AATC

It's been so long. Es tut mir leid.

(Note: The recent titles of the chapters are related to chess moves. If you know/learn the meaning, you'd see how deeply they tie in with the plotline presented in the chapter.

Also, I'm in the habit of making musical scores and instrumentals. There's a firefight score for this chapter as well. The link is in my profile, and I'd recommend listening to it while you read. You don't have to, of course, but anyways, enjoy the chapter as you see fit.

The link is titled 'BreakDown'.)

36.

It was quiet. A mosquito buzzed incessantly nearby and was soon swatted as soon as it settled on his arm. Afterwards, Vincent almost thought that he regretted killing the pest-… the presence of 'white' noise was somewhat reassuring and helped to fill the silence.

The unbearable silence.

It was times like these that he hated being alone with his thoughts. Not lonely, per se, as he was flanked by almost a dozen of his compatriots at his sides, but rather being stuck inside his own head. He was a rapper, sure, but not because there wasn't anything else he couldn't do like certain 'unprivileged' people of his own race, but because it was what he was good at. Unlike his adoptive brother, he was the smarter of the two, even more so, he was the most clever person he knew.

Why need book-learning when all he needed was street-smarts and how to manage his life like a professional poker gambler?

Out-think his opponents, raising the stakes beyond their wallets, tide over his risks perfectly and knowing when to call when he was at his limit.

Realizing when to fold when he could not win.

But could he win this gamble, he wondered.

Well, it could've been worse. He could be like Simon who was basically like a poker chip, who had at least four guns aiming at him instead of being a player of the gamble. Simon himself probably knew; Vincent could see the chipmunk trembling uncontrollably as he stood by the streetlight by his lonesome. There were no vehicles, a few pedestrians walked by, sure, but they minded their own business as they were all in a hurry to get home before dark, as the power was still out.

"Alright. We all know what this bitch wants," Vincent said just loudly enough for his cohorts to hear him, "she wants the rat 'cross the street alive and intact. Obviously, this means that she likes the whole lot of 'em. Anyone got any guesses where the rest are?"

"Maybe they're laying low, somewhere. Do you know where she lives?"

"She doesn't really 'live' anywhere I know," Vincent answered to the question, "because she's always moving around without me knowing. But I'm willing to entertain any guesses where someone like her would stay at a time like this. A slum? An apartment in a high-rise?"

"What about another hotel?" Another hoodlum suggested. "Nah, forget it. Maybe we should just wait until we find some social media message about someone spotting the brats."

"They could be wearing disguises-…" another one started to say before he was interrupted.

"Shhh…! Look!" As it so happened, a car was coming along, but it began to slow as it approached the 'munk standing by the curb. It was a taxi cab, and right away, Vincent decided that he didn't like it. "If the rat decides to grow a brain and gets in, light up the taxi, y'all hear me?"

"I hear you." They all watched as the taxi paused by the chipmunk, blocking off their view from where they hid in a closed shop they'd broken into. However, the chipmunk didn't get inside the taxi, and the taxi soon drove off, searching for another fare. "F*cker's got sense. Taxi-man's lucky too."

"We can blast on everyone who gets involved, right? After all, Lamar's gonna bribe the deputy-commissioner. And in case Valerie still gives up evidence on what we've done to the high commissioner of police, then we take him out?"

"That's right," Ravin' Raven replied.

"It's kinda getting to me, man," his cousin said nervously. "We ain't cop killers. If we get caught, they're gonna make our lives hell in prison, and that's if we don't go straight to the electric chair. To kill the commissioner himself? That's suicide."

"You wanna keep ol' Simon's company? Shut the hell up and grow some balls!" the rap-metal singer rebuked. "You're already involved up to the neck, so you might as well keep going on."

"Maybe it's better to stop before it reaches over my head and I drown," the cousin said lowly. The others who were with Vincent tended to agree with him, though they kept it to themselves. Caught between a rock and hard place, they just did what they did best, and that was work for their cash earned. However, one of the men just placed his gun back into his waistband and hid it beneath his shirt, before walking out, never to return.

"Damned coward," Vincent muttered. "Anyone else want to leave? Just make sure I don't ever see your faces again, or I'll shoot you in it! Capisce?"

