A Moment of Clarity Chapter 6, Part II, a third watch fanfic

Chapter 6 Continued

II.

She met John Sullivan just as he was coming out.

Except that in this case, "met" was defined as nearly killing him with the door; Sully was already suited up and probably just on his way out to Roll Call when Faith slammed into the room as if borne on the crest of a hurricane. He managed to get his arm up in time to deflect the door, saving himself a good whack on the head and possibly even a broken nose, but Faith had still put sufficient oomph into it to send him stumbling back a few steps.

She came up short and dropped her duffel bag on the floor. Her panic - and that was what it had been turning into, no fooling herself - seemed to pop like a bubble. She felt it go just like that, too, a kind of wet little plip! sensation in her mind, but instead of the relief she should have felt, there was only an entirely different kind of dismay left in its place. This was now becoming a farce. She was moving steadily out of the realm of making an ass of herself and heading into full-fledged public spectacle.

"Oh Jesus!" she cried, taking a step towards Sully, who was rubbing his elbow. "Sully! God, I'm sorry, I - !"

Sully drew away from her, still cupping his elbow and wincing. "Forget it," he snapped. He sounded gruff and ill-tempered, but Faith didn't let herself read much of anything into that. Even in the best of moods John Sullivan sounded gruff and ill-tempered.

He resumed course for the door, then seemed to realize exactly who it was he was talking to. His face registered a very brief glimmer of surprise. Then he was just Sully again. "You that eager to be back, are you, Faith?"

She laughed. It was the delirious, tittery laugh of someone who has narrowly avoided some horrible and probably very undignified death, but it was a laugh all the same. "Uh ... no ... sorry, I - "

(These are your friends. For Christ's sake, they aren't going to bite

"- I'm just a little nervous," she finished with a bit more confidence. Then she ventured: "It's ... uh ... It's kinda awkward out there, isn't it?"

"Air's a little soupy, yeah," Ty Davis's voice said from somewhere to Sully's left. Faith craned her neck around the edge of the first row of lockers. Ty was standing in front of one of the sinks and brushing his teeth, which probably explained why he sounded like he was talking with his mouth full. "You see what they did to Anti-Crime?"

Faith pointed over her shoulder. "I ... uh ... I saw two IAB detectives ... at least, I think that must have been what they were. They were coming from Anti-Crime's direction. Carrying a computer and a stack of files."

"They're still up there?" Sully muttered. "What are they doing now, jerking each other off? They've been up there for three days. Should've been done a long time ago. You should go up and see what they did to the place, Faith."

"Yeeaaaah," Ty said, stretching the word into a sardonic drawl around his toothbrush. "It is something to see, all right." He paused, spat a wad of toothpaste into the sink, and turned. "It's all gone, Faith. Right down to the watercoolers."

"Everything but the fucking wallpaper," Sully agreed. "If they're making it look like the removal operation's still going on, it's gotta be just for show. I don't know what Boscorelli was seeing up there, but whatever it was it really blew the doors off."

Bosco, Faith's mind-voice sighed, and she felt a vicious (and very liberating) twist of satisfaction in her gut. They know it was Bosco. They know Bosco's the rat.

Good.

"I heard it was somebody else," Ty said airily, neatly contradicting both Sully and Faith's unspoken (and rather petty-minded) thought. He spat again and resumed brushing. "Somebody inside Anti-Crime. Word is that IAB had a plant working up there."

Faith's eyes widened, genuinely surprised and thankful to be distracted by another emotion - it put a lid on her nerves, which were still fizzing and crackling. "Really?" She looked over at Sully for confirmation, but the older man's expression suggested that this possibility was new to him as well. Schaeffer had told her few details about exactly how he'd managed to nail an entire Anti-Crime team - he hadn't bothered to treat her to the little sideshow he'd put on for Bosco, and had made no mention of Reyes. He only alluded to an "informant" inside the unit. Faith had simply assumed that he meant Bosco, and although there were several nagging logical problems with that assumption, she never bothered to think on it much.

Probably had something to do with not giving a shit.

Ty nodded. "Yeah. And I'm not just talking about somebody selling out, either. Not just some disgruntled Anti-Crime cop, somebody who didn't like Cruz, something like that - "

"Nobody liked her," Sully muttered, low enough so that only Faith heard him.

"- we're talking an actual undercover detective. Sitting right up there in the middle of it all. For as long as six months. Maybe longer."

Sully grunted a laugh. "Slow burn," he muttered. "Sits up there shooting the shit with them while they hang themselves. Then he nails them all at his convenience. Cute."

"Oh, come on, Sul," Ty said around his toothbrush. "You think Cruz and her boys didn't deserve what they got?"

"No. But that doesn't make the idea of cops spying on other cops sit any better with me, Davis. And Bosco - " He looked at Faith. "What the hell was up with him, anyway?"

Faith blinked. "What?"

"What was he thinking, Faith? I mean, I knew he was stupid, but I didn't think he was stupid enough to get mixed up with a bunch of dirty cops."

Faith shrugged, again feeling - and shamelessly indulging - that sense of almost exalted relief, relief that the bull's-eye was indeed painted on Bosco (and Mr. Hypothetical IAB Plant) and not her. "I'm not the one to ask, Sully. He cut me off a long time ago."

"Cruz unleashed her womanly charms on him," Ty said. "That'd be my guess."

Faith balked. Then she uttered a much healthier, much more natural-sounding laugh. Her steel straps were loosening again - this time for good, she thought. She knew Ty was right, of course, that to a certain extent Cruz had controlled Bosco with sex. But "womanly charms" ... applied to Cruz, that still sounded pretty oddball. She would have thought Ty Davis had better taste. "Are you serious?"

Ty shrugged. "She's a very attractive woman, Faith. And that can mess with a guy's judgement. Even the best of us." He glanced over his shoulder. Faith guessed she still must have been looking at him funny because he reddened and shrugged self-consciously. "Seriously, Faith, it can. Hey, look, I'll be the first to admit it. And that's part of why I'm kind of surprised about Cruz, about how things turned out with her. I mean, I knew she was a bit, you know, unpredictable, but some of this shit that's been flying around about her -"

"Where are you getting all this shit that's been flying around, by the way?" Sully asked peevishly. "Stuff about IAB plants and six-month investigations. Because I haven't heard anything. All I see is that rat-bastard Schaeffer strutting around here striking heroic poses."

