The next day she was back to her normal self and even showed him some of her dress designs while she worked. He started to wonder how long it would be before she started to put her Plan into action. Clearly she was giving him time to heal.

But it was getting harder. The more he stayed inside the more claustrophobic he felt. Sam may have not had much in his life, just a small room that that he rented but barely even slept in, opting to sleep in his car more often than not as drove, often for days up and down the Transit Highway, to complete his assigned jobs. The freedom and the space was what he missed. The Transit Highway was mostly tunnel but occasionally it opened out to the most spectacular views. For years he'd believed these places were remote sections of various Sectors. But now he started to wonder if they were parts of the Outside that it was impossible to hide.

He often thought of Mercedes' words. How come she had this gift of Perception? Why didn't he? They were together and yet he failed to see what was right in front of him! She was right, they DID live in a strange world. Why had he never thought to question it? He'd been taught so many things about the world which weren't true. What else wasn't true? Maybe the things he'd learned about other sectors? The dark people of Sector 17 were said to be among the lowest of low, uneducated, unkind, angry and unruly but he hadn't seen this. They were looked down on and avoided by people of his sector and he expected reciprocal treatment. Instead, this girl, who incidentally was actually far prettier than he ever expected from a Sector 17, had taken him in and continued to care for him at her own risk.

He wasn't supposed to like her. But he did.

Each day she would check and redress his wound. He didn't like to admit it but this was one of his favorite times of the day. Nobody ever really touched him with that amount of care and gentleness and he relished it. His body fascinated her, he knew it did. He could tell that whenever she looked at him she would bite her tongue. She was holding something back. Eventually it would get the better of her and finally it did.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" She'd just finished applying ointment to his wound and whatever was in that stuff was really making him heal quickly.

"Sure." After the revelation of the story of the death of his family, Mercedes had always been careful not to go too deep with her questions so it didn't bother him to be asked. But for some reason, something about him really seemed to be bothering her and he was curious to find out what it was going to be. He knew from the way that she looked at his body that it would be one of two things, quite possibly both.

"It's about… your earring. Men in my Sector, they don't wear any jewellery except for a wedding ring. And even a daring man would never have something as personal as an earring. Here it's seen as a feminine thing. Yet you… well you have this whole kind of 'hole' in your ear that doesn't make sense to me…" Her voice faded off and she finally met his eyes. Her ears were pierced but she wore very simple plain hoops.

Of all things for her to be curious about it never occurred to him that it could be something as simple as that. He had expected her to go for the tattoo. The earring might be something unusual to her but it was second nature to him. He raised his fingers to his right ear and stroked the half an inch flesh tunnel silver ear gauge ring that was embedded in his lobe. It was something that was pretty unique to his Sector but he'd figured if she hadn't asked about it right away she wasn't going to. There was no reason to be shy about asking. "It's a common thing for boys in my Sector to have their right ear lobe pierced and stretched. My dad had had his done, and when I was small it was already being done to me. The night my parents… That night… When Zeben rescued me, I took nothing from the house but one of my dad's rings. The hole in his ear was half an inch. Mine was smaller at the time, but I stretched it to the same size so that I could wear his ring. It's the only physical thing of my past that I have. This way I can't accidentally lose it or have it stolen."

"Oh." Her fingers twitched and he expected her to ask to touch it but he didn't. Instead she frowned. "Skin marking and other forms of body modification aren't allowed here." She couldn't meet his eyes, "But it's your way of remembering your family and so I understand its significance to you. It's your remembrance for them."

"I guess it is. Nobody can take this ring off me easily! It's a part of me", he said simply.

Finally she looked back up at him. "Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Did it hurt to do?"

"Not really. You do it gradually. The skin stretches and adapts to the new normal."

"Okay." She focused back on clearing up the items that she had used.

He decided to volunteer the rest of the information that he knew she was seeking. "I guess your rules on body modification that mean you disprove of my tattoo?"