Two more men left as soon as he gave the warning. The exodus continued until only six of them remained, and although Vincent's cousin would've liked to leave, he was sure that the rapper would've just killed him right then and there, so he stayed put. Post this, they continued to watch as another taxi came along the route and stopped by Simon, the driver assuming that he was waiting there for a cab, but soon drove off again as the chipmunk seemingly refused. This happened a few minutes later, but by now, they'd all relaxed.

"It's annoying, that's what it is."

They lapsed into silence again, watching and waiting. It was soon that Vincent thought about the taxis' regular occurrence that he soon realized what was going on.

"She's doing this to make us feel uncomfortable. She said that she was sending a taxi to pick him up, didn't she? At five pm…" Vincent checked his watch and saw that it was almost the hour for the deadline. "The next taxi that comes won't be the right one, either, but I could be wrong. I bet she wants us to shoot at the civvie taxi by mistake so that people will raise an alarm. But you can be sure that she'll come for him herself."

"So she won't come in a taxi? She's a red-head, ain't she? We just need to see if she comes for him."

"If you see a redheaded woman, it might not be her," the singer assured. "She's always dyeing her hair. Check to see if any woman comes along acting suspiciously. If they look focused on the kid, blast on the two of 'em."

It was almost five pm.

…

Valerie wondered if her tactic was working.

Her bit of a displacement idea in which multiple taxis would halt briefly by Simon before driving off would make them more uncomfortable, a way to make Vincent doubt as to whether or not to actually open fire on any vehicle that Simon entered. She had the inclination that she should still send a taxi for the chipmunk as she had planned, but hesitated as she had no idea how it'd work out. She didn't know what or how Vincent was thinking, so she had to be careful.

She had to be careful.

She had to be very careful.

Valerie paused to take deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling all before her nerves relaxed. Her phone was still in her pocket. Her cap was still fastened over her head, hiding her trimmed fiery hair. Her gun was fully loaded, and weighed heavily inside a small shoulder handbag… no one would suspect her of about to trade gunfire, although her face probably looked like she was a lamb about to be slaughtered.

With that thought, her nervousness grew again. 'Easy, Val, easy.' Valerie sighed. In any case, she'd best be prepared for the worst. By preparing for the worst possible eventuality, her mind should be calmed… right? Before she could ponder any more on this, she noticed a lone man walking out of a shop (further up the street) and made his way down towards her, passing by where she was seated at a café's outside table. It was one of the thugs that tended to associate with Ravin' Raven; Valerie recognized him instantly, and hurriedly looked down to allow the brim of her cap to shadow her face to prevent him from identifying her. 'Where's he going?' she asked lowly to herself as soon as he was gone.

Before she could come to the decision to tail him, she recognized a few more that trailed after him, around five or six of them, all of which made their exodus from the shop in the first place. Her brain hard at work, she knew that they were six of the dozen men that Vincent usually hired to help him with his dirtier work, and it was safe to assume that the rest of them were inside the shop, watching where Simon was across the street.

This was a dirty move. She'd believed that they would have been inside Vincent's property which was behind Simon, not in front of him from across the road hiding inside the shop. It made sense, though, to watch him from a place that not only had a good vantage point but was an undisturbed location inside of a shop that was closed down because of a lack of business. Why the men were leaving was beyond her, but it was easy to figure that the rest were still there, and most likely armed and aiming at Simon and whoever came for him; that is, her. Anyone who so much as touched Simon's shoulder would end up dying with him by what could be called a firing squad.

Valerie's heart fell with the realization as she got up from her seat and hailed for a taxi, getting inside when it stopped for her. Her chances had gone from slim to none in a matter of minutes, never mind the fact that her enemies had lost a portion of their numbers. All of a sudden, she felt weak, lost. Why was she here? Was the sweat she'd exerted not enough? The tears that she'd shed… weren't they enough?

Was the blood that was spilled not enough?

The blood…

No… it was because of the blood, all of that blood, why she was in debt. It was because of the blood why she was still in debt. It was because of all the blood that still hadn't been cleaned… why she could never get out of her debt.

Valerie was prepared-… not to escape with her life, but to pay with her life.

It was the only way for her debts to be paid in full.

It was almost five pm.

"Where to, ma'am?" The taxi driver asked the woman seated in the backseat. He couldn't say that he hadn't seen passengers of her kind before; the type of people who didn't really know where they were going.

"Just a short drive to hell," Valerie mumbled to him lowly. "You see that guy over there dressed in blue?" she asked as she pointed past him at the chipmunk up the road. "We're going to the same place."