"I pick up stuff here and there," Davis said. He spat one last time and began rinsing his toothbrush off. "Good ol' rumor mill. I'm not saying any of it's true - take it all with a grain of salt, for sure. But what I was saying was, when you hear about stuff like this, it's usually a guy in the middle of it all. It's weird that Cruz was, like, the big ringleader of this whole gang of dirty cops."

"What's your point?"

Ty shrugged. "No point. Just that you don't generally expect it from a woman, do you?"

"Are you kidding me?" Sully said. "Women can be pretty fucking vicious, Davis. When they really set their minds to it they can be worse than us."

Ty burst out laughing. "Whoa-ho! Listen to this guy! Do I detect a hint of bitterness, Sul? Some hot-to-trot honey give poor Sully his walking papers?" He fired an impish smile over his shoulder. "What do you think, Faith? You're not just gonna stand there and take that sexist crap, are you?"

Faith smiled and said nothing. She should say something, she knew, add her own contribution to this little roast, but she could feel hot tears burning at the corners of her eyes again and she was afraid they'd hear it in her tone if she spoke. She thought of Fred. Fred catching her in his awkward one-armed hug from the driver's seat of the truck - and after she'd been all set to turn around and peel him like an orange. And now you had this to consider - she'd been brought back into the fold here without so much as a blink. In here everything still felt so normal, so blessedly ordinary. This was the standard-issue locker room bull-session, the light banter that always went on before a shift, that little bit of good-natured verbal sparring that always took the edge off. The state of affairs outside hadn't affected it - it had simply been assimilated into it, made a part of it. Fodder for discussion and an excuse to needle each other.

And they were talking very freely about Cruz, she realized. She was talking freely about Cruz, the woman she had -

(tried to murder)

shot, and nobody was making anything out of that.

The straps around her chest were very loose now. And the one around her guts was gone entirely.

"We can take him together, Faith," Ty was saying. "I'll hold him down and you work him over. But stick to the kidneys and groin area." He left the mirror and stood next to Sully. Then, before Sully could react, Ty shot a hand out and cupped his chin. "We wanna keep this face nice 'n pwetty, don't we?"

Sully shook him off. "I'm in no mood today, Davis!" he snarled, although Faith doubted there was much in the way of real animosity there; Ty was probably the only cop - the only living human being on Earth, for that matter - who could get away with teasing Sully, and definitely the only one who could occasionally coax Sully into the horseplay, albeit grudgingly. "Besides, you couldn't take me on your best day."

Ty made a little mock-lunge at him. Sully avoided it easily and pointed at Ty's chest. "Looks like you slobbered down your front there a little."

Ty looked down. There was a long, frothy runner of toothpaste on the front of his uniform shirt. All that talking and brushing at the same time hadn't been a good idea. "Aw shit."

"Tell you what," Sully said, clapping him on the shoulder. "While we're out there today I'll find a nice little baby supply store and buy you a bib. You want one with a bunny on it? Maybe a little smiley-smile?"

Ty ignored him, muttering another embarrassed little "Aw shit" as he headed back over to the sink. He wiped unsuccessfully at the stuff on his shirt as he went, then drew a clump of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and started scrubbing.

"Better hustle it up," Sully said, heading for the door. "Swersky's nobody to screw around with today, either." He paused just before he let the door swing shut behind him. "Goes for you too, Faith."

Faith looked down at herself, and realized with renewed embarrassment that she hadn't budged a single inch since she'd first come into the locker room. She was still standing here in her civvies, her bag still where she'd dropped it after nearly breaking Sully's face (his pwetty face, she corrected) with the door.

Faith hurried over to her locker and started unpacking her gear just as Ty turned from the sink and spread his arms. "How's it look now? Noticeable?"

She glanced over her shoulder. There was nothing on Ty's shirt now but a very faint damp patch, and in less than an hour even that would be invisible. Faith made an "O" with her thumb and forefinger.

Ty nodded. "Good. I could already hear the semen jokes, you know? 'Davis has a lil' jizz on his collar.' Don't need that today." He started for the door.

Then he stopped.

Faith sensed it, even though she had her back to him and her head in her locker. She sensed him stop, she sensed him turn, and she sensed it when he started to look at her uncertainly. And she knew what was coming next. She could almost hear the run of his thoughts, and it was the same as it had been with Fred - what to say, what not to say, should I, shouldn't I, do I want to or not?

He wanted to, she thought. He wanted to say something, something relevant to the present situation. He probably thought it was necessary. A kind of ritual cleansing, the gruff male version of the welcoming and supportive hug he probably thought another woman would give her. It would be something stilted and awkward, something Ty would think of - innocently - as being comforting, encouraging, even though just coming in here and finding everything unchanged had been more than enough to help her get her bearings back.

He was going to do it. She could feel it coming.

Don't, Ty. Please don't. She winced, praying hopelessly that he would pick up the thought, or at least read the gist of it in her body language. Don't say anything. It's sweet that you feel you have to, but don't ruin this, don't -

"Hey, Faith ... uh ... Look ... uh ... I just thought I'd let you know that everybody's ... you know, everybody's behind you. I mean ... what I mean is, you don't -"

"Ty -"

"No, no. Please just let me finish, okay? What you had to do to ... to Cruz ... to have to be in a situation like that with another cop, it ... you know, it couldn't have been an easy thing. Hell, I mean, I don't even know what I'd have done -"

"Thanks," Faith said curtly. He had a lot more on the way, of course, but she cut him off anyway. It came out a bit more icy than she would have liked, though, so she turned and offered a smile she hoped looked genuine. "Really, Ty. Thanks."

Ty shifted uncomfortably, sensing her anger anyway and obviously not understanding it. "I just mean that nobody blames you ... for Cruz or for Anti-Crime ... nobody thinks you did anything wrong that night. I mean, Cruz blew her wheels, right? You did what you had to do."

(I know I did what I had to do. That's it.)

(Who are you trying to convince? Because it sounds to me like you're trying to convince yourself.

Faith nodded mutely. The steel straps had made yet another comeback - not real tight yet, but there all the same. She reminded herself that this was nothing to get all worked up about - it was just Ty's way of trying to be kind. Like Levine and her apple. This cheesy little speech was Ty's apple, that was all. Just trying to be kind in the only way he knew how.

Trouble was, she was sick of people being kind to her, whatever their intentions. She was tired of the it's good to see you back's and everybody's behind you's. She was tired of being marked, goddammit, for better or for worse.

