with him at that moment. "Good news! We've found the elevators and they're working!"

"Maheer's group made it across. We're coming in." From the roof, something that flapped large, deadened-flesh wings dived into the courtyard. It latched onto a corpse, a proboscis crunching through skull to brain issue. An infector; he'd fucking known it. "Get inside!"

Isaac aimed and timed carefully a shot as Maheer worked the door controls. The doors hissed open, and the last of the survivors poured through. He blasted off the infector's proboscis, killing it instantly, but not quick enough. The newly formed slasher hauled itself upright on bladed tips and stalked around, looking, no doubt, for live prey. Another infector glided from the rafters to attach to another corpse. Dammit. Nothing he could do as the doors closed and hid them. For now.

"That infector will transform every body in the courtyard into a Necromorph," he told Maheer. "They'll swarm this building. We have to get to the shuttle. Alice? Where are you?"

"I'm relaying our coordinates. The way seemed pretty clear," she said. "We'll see you in a few."

Isaac heard his RIG tick with acceptance of the coordinates, and he held out his palm to signal the waypoint. The blue light raced over the floor of the building and curved a path around a corner. Financial Incorporated looked very close in design to CEC Human Resources, except he didn't see much damage or signs of struggle, which gave him hope that these people had managed to evacuate before the outbreak started. The place had the definite feel of abandonment.

True to her word, Alice and the others waited together in an offset hallway where a company elevator continued to run. A holographic display on the side of the elevator doors listed the floor numbers and labels. Several company transports were docked on the upper levels. Those must've been used for escape, save one.

"We're almost home-free," Isaac said. "We have to split the group up again to take the elevator in shifts. We can't afford a weight overload."

"Women and children first," said Maheer. "That means you go up, Alice."

She seemed to disagree, but she didn't express it. "Very well. Ladies, shall we?"

"Wait just one damn minute!" Klein brushed past arms to stand in front of Isaac. "You can't decide for us! I'm not staying in this hellhole a second longer." His finger prodded Isaac, whose impatience simmered dangerously close to anger. "You can't stop me from getting on that elevator!"

"Lower your voice," Alice said. "We don't know what else is in here with us."

Klein wheeled to the older woman. "Oh, and who elected you as commander, because I certainly didn't!"

In that moment of inattentiveness, Isaac lashed out with his forearm, nailing Klein square on the back of the neck. The man crumpled to the floor like a sheet and lay still. For a second no one moved as everyone gazed apathetically at Klein. No one admonished Isaac for his brash action, even as he prodded the annoyance with his foot. Klein remained motionless, unconscious. One thing they didn't need in the middle of a Necromorph outbreak was an egotist wasting time with his jackass comments. The quiet was interrupted a second later.

"OH, GOD, NO!" The agonized outburst from Xandra leapt Isaac's heart to his throat. Every fucking slasher in the vicinity would hear. "KIRILEE? Kirilee, no! KIRILEE?"

He spun with enough time to catch Xandra's elbow before she went careening into the dark corridor. "Quiet, Xandra! What's happened?"

She jerked her arm to extricate herself, but Isaac's hand was stronger. When she couldn't get free, she faced him, and her panic radiated from her. "I-I only took my eyes off her for a second! Just a second!" Her grief coated her voice, made her difficult to understand. "And when I turned back…she…wasn't there! Oh, God," she moaned, collapsing to the floor, half-supported by his hand, "oh, God, where could she be?"

The temptation to leave without Kirilee was like poison inside his mind. She was a four year-old kid. He had the group to worry about. Leaving would get everyone else killed. He had Noah and Ellie and Greggs to find. Ellie and Greggs were going mad, might've already killed each other by now. Kirilee had succumbed to the madness. He was too old for this shit; he wasn't some goddamned superhero.

"You'd never live with yourself if you didn't try," Nicole told him, from his audio. "Your guilt would consume you for even this small thing."

She was right. Resigned, calm, Isaac turned to the others, who looked on, horrified. "I'll take Xandra and look for Kirilee. You continue on. Link with me when you've gotten to the shuttle."

"You can't expect to find her in this ruin!" Grace said, her voice shrill, as she grabbed his arm. Tugged. "You have to come with us. She's a lost cause!"

"If I thought that, I wouldn't have volunteered. She's a young, frightened girl. She can't have wandered far," he told her.

She shook her head vigorously. "Don't go! We need you!"

"I don't expect you to understand."

Stung, Grace let her hands fall, and it seemed as if she would cry, but she stiffened her back. "You're right, I don't."

Alice came forward and tugged Grace into the open elevator car. "We'll see you topside, boys."

