Who shot that arrow in your throat?/
Who missed the crimson apple?/
And there is discord in the garden tonight/

"So what are we going to do with him?"

"This," said Candice, and she pulled a gun out of her jacket, took aim, and shot Gabriel in the head.

"Damn it!" Jonathan yelled as Gabriel dropped soundlessly, "Damn it, Candice, why'd you do that?"

She looked at him, nonplussed. "What part of 'shoot to kill' didn't you understand?"

Jonathan glared at her and crossed the room, jumping the couch to get to Gabriel's unmoving form. To his shock, just as he reached the man, he began to stir, sitting up with a hand pressed against the side of his head. When he took it away, Jonathan saw a deep indentation in his skin, a circular mark that began to fade as he watched. "What—" Jonathan gaped, aware that he looked like a landed fish but unable to quite get his mouth closed. "How—"

Gabriel himself seemed surprised, running his fingers over the place the bullet had hit. "Ow," he said plaintively. Then, as the full effects of the shot came pounding home, feeling like they would split his head open with their white-hot spears, he yelled "Ow!" He bent over his knees, the pain smashing down on him like a literal weight at the base of his spine.

"Odd," Candice said unrepentantly. "Usually when I shoot people, they…you know, die."

"Ow," Gabriel said, words muffled by his knees.

"Yeah, that seems to be the done thing," Jonathan said, puzzled. "Maybe he's eaten Claire and we don't know it yet?"

"No," Candice mused, watching Gabriel hold his head like it was going to fall off. "He seems to be in quite a bit of pain—just not dead."

Jonathan picked the bullet up from where it had fallen on the floor, rolling it around in his fingers. "So, we're thinking some kind of lesser invulnerability power? Now that I think about it, I pretty much electrocuted him to a crisp at that bar, and he just kept coming. Maybe some kind of thick skin thing?"

Candice walked over, gazing down at Gabriel like he was a bug pinned to a board. "Yeah, maybe," she said interestedly. "Well, there's nothing for it, I guess." She brought her gun down on the back of his head, and he slumped sideways on the floor, unconscious. "I think we'd better call Mr. Linderman."

---

"So," Katie said brightly, "do we have a plan?"

"Katie," Peter said patiently, as if speaking to a particularly slow student. "Katie, darling, you're new to all this, so your ignorance is understandable. Of course we don't have a plan."

"Basically, we just do whatever seems like a good idea at the time, and hope we don't get killed," Claire said helpfully, watching out the window at their surroundings, passing so quickly that they blended together, trees into buildings into telephone poles. The whir and click of the train's wheels beat lightly against their consciousnesses, a soothing staccato rhythm like the backbeat of a song. It made them calmer than they had been in the moments of their headlong flight, more level and reasonable, more likely to succeed.

"Well, I've heard how well that worked in the past," Katie grinned, "and besides, this is a little different."

"How so?" Peter said indignantly. "Bad guys are bad guys, aren't they?"

Katie shook her head. "Oh, Peter," she said, somehow sounding affectionate without being condescending. "You've read too many comic books. Things are never that easy."

"I don't see why not," Peter said, comfortable in his worldview. "There's good and there's evil, and I know they exist, I've seen them."

"You don't think there might be some middle ground?" Claire said wistfully, and Peter knew she was thinking of Jonathan, could tell by the drawstring pucker of her brow and the way she fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. He wasn't sure how he felt about that—he still couldn't bring himself to hate the kid, not after it all, but then he'd been told that he was far too forgiving. He thought he might be able to forgive Jonathan, if only he would stay away from Claire—he could trust Jonathan with his feelings and his forgiveness, but not hers. Not the new teenage experiences of his niece who was still so innocent despite what she might think, still barely bursting out of childhood with a vision that was very tinted with rose.

"There's always middle ground," he said gently. "Just don't step on it, it usually gives."

"What I'm saying," Katie continued, oblivious of their Hallmark moment, "is that we really can't be winging it, not with this one. With Ted Sprague in the equation, we've got to be absolutely precise—we're dealing with inches and seconds now, not instincts and treasure hunts. Somehow, we've got to figure out how to stop him without ever getting you near him, or we'll all be blown to smithereens."

"Why just me?" Peter protested. "You're an empath, too, you're just as likely to go H-bomb."

"No I'm not," she said composedly. "I have much better control than you."

His hands tensed in his lap, and he wanted very much to say something about the afternoon in Las Vegas when all their lives had been thrown up in the air for target practice, and all she could do was kneel on the floor and scream. But it wasn't in his nature to be cruel, so he said, "In some things, maybe," careful to keep his voice neutral.