And she didn't like how easily people seemed to be reading her. How the hell could Ty know that she was afraid of being blamed for anything? It was true, yes, but what right did he have to assume it?

Ty was reading all of this, as well - she could see it. She could also see that he wished he'd never opened the subject, and that made her feel even more out of sorts. So she'd made him uncomfortable now. Great. And who's fault was that? Who couldn't just stand back and leave it alone?

She turned back to her locker and pretended to busy herself, rummaging in her bag. Ty paused, probably wondering whether or not to press the issue, then wisely decided not to. She heard him move away, then heard the door open and close.

She began to change into her uniform in silence.

IV.

And it was the uniform all along. It was the uniform that she'd really been afraid of, she realized, the hurdle that had terrified her the most. Not anything as melodramatic as Swersky and her colleagues deciding to turn their backs and drum her out of the NYPD, or being blamed for Internal Affairs coming in and carving up Anti-Crime like a potroast. It was the uniform from the very beginning. If there was going to be trouble (trouble defined as possibly going into full-blown hysterics again, the way she had at Mercy) she would have expected it to come with putting the uniform on again.

The symbolism of the uniform was, of course, pretty heavy.

Why, the last time she'd been wearing a uniform ...

Stop. Stop right there.

Yes, stop right there. That was where she had to be careful, wasn't it? Right there.

Faith allowed herself to look in the mirror only when she had finished completely, only when she had everything on and zipped and buttoned and buckled. And what happened then was nothing short of a subtle miracle; she felt nothing. Nothing at all, boys and girls. Her nerves had calmed. All of her needles had come down out of their red zones and slipped back into the green.

Again, thank God for the small mercies. There was going to be no trouble. No trouble at -

"Hey there, Officer Yokas!" a cheery female voice called from behind her.

Faith screeched. There was no other descriptive term that could be applied to the high and somehow birdlike sound she made - it was a screech through and through. Sasha Monroe had come into the locker room while Faith was busy being fascinated by her own reflection; Faith had heard neither the door opening and closing nor the approaching footsteps, and Sasha had not been at an angle where she would be reflected in the mirror.

"Jeez, I'm sorry," Sasha said as she dropped her own gear on one of the benches. "Didn't mean to come up on you like that. Little edgy, too, huh? That moron convention out front didn't suck you in, did it?"

Faith laughed. Monkey farm from Swersky. Now you had moron convention from Monroe. Faith thought she liked Swersky's better, but what the hell, she'd give Monroe the cake if there was a cake to be awarded. She had taken to Sasha right from the beginning; had, in fact, liked her almost as easily and naturally as she'd disliked Cruz on their first meeting. "No. No, I managed to stay under the radar."

"Lucky you," Sasha said dryly as she began to change. "I didn't. That's why I'm late. Bastards." She winced. "Bite my tongue. You know, I was brought up to be kind to everybody no matter what - love your enemies, right? - but some people make it pretty damned hard. They wanted to know if I knew Cruz. And stupid me, I get all flustered and say yes. Did that ever set them off! What was she like, what was my professional opinion of her, what was my personal opinion of her, did I ever see her sacrificing chickens and eating babies - "

"They asked you that?"

"Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But would I be surprised if they did ask questions like that? No, I wouldn't." Sasha looked up. "We're riding together today, I take it."

Faith nodded.

"Good. While you were gone I was stuck with Fowler. You know Fowler?"

Faith shook her head.

"Figures. He's usually on First Watch. Temporarily working Third. Only one year with the Department, and I think he was more interested in my ass than he was in the job. Kept brushing up against me - you know, very casual-like - and copping himself a nice feel. Cocky about it, too, the little skunk. When I lost my patience and called him on it, you know what he said to me? That he couldn't help it because he had the 'jungle fever.' Can you believe that? Do you think he actually thought that would work on me? I've got jungle fever, he says, and I guess my pants are just supposed to fly off."

Faith again could only shake her head. Sasha wasn't just talking fast - she was machine-gunning it. Faith found it hard to keep up, to keep it all straight. Sasha was on edge, too, then. Except her way of dealing with it seemed to be verbal diarrhea.

"Anyway, he's back on his usual shift," Sasha went on. "Good thing, too." At last she stopped and took a deep breath. "Gotta tell you, I do love it when it rains like this, Yokas. Clears the sinuses. Just wish it would keep those jackals outside away."

The door opened and Swersky's voice wafted in. "Hope you're decent, ladies," he said, decorously staying out of view just in case they weren't. "Roll Call in five. And we're running late enough as it is."

"Sure thing, Boss," Sasha called. Then she looked up at Faith. "You all right, Yokas? You look a little peaky."

Faith looked at her sharply. She didn't think Sasha had even been paying the slightest bit of attention to her.

"Yeah," she said, a bit defensively. "I'm fine."

Sasha kept looking at her, and there was something searching in her gaze that Faith didn't like much. But she kept her voice level. "Really, Monroe. I'm fine."

The younger woman shrugged and, to Faith's relief, dropped it. "Better go on ahead. I'll catch up."

Faith started to do just that.

And then stopped short.

Back outside now. Back into the halls, and she seemed to have forgotten all about what was out there. The tension. The IAB detectives running around. The Lions. The Tigers. The Bears.

Oh my.

"I can wait."

But once Sasha had changed and they were out of the locker room, Faith found things were much better now. Not that the tension had disappeared, mind you, but it was easier to face with the uniform on, and it was easier with Sasha walking along beside her, and she found she could even look around at what was going on with a more critical eye.

She thought Sully had it pegged. What you had here was a double-edged sword; most cops didn't harbor any great love for Internal Affairs, but most cops were honest, hardworking men and women who would readily admit that the Cruz-types were ultimately counter-productive. It wasn't just that dirty cops smeared the NYPD's good name - there were plenty of practical reasons to weed them out, not the least of which was the issue of community trust. Schaeffer had told her that Cruz and her team had reigned over the neighborhoods they worked like a dime-store gestapo, and Faith believed him. They'd been little more than a street gang themselves, with all the same trappings - status symbols like nickel-plated handcuffs and God only knew what other kind of macho garbage. Probably tattoos - "Five-Five Anti-Crime" on the shoulder, perhaps. Or on the ass. Which was more appropriate, when you thought about it.