"Hell? You're both going there?" the cab driver asked in good humor. "That's going to be a tall fee. I might not have enough gas to make it there." He peered at her in the rearview mirror, noting how crestfallen she looked. "You're not… suicidal or anything, are you?" the cab driver asked lowly. "You've got the look of a few people who rode in my cab a few times, only for me to go home and see them on the news 'cause they committed suicide."

"Don't worry, I'm not suicidal."

"Good. All of us are going to die one day, and we're the lucky ones because we were all born. Millions of sperms, tons of eggs, loads of chances for our parents to create children, and yet WE were born. Another child could've been born… maybe instead of my parents raising a cabbie for a son, they could've had a scientist. And your parents could've had doctor instead of you. We all got a purpose and life, and we shouldn't be trying to shorten the precious lives we have by dying sooner than our time."

"Death is still a certainty. We should be prepared to die one day," Valerie argued, not wanting to listen to the driver's sage advice, yet still found herself doing so.

"Why not prepare to live?"

It was almost five pm.

...

Simon stood alone by the streetlight. It wasn't on, but there was enough daylight to see the six men still standing in the abandoned shop across the street, all of them armed. Some had handguns, but a few others had what he believed were rifles. Whether not they were automatic, he didn't know, but every single weapon was aimed at him.

At this time, he was more confused than frightened, a fact that surprised himself. For the past fifteen minutes, taxi cabs kept stopping by where he was standing on the sidewalk, but they kept moving on before he could even say a word to the drivers or vice versa. It befuddled him, and his uncertainty only increased as he wondered if this was Valerie's doing.

"Valerie…" he grumbled as he gritted his teeth. "Now, I know; Vincent told me… He showed me! I know everything about what you're doing. What you've done… Why you did it… and when this all started..."

Point for information, but it was an overall loss if he was going to die, anyway. He didn't have his phone with the video evidence he had captured with its camera, no money, a poor sense of physicality to even hope to run to make an escape-… all he really had were the clothes on his back. Licking his dry lips in trepidation, he looked down at his watch and read the digital display. It was almost five pm, and the seconds were ticking away. He'd heard from the rap-metal singer that Valerie was coming to fetch him at five pm, but she was still a no-show.

Would she actually come after all? She really didn't have a reason to. With this thought, Simon's fear rose again, despite his attempts to quell it. But before it could get any worse, he heard his watch sound out several beeps, five in total.

It was five pm.

Immediately, a taxi-… yet another one, Simon thought…- showed up, pulling to a stop before him. He was at first of the inclination that this was going to be a repeat incident of the bogus taxis of earlier, but this was not to be.

Valerie was seated in the backseat.

She opened the passenger door to him, beckoning to him to enter. "C'mon, Simon, get inside." Before he could say or do anything in response, however, Valerie made the mistake of glancing across the street to the left where she knew Ravin' Raven's men were hiding in the abandoned shop… and met Vincent's eyes.

"There's the bitch!" he yelled at the top of his lungs as he wildly opened the storefront's tinted windows to allow himself and his cronies to shoot without obstruction. "Mow 'em all down!"

With the crass yell, Ravin' Raven aimed his handgun and fired the first shot. Valerie was already throwing herself low out of the taxi away from the gunfire and towards where Simon was standing; immediately following, bullets stormed the car, wreaking their terrible havoc everywhere. Amidst the spilling of blood, screams, yells and the smashing of glass was heard supreme with the explosions of guns, but the steady flurry of bullets kept coming as Ravin' Raven and his men kept pulling their triggers until their magazines emptied and their chambers cycled to a stop. Before they could prep themselves, Valerie stepped out from behind the car, and her gun blazed her own retribution.

Vincent's eyes widened as he realized that she was aiming for him, and threw himself to the ground, hiding behind the low wall of the storefront's windows, barely avoiding her gunshots. Not deterred, however, her next few shots found the man who was foolish to stand too close to Vincent's location. The bullets were unforgiving as they bored into his chest, sending him sprawling to the floor. Firing again, a few shots missed as her targets moved, but the subsequent one flew right through the cousin's neck. He screamed in agony, already fearing his sure death as blood ran freely from his neck despite his own clutches at his neck in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Vincent could only watch as his cousin fell to the floor in a puddle of his own life-liquid, finally bleeding out in death with his eyes open. The singer swore vehemently to himself, but Valerie fired her combat pistol again; the .45 bullet smashed its way through the teeth of another man, blood, and gore exiting on the other side of his head. Like the other two men that the hacker had just killed, he fell to the floor and never moved again.