"Well, I'm better at incorporating and controlling new abilities," she allowed, "and that's what matters here."

"This whole empath thing seems awfully inconvenient," Claire said, getting up to make sure their compartment door was shut—she realized that to a casual listener, their talk of bombs and superpowers might not seem just crazy, but actually dangerous. "There has to be a way of blocking these powers out—I mean, what if you come up against a power that you don't want?"

"Like the power to explode the world?" Peter said wryly. "I don't know. I wish there was a way of blocking them."

"Perhaps we just need to try harder," Katie suggested, half-serious, stretching her long legs out on the seat.

"Right," Peter said. "Everyone close their eyes and clap their hands real hard, and maybe Tinkerbell won't die."

"Shut up," Katie said, kicking him across the space between their seats. "You know what I mean."

He grinned at her, and she grinned back, and suddenly they were completely caught up in grinning at each other, only vaguely aware that they looked like idiots and suddenly finding it very important not to move or breathe or do anything to break the moment.

In the end, they didn't have to. "Oh, would you two just make out in public, already!" Claire said exasperatedly. "Enough with the forbidden love thing, it's obvious you both want it!"

Peter and Katie leapt away from each other like polar magnets, blushing furiously up the backs of their necks and into their cheeks. "I—um, I'm going to take a walk," Katie said, fumbling with the door.

"Don't forget to shift," Claire reminded sweetly, and Katie swiftly blurred into form of the Hispanic woman that was on her passport before disappearing like a magic trick, embarrassed and afraid.

Once she was gone, Peter turned to Claire and punched her in the arm. "Claire! What'd you say that for?"

"I'm sorry," she said contritely. "It sort of just jumped out, but it is the truth. I'm tired of watching you two stare at each other and never do anything else. What happened to the guy who stole someone else's girlfriend because he loved her?"

"That guy is currently in exile," he told her darkly, "because, if you'll remember, he's also the guy who got her shot."

She gave him a swift, tight hug. "I know you're still hurting from what happened with Simone," she said, "but you can't let it ruin the rest of your life, you know? There's a beautiful girl here who likes you and think you're fantastic, and you're both just being bloody-minded by staying apart."

He pushed his hair out of his face, sighing with the heaviness of stubborn sacrifice. "Yeah, maybe," he said unconvincingly.

She hugged him again, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You can be a hero without being a tragic hero, you know," she told him.

"Yeah," he said, "maybe."

---

Mr. Bennet sat behind the table with a map spread over one side and a phonebook on the other, red pen in hand. He'd circled all the Marriot hotels in slashing red marks, and was narrowing the possibilities by deciding which of them could be considered 'on the corner'. He was close—he wanted to leap out of his seat and chase them down, like a foxhound with the scent of game.

Nathan banged in on his hunt, throwing the door open without a knock. "They've done it again," he announced hotly.

"What are you talking about?" Mr. Bennet asked, looking up from his map.

"They've run off again," Nathan half-explained. "I swear, I'm going to put a leash on that brother of mine, either that or a shock collar."

Mr. Bennet's heart leapt up his ribcage in rapid, uneven beats that said ClaireClaireClaireClaire, but he managed to keep his voice relatively level as he said, "So what do you plan to do about it?"

Nathan looked at him like he'd proposed they learn to ballroom dance. "Go after them," he said, in the tone of someone trying hard not to add 'of course'. "Come on, let's go."

"I'm not going with you," Mr. Bennet said, feeling every word like a separate boulder falling on him, walling him into an airless hermit's cave.

"What?" Nathan asked, stunned.

"I'm not going with you," Mr. Bennet repeated. "As much as it kills me and as hard as it is for me to even stay in this chair, I'm not going to be that kind of father. She's sixteen years old, and if I keep her on a leash," Nathan flinched at the choice of words, as Mr. Bennet had meant him to, "if I keep dragging her back to me, she's not going to thank me for it. It's time I showed her a little trust. If she asks for my help, I'll be there in an instant, but I think she's earned the right to be treated like an adult."

Nathan's eyes shot venomous angry sparks, chafing under the implied criticism. High-minded lectures on family dynamics or not, Nathan knew better than to let Peter go off on his own. "Fine," he spat. "Suit yourself. I guess I'll see you when I get back." He stalked out of the room, then turned for a last parting shot. "That is, if the world hasn't blown up by then." He slammed the door.