They'd gotten what they deserved. Of course they had. In the end they'd gotten only what they'd brought down on their own heads. But here again was that double-edged sword; while most cops had known - or at least suspected - that Anti-Crime was dirty, it did nothing to change the indignant gut-reaction they had to IAB tearing the Five-Five apart under their feet. IAB was, in effect, doing as much harm to the Department's public image as Cruz and her team had. When they saw the media circus and heard the rumors, people on the outside weren't likely to separate Anti-Crime from the rank-and-file. The way it was being handled simply made everybody look bad.

And now that she'd driven the butterflies out of her stomach, Faith found she could be a little pissed about it herself. She thought Sully might also be onto something with that comment about IAB putting on a show. Scare tactics. Be careful, ladies and gentlemen, and stay on the straight and narrow - 'cuz next time it could be you. Very subtle.

She still couldn't help but wonder what had justified all of it. With Ty's idea of an undercover detective to chew on, she was doubting more and more that Bosco and his guilty little conscience could have blown things so completely wide-open. IAB hadn't just singled out one or two cops - they had taken everybody. Everybody and everything. Overkill? Maybe. Unnecessary overkill? Hard to say. Either Schaeffer was on a witch-hunt, or Anti-Crime's history was a lot darker than either she or Bosco had ever suspected.

Faith was betting on the latter.

But it was all over now. Over and done with and no concern of hers anymore, and if things were different, what of it? Consider it a fresh start. Nunez was free and clear, for whatever that was worth - so Nunez was now the past. And Bosco was the past. Noble was the past. Cruz was the past.

And Schaeffer, thank God, was the past.

Or maybe not.

"Well, look who it is," Sasha said wryly as they headed for Roll Call. "The Lord High Executioner himself."

Faith followed Sasha's gaze to the end of the hallway and there he was, the one man on God's entire green Earth that she didn't want to talk to or have anything to do with. He was impossible to miss, impossible to mistake for anybody else; big guy, goatee, gray hair, impeccable suit - that was all you needed.

He had cornered Swersky, and Faith felt another surge of empathy for the Lieutenant. Schaeffer was talking to him. Talking at him - the conversation looked mostly one-sided. She could understand none of it - there was no actual yelling going on - but it looked pretty intense. The detective was clearly pissed about something.

Maybe Swersky didn't hand in his homework on time.

"Hang back," Faith said, grabbing Sasha's arm ... and wondering again exactly why the idea of running into Schaeffer should bother her so much.

Sasha, of course, didn't understand it either. "What's the problem?"

"I don't want to talk to him."

"He's busy with the Lieu," Sasha said, nevertheless allowing herself to be gently tugged back in the direction of the locker room. "He's not paying attention to us ... whoa, wait ..."

No. Oh, hell no. You have to be kidding me.

Faith didn't turn. Couldn't bring herself to turn. "What? Is he coming? Don't you dare tell me he's coming, Monroe -"

Sasha winced. "Shit. Sorry, Yokas, he just -"

"Yokas!"

Schaeffer had seen them. Now, incredibly, he was heading right for them, leaving Swersky looking bewildered and angry (although maybe a little relieved) at being so rudely dismissed.

It was amazing, really. Wasn't it amazing? Just how fucking wrong things could go? It was amazing. In a perverse, miserable way, but amazing all the same.

Faith briefly considered simply walking away from him and dismissed the idea as pointless almost immediately - if he meant to talk to her, he would.

Oh, can it, she told herself coldly. He's not out to get you.

But as he drew nearer she couldn't shake the feeling that, in some way, he was coming to get her. At the very least, she got the feeling he was bringing something very bad along with him. Feeling hell - she could see the bad news on him. It was clear in his step and in his expression. Whatever he was arguing with Swersky about might have had something to do with her, and now here she was - just walked right into him. How lucky.

"Go on ahead," Faith murmured. "I'll catch up."

But Sasha stood her ground. Either because she was ready to stand by Faith or because she wanted to see some sparks fly - Faith didn't know her well enough yet to tell which.

Then Sasha leaned in confidentially and whispered, "He kind of looks like a Hulked-out version of Colonel Sanders, doesn't he?"

Faith uttered an involuntary and totally undignified donkey-bray of laughter just as Schaeffer came up to them. The detective cast a brief glance at Sasha, dismissed her, and looked down at Faith with almost theatrical regret.

"Where'd you learn to shoot, Yokas?" he said finally. "Hmm? I mean, where'd you get your Certification? A box of your kid's Cocoa Puffs?"

Faith looked at Sasha helplessly. Wide-eyed, Sasha merely shrugged and raised her hands: don't ask me.

She turned back to Schaeffer, put a wicked smile on her lips, and said, "Excuse me?"

She regretted it immediately. It was supposed to come out harsh and indignant, and somehow ended up little more than a squeak. There was something bad here, oh something very ba -

"You just couldn't do a proper job of it, could you?" he said. Then he slapped his forehead dramatically. "What am I thinking? Of course you couldn't! We're talking about a woman who has the luck of Satan himself, after all. If you'd shot her in the head the bullet probably would have just bounced off."

"Cruz?" Faith asked softly, feeling her heart drop into her belly and those goddam hateful straps start to tighten again. It won't go away, she thought with an internal, hysterical laugh. It just won't go away. She won't go away. "What happened?"

"She's out," Schaeffer said. Then he spread his arms out in a wild shrug and laughed. It was the gesture of a man who has just witnessed an amazing - and yet obviously very phony - magic trick.

Sasha blinked. "Out?"

"She left the hospital. Can you believe that? Just got up and left. And nobody saw a goddam thing."

"Wasn't she under guard?" Sasha asked.

"Of course she was under guard!" he cried. "But sweetpea went off and took a forty-minute lunch break. When she gets back, surprise! Resourceful little Maritza is gone."

Faith swallowed, not quite sure what to say, or even if she was expected to say anything. She was not even sure what, precisely, this had to do with her. So Cruz had escaped. It wasn't all that surprising, really. So what?

Sasha shrugged. "She can't have gotten far."

"You wouldn't think so, would you?" Schaeffer said. He ran a weary hand across his forehead, unconsciously aping what Swersky had done back at the main desk. But where Swersky's expression of fatigue had been genuine, Schaeffer's only looked hammy and put on. "Oh, I'm telling you, this has been one wild ride. I suppose Cruz at least scores brownie points for determination. They sent a unit to her apartment - the superintendent said she was there for about an hour, hour-and-a-half maybe. Then she left again." He laughed. "The super's this old crow who thinks Cruz is some kind of neighborhood savior, a good little girl fighting the evils of the ghetto. You'd get a kick out of it, you really would. Old bat talks about her like she was Mother Teresa herself. Mother Teresa with a nine-millimeter on her hip and the body of a stripper. I haven't laughed that hard in years."