"F*ck!" Ravin' Raven cursed as he finished reloading his gun again. Springing up from his hiding place, he pulled the trigger on his Glock, three bullets thumping into the woman's chest. Seemingly remembering her own mortality, Valerie turned tail and dove back behind the bullet-riddled taxi to where Simon was. "You feel those bullets, BITCH!" Vincent bellowed, continuing to fire his weapon. "YOU FEEL THEM?!"

"Up yours!" Valerie shouted back from her hiding spot as she reloaded her own pistol. Slamming home the magazine, she thumbed off the safety and hoped against hope that she'd still be able to take down the sociopathic rap-metal singer before he ended her. The flame had been a low flame at first, but now, it was tempted to burn brighter, and Valerie allowed herself a tiny smile. Recalling what the cab driver had tried to advise her, her smile grew a little brighter and called out to him. "Oi, cabbie…! Thanks for the advice, eh?"

Hearing no answer, she called again, before realizing that he had been inside the car when the shooting had started. Already knowing the answer to her dread, she hesitated to look inside the car but did anyway. The woman nearly retched when she looked at the driver's seat; blood was flowing freely from his bullet-riddled body, and brain matter was all over the dashboard where his head had slumped. She didn't know the man well, heck, she didn't even know him for five minutes, but she still felt the loss. Was he prepared to die, she wondered as she dropped back down again behind the car next to Simon. 'And what about me? Am I prepared to die? Or am I prepared to live…? I want to LIVE! Isn't that the same thing?' Looking down at Simon who seemed frighteningly calm, her mind wandered she considered what he was going through, trying to find some sort of anchor or any sort of leverage to help her own self to calm down.

"Are you all right? Are you injured anywhere?"

"You're a killer." He said calmly, almost scarily even.

"What? A killer?" the hacker parroted lamely. "I'm trying to save our asses-"

"That's not what I mean. But I've been thinking. It's all your fault to begin with… why we're even here. Why we're broke… why Jeanette and the other chipettes are emotionally scarred…" Simon's eyes narrowed, but he never even flinched as guns blazed again from across the street, ripping into the taxi through the windows and the doors and starting to chew through the final doors to hurt the pair hiding behind it. Despite the gunfire, her own adrenaline and the heat of the moment, Simon was still horribly tranquil and stable as he looked at the woman accusatorily. "Why they don't have a mother anymore… why Ms. Miller is dead…"

Valerie's heart raced, skipping over multiple beats at a time. "Oh my God... You've seen the blackmail that Vincent has on me…?"

"I have. I suspected that you were the hacker ever since I startled you and caught you using Kali, a notorious software abused by hackers." Some of his speech was lost over the din of gunfire, but the woman heard him very well despite this; her only wounds came from his words. "You're a hacker… but I never would have suspected that you're a killer on top of everything else."

A tear welled up in her eye and burned her cheek as it fell. "It was an accident…" she whispered as if she was about to break, "and I was afraid…" Trying to find the will to continue, she peeked her gun from around the car and aimed it at a goon inside the store to fire at him, but her shots went wild as her hand shook in her anguish. All she got for her troubles was a bullet to her free shoulder; the bullet ate into her flesh and settled inside of it unwelcomed, yet she barely felt it-… her heart hurt more. Simon felt no pity for her despite seeing that she had been wounded. He wasn't being malicious, or vengeful. He thought of it as justice.

Well deserved justice.

"But you tried to hide away from it. And you decided to work with Vincent and cover up his dirty work. He's been killing and hurting people so much, for so long. The perfect crime is to see a crime being committed and doing nothing to help the person who needed it. Vincent might have committed the perfect crime of seeing you kill Ms. Miller and doing nothing to help the others in the crash, but you Valerie… you were the perfect criminal."

"I've tried to make it right!" Valerie shouted at him. "You're all still alive, aren't you?!"

"We wouldn't be here if it weren't for you."

"You ungrateful…" she tried to turn her sadness, her regret, her misery into anger, but found it hard to when she knew that he was right. "I'm… sorry." The tears ran harder now. "I'm so sorry. I wish that there was something that I could do to make it right… but this is all I can do. All that I can do is try my best to get you safely back to your family. That's what I want. That's what they want. That's what Jeanette wants, and I promised her that I would. I intend to fulfill that promise!"

