"Did you hear something?" Tasha asked in sudden alarm.

David took the liberty of looking outside, even stepping out through the broken door. He was just about to dismiss it when he caught sight of a rapid-moving, blur of white fur. "Hey!" he yelled, but he knew before he took two steps it was already too late. There was no way to catch up with such a swift-moving wolf.

"You saw her?" He hadn't even noticed Tasha step up behind him.

"Yeah, I think so… Look, Tasha," David turned to face her, "do you know where she might go?"

Tasha shrugged. "The only place I can think of is the forest. What are you planning to do, David?"

"We need to go after her and get her someplace safe before Esben can get her."

"What about my son?"

David stopped. No, he wasn't entirely sure what to do about that yet.

"Look, do you know what Esben's next move is going to be?"

"Yes, I was supposed to convince Sarah to join me after getting her to distrust you, and lead her into an ambush at sunrise, to have her brought back to Texas."

"Alright, how many people were you supposed to meet in this ambush?"

"Just one. He is a professional game hunter, and once served as an assassin somewhere overseas."

"Do you think he would believe you if you gave him a bogus location where he would supposedly find Sarah?"

"I'm… not sure. Maybe. But David," Tasha warned, "we need to proceed carefully. Now that Esben knows about you, he wants you dead."

David's mouth pressed into a thin, grim line. That also confirmed the fact that he could not join Tasha when she met with the hunter. The risk was going to be great no matter what, but as long as Esben believed Tasha was still loyal, this might still work to their advantage. "Alright, Tasha, do you think you might be able to convince the hunter to go somewhere else, and then ditch him and get somewhere safe?"

"I'll try my best, but David… what about my son?"

"I have an idea…" He wasn't even sure if it was a good idea. But perhaps it was something.

"What is it? Tell me, David, please!"

"Look, if you can keep this hunter occupied for at least a while, and Esben remains convinced that you are still doing everything you can to recapture Sarah, he shouldn't do anything to your son. In the meantime, I will see if I can find Sarah first and get her to see reason, that all of this has been one big misunderstanding. After that…"

"After that, what?"

"Perhaps we could try and find out where your son is. Sarah has a keen sense of smell, yes?"

"Yes, she does."

"Do you have anything around here with your son's scent on it? Even if it's faint?"

Tasha pulled a tote bag out from other one of the wrecked couches. "I have kept a couple of his favorite toys in here."

"Alright." David took the bag without opening it or looking inside. The scent, if it was still strong enough to be detectable, needed to remain unmixed with his. "Now, I want you meet up with the hunter and lead him on a convincing chase. Then see if you can make him believe that Sarah got away. After that, return to Texas with him. I will try and meet you there… with Sarah, and hopefully your son."

Tasha used a gas station map to mark the general location of where the secret, underground lab. Indeed, it was fairly remote, it seemed.

Without any other plan to go on, and knowing that sunrise would be in just a few hours, Tasha gave David a final hug, clinging to him for a long moment as though trying to draw a little bit of strength from him, then the two of them disengaged.

"You be very careful, now," David told her.

"You too," Tasha replied with equal seriousness.

Just as they were about to part company, however, Tasha stopped him in his tracks. "David, please wait."

"Yes?" Something about the way she said that caused his eyes to narrow as he faced her.

Tasha gulped. Yes, this wasn't going to sound good. "Before you go... " She coughed, cleared her throat, and tried again. "David, there is something I really need to tell you before you go, just in case I don't see you again."

"What is it?"

She tried to force herself to tear her eyes away from her shoes, to look at him directly, but couldn't quite muster up the courage to do so. She had to tell him, especially now, but she couldn't look him in the eye while doing it.

"David… Esben tried to kill you once already, and I helped him."

"What do you mean?" David blinked. He couldn't recall anything like that, not to his knowledge at least.

"Esben knew how devastated you were after Laura died. I was spying on you for him, I told him everything you were doing, and he knew you were probably going to be in a hurry to try using that gamma ray machine on yourself." Tasha half-turned away now.

"Tasha, what are you saying?"

David could only put his hand over his mouth as she forced herself to blurt, "I made sure anything that indicated the machine had been recalibrated or modified was removed. I made sure you'd be tricked into thinking you would only receive 300,000 units of gamma radiation, as per Esben's orders."

"...You did."

Tasha could only nod.

"Knowing full well it could potentially harm me." There was a roughness in David's voice now.

The air seemed to have shifted around them once again. The weight of Tasha's confession seemed to simultaneously be lifted from her shoulders while weighing her down once again as David's eyes bored into her, while he processed this new information.

"I might have known, considering what you were apparently willing to do to live human test subjects."

"David… my son. "

That seemed to snap David's mind back, consciously, to the matter at hand. He knew, though, that Tasha was definitely not someone to trust ever again. For all he knew, she might betray him at the first opportunity if it meant keeping her son safe or possibly bartering for the child's freedom.

They also didn't have any time to waste.

"We'll stick with the plan," David stated. It wasn't like they had anything better, and he wouldn't risk calling the authorities. There was no telling what Esben might do if they tried to take any kind of action.

Tasha nodded curtly. "Yes, the plan," she agreed.

David knew he would have his work cut out for him. He still wasn't entirely certain how trustworthy Sarah was, although she had already proven one thing. She was at least somewhat unstable.

He had a rough idea where he might be able to find her, if she did choose to return to some of the areas she had indicated liking the most in the woods. He just hoped that she would be reasonable...