"How bad was she hurt, anyway?" Sasha asked, ignoring him. "I heard it was pretty nasty."

"The super said she was a mess when she came in. Wearing a bathrobe - a bathrobe, for fuck's sweet sake - and soaked to the skin." He smiled. "I'm not worried. It's not like she's gonna get very far with a shattered shoulder and probably a nice case of pneumonia setting up shop in her lungs."

"Why are you telling me this?" Faith said, hating herself for how timid, how small she was starting to sound. Where, now, was the self-assurance she'd so carefully crafted all week?

Running out through her feet, by the feel of things.

"Because I want you to tell me this, Yokas," Schaeffer said, eyes sparkling. "You hear from Boscorelli lately?"

"He and I don't talk anymore," she said shortly. Then it clicked. "Don't waste your time, Detective. He wouldn't be helping her."

"How do you know that? If you're so out of touch with him."

"He wouldn't!" she snapped. Though she had very little fondness left for Bosco and even less in the way of trust, the idea that he could turn around and help that madwoman after everything they'd been through was just too ludicrous. Too obscene, if you wanted to get down to it. That he could do such a thing, after all the blood that had been spilled.

Yeah, blood was spilled. And you were the one who did all the spilling. So is the idea of Bosco helping her really so unthinkable? He was pissed at you for shooting her. Hell, he was horrified. Imagine that - Bosco horrified. And who knows - that might have been enough to swing him around to her side again.

After all, remember what he was like in the washroom at the hospital. Didn't seem to know whose side he was on.

"His mommy posted his bail," Schaeffer was saying. "He's been staying at her place, but he's not there now. Mommy doesn't know where he is. To tell you the truth, Yokas, I don't think Mommy cares all that much. I don't think he's very high in Mommy's good books right now. Point is, she doesn't know where he went, and neither do we. And Cruz is AWOL. Interesting coincidence."

"Listen," Faith said slowly, wondering why she was going to any length to defend him. Reflex, she supposed. And her unwillingness to believe he could do anything so utterly hateful. "We went over all of this, remember? He came to me, begging me to help him stop what Cruz was trying to do to that Nunez kid, begging me to help him break away from her. That's what he was like, Detective. He had to smell the smoke before he knew his own ass was on fire."

Schaeffer threw back his head and laughed. "Ba-zing! Right on the money! Man, I might just be starting to enjoy this whole crazy business!"

Faith ignored him. "That bitch lured him up there to that little goon-squad of hers ... I mean ... she got him up there and she exploited him. Just before ... before what happened in that room, she said that she wanted to make him her star. Her exact words." Faith's voice suddenly became a frighteningly accurate parody of Cruz: "He was gonna be my star. You know what she really meant, Detective?"

Schaeffer nodded impatiently. "Like you said, we went over this already. Cruz wanted to make him into a handy little human shield. She fucks up and he takes the fall." He smiled thinly. "Except of course it didn't work out like that, did it?"

"He would never help her," Faith said flatly.

"Well," Schaeffer sighed. "We'll see. It's not my problem anymore, technically speaking. You just hurry yourself off to Roll Call now, Yokas. You'll all be on the lookout for her today." He grinned. "Who knows? Maybe it'll be you that finds her. Wouldn't that be great? If she's come this far, I doubt she'll go down without a fight. You might get a chance to redeem yourself."

Faith felt the back of her neck prickle. "Excuse me?"

"Redeem yourself," Schaeffer repeated slowly. "You are familiar with the term, right? Means fixing a mistake - usually a shameful one. I'm assuming you completed grammar school."

"Are you really suggesting," Faith said slowly, trying to inject some indignance into her voice, indignance she wasn't even sure she had any right to feel, "that it would have been better if Cruz died?"

Schaeffer kept smiling but didn't reply. It was stupid, Faith knew, it just sounded stupid coming from her. It did to her own ears, anyway. She of all people, getting all haughty because Schaeffer was being so casual with a human life. He seemed to know it, too. He held her gaze for a moment or two longer, those unsettling, close-set gray eyes drilling into hers.

"A quick chat, Yokas, if you please," he said finally. His voice had gone oddly quiet; all of a sudden it was devoid of that playful sarcasm that seemed to underline everything he said. He took her gently by the arm and began to lead her off to one side of the hall.

Sasha tried quietly and unobtrusively to follow them. Schaeffer sensed it and immediately swung around, hand raised palm-out, like a traffic cop. "Stop right there, shorty."

Sasha stopped in her tracks.

He made a twirling gesture with his finger. "Turn around. Get thee off to Roll Call."

Sasha stayed right where she was, glaring at him.

"Okay, just stand there and grow some roots, if that's what suits you. But be aware that this is a private conversation. Just between me and Officer Yokas." He turned to Faith, setting himself between her and Sasha and blocking the other woman from view. "All joking aside. Right?"

"I don't have anything left to say to you," Faith said, pulling her arm free. Her voice was husky, almost a whisper. She hated having to look up so far at him; he was a full head-and-a-half taller than she was, and she had no doubt he was used to making his height work to his advantage. "And I know I don't want to hear anything you have to say to me." She paused. Then she added, with a spontaneous, childish defiance that was utterly unlike her: "So fuck off."

"Hear me out, Yokas," Schaeffer said softly, unperturbed. "Hear me out, and listen very carefully." He leaned in very close, and when he spoke his breath tickled her ear maddeningly.

"Cruz never pulled her gun on you at all, did she?"

Faith stared up at him expressionlessly. Her spine seemed to have frozen. Half a dozen random and half-glimpsed thoughts ripped through her mind. One of them was prison.

This was the bad news, then. The bad news she had sensed on him. Not Cruz slithering out of Mercy hospital. This.

She realized that she had begun to tremble. She didn't think it wasn't very bad yet, definitely not enough to be visible - it was very specific, very fine, a kind of low-yield electric charge running through her body.

And her voice seemed incapable of getting any higher than that scratchy whisper. "What?"

"This is strictly off the record, you understand," he said softly. His voice barely qualified as a murmur and yet somehow each syllable came through with perfect clarity. "Boscorelli stuck up for you, and Noble's pleading ignorance, but from the start I have had a hard time believing that even Cruz would try to take something from another cop at gunpoint. She had a psych evaluation only six months ago, you know. And while it showed her to have a mild personality disorder (which is just a fancy way of saying arrogant bitch) it more or less checked out - Maritza Cruz may be a lot of things, but crazy isn't one of them. Nor is she stupid. She's an arrogant bitch of the highest possible caliber, and she's self-driven almost to the point of obsession, but all of that doesn't add up to being dumb enough to point a gun at a cop."

