I'm loving all the feedback I'm getting for my writing. Thanks a lot. It means a lot to me that you enjoy my writing. if I had more free time, i honestly would update more, but I'm a busy girl.

I know and understand you don't like the 'Vicki' and 'John' thing right now. I get it. It has to be this way because Alex doesn't know their real names. But he will. Trust me.

5.

~ Alex left with the promise that he would return with something for them to eat. He'd tried to reassure her that they had collected all of her things from the cabin, but Norma couldn't help but think of the duffel bag of cash and diary she'd left behind under the mattress. Dylan didn't know where she hid it and wouldn't have known to grab it. It was all they had in the world.

What if they started demolition on the cabins before she was able to go back and get it? What if this Alex Romero, well meaning cop, prevented her from going back and she and Dylan were penniless? Alone and without a cent to their names? Names that weren't even their own?

Despite all her worries, she could feel sleep pulling her in. Dragging her body down like she was swimming again a rip tide. A force she was suddenly powerless to fight against. All her fears had drained her to near exhaustion and she let herself succumb like a drowning victim who'd given up hope of rescue.

When she woke up, it was to a feather touch across her forehead.

"Hey." a voice was whispering and she opened her eyes to find her world out of focus. She reached for her glasses but found her nightstand empty.

'My contacts, my glasses are… are in the cabin.' she thought stupidly when she focused her attention on the figure in front of her.

Her vision wasn't that bad and she could easily make out Alex Romero if he stood close enough. She really only needed her glasses or contacts when she was driving or reading.

"You fell back asleep." he accused gently and moved away when she sat up in bed, wincing at the feel of the IV still in her arm.

Somehow, she'd forgotten everything he'd told her and it had all come rushing back like a floodgate. The sudden illness, Dylan staying with friends and not foster care, her diary and cash still at the cabins.

"Oh." was all she said and could smell something wonderful in a white bag he sat on the tray table. Alex wasted no time in unwrapping their meal.

"I wasn't sure if you were a vegetarian or not." he said pulling out a few neatly wrapped sandwiches and styrofoam cups of soup. "This place makes a vegan soup and a friend once had me try it. Still haven't forgiven him."

He'd meant to be funny and charming, but Norma hadn't notice. She was starving and wanted to eat. Her head hurt and she knew food would make it better. She made a non committal noise as he unwrapped the rest of their lunch and told her which was turkey and they were all hot and good.

Norma wasted no time at all eating. She'd been carful about what she ate with the weight loss, but knew her stomach was empty after her illness. Knew that eating would make her feel better. She ate two turkey sandwiches, a cup of bacon and bean soup a pickle and a brownie in silence with Alex.

Endorphins that seemed to her better than sex, flooded through her body. She hadn't eaten properly in so long, she could feel herself recovering quickly.

"Thank you." she managed at last when they were done and their meal was wiped out.

Alex looked amused by her sudden appetite.

"You're welcome. I thought only firefighters ate like that." he said with a grin.

Norma nodded.

"I guess I was hungry." she admitted. "It was really good. When we go back to the cabins, I'll pay you back."

"Don't worry about it." Alex said. "We can't go back to the cabins, Vicki. The city had condemned the property. It's against the law."

Norma looked at him strangely at him calling her by her new name. She'd never get used to it. She didn't feel like a 'Vicki' at all.

"I have my… umm… cash and my diary hidden in our cabin." she admitted.

Alex's face rose with interest.

"Oh." he said. "A lot of cash?"

"Our run money." she confessed. "It's all we have. I need it. My diary, It's personal."

Something about sharing a meal with him, the fact that he'd fed her and nourished her, taken care of and protected her son when he didn't have to, made her trust him. The dragon seething inside her wasn't happy. Its' fires were like embers around this man, but not white hot fury like it had been with Sam.

"I'm sure we got it. John packed everything." Alex told her.

"I hid it." she told him. "I have to go back. Please."

Alex looked annoyed but understood.