Through his visor, he felt Grace's penetrating glare, as if he'd betrayed her. She was young; she'd recover. Then the elevator doors closed. The men stood in a tight, anxious group out of the hallway, with Maheer watching the deep shadows, expecting the worst or the inevitable as Isaac did. Isaac turned his attention to Xandra, getting the petite woman to her feet. In the visor's light, she was drawn and exhausted. Several cuts and abrasions marred her chest and cheeks. He didn't think she'd last much longer under the strain of the outbreak.

"Maheer," Isaac said, calling Maheer's attention, "if things get sticky, leave. None of that no man left behind bullshit, okay?" Maheer nodded his understanding. "Good luck, then."

"And the same to you," Maheer replied. "Salaam."

Isaac led Xandra a few meters into the open lobby area outside the elevator halls. "Xandra," he said softly, "you know your daughter best. Something might've caught her attention. Look around. What would've drawn her closer?"

He didn't think she'd be responsive, but her eyes shifted, searching the corners and gloominess. She gasped and pointed. Some dim light illuminated a wall painting of a cuddly teddy bear. It wanted to be friends, this teddy bear, with cute black button eyes and nose, a smile, and a white belly. Around the inside of its plush belly was the word DAYCARE with an arrow showing the correct direction.

"There!" Xandra said. "Kirilee loves teddy bears. She might've tried to go to the daycare!"

"It's worth a try," replied Isaac. "Stay behind me."

He came to the corridor's opening and swept the flashlight beam to and fro. All clear. It seemed to be a main walkway, as it was broader than the other corridors. A few benches lined the hall, along with company posters and reminders of workplace protocol. Cautiously, he tread the tile floors, inadvertently counting the plants flanking the benches in black mineral pots. When his hololink flicked on, the loud static scared him out of his skin.

Ellie, her brows knitted, crying. "Isaac! Where are you? Where are you?"

And then the hololink cut out. "Ellie? Ellie?" He couldn't raise her on the link. His stomach sank to his toes; he felt sick with worry.

"Who was that?" Xandra asked.

"A friend of mine I was trying to get to before I ran into you guys," he replied, putting on some speed. A line of dancing teddy bears a meter or so up the wall indicated the daycare's direction, easy for any four year-old to follow. "We were separated in the Japanese Commons."

"I know that place," Xandra said. "It's-did you hear that?" She moved ahead of him, ignoring his hand on her arm. "It's humming. I can hear humming! Kirilee? Kirilee!"

He'd had a looser grip on her this time, and she smoothly pulled free to sprint the rest of the corridor. Isaac tromped after her, hoping nothing would pop out and slaughter him as he did so. Xandra rounded a corner, out his sight for a second before he followed. He nearly bowled her over as she'd stopped dead at a wide bay window that looked into the daycare. At the second's glance, he comprehended her fearful stare and managed to clamp his hand over her opened mouth before she screamed.

Kirilee had gotten into the daycare, all right. She sat on the carpeted floor, playing with a teddy bear, while bloodied and mutilated corpses surrounded her. Necromorphs didn't do this. The bodies were too…whole. God, it looked like…parents had murdered their children then committed suicide. Yet that wasn't the worst part. Crawling from the vents came two infectors, which dropped to a couple prone bodies. Xandra shivered uncontrollably beside him.

"I'm dropping my hand," he whispered. "Don't scream. I'll get Kirilee out, but don't draw attention to her."

He had a bad idea in mind, one he wasn't sure would work, but he had to give it a try. Shocked, Xandra remained at the bay window, too terrified to do anything except stare. Isaac eased around her, rounding the corridor's curves to its cheerful entrance. The doors opened. Infectors sucked on the dead bodies. Isaac used TK to grab the teddy from Kirilee's hands. Her head snapped up, and to his relief, her gaze kept on the blue light. Once he had the teddy in his possession, he shook it and held it up. Here, do you want the teddy?

A look of fear crawled over Kirilee's face. "She's afraid of your visor," Nicole told him. She appeared next to Kirilee. "You'll have to show her your face if you want her trust."

Shit. He chinned the button to disengage the visor then he smiled and offered the teddy again to Kirilee. She smiled back, reaching her arms out. 'Give it to me!' she seemed to say. The infectors had moved to other corpses, and by some miracle, the newly-made slashers hadn't spotted him yet. Isaac shook his head and waved her over. Kirilee seemed to consider a moment. C'mon, sweetheart, Isaac urged mentally, let's get going here. To his relief, she pushed herself to standing and rushed over to him.

Finished with niceties, he swept the girl into his arms and hauled ass away from the doors. He came to where he'd left Xandra, but the girl's mother was nowhere to be found. Where the fuck did she go? Kirilee wiggled and squirmed in his arms, pushing with her palms against him, and he figured she wanted to walk beside him. When he set down Kirilee, he heard a grunt and stars burst white in his vision as blackness and pain coaxed him into unconsciousness.

"Get up, Isaac," Nicole whispered. "Get up. You can't pass out here."