Faith continued to stare blankly at him. Or at least blankly was her best and most optimistic guess - she no longer had any idea of what her facial expression might be conveying, and Schaeffer wasn't giving her any clues. Her head felt suddenly very light. The trembling was still confined to that low-key thrumming in her limbs, but her heart was hammering hard enough in her chest now to rattle her teeth.

"Now, don't look at me like that, Yokas - you don't have anything to worry about. My guess is that the truth isn't all that far from your story anyway. My guess is that Cruz came into that room and started tossing her weight around. Making threats. Maybe against you and Boscorelli both. Threats to trump up a few disciplinary charges, maybe. Threats to nail you on a B&E charge for being there. No, you don't have to answer - this isn't an interrogation. We're past that. This is just me telling you that I understand. I understand why you did it. She needed to be stopped, Yokas. We were in the process of stopping her, and we did, but you couldn't know that at the time, could you? All you saw was Cruz standing in front of you, and you knew her, didn't you? You knew she was out of control. You knew she'd crossed the line one too many times, trying to railroad that poor bastard Nunez. And you thought, I have to stop her before she really hurts somebody. And for that - "

Schaeffer broke off suddenly.

Then, without even turning around, he shouted: "What the fuck did I just tell you, shorty? BACK OFF!"

Faith and Sasha both jumped as if goosed, Sasha more so - she had been sidling closer and closer to where Faith and the detective were standing, trying to hear what was being said. She hadn't, as far as Faith could tell, made so much as a whisper of sound, and yet Schaeffer had heard her anyway.

Sasha drew back hastily, eyes widening at the naked viciousness of the outburst.

Once he was sure Sasha had been cowed, Schaeffer turned to Faith again, picking up his gentle (if somewhat urgent) tone and his train of conversation as if nothing had happened.

"And for that, my hat's off to you. If it were anyone else, Yokas - anyone - you would be going down for attempted murder. But Cruz is a special case. I know more about her than almost anybody else in this precinct, and I could smell something like this coming for years. Except I was always afraid she'd take an innocent bystander or two with her. You did right, Yokas, you really did. Sometimes you need to fight the enemy on her own terms, isn't that so? I just wish that when you decided to put her on ice, you'd have followed through." He stepped back and smiled at her, voice rising to a more natural tone. "If you run across her again, though, you will. Won't you?"

Faith stared at him, utterly thunderstruck.

And then she felt it all come down.

It was simple and quick and when it came it came with no fanfare or emotional pyrotechnics, no hysterical breakdown - she just felt it go with a kind of unremarkable mental pop, the way she'd felt her panic pop just after nearly bashing Sully with the locker room door. Everything she'd been built up, everything she'd been telling herself, all of that blustery self-denial about getting beyond it, all the self-serving psychobabble about work being good therapy, all the reassurances that she was the same and her place was the same, all of it - it all came down in the space of one second, breaking apart and collapsing in a meaningless pile like the house of cards it was, and had been since the beginning.

And all by some rat-squad detective who didn't even know her. By a man who didn't even know her ... and yet had somehow intuited the entire truth.

Sometimes you need to fight the enemy on her own terms, isn't that so?

To destroy thy enemy you must become thy enemy. Why, of course it was so.

Sasha heard the last line of Schaeffer's little speech, and though Faith doubted she could have understood the meaning, she caught the change in Faith's expression and turned on the detective. "Hey! What the hell is wrong wi - "

"You bastard," Faith overrode her softly, but there was no menace in it, no strength. She suddenly felt so terribly weak, so alone and disconnected, so completely outside herself.

"Get out of here, Schaeffer," Sasha said coldly.

As usual Schaeffer was completely unmoved. And as usual he was impossible to read. If he sensed that he'd struck a nerve (hell, he'd struck a fault-line) he gave no indication. He just shrugged and started to walk away, the subject apparently no longer of any interest to him. Without turning, he raised a hand into the air, making a pistol out of his thumb and forefinger, and called over his shoulder: "Shoot straighter next time, Yokas."

Faith didn't hear him. Instead, she swooned. She had never done such a thing as swoon in her entire life - any more than she'd ever suffered a panic attack - but she swooned now. There seemed to be no blood left in her head, and it was another of those small mercies that there was a bench running along the wall beside them. Faith staggered two steps to her left and sank down onto it just as her knees unhinged. She was terrified that she was going to actually faint, and she felt her stomach heave over on itself, painfully, exactly the way it had when she'd knelt next to Cruz in that room.

She put her head down and leaned forward, arms dangling between her knees, breathing slow and deep until the nausea passed. The only thing worse than fainting right now would be to puke in the hallway. And all that she needed for that to happen was to think about ...

About the blood, right? Remember the blood? The smell of it? It was everywhere, remember? Absolutely everywhere. In places you'd never even think the backsplatter could get to. All over the floor, up the walls, all over the couch. Noble, you might recall, said something about it looking like a slaughterhouse. And it did. And there's you, looking like the butcher. Blood all over you, your jacket, pants, your hands

And through it all there was the smell of it, the smell of gun smoke, Cruz bleeding, Cruz vomiting all over her, Cruz attaining that muddy kind of semi-consciousness when the paramedics were hauling her away, when she started screaming -

Faith saw Sasha move into the frame of her peripheral vision and immediately fixed on her as a kind of life-ring, driving everything else out of her head. Instead of sitting next to her on the bench, the younger woman squatted down on her haunches in front of her, hunkering down to eye level the way a mother will when trying to comfort a crying child. The way Holly Levine had that night at Mercy - Holly Levine and her dreamy, watery eyes and lilting voice. Sasha's face was full of that same honest concern, but there was also a look of utter confusion and something that might have been outright fear.

Sasha had no idea. No idea at all.

Now she'll offer me an apple, Faith thought muddily, and laughed. It was high and humorless and somehow, about halfway through, it turned into a sob.

"Hey," Sasha said hesitantly, flustered. "Hey, look, Yokas, whatever that stupid hump said to you ..."

"He's right," Faith heard herself say, not so much in answer but more just to confirm the truth to herself. To hear it out loud, the final admission spoken in her own voice, which seemed to be coming back at her from down a long tunnel.

