AN: Another chapter here.

And a quick PSA of sorts because we still have a lot to come and a lot to be revealed (including some people to meet who will bring in other insights). I won't tell you how to feel about any particular characters here and I won't tell you what anyone's "complete" role is until it's revealed within the story (and everything will be revealed eventually). The one thing I'll remind you of is that, outside of fairy tales, there's no such thing as a purely good or a purely bad person. This story, if you hadn't guessed (though I'm sure you have) isn't really a fairy tale. It's meant to have a look at human nature, maybe even in some of its rawest forms. The dividing line between "good" and "bad" is sometimes a little blurry. Just something I wanted to mention, just to keep in mind, as we go along.

I hope that you enjoy the chapter. Let me know what you think!

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Alice was taking her time sending a guard to let Carol out of the house and escort her to the office to start her workday. Carol expected as much, though. Alice wanted her to rest—she might think she was recovering from a night with next to no sleep. But Carol was dressed and waiting—having pushed Daryl out of the bathroom for most of the morning—when there came the first knock at the door that was post-breakfast delivery. Carol opened the door to find Grady standing there. The young man smiled at her.

"Morning, ma'am," he said.

Carol couldn't help but smile back at him. He was one of the few people around there who called her "ma'am" and she appreciated it. She might have thought it made her sound old before, but now it just made her feel like a normal human being.

"Good morning, Grady," Carol said. "Daryl's running a little behind—but he won't be long."

She glanced around and noticed that Grady was unaccompanied. Some days there were guards that came with him. Other days there were other workers. It all depended, Carol supposed, on where he was in his morning. Today he was by himself. He shook his head at her.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "We've got time."

Carol leaned against the doorframe, keeping her body inside so as to not appear to be any kind of threat to the young man, and studied him. His face was peeling and fresh sunburn blended with old sunburn. He needed a haircut. He looked like he needed, honestly, just a little tender loving care. She expected, perhaps erroneously, that all the "free" people would be, somehow, much more well-put-together than everyone deemed to be wild animals.

Her staring, though, obviously made Grady a little uncomfortable.

"I didn't say it because—well, I forgot to say it. But I wanted to tell you that—that I was sorry," Grady said. To indicate what he was sorry for, he tapped the doorframe. Carol knew what he was gesturing toward. Where the white flower had been before, it had been replaced with what was supposed to be a white dove—the symbol of a child lost—though it looked more like a simple generic bird.

"Thank you," Carol said sincerely. Even though she hadn't really lost a baby, a heartfelt offering of condolence meant something. At least it meant that Grady thought enough of her to care. "But—we're doing well. We've been trying again and we're hoping, very soon, to have the white flower back."

Grady's cheeks turned a little pink and he smiled, nodding his understanding at her. He mumbled something that might have been a wish for good luck or it might have been something else entirely. It didn't matter because Carol missed it, whatever it was. She was already thinking about something else. Something that had been rolling around in her mind for a while.

"Grady...you were wild born?" Carol asked. He shook his head.

"Wild-captured child," Grady said.

"And your parents?" Carol asked. He shrugged.

"Captured," he said. "I guess they went to prison. Mostly I just guess they're dead."

Carol nodded her head and focused on maintaining her smile. She glanced over her shoulder to see Daryl walking around—in search of his boots—and she almost wished she'd hidden them to buy herself more time to chat with Grady.

"You were in a foster family right away or did you ever go to a facility?" Carol asked. Grady shrugged again.

"Mostly I was in a home," Grady said. "I guess—maybe it weren't that long. But then I got a family."

"So they're more like your family than the one you—started with?" Carol asked.

Grady shook his head and this time he laughed to himself. He scratched at the back of his neck.

"No, ma'am," he responded. "Once wild, always wild. It don't just apply to the grown-ups."

"But you're free?" Carol asked. "You always have been?"

"Free as I can be," Grady said. "I guess. The government didn't never hold it against me that I was a kid out there. But that doesn't mean that other people didn't. Even my own family. My foster family always thought I was wild. Anything I ever did—it was because I was wild. But now? I'm pretty free of them too, if you know what I mean."

Carol nodded her head.

"I think I do," Carol said. "And—Grady? You're not wild. No more than me or any of us."

He blushed pink again and almost knocked her out of the way to get to Daryl as he walked up behind her. The conversation, more than likely, was one that he preferred not to have for too long. Daryl rested a hand on Carol's shoulder and she turned her attention away from Grady to look at him.

"You gonna be OK today?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled at him and nodded. He didn't understand a lot about what it might mean if she were pregnant. More than anything, he'd have to learn that it didn't mean that she was made of glass and given to needing assistance with everything and at all times.

"Fine," she assured him. "Go to work. Alice will be sending for me soon."

As an answer, Daryl tipped his head and kissed her. Despite the fact that they had an audience, it was a sincere enough kiss that Carol felt it all the way to her core. She hated to let him go, but she did—because they both had things to do. She stepped back from the door so that Grady could lock it behind him, and she didn't miss that the young man had blushed so pink at seeing the kiss that even the tips of his ears were slightly red.

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"But how is it that, out of every wild-captured child there could've possibly been out there, all of ours managed to die while others clearly lived?" Carol asked as she followed Alice around the office while the woman packed supplies into the duffle bag she carried with her while she went from house to house and made "house calls" on people who had requested them and people who weren't expecting them alike.

