One slightly longer chapter, for your reading pleasure.

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Mark was more than slightly irate when he realized that Anne had gone home for lunch without telling him. The cursing began when he slung his jacket off the back of his chair and on his body at a run, and didn't abate as he moved through the halls. He snarled at anyone who had the gall to be between him in the door, and only a fool would have been brave enough to ask him what his problem was.

His pace through the streets was little less than a dead run, his freshly-lengthened stride eating up the distance quickly. Little thought was spared to the miracle of movement he was experiencing, but there was a small part of him that reveled in the feel of muscles bunching and releasing properly in his thigh.

A small snarl crossed his lips as he saw her exit the building and turn away from work. After all her brave words about acting like a human, and proving her worth, here she was, showing her true colors. She had snuck away, had a private consultation with her allies, and was now off to do something in secret. She had demanded that they trust her, and what did she do, not forty-eight hours later? Betray that trust she had argued so well to be granted.

He wanted to run up to her, grab her by the arm and demand that she tell him what she had planned, but she was moving too swiftly. He had needed to stop running as the past few years had left him sadly out of endurance, and she was walking to swiftly for his tired body to close the gap. So instead he followed, his breathing growing only slightly labored as they traveled to the outskirts of December. And then past the confines of the city completely.

He began to wonder what was going on as the buildings grew farther apart. Surely she knew he was back here by now. He hadn't been shadowing her, merely following where she led, yet she didn't slow her pace and let him catch up. She didn't slow her pace at all once they hit the desert, in truth, she sped up from a quick walk to a slow lope.

Mark suspected that she knew he was following, and that she knew he couldn't keep up at that pace. But if she thought that he would just turn around and give up because he could no longer even see her ahead of him on the dunes, she was sadly mistaken. As long as he could see traces of her passage, and even after, he followed her.

What in the world was out here that was so important? It was sand, and sand, and dunes for hours. He ran when he could, and walked when he couldn't run, and he refused to sit down at all on the grounds that he might not be able to force himself back to his feet. Within the first hour of traveling the desert he had taken off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, but still the sweat dripped off him.

Finally, he saw a dark smudge in the horizon. His pace picked up for a moment, but slowed as he began to wonder what was the point of this whole endeavor. Did he think that his presence was going to make a difference to whatever was going on? He pressed on past the mounting fears and apathy until he found that the only thing still moving forward was his mind.

He tried chiding himself, tried to get himself out of the bleak depression that had fallen over him. It was so out of character…. It was. She said that she was an empath. This was obviously a trick of hers, used to sap the will of those who might follow. Well, he was having none of that. Grimly, he pressed on, concentrating only on putting one foot before the other until he was rewarded by the faintest of sounds of sobbing.

What was this? Torture? He looked up, startled by the thought, and was amazed by what he saw, amazed enough to forget to keep moving forward.

It was a mass of trees. Trees so close to each other that they formed a wall, branches intertwined to keep people out. Trees in a line that defied rational measurement, that could have stretched for a mile on either side of him. So many trees, so much wood that his mind literally could not encompass what he saw.

She could be rich, could be growing these trees for a bit of quick cash. He looked at them, looked up thirty feet to the tops that waved gently on the breeze and tried to calculate the market value of what he saw. Tried, and failed because his mind could not process so many zeros.

The sound of crying brought himself out of his trance, and he pushed forward again, mouth set in a grim line as he fought against the feelings assailing him. He forced his way past the trees and stopped again, his mind once more unable to comprehend what it saw.

Grass. Grass, and shrubs, flowers and vegetables as far as the eye could see. Off in the distance he could see some tall rock spires, but his entire being focused on the riches he saw here. Looking about, he could see no patch of earth not covered by some growing thing. The bright colors of flowers assaulted his eyes, the myriad fragrances vying for prominence in his nose. Over to his left was a grove of trees, fruit trees, bearing fruit.

Without his volition his feet led him there, and without his direction one hand was raised to take an apple from a branch. While he picked one, another fell to the ground. He stared at it in dismay, then quickly picked it up. As he leaned over to pick it up, he saw that he had been walking on grass to get to the trees. Grass! He cursed his clumsy feet and hoped that he hadn't hurt it, then wondered where the paths around the greenery were. He couldn't see them anywhere.

With a guilty feeling, he slipped both apples into the pockets of his jacket, then set off towards the middle of this wondrous park, closer to the sounds of sobbing. He kept wanting to be distracted by the wonderful things around him, and could only pass them by because he suspected that they were just another distraction designed to keep pursuit from following.

But whatever suspicions he might have held were dispelled one he finally reached the center. Here, among the rocks and vines, beside the pool of water that bubbled and trilled he saw only Anne. She wasn't looking at the beauty that surrounded her, wasn't trying to lose him, wasn't trying to push him away, keep him from following, or distract him in any manner.

She was too busy wailing.