"Alright. As soon as you're discharged. I'll take you back myself. "Unless you trust me to go and get it."

Norma didn't trust him. She would have loved to tell him 'Yes, darling, go look under the mattress and I trust you not to take the cash or look in my diary for the past two years.' But she didn't trust him. Not that much. She didn't trust Dylan that much and she couldn't trust anyone.

Alex seemed to read her mind.

"Okay." he said. "The cabins are all locked up anyway and patrol is out there to prevent kids from ransacking the place. They started demo a few days ago."

"What?" Norma exclaimed.

Alex nodded.

"Health hazard. They don't want vagrants or people hanging out there. The city want's to sell the land to a one of those companies who builds McMansions. Soon they'll be a row of horrific, gaudy, mega homes there." he explained.

"When will I be discharged?" Norma asked feeling panicked.

"I'll find your doctor. I don't know." Alex said. "But if demo gets that far, I'll get your stuff out myself, don't worry."

Norma shook her head. No, she didn't want anyone to touch her bag or her diary but her. No one touched the leather skin of her diary but her and that made is special. Made the thing sacred.

"We'll figure it out." Alex told her. "It'll be alright."

He gathered up the trash from their meal and threw it away. Norma was worried but could feel sleep coming for her again. That sinister rip tide coming to drown her again. She wanted to dream. Wanted her brain to tell her nice things. Nice stories to comfort her.

"I have another son." she told him without thinking.

Alex turned around but didn't look surprised. She felt a shame burning deep inside her. Not because she admitted the fact of Norman's existence, but because she'd left him behind.

"He's 6." she told him and felt her voice quiver slightly.

Alex said nothing. He let her speak.

"I… umm… I wasn't able to take him with me. His grandmother…" Norma shook her head at the intrusive thought of Rose Bates and how evil she could be. "We were getting ready to run and she came to the house and took him. She took him for a haircut and I… I had to leave. I had to leave him."

Alex was sitting in his chair again. Listening to her explain why she abandoned her other son.

"If I had stayed, If I had stayed even another hour or two, I wouldn't have been able to leave." she said with difficulty. "I had come up with a plan. I had stashed run money, picked the boys up from school. Sam wasn't supposed to be home for a while and then she just came to the house…"

Norma laughed at the cruelty of it.

"I had to leave, I had to leave him. She'd never hurt him. I now that. Sam would hurt me and… and John." she struggled slightly to remember Dylan's new name. "She would never hurt her 'Little Sammy' and Sam just ignored him anyway."

Alex waited until she was finished. Until she was done shamefully admitting her failures as a mother. How she'd just left Norman behind and thought about her own escape rather than his.
"You're not the only one this has happened to." He said at last. His words comforting and strong. "We see this all the time. I was an MP in the Marines and…" he sighed "It happened a lot. Wives leaving their husbands because of abuse. Kids being hit because they cried too much. Mothers having to leave with nothing but the clothes on their backs and having to pull their children away from their abuser."

Norma thought he looked sad. As if he was remembering things he didn't want to remember.

"We can gat your son back." he assured her. "Courts favor the mother."

"Not in Arizona." she said sourly.

"That's where you're from?" he asked. "Arizona?"

Norma closed her mouth. Her teeth making a clicking sound when she snapped her jaw shut. The dragon inside her snorting fire and glaring harshly with green, gleaming eyes.

"I'm really tired." she said at last.

Alex looked at her knowing this was a cop out. Knowing she'd said too much and was looking for a way out.

"Okay." he said.

To her slight amazement, although it felt natural for him to do it, Alex pulled the bed's covers over her. Her hospital gown feeling usually thin and see through. Norma moved down to where she knew she could fall asleep easily and and Alex turned off the overhead light of her hospital bed. She half expected him to kiss her on the forehead and was a little disappointed when he didn't. As though she was cheated out of something and he'd been negligent in his duties to her.

But then she remembered they hardly knew one another and she was being silly. She remembered what the dragon had hissed at her before. That she couldn't care about this man. That this was the wrong man to have feelings for. That she could have any man she wanted, but she couldn't have this man. He was too dangerous.

