It was quiet. Deathly quiet. Unlike earlier though, there was no ringing in Alexia's ears. She could hear clearly, and what she could hear was silence. Like it had just snowed, and the world was sitting, waiting to be reborn.
She was lying on her back. For what looked like miles in the air was a hazy, milky white. There was absolutely nothing tangible she could make out in the whiteness, no other colors or shapes, and no Sun or clouds. She sat up, and the image was the same: all around her was a soft, muted white that looked like it stretched into eternity. As far as she could see, there were no textures or shadows to the endless white, nor were there any other people besides herself.
Alexia hugged her knees to her chest. She remembered what had happened: she'd been killed by a falling light fixture, which meant this eternal whiteness was the afterlife. Her brothers wouldn't be getting any money, and on top of that, they'd be left to grieve their big sister. And what about Jess and Damien? She'd only known them for a few hours, so they'd probably get over it fairly quick. However, they would be left to explain to her uncle what had happened to her.
Remus would be absolutely destroyed by the news – Alexia realized they hadn't even gotten to reunite, after not seeing each other for a decade. She could see him blaming himself for her death, when in reality, it was her own stupidity that had gotten her killed.
The realization hit Alexia like a truck; in the end, her death had meant absolutely nothing. Despite how hard she'd tried, her grand plan to provide for her family had failed, all because she couldn't survive two full days in Los Santos.
Alexia's head sank to her knees, and it wasn't long before the tears began flowing. She thought about her uncle, her brothers, and Jess and Damien. She would never be seeing any of them again, all because she'd been stupid enough to run back into a burning nightclub. Muffled sobs echoed across the emptiness of the afterlife (or at least, the waiting area for the afterlife). She didn't know what, if anything, awaited her after this. But considering how many people she'd killed, she knew it couldn't be good. As a criminal, she was confident she'd be getting exactly what she deserved.
"Do not weep, sister-sister."
An incredibly deep voice, smooth and rich as dark velvet, enticed Alexia from above. She looked up, and though her vision was blurry from tears, she saw it clear as day: a man, levitating several feet above her. He was dressed in baby blue robes, a strange hybrid between a track suit and Catholic vestments.
Alexia's mouth hung open. She rubbed her eyes, but the image was the same. The man was hovering in mid-air, smiling down at her.
"Kifflom." The man bowed his head. "I am Cris Formage, leader of the Epsilon Program. Sister, you have now entered a space between the paradigms, a place which the Unsaveables, in their ignorance, can never hope to reach. I come here now to congratulate you on attaining a higher level of completeness."
There was that strange word again: 'Kifflom'. Alexia knew now that it was some form of greeting, but the other things he was saying escaped her. One thing was certain, though: she was most definitely dead. The levitating man in front of her erased any doubt in that area.
Her sobs turned into open wails of despair. Cris Formage's eyebrows lifted, like he hadn't been expecting this. He put his hands up as he hovered over Alexia, attempting to comfort her as she cried.
"Y…Y-you see, the truth is a vehicle to understanding completely, sister," he stuttered. "I, Cris Formage, know the truth, and you are one step closer to becoming one with Kraff in the Tenth Paradigm. Doesn't that entice you? Isn't that what you want?"
"I…I want to see my family." Tears and snot ran freely down Alexia's face as she looked up at him. "My brothers…My uncle…But now I'm fucking dead, and I'll never see any of them ever again…Oh my God…"
Alexia descended into further sobs as she thought of everyone she'd let down. All of Jess's talk about how she could succeed had been rendered meaningless, all because she'd let her emotions get the best of her. In the end, Reese and the others had been one hundred percent right about her.
"Your grief is understandable," said Cris Formage. "For the uninitiated, attachment to earthly structures such as family is to be expected. However, Kraff has other plans for you, sister. In His infinite wisdom, He has saved you from that conflagration and has put you into a temporary state of higher being. You will wake up from this state, and when you do, you will be filled with a renewed sense of purpose. For you see, your journey is only just beginning."
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Alexia could feel her heart racing and her stomach bubbling over. Her tear-filled eyes sparkled with a renewed sense of joy.
"So…the falling light didn't kill me?" she asked him.
"Only the doubters and the Unsaveables shall descend into nothingness," said Cris Formage, with a hint of a sneer in his voice. "But those who are Enlightened, they can never truly die. They can be in forty-seven thousand places, all at once." He smiled. "That is where you are right now, sister – only, you cannot perceive it yet. This vision, of me, of the space around you, is the only way your mind can currently process the truth. However, with practice and a series of generous donations, Epsilonism can show you the way to full Enlightment."