There was a lull of gunfire, but before Simon and Valerie could even think of fleeing in the car or on foot, Vincent took up one of the automatic rifles that one of his fallen men had dropped, reloaded it with a fresh clip and opened fire. The bullets ripped through the seating areas of the car easily, hitting Valerie in the back. They didn't penetrate the (small arms) bullet-proof vest she had on thanks to the fact that they had to punch through the car doors to get to her, but they still hurt her severely. Realizing that the danger level had not fallen, they were forced to hide behind the engine area of the car to ensure that no more of the gunshots didn't hit them, thanks to being stopped by the thick solid metal of the engine.

"We can't stay here!" Valerie exclaimed.

"But if we try to move from here, they'll kill us!" Simon yelled back. He still didn't feel all that better, but he'd lost his calmer presence of mind. "What do we do?"

"I keep shooting, and you figure out what we should do!" Valerie bellowed, trying to make herself heard over the noise. She tried to blind-fire at the store without exposing her head to look, but it was only a tactic to ensure that the men inside the store stayed there in fear of being shot. It wasn't working, as Vincent kept firing at the car while his last two men slowly approached the car in flanks. "This isn't gonna work. I'm almost out of ammo, and they're going to get to us to gun us down. "Damned special cops… they were supposed to be here by now…"

"The police?" Simon asked in confusion, recalling the day before when Dave had tipped off the police and they came to 'rescue' him from Ravin' Raven, only to be bought off by the man. "They're corrupt. Besides, they-"

"Not the local police department. I mean the ones that Vincent can't buy off, the ones that he can't corrupt, no matter how much money he has. But I had to turn over evidence that burns me as badly as Vincent himself, just to get them to come. They should've been here by now, but I know they will. We need to stall for them to get here."

"Stall? Why didn't you stall for them to show up before you came for me?!" Simon hissed in frustration. "Doesn't that make more sense?"

"I did, but it was getting too late. I was trying to throw off Vincent by sending all those dummy taxis, but he didn't fall for it. It was obvious that he was going to wait for me to show up, and he knows that I've never been late for anything in my life. I'm either on time, or I don't show up. If I was late, he'd have just shot you and be done with it… a pity that I didn't think of calling the Federals sooner, though. But we can't do anything about it, now."

"WHAT?! But how's that relevant-…" Simon fell silent as the woman placed her gun in her lap to start removing her bloodstained blouse, revealing her sleek bulletproof vest underneath. "What are you doing?"

"I'm making sure that I fulfill that promise to Jeanette. You're getting back home safe."

"How's that gonna happen?"

…

Unaware of what was going on, Vincent ceased firing the rifle as it ran dry. Picking up his Glock once more, he kept the heat on by continuing to fire, well aware that had had the ammo for it to spare. He kept firing right at the location where he knew the two were hiding, keeping them cowed into hiding while his last two men approached the car from both sides. Soon, they'd flank around the front and the back, and surprise the two little pests who were hiding away from view.

"Get ready to die, bitch…" Vincent murmured as he finally exited the store to move towards the car as well. "Then I can finally be done with all this…"

This was not to be, as Valerie sprung up from her location, swinging to point her gun as how she'd point a finger. The man closest to her who stood by the front of the car was caught by surprise and was the first to get shot as she pulled the trigger. The hard, unforgiving bullets stopped his heart, making him collapse, but the man who was standing by the trunk of the car was still in her blind spot, and fired twice, hitting her in the back.

"Aagggghhh!" Valerie fell to her knees, her red life seeping from her through her wounds. Before she could bleed out and become too weak, she swung her hand to aim again at the last thug, and before he could fire again, she pulled the trigger for what would be the last time, and the bullets took him in the center mass and his collar, knocking him flat. "Ogghhhh…. Damn it all! Simon, run! Run, DAMN IT!"

Before Vincent could even react, Simon, fully clad in the woman's bulletproof vest, took off in a run as fast as he could manage. Not wanting him to escape, the singer shot at him; besides for the shots that went wide and missed the fleeing chipmunk, a few slammed into his back and knocked the wind out of him. He didn't stop running, however, and the remaining shots that Vincent attempted whizzed uselessly past Simon's head and legs, and the chipmunk was soon gone out of sight.