"I'll see you in the morning. I'll being John by." he said softly in the darkness of her hospital room. For a moment, just a moment, she wanted it to be their room. Their bedroom and for him to be with her always. To be with her in the darkness of their bedroom always telling her reassuring and comforting things. Making her feel safe and protected. She wasn't used to feeling it and her body responded to the sensation the same way it had to the comfort of good food after a long period of starvation.

"Thank you." she said meekly. Her gratitude seeming to swell so that her chest hurt. "Thank you, Alex."

When he felt she felt an emptiness take over. A fear of being alone. She fell asleep and dreamed. Dreams of Rose berating her for the way she cooked or the way she took care of Norman. They were dreams she'd had before but suddenly, they changed. She snapped at Rose and pulled Norman away from her. Leaving the house with him and Dylan in tow. The old woman was shouting at them about crazy things; and Sam was lurking in the shadows.

Norma and the boys fled the house and she felt strong. She felt like the house she once lived in was like a dollhouse and when she looked back, it WAS a dollhouse. A small thing that belonged to a child that held no power over her. It's colors faded and it not at all like she remembered.

Then, in the strange physics of dreams, Alex pulled up in his SUV and smiled his shy smile.

"Well, you didn't need saving after all." he joked, but put an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek all the same. He asked if they wanted to go out for ice cream and he would take them home and everyone was happy.

Norma woke up a few hours later not sure if Alex went home with them, or if she had her own home with the boys and he just visited her a lot. Either way, it was a good dream and she felt powerful again.

~ The cabins on the edge of town were lit up with construction lights. The demolition had already started and the city was wasting no time at all in the sale of the land. The land was what had value and they would make the city a lot of money.

Alex had been a little surprised that crews were working day and night to get them torn down and they would be torn down by morning.

Vicki's cabin had been on the end and would be the last to be demolished. It hadn't been stripped of furniture yet, but the crews were making quick work of it.

Her's would be done next.

Police tape was still on the door and a pad lock was bolted into place. Alex didn't have the key but it handily mattered at this point. It was hours away from being rubble. He told the foreman he'd be inside and to make sure he was out before tearing it down. The foreman helped him break down the front door with a crowbar and left the Sheriff's Deputy to look for whatever he'd come to look for.

Alex had a cop's instinct. He'd always had it. Always been good at finding things people thought they hid well. His mother used to hide things and forget where she'd hid them, and Alex would always find them for her. It was his gift, his secret talent. That and knowing when people were lying. He'd known Vicki was telling the truth in the hospital about the run money and the diary. About the son she'd been forced to leave behind.

He looked around the cabin and saw there weren't many places to hide things, he peered behind the tattered sofa, in the freezer, under John's mattress, and quickly and painlessly hit pay dirt under Vicki's mattress. It was an old thin blue duffle bag with a horde of cash.

'Jesus, did she rob a bank?' he thought wildly looking over the tightly packed bundles. He'd expected her to have maybe a few thousands in twenties but she had neatly wrapped hundreds fresh from the bank.

'Drugs.' Alex realized. That was the only explanation. He knew Vicki wasn't a user but maybe her ex was a dealer or involved and that why she ran away. She got too scared of that world and took her son away and was forced to leave one behind.

Alex felt sympathy for the woman grow. It was easy to fall victim to that lifestyle. A husband that provides well for you. For your children and you don't see or want to see how dangerous it is until it's too late.

Alex saw the diary she'd been alluding to and picked it up. It was a heavy thing. Not the middle school girl kind with a little lock on it that he pictured. It was an impressive book and made of thick, expensive leather. Almost like an ancient bible.

Without thinking, not planning on invading her privacy, he opened it. Her script was elegant and neat. Planned and orderly. She wrote in organized paragraphs. Her thoughts coming easily and as well prepared as any college essay.

Her main thesis was stated in the first paragraph.

'I'm leaving Sam, and killing Norma Bates.'