Alexia didn't know how to take this. Since she apparently wasn't dead, she was fairly sure this was all a hallucination. The unconscious mind could do strange things, could make people believe in the fantastical and the impossible. She'd heard of one case where a man had hallucinated ten years of his life: his marriage, the birth of his children, anniversaries and holidays, coworkers and best friends, and none of it had been real. In reality, the man had been knocked out in a bar fight, and his brain had somehow turned ten minutes of unconsciousness into ten years of perceived reality. He'd spent the rest of his life in a deep depression, mourning the loss of his hallucinated family.
Even if the floating man in baby blue robes sounded convincing, Alexia knew to take his words with a grain of salt. But above all else, she was grateful to be alive, so she didn't want to express her skepticism openly.
"Thank you…" Alexia smiled, wiping stray tears with her sleeve.
"You are always welcome back in this space, sister. Your conscious mind may not be able to perceive me, but the unconscious mind – the one that cannot doubt – is more perceptive to the truth. Just remember, there is Kifflom, and there is Krant. And both of them be praised."
Cris Formage began ascending into the milky haze above. Before she knew it, he was gone, and she and the endless white were fading away.
A gasp filled Alexia's chest with oxygen. The air coming in felt like a cold mist in her nostrils and her throat. As she struggled awake, the intense light above her head made her eyes water. This wasn't the soft white of whatever that vision had been. These colors were harsh and sterile, surgical white and pale, anemic yellow.
There was something in her nose, something hard and plastic, with outcroppings looped over both ears. She guided her hand along the light blanket draped over her until she found the plastic tube and heard the mechanical hiss of oxygen. Alexia was half-reclined in a bed, her head propped against a stack of pillows.
Another inhale turned into a series of barking coughs. She felt like a fire was churning in the back of her throat, and the oxygen she was breathing could only do so much to quench it. As she coughed, she felt an intense pounding in her head, the top half of which was wrapped in white gauze.
Alexia spotted a bottle of water on a table next to her bed. She took it, and the water felt cool and refreshing, like she hadn't drunk anything else in years.
Looking around, she could see she was definitely in a clinic. Doctors were rushing back and forth between the hospital beds, most of which were occupied by wounded and bandaged patients. Mechanical hissing and beeping filled the air, as did the tortured groans of the bloodied patients, some of whom Alexia recognized from the nightclub.
Are we in a hospital? Alexia's brow furrowed. But I thought criminals don't go to hospitals.
She looked to her immediate left. A yellow curtain was partly drawn, revealing another bed and a set of bandaged feet next to hers. A dark-skinned woman wearing a lab coat poked her head out from this curtain, a clipboard held in her manicured hands.
"Oh, there you are." The woman's eyes lit up. "I was wondering when you'd wake up. You feeling okay?"
Alexia shook her head; the pain in her throat and her head was an intense burning. She tried to speak to communicate this, but the effort sent her into another coughing fit, this one chock full of phlegm.
"Try not to use your voice right now. You inhaled smoke, so your airways are inflamed." The woman sighed as she withdrew a handkerchief from her pocket, wiping some sweat from her brow. "Luckily, your blood work came back clean. Your oxygen was a bit low, but that's why you've got those tubes in your nose."
Alexia nodded meekly as she sipped her drink. She didn't want to seem ungrateful for the treatment she was receiving. But looking down, she noticed that the black dress, the one Jess had bought her, was no longer on her body.
She looked up at the doctor and tugged at the collar of her new garment, a pale blue hospital gown.
"Oh, right. That dress you had on was ruined," the doctor informed her. "Sorry, hon, but it was soaked in all this blood, and so were you. We had to cut it off of you."
Damn. Alexia's eyes fell. There's nine grand down the drain…Sorry, Jess.
She was still going to pay Jess back, but still, Alexia felt indescribably sad. For a short while, beauty and confidence had been in her grasp, and now it was gone. She realized she would also have to pay Damien back for his AP Pistol, which she'd lost in the fire.
Along with the guilt she was feeling, Alexia also felt like someone was stabbing her in the back of the head with an icepick. She tried not to squirm as the doctor began checking her vitals. The woman squinted as she did this, and Alexia couldn't help but notice the red bindi between her eyebrows.
"Blood pressure looks good…heart rate and oxygen are getting there." The doctor withdrew a pen light, and Alexia squinted as it was shined into her pupils. "You don't look concussed, but I wanna keep you for observation. You were out for a couple of hours." The woman turned off her light and looked gravely at Alexia. "But in my opinion, you're lucky to be alive. Not many people made it out of there."