"F*ck!" Vincent cursed lowly to himself. "Shit… I'll get him later." He carefully drew near the car where he'd seen Valerie last, only to find her on the ground, slumped against the side of the car. He didn't lower his weapon, though, despite seeing that she was on her last legs and her empty pistol lying aside. "So you tapped out, huh?" He looked up the street from where Simon had fled, but still saw no trace of him. "Well, I guess he's gone. But one rat's as good as another. What, were you thinking of running with him?"

"F…f*ck you…" Valerie growled poisonously.

"That's not a nice thing to say, Valerie." The singer brought his gun down to aim at her legs, and fired off a shot into one of her legs, ignoring her cries of pain. Without even missing a beat, he fired two more rounds into her other leg, almost sadistically relishing her screams. "Not gonna run now, are you? Empty gun? What good are you now? What GOOD are you to those rat singers, huh? Are they special enough to you for you to slip up like this?!"

"No…" Valerie grunted as she tried to keep her mind from slipping away from her. She'd been close to death before, and it was only the experience of that pain that kept her from succumbing entirely. "It's just that they sing a lot better than you…"

Vincent fumed silently as he heard that-… losing his patience, he brought up his gun again and fired… and fired… and fired… he kept on until his gun was emptied of all ammunition. Astonishingly, despite her numerous gunshot wounds all over her body, the woman was still alive… but barely. Vincent shrugged as noted this fact figuring that she'd just bleed out. "You… done…?" the woman asked, before a glob of blood welled up in her throat, slightly choking her. Spitting out the globule between her words, she continued. "You saved this ungrateful life of mine… and now what? You've… *choke* taken it back?"

"Damn right I have."

"You can't take…" Valerie coughed, trying to keep her internal bleeding out of her speech. You can't take… what's not yours."

"You gonna stop me? Your gun is done and you're done. You're only a f*ckin' corpse who's mouth is still running for what? A few more minutes?"

"My most powerful weapon?" the woman asked with a slight chuckle. "It's not… my gun… it's technology…. and I fired that weapon already. You're the one who's done…" As if on cue, SUVs began roaring in on the street from both directions, great in size and number. One of the vehicles had a large vinyl on the hood that read 'F.B.I.'. "Huh… they finally made it…"

Vincent looked up in surprise as he saw the vehicles begin to converge on their location, penning him in. "YOU CALLED THE F*CKING FEDS?!" the man yelled in anger. "ARE YOU CRAZY?! They'll take the both of us in!"

Valerie chuckled to herself lowly. "They're taking YOU. Can't bribe 'em… huh? I figured that my number was up… so I was all right with giving them all the evidence on the both of us…" the redhead coughed harrowingly, feeling her life slipping away from her. She looked down at her hands, noting how they were coated in bloody scarlet and cringed, knowing that it was her own blood that had been bleeding freely from her, even her white blouse was now nearly completely red. Glancing aside at the sunset, she looked up and realized that the streetlight she was close to hadn't turned on. 'Oh yeah… I forgot that I killed the lights. I don't like the dark…' Slowly and as best as she could, she reached her bloodied hand into her pocket, despite the tremendous pain and stress, and retrieved her cell phone. Through her blurring vision, she thumbed at hacking exploit and turned the city's power on once more. The light suddenly began radiating from the streetlight, and shone down on them both, even as the men from the F.B.I. were accosting Vincent to drop his weapon as they moved in to arrest him.

"This ain't happening!" Vincent began to rant about how he was an innocent and how he was being set up, but Valerie didn't care. She smiled faintly to herself and wondered if anyone would testify against the man… it mattered little… her automated exploits were already running, as all of the screen billboards in the city began to play video footage from hacked cameras, showcasing the endless crimes committed by Ravin' Raven and his people, all in a way that no one could deny. Yet, her mind wasn't on this. Instead, as her consciousness fled, she thought of the children… the chipmunks and the chipettes… how were they?

"I hope they're all right… They'll soon be home… Alvin… Brittany… Simon… Jeanette… Theodore… Eleanor… would I have been forgiven...?" Her eyes lidded gently, her last sight being that of the sun finally about to crash into the sea. "I wonder… if they know how much I loved them… as if they were my own…"

It didn't matter. What mattered was that they were all safe. She had repaid all of her debts... in full.

The woman sighed-... she was so tired. With that concluding thought, Valerie allowed herself to rest.