She looked up at Sasha. Smiled. Shrugged. "He's right."

"Who? Him? Schaeffer? Hey, Yokas, don't listen to - "

"I shot her, Sasha," Faith said hoarsely. She really had no idea it was coming until it was out. Then, helplessly, she just kept right on going. "He's right. He really is. I just ... she was standing there, and I thought ... I decided it was time to put an end to it. Put an end to her. She didn't even do anything, and I just ... I took Noble's gun and I shot her."

Sasha's eyes widened. What had begun as a look of mild apprehension now suddenly became outright horror. She glanced around to see if they were being watched. They weren't. Yet.

"Yokas ... Faith, do you ... are you sure you really want to be telling me this? Out here?"

"I was trying to kill her," Faith continued as if she hadn't heard. "I hated her and I wanted to kill her ... for what she did to Bosco." She barked a wild little laugh. "That's where he's wrong. That's where I was wrong."

"Yokas, I don't underst -"

"I hated her for what she turned him into," Faith said. She was crying but her voice had somehow become eerily conversational, as if this was no more than a dry political discussion enjoyed over a cup of coffee. "That was the only reason. I didn't care what she did to that Nunez kid or to anyone else. And afterwards ... after, when she was kneeling there bleeding, I loved it. Every second of it. The look on her face ..." - Faith grinned savagely in spite of herself - "It was so satisfying. She knew. Oh, she knew we'd beaten her, and I wanted Bosco to finish her off. I remember I thought something like blow her fucking head off, Bosco, just like that, just like we were partners again, like we'd scored some kind of big righteous victory together even though it was just a ... a filthy mistake, and I ... I kept telling myself that she was ..."

"Look," Sasha said urgently, taking her by the shoulders. "You can't ... you can't be telling me this, Yokas. I don't even know - "

"Aren't you listening?" Faith snarled, shaking herself free. "I loved it. I tried to murder somebody, Monroe. And I enjoyed it. I got off on it. And you know what's funny? Nobody seems all that surprised, do they? Everybody's cool with it. I was worried about that, you know. Like, how would people treat me? And you know what? Everybody's cool. Just so cool with it, with me shooting her. You and Ty and Sully and Swersky and that IAB son of a bitch. It was like they thought it was inevitable. Cruz was out of control. Cruz crossed the line. Cruz needed some serious killin', and who better to do it than me, right?"

She stopped abruptly, the rant at last catching in her throat as another sob overtook and squashed it.

Sasha glanced around again. "Look - I'm not gonna question what you did, okay?" she said after a moment's consideration. "I don't know what that asshole said to you, but I'm not gonna pass judgement on you because I wasn't there. Just let me ask you this - Cruz was armed, right?"

"Yeah, but - "

"She drew on you? Had her gun in her hand?"

"Yeah, but she - "

"No buts. If Cruz was standing there with her gun in her hand, then as far as I'm concerned, she was asking for it. Stupid thing for her to do. She walked right into it, Yokas." Sasha smiled a bit. "You know that old line, right? 'Give me a reason.' Well, she gave you a reason. You didn't know what she was gonna do or not do. I mean, it's not like you shot a handcuffed suspect or something. "

"The weak got what was coming."

Sasha's brow wrinkled. "What?"

Faith looked blearily up at her and smiled, a smile that made Sasha draw away a bit.

Thinks I'm nuts. Thinks I'm totally nuts. How'd Ty put it? "Cruz blew her wheels." That's what Monroe's thinking right now. Yokas has blown her wheels. All four of them.

What a mess. God help me, what a mess.

"You said that to me," Faith rasped. "Just after Noble killed that biker. You said Cruz was weak, and the weak always get what's coming. So cool and so sure. I guess that one really stuck with me."

Sasha smiled sourly. "Well, mom always did say I was a good judge of character. And Cruz did bring this all on herself."

Faith shook her head. "But that's not it. It's not about the technicalities, it's not about what the textbooks or the Academy instructors say. You're not listening, Monroe - I tried to kill somebody in cold blood, and I enjoyed it."

Sasha sighed. "I don't know what to say to that. I'm sorry. But the fact is, from what I can see, Cruz pushed you and pushed you and pushed you, and if you went a bit crazy, I'd say that's understandable. I don't know you well enough to be giving you advice, maybe, but I'm gonna tell you right now - don't let her do this to you."

Faith nodded dutifully. She was barely listening.

"She's gone for good," Sasha went on. "They'll catch her again and she'll go to jail and nobody around here's ever gonna see her again. Not you, not me, not anybody. She's history. So ask yourself this - do you want to let her win? You want to let her take that away with her?"

Faith looked down at her hands, which were now balled into tight, white-knuckled fists. This was familiar territory. All of the very same comfortable lies that she had been telling herself since the beginning. And all of it so much meaningless shit. She realized that she had hoped for something more from Sasha, something different, something new. Some fresh revelation, spoken with the same cool certainty as the weak always get what's coming. Something to make it all better.

Eventually, Sasha said: "If you want to take the day off, I'm sure the Lieu won't have a problem."

Threaded delicately under that sentence was: And neither will I.

Faith nodded and got slowly to her feet. Time to rewind the tape. Do it all over again, only nice 'n backwards this time. Back to the locker room. Back into civvies. Back home, where she would put her gear in a corner and then go sit on the couch. Maybe with a bucket of Ben & Jerry's in her lap and a big ol' spoon to go with it. Watch some TV.

But not the news.

Oh no. Not the news.

She looked around again, and for the last time allowed herself to fully take in and feel the strangeness here. The coldness. It was intense, yes. Still very intense. But ultimately not very dramatic, because she knew there was nothing permanent in it. In a week, two at most, everything would fall back into the normal routine again. It would have to. The surgery was done, and as painful as it had been, the patient would now have to get back on their feet. The hustle and bustle would return, the circus outside would go away and the one inside would return, the one made up of beat cops and detectives and lawyers and hookers and drug dealers and psychiatric out-patients. Everyday hustle and bustle. You bet.

Faith didn't know when she'd be back to see it.

Or let's not kid ourselves, ladies and gentlemen - she didn't even know if she'd be back at all.

"Tell the Lieu for me, would you?" Faith said over her shoulder as she headed back in the direction of the locker room. Her voice was pinched, breathless. The steel straps were back. "Tell him I'm gonna need a few days. But tell him that I'm gonna come talk to him about it myself just as soon as I get changed."