Alexia had seen the bodies. She knew she was one of the few survivors, but still, these words humbled her. She leaned back against the pillow, thinking about how close she'd come to death.
She couldn't remember how she'd escaped the fire. Her voice was wrecked, so she couldn't ask the doctor. All she could do was sip her water and attempt to clear the gunk in her throat.
The doctor adjusted the IV bag that fed into Alexia's left arm. "You're new in the Skulls, right? Have you been here before?"
Alexia shook her head innocently.
"Well, I'm Doctor Patel. I'm in charge of the Skulls' medical clinic here at the compound – it's no Mount Zonah, but the boss keeps us pretty well-stocked on gauze and painkillers. If you need to get patched up after a gunfight, we can debride those wounds, set broken bones, and get you back out into the field. Saves crew members the risk of getting ID'd at a hospital."
This made sense to Alexia. At hospitals, they normally asked for things like health insurance, which she didn't have. A Skulls-only clinic was a much better alternative, assuming she didn't need anything too major.
She noticed it was getting easier to breathe. She tried to clear her throat, and it felt like there was an egg yolk jammed in her larynx. Alexia winced as some of the mucus fell into her esophagus, forcing her to swallow.
"We've got a full house tonight, honey, so I've gotta get going," said the doctor. "You need anything else?"
Alexia shook her head. With a smile, she mouthed 'thank you'.
"You're welcome." The doctor returned a tired grin. "For your sake, I hope we don't see each other too often. But…maybe we will, under better circumstances."
"Lexi?"
At the entrance to Alexia's right, Jess was peeking her head into the clinic. They met eyes, and Jess gasped, bounding headfirst towards the clinic floor with arms outstretched.
"LEXI OH MY GOD I'M SO HAPPY I-!"
"Whoa there, Big Mama! Hold on!"
Doctor Patel hooked an arm around Jess's waist. With surprising strength, the doctor managed to stop her dead in her tracks, even though Jess was at least a foot taller than her. She reached up, laying two firm hands on Jess's shoulders.
"I know you're glad to see her, Jess, but she's got a head injury. You can sit with her, just don't go snapping her spine with hugs. Got it?"
Jess nodded rapidly. Despite her height, she looked like a child being scolded for playing too close to the road.
Doctor Patel let go of Jess, who walked cautiously over to a folding chair beside Alexia's bed. She sat down. She had a few cuts and bruises on her face and her arms, including a nasty-looking cut above her left eye. Despite this, Jess looked mostly unhurt.
"They know me pretty well in here," she admitted with a smile. "Doctor Patel is a real G, though – she's pulled more bullets and shrapnel outta me than can be counted…Anyway, what's up? How you feeling?"
Alexia pointed to her throat, shaking her head dismissively.
"Oh, really?" Jess frowned. "Well, I guess that makes sense. That bartender who pulled you outta there, she couldn't really talk either, she'd inhaled so much smoke."
A breath escaped Alexia's throat. Her shoulders slumped as she leaned back in her bed.
She saved my life. If it wasn't for her, I'd be charcoal right now. But…if I hadn't run into a burning building, I wouldn't have needed rescuing.
Alexia looked around the clinic, not seeing the bartender anywhere. She'd known before that there was nothing in it for herself in saving the girl. But in that moment, it hadn't mattered. Just like at the street race, she'd been overcome by an innate desire to help people. And unlike last time, she couldn't justify this one with ignorance. This was pure, unbridled emotion working against her better judgement.
She looked away from Jess for a moment. On the table beside her bed, she noticed her purse and her shoes – at least some of her expensive outfit had survived the fire. She fiddled around in her expensive black purse until she found her iFruit phone.
Jess watched as Alexia typed a message using the Notes app, then held the screen up for her to see.
"I'm really glad to see you, Jess. How's Damien doing?" the message read.
"Oh, he's cool. He's talking to your uncle right now, going over strategy. It's, uh…" Jess swallowed. "It's really not good, Lexi. I mean, we've never really been attacked like this before, at least not since I've been here. We're gonna have to find whoever planned this and make them pay."
Alexia nodded solemnly. She typed on her screen again.
"So did our security guards turn on us?"
"No. We looked at a couple of the bodies. Turns out, those guys we saw out front weren't actually Skulls…They were Roses, disguised as our security detail. Not sure what happened to the real security, but it can't be good."
Jess cringed as she said this, and Alexia couldn't blame her. The whole time, a group of Roses, disguised as Black Skulls, had been herding people into the club like cattle, trying to get it as full as possible before unleashing the miniguns.