"I'd never seen a real one up close before." She paused, her eyes trained on his chest even though it was now covered with a shirt. "I expected it to be ugly but it's... it's actually beautiful."

"It means a lot to me."

"Of course it does. It's over your heart." She curled up on her bed, facing him. "So your Sector doesn't believe in God but you believe in angels?"

"I believe that certain people are Angels."

"But people don't have wings."

He said nothing for a while. "I designed the picture myself. It was based on stories I'd heard from people I came across as I was growing up. I didn't want to forget her."

"The angel is your sister?"

"Her name was Stasia. When she was first born I hated her. I'd had my parents all to myself and I didn't want to share them. All she did was scream and cry. My mom would pick her up and hold her for hours until she stopped. One day mom had to run out to the store and left her with me for five minutes. She cried and screamed until I decided to pick her up. When I did she stopped. She just looked up at me with her tear stained face and stared at me like she was fascinated. Then she put her hand on my mouth and tried to pull my lips off which made me laugh. Then she laughed at me laughing at her. And after that we were friends. Whenever she cried she would stop if I held her or pulled faces at her. I helped her learn how to walk and played with her for hours while she chatted nonsense. I loved her and she loved me. I'll never be able to unsee the image of seeing her die, but I'll always be able to keep a happy picture of her on my heart forever. She's my angel because she's always with me and her wing comes up to my neck just like the embrace she always pulled me into when I carried her."

He looked up at Naomi who was staring down at him with a sympathetic expression. He could tell that whatever prejudices she was holding against him for his unorthodox appearance were slowly melting away. "I know I don't look like the people from your Sector and I know some of the things about me are different, but I'm not all bad. Thank you for not judging me based purely on what you see."

She sighed. "I have to admit. I know we're not supposed to judge, but in this Sector there are things that are right and things that are wrong. At first sight everything about you is wrong, and everything I've done to help you is unwise, but the closer I look, the more the lines are blurred."

"I guess we're both a lesson on how you shouldn't judge by appearances."

She tried to smile but it didn't quite meet her eyes. "I guess so."

But the questions didn't end there.

"Sam?"

"Yeah."

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure."

They were lying in the darkness, after lights out. It was the only time of day that he truly felt comfortable answering questions about himself. Not that comfortable was the right word, more like it was less uncomfortable.

"Have you ever killed anyone from this Sector?"

He was silent for a moment as his brain flicked through the faces of all the men that he'd killed like a pack of cards. He was ready to say the answer was 'no' when his brain stopped at one. The man was dark, tall and slender like the men from her Sector with the classically high cheekbones. The sigh that left his lips was involuntary. His brain had nearly made it to the end of the pack with nothing. Shit! "There was one." He hoped beyond all hope that she wouldn't push any further but it was pointless.

He heard the sound of her shifting in the bed to face towards him. "Who was he?"

"His name was Michael." He knew he should have left it there but for some reason he didn't. "I didn't know his surname but he was known as the Snake."

She let out a gasp. She knew him! He wondered how because he had been a particularly nasty piece of work and one of the few hits that he would happily have disposed of without charge. What was his connection with Naomi?

"His mom was a midwife. She's retired now but she trained my mom and she's a regular customer of mine."

"Did you know him?"

"Not well. He was creepy and everyone knew he was trouble. We all just thought that he'd run away or decided with his lifestyle to stay away out of shame. His mom had thrown him out of the house years ago. I had no idea what had really happened."

"He wasn't a good person Mercedes."

"That didn't give you the right to kill him Sam!" He could hear the passion in her voice.

Why did it always come to this? "I thought we already established that Sam isn't a killer."

"We did. But Sam still has a gun so I'm not so sure about him anymore. There's a good chance that Sam may have to deal with the consequences of the actions of the man who was before him."

For some reason those words sent a chill down his spine. It sounded less like a statement and more like a prophecy…