Ugh…the hell…? He revived with his cheek flat on cool tile, the taste of copper in his mouth, and a splitting headache. When he shifted, the headache worsened, queasiness churned his stomach, but he'd been hurt badly before and had continued on. Slowly, agonizingly, he sat up, touched a couple fingers to where heat burned his scalp. Blood. His hand crunched something on the floor; then as he looked for his plasma cutter, he realized it'd been taken. The dark corridor was empty, and as he hoisted up his dizzied ass, he saw the daycare was free and clear of corpses…and slashers.

Staggering into the corridor, Isaac's throbbing brain remembered how the potted plants had been paired- -and the first set was missing one. He made the connection. Xandra must've seen his face, which galvanized her into action, and had waited for him with a plant to knock him out. But had she gotten to the shuttle safely? He engaged his visor, continuing to use the wall as support as he moved through the corridor.

"Alice? Maheer?" His mouth was dry. "Do you copy?"

"We copy. Maheer's group made it up safe and sound," Alice replied immediately. "We were thi-"

"Have Xandra and Kirilee gotten aboard?"

"What? No," she said. "Why?"

He hesitated as he formulated a lie. "I was hit hard and knocked out. Xandra took Kirilee and my cutter. I was hoping they'd made it to you," he said. "If they do, don't wait for me." But slasher roars suddenly erupted from the lobby, drowning out Alice's reply. "Do you copy? If they get aboard, don't wait for me. Leave immediately!"

He cut the feed. A woman's scream pierced the air, coupled with the sharp report of a plasma cutter. Isaac forced his legs into a run, and was about halfway to the lobby when a flashlight beam skittered across the mouth of the corridor. Xandra charged forward, towards him, her arms full of Kirilee and a half-dozen slashers hot on her ass. Isaac didn't think. He used TK to pick up one of the benches and blast it into the crowd of slashers, knocking them back and giving Xandra breathing room.

She closed in on him, but the slashers were agile and continued charging. He continued to TK benches, and then potted plants, into the Necromorphs, those better than nothing until Xandra was within arm's reach. Her hands relinquished the plasma cutter when he yanked it from her and slotted in a fresh plasma cartridge. The slashers came forward, wave after wave, but with the use of his kinesis and strategy, he held them off until eventually they were a bloody, dismembered mess scattered in the hall.

Silence descended upon them. Inside his helmet, Isaac's breathing was harsh and rapid. Xandra and Kirilee had waited behind him, so he turned to address them. Xandra's face was white and sweaty. She'd put down Kirilee, holding her small hand, and over Xandra's shoulders, blades arched up.

"GET DOWN!" he shouted, but too late.

In a horrendous clarity, those blades descended, skewering Xandra like chicken on a spit. One burst from her chest; another, from her stomach. She twitched, blood spraying from her mouth, and he took action. He put them both in stasis and stepped forward to shove Kirilee aside. Then he got in nice and close to that fucking slasher and clipped those damn limbs. By the time stasis wore off, Isaac had prepared his arms to receive Xandra.

She fell, a gentle feather, and he guided her to the floor of that horrible place, the blood pouring from her body. Unable to do anything for her except be with her, he disengaged his helmet and pressed his hand to her chest wound in a futile effort to staunch the blood flow. The heat of her blood seeped into his glove as she rested her hand on his. He used his other hand to pillow her head.

"I-I'm," she gurgled, blood running like syrup down her chin and cheeks, mixed with tears, "I-Isaac, I'm," she struggled for one more breath, "I'm-"

"Sh-sh. Save your energy," he told her. He glanced to the side where Kirilee remained huddled on the floor, the teddy clutched in the circle of her arms. "Kirilee, come here!"

The little girl, maybe understanding the situation or maybe understanding Isaac's tone, stirred and shuffled over. Kirilee plopped to her knees at her mother's side, and Xandra's hand blindly groped Kirilee until by chance, she found a small hand she could clutch.

"K-K-K," Xandra stuttered, terrible burbles and gushes of blood interrupting her, "Kiri. I love you."

Her wide, glazed eyes bobbled to him, a question and a plea there. Will you…? He nodded his head. "I'll keep her safe."

That seemed to release her from earthly bonds. Her body expelled air in a pneumonic bubbling as her eyes rolled back in her head. And then her arm went limp, flopping from Kirilee's hand to the floor. The piercing tone of the RIG flat-lining disturbed the quiet. After a few seconds, it stopped. Isaac sat at the woman's side, numbed by the experience, completely lost for action, until Kirilee tilted her head to him and said, in a voice that he reckoned cherubs spoke with, "Isaac? Is Momma dead?"

Somehow that was a powerful shot to his chest- -to his heart, and the ache was enough to startle him into rubbing the spot. "Yeah," he said to her, "she's dead."

A/N: Truth be told, I misted up a bit writing that last little part. As always, I welcome your comments and concerns. I'll see you next week on 11/10/12. Until then!