"When we got out, I couldn't see you anywhere," said Jess. "I was freaking the fuck out, screaming your name, wondering where you were. The others were trying to hold me back from the flames when we saw this bartender stumbling out of the smoke behind the club, dragging you outta there, and…"
Jess was forced to pause, as she was choking up. Her blue eyes were rimmed with tears.
"And you were covered in all this blood and…Oh God, Lexi, we all thought you were dead. I mean, I was supposed to be the one protecting you, showing you the ropes, and I just completely lost sight of you in there…I'm so sorry…"
Alexia's own eyes grew watery. Seeing her friend cry was like a punch in the gut, especially since Jess was blaming herself. She seemed unaware that Alexia hadn't really gotten lost. She'd run back in there on her own accord, trying to save the life of a stranger.
If she wanted, Alexia knew she could maintain the lie, to save her reputation in the crew. But as Jess sat there sobbing, Alexia didn't think she could live with herself if she did that. She couldn't let someone with such a big heart live with such soul-crushing guilt.
She spent the next couple of minutes typing furiously on her phone screen as Jess watched, gripping a damp tissue in her hand. When she was done, she handed the phone to Jess, whose tear-streaked eyes began scanning the screen.
Jess's tears didn't stop, as Alexia had hoped. Instead, as she read the message, the breath left Jess's lungs. She looked absolutely destroyed by what she was reading.
"Lexi…what the fuck were you thinking?"
Alexia looked away from Jess. She couldn't bear to meet her friend's watery eyes, even if she knew Jess deserved to know the truth.
Jess sighed, trying to maintain her composure, although she looked almost furious at her new friend. She offered a hand, which Alexia grabbed onto.
"Look…we risk our lives enough in this job. I mean, we have to go out there every day, dodging bullets and explosions and the feds, and sometimes we don't come back." Jess's eyes narrowed. "You wanna know why most people die doing this? It's because they stop being careful. They survive one or two jobs, and that makes them think they're some kind of superhero. So, they start risking their asses more and more, getting into all kinds of unnecessary bullshit outside of work, until eventually their luck runs out and they get their brains splattered all over the sidewalk…I don't want that to happen to you, Lexi. But you have to understand that everyone's luck runs out eventually. The people who are successful here – Damien, your uncle, all the higher-ups – they just know how to stretch their luck out over a long period, and they do that by only risking their ass when it's absolutely necessary."
Jess sighed – she looked like she was remembering adventures she'd had with past Skulls who had long since died. Recognizing this, Alexia looked down at her chest.
She's right, Alexia thought. I'm no superhero – I'm a killer and a thief. If I keep pretending otherwise, I'm just gonna get killed faster.
Alexia gestured for her phone back. Jess handed it to her, and her next message was much shorter.
"I'm sorry, Jess."
"It's okay." Jess nodded, her face softening. "I mean, I get it - when I was a rookie, I wanted to help people, too. At one point, after I learned how to shoot, I started driving around the city, killing muggers – not because I had to, but because I just felt like it. The people I helped were always so happy and thankful that I'd stepped in, and sometimes they even gave me money or something for helping them. It made me feel really good. Like I was making a difference in the world."
Jess laughed a bit at this, like she now thought the very idea was foolish.
"Then one day, I pushed my luck too far. I was walking down this street in East LS, and this lady comes up to me, waving her arms and screaming 'help, help, my husband's hurt, you gotta do something'! She leads me down this dark alleyway, and then someone sneaks up behind me and pistol whips me, knocks me out cold…When I woke up, I was lying on some train tracks out in Blaine County, wearing nothing but my underwear. A train comes rumbling towards me down the track, and I just barely stumbled out of the way in time. I mean, if I'd woken up a second or two later, I would've been roadkill…trainkill?" Jess squinted a bit. "Well, either way, I was in the desert. I had no phone, no wallet, no clothes…That was one awkward trip back to the city, Lexi. Let me tell ya'."
Alexia swallowed. The very idea of waking up on the train tracks filled her nerves with dread. She was glad Jess had survived, but Alexia could imagine herself falling for that same kind of trap.
"But hey, at least I learned something from it." Jess half-smiled. "Sometimes, I'll still give a homeless person a dollar or hold doors open for people – y'know, just harmless stuff like that. But nowadays, I don't risk my life for strangers anymore. Like I said, everyone's luck runs out eventually, especially if you're a Black Skull."