"Yokas -"

Faith didn't turn, didn't falter. She was moving fast now, trotting along as fast as she could in the direction of the locker room. And she could feel those belts squeezing her again. Some serious deja vu here, folks. Deja vu all the way. Everything was perfectly parallel to what it had been only ten minutes ago, history repeating itself in reverse. "Please, Monroe. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure, but - "

But Faith had rounded the corner and was gone.

VI.

The locker room was empty and quiet but for a solitary female cop who was just coming out of one of the bathroom stalls. Faith passed her on the way in with barely a glance, but she caught enough in her peripheral sense to suggest that the young woman was a bit shaken up. Faith, of course, had no idea that this was Cruz's erstwhile police guard - sweetpea, as Schaeffer had christened her. Sweetpea was actually Probationary Officer Sarah Thompson, and she had caught four different shades of blue hell from the burly detective only thirty minutes ago. Probationary Officer Sarah Thompson had wanted nothing more than to be a cop since she was about ten years old, and she was almost sick with terror at the prospect of losing her job only a few days out of the Academy. Most reasonable people would have said Cruz's escape couldn't possibly have been considered Thompson's fault, but Schaeffer was, to put it lightly, inconsolable. And inconsolable people are seldom reasonable.

Probationary Officer Sarah Thompson was currently searching for a hole she might crawl into and die.

Despite her need to get as far away from the Fifty-Fifth Precinct as possible, Faith could have sympathized.

But Probationary Officer Thompson left the room and Faith went straight over to her locker, and that was the closest the two of them ever got. Faith began to change out of her uniform, the process thoughtless and mechanical and devoid of symbolism. By now Sasha would be giving Swersky the news, although whether she would tell him about the confrontation with Schaeffer or the miniature freakout afterwards was another question. Faith was betting no and no on that one; Sasha seemed the discreet type. But Sasha's bearing and tone would express enough worry - probably not even intentionally - so that Swersky would soon come looking for her.

Faith finished up fast and closed her locker.

For the last time.

She tried to push the idea out of her mind and wasn't all that surprised when it slid right back in again. It was possible that Fred had been right after all, that she had jumped back into the stream too soon and just needed a few more days to get her head together and let everything else blow over. Nine years she had done this job, nine years she had - for the most part - enjoyed it, and she liked to think that in all of those nine years she'd done it to the best of her abilities. She had, at the very least, done it with the best of intentions. She'd helped people. That was why she did it. Why she loved it.

She helped people.

(Blow her fucking head off, Bos)

Oh yeah ... that was how it went, wasn't it? That was what she'd thought when Cruz was bleeding in front of them and struggling to keep herself vertical. Blow her fucking head off, Bos. Not Bosco but Bos. Pronounced Boz. That warm and cozy casual nickname.

And throughout the actual act itself she had been thinking about her family. When her finger had curled around the trigger of Noble's ridiculous antique pistol, when she had watched the sights line up over Maritza Cruz's heart, she had thought of Charlie and Emily and Fred. What-would-they-do-and-where-would-they-go kind of stuff. But it had been distant, unimportant, questions with no more gravity behind them than what she might decide on for dinner that night. The only important thing had been those gun-sights, bracketing the spot that held Cruz's life and the sum of all she ever was. Right in the heart, that was where it was supposed to go. Center-mass. The kill-shot.

And there had been nothing in Faith's own heart but flat murder.

I can change, though, she thought, closing her eyes and putting her sweaty forehead against the cool metal of the locker. Isn't that the way it goes? First you admit you have a problem, and then you change.

You can change an answering voice cawed back immediately. You can change because you have a problem! What a hoot! Put it up there on your New Year's resolutions, why don't you? This year I promise I will be more patient with my kids, cut down on the potato chips and twinkies, and stop trying to murder people. Beautiful.

She didn't want to give it up. She really didn't. She thought she really didn't.

But it was possible that it had gone too far, that nine years had brought her to a place where she never could have imagined ending up. It was also possible that it was her own fault, that she'd missed something crucial along the way. She hadn't been vigilant enough in taking proper care of herself. Mental care. Spiritual, even. And as a result the job had done something to her.

The vets all talked about that something, of course. The grizzled vets, the Sullys, they all said the same thing, often with varying degrees of regret; the job changes you. It hardens you. Desensitizes you. It does something to you there might not even be a word for, changes you in some fundamental way that can drive a wedge between you and the rest of the world, the people you love. And the bitch of it, these vets would say, is that you didn't feel it happening. It was a process of years, decades, and you didn't know you were there until you were there.

It was possible that such a thing had happened to her. Nine years she had done it and loved it and yet it had produced somebody else. As a kind of ... side effect. And it was somebody Faith found she didn't much like. Somebody she was deeply afraid of. Somebody who, in perfect pulp-crime-novel, action-movie fashion, shot first and asked the questions later.

And she really hadn't been able to see any of this before? Christ.

Oh, you saw it all right. Just didn't want to face it. Not until you saw how easily everybody else could smell it on you. Not until that IAB fuckhead came along and made you face it. Shit, he didn't just make you face it - he made you get down on your hands and knees and eat it.

You were right about one thing, at least, honeybunch - you experienced a moment of clarity.

No, she thought back. Almost groveling. Groveling to herself, tears spilling down her cheeks. I can change. I can still do this job and not let it get any worse. I can turn it around.

And yet the logic of that just didn't hold up to scrutiny, did it? If it took putting that bullet in Cruz to open her own eyes to what she might be turning into - and if it had taken Schaeffer to drive the point home - then maybe it was too late to turn things around. Where would she be in a year? In two? In five? In ten?

What was it Monroe had said a minute ago? It's not like you shot a handcuffed suspect or something. Maybe that was where she was headed.

I can't give this up. This is my life. My life.

Blow her fucking head off, Bos, the other side of her mind returned coolly.

Faith abruptly pulled back and drove her right fist into the locker with every ounce of strength she had, buckling the flimsy metal of the door and breaking two of her fingers. She felt the jolt all the way up the arm; she would not be able to lift it higher than shoulder-height for a week.

She swung around in a kind of blind fog, snatching up her duffel bag. She used her right hand to do it. The right hand with two broken fingers - the ring and the pinky. She screamed. Dropped the bag. Sobbed. Leaned down and picked it up again, this time with her left hand, and then headed for the door.

Never coming back. She knew that with absolute certainty now.

Never coming back.

End of Part I