"Do you think I can solve the mysteries of the universe?" Alice asked. "Because I can't. I'm just a doctor. And not a very good one at that."

"I'm just saying that maybe Samirah made a mistake," Carol said.

"And I'm just saying that I don't think Samirah is flat-out lying to you and everyone else," Alice said. "I've known her a little while. I trust Samirah. She's put her neck out for this project—and that means for all of you."

"I didn't say lying," Carol corrected. "I never said she was lying. I said that maybe there could've been a mistake. There must be fifty to eighty women here that lost children out there—at capture."

"Maybe not that many," Alice said.

"However many," Carol responded quickly. "Don't you think it's odd that that every single one of those children died? I mean—some of them I could see. Half of them, even. But every single one? I'm not a gambler, but that doesn't seem very reasonable. None of them survived?"

Alice sucked in a breath and froze with her back to Carol. She was trying to compose herself, that much was clear, and Carol let her have her time. She was the boss, after all. And, though their friendship grew a little more every day, Carol had to keep reminding herself that Alice was in a position of authority over her—a very strong positon of authority. She could push Alice some, but she had to respect her enough that the woman didn't tire of her entirely.

Alice turned around and walked a few steps to lean against her desk. She seemed to be thinking, but whatever she was thinking about didn't take her long.

"Wild-born and wild-captured children were sent to homes," Alice said. "Care facilities. Depending on what years they were captured during, they had a better or worse chance of finding a family." She shrugged. "It was the way of the land. It was the belief systems that were growing and the science behind them. Sometimes families wanted them—they believe they could rehabilitate them. Other times they didn't want them because they thought that there wasn't any hope for them. Other times, even? They wanted them just because the government was offering other incentives for taking them. The children's care facilities were filling up just like the prisons. The government didn't care that much about the kids. They wanted them to grow into productive citizens, if they were going to grow, but they really didn't care that much. The files were messy. Some of them were lost. One of the care facilities burned to the ground. There was a wild release—an attempted wild release—and the wilds that were turned loose stormed the town and burned most of the place down in the scuffle. They were killed. The people in the town were killed. And, as far as we know, most of the children were killed."

Carol felt her throat closing up just at imagining everything that must have happened—everything that she was entirely unaware of because she'd spent all that time simply focusing on survival.

Alice shook her head at Carol.

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I really am. But the records were never well-kept on the children. Even today, when they show up somewhere as adults or semi-adults? They have to self-identify as wild-captured children because otherwise? There's no record that they even exist—that they ever existed."

"And we're the animals?" Carol asked. She forced herself to swallow as rapidly as she could. Alice frowned at her. She knew the doctor wasn't responsible for everything, but still it was difficult, sometimes, to keep from holding it against her.

"That hasn't even been the worst thing that's happened," Alice said. "We're all animals. But some people? Are a lot less compassionate than others."

"So my daughter might not be dead?" Carol asked.

Alice's frown only deepened and she looked away from Carol to examine the walls of the office as though they were anything but bare.

"It's better to think that she is," Alice said. "That's why Samirah said—what she said."

"So she did lie," Carol said.

Alice looked at her then. She shook her head gently.

"She didn't lie. She doesn't know either—not really. She gave an answer. The best answer she had. She told you something because you wanted an answer," Alice said. "She told everyone the answer that—would work best for them. The truth is? She can't get an answer because the answers just don't exist. They're not available for her. They're not available for me. But if we told you that your children just—disappeared? If we told you that they might be dead or they might be—alive. They might be happy or they might be—just lost?"

"But they might be alive," Carol said. "That's what you're saying. They might be alive out there, somewhere?"

"I'm saying it doesn't matter," Alice said. "As horrible and as harsh as that sounds? It doesn't matter because there aren't answers. There will never be answers because nobody has them. The children? If they are alive? They don't remember you. And—you'd have to search through every child alive to see if you had a chance of recognizing yours after all these years. And then? If you found her? You'd have to accept that she might not recognize you. She might not—want you."

Carol didn't explain herself. She walked over and sat down in the chair that Alice used at her computer because it was the closest place to her where she could get off the knees that were threatening to betray her. She didn't realize that she'd given over to crying—something that happened almost involuntarily these days—until Alice bumped her arm and offered her a tissue.

"I'm not saying any of this to hurt you," Alice said. "Samirah didn't say what she said to hurt anyone. Nobody here wants to hurt any of you. That's why we're here. For the hurting to stop."

"She took away our hope," Carol said, almost gagging on the words. "You—took away our hope. And it was all—it was all that some of us had left!"

Alice shook her head at Carol and rubbed at her back.

"I didn't take it away. Neither did Sam. We just—let you start letting go of it because we knew that it was false hope and you couldn't move—you can't move forward if you're holding onto the past. Especially if it's a past that you can never get back," Alice said. "And that's why—it's one of the reasons why—we're working so hard to give you something now. Some new hope for a future that you can have."

Alice stood up, but she continued to rub Carol's back for a moment. Finally, she stopped the repetitive action and went back to packing her bag. Carol heard the zipper as she slid it shut.

"I'm not going to tell you how to feel," Alice said. "I've got too much stuff to do today to try to dictate people's feelings. Take some time. When you're done? I need you to pull those files I listed for you. And then? Could you clean the exam room? I've got two new mommies to be coming in later. But—wear a mask? Just in case."

Carol remained where she was and listened as Alice left, closing the door behind her, but not locking it because she never bothered to engage the lock anywhere that she went.