Alexia pondered Jess's story for a minute. Her friend's logic made sense: it was dangerous enough being a Skull, so there was no need to add to the danger. But Alexia also realized she didn't have to stop helping people. She'd just have to consider the risks of doing so more carefully.
She looked up at Jess. The taller girl offered a smile, which Alexia returned. She typed on her phone screen again.
"Thank you for telling me all this, Jess. You're a really good friend."
"You're welcome, Lexi." Jess squeezed her friend's shoulder. "I'm just super glad you're alright. And hey, as soon as you get better, you'd better believe we're gonna tear this fuckin' town apart – you and me, girlfriend."
Alexia nodded firmly, placing her hand on top of Jess's. In that moment, she felt Jess's genuine care toward her, and it made her feel empowered. With Jess by her side, she felt like she could do anything.
Either way, Alexia knew she couldn't make money if she was dead. For her brothers' sake, Alexia told herself she would take Jess's advice. Otherwise, this journey she'd taken would effectively be for nothing.
At some point, Alexia had dozed off. Maybe it was the painkillers in her IV, general exhaustion, or a little bit of both. When she awoke from her dreamless sleep, Jess wasn't there. The clinic as a whole was much quieter – many of the injured Skulls had been treated and released. Only half a dozen or so of the most seriously injured were still convalescing, half-asleep in their hospital beds.
Alexia squinted against the bright fluorescent lights. In the chair where Jess had been sitting was a note, written in a flowing and distinctively girly handwriting. She reached out her hand and took the note, holding it to her eyes.
"Hey Lexi, I had to go to a meeting w/ ur uncle. He wants to see you to, soon as ur cleared by the docs.
Love you, and get better soon. :)
-Jess"
Warmth filled Alexia's chest, and a smile tugged at her lips. She had to admit that it felt good to be loved. During bouts of depression, she'd always told herself that she was unloveable. Apart from her brothers and her uncle, no one would want to love someone like her, a social outcast who wasn't going anywhere in life.
Except for Jess. Maybe a few others too, if she could break out of her shell a little bit. She'd done it before in juvie, so maybe, she thought, it could happen again. She folded up Jess's note and tucked it in her purse.
"So…I guess it wasn't bullshit."
Alexia looked to her left. The pale yellow curtain beside her bed was now open, and in the bed next to hers was Reese, dressed in an identical blue hospital gown. His right arm was in a sling made of white bandages, and his face and neck were dotted with bruises.
He chuckled, wiggling his bandaged feet a bit. He seemed drunk, possibly on pain medicine.
"You really are some kind of killer, huh?" he asked her. "Well, I've got news for you, kid: so is every other Skull."
Alexia frowned. She was starting to get really annoyed with this guy. But it was obvious that he was trying to push her buttons, and the last thing she wanted was to give him what he wanted.
She started coughing again. Grabbing the empty glass of water next to her bed, Alexia hocked up a monster-sized loogie, which she shot acrimoniously into the cup while maintaining eye contact.
She cleared her throat. "So…you admit I'm one of you?" Her voice was thin and raspy, just barely audible above the hiss of her oxygen machine.
"I never said you weren't," he replied. "The boss admits new members, and he admitted you. I may not like it, but you're a Skull."
"Then why the hostility?" she asked him. "What do you want, Reese?"
"I want you to start taking this shit seriously. You may have killed some Roses tonight, and I can't complain about that. But from what I heard Jess saying to you, it sounds like you don't really want to be a Skull. You just wanna be the hero everyone looks up to – you don't give a shit about this crew."
"I do give a shit." She cleared her throat again, more violently this time.
Reese shook his head. "If you gave a shit, you'd know that the boss wants you alive."
"Of course he does…Why wouldn't he?"
"Look, your uncle's a great man – a great leader. We're gonna need his leadership while we deal with the Roses…But say you'd died in there. How well do you think he could lead us while he's grieving your stupid ass?"
"I…" Alexia paused. She tried to think of a response, but she couldn't.
Reese scowled. "You didn't even think of that, did you? Like I said, you were only thinking about yourself. Not the crew."
Alexia's eyes fell. Reese had a point: on the surface, saving a stranger was an act of altruism. But maybe her actions were more selfish than she'd initially thought. Instead of putting the crew first, like she'd promised, she'd been trying to atone for her own sins, to the detriment of her uncle and the other Skulls.
She remembered the car crash with Noël, and how she'd been thinking about the time she'd stabbed her classmate out of anger. By the time she'd run back into Bahama Mamas, she'd killed at least half a dozen people. The more she thought back to it, the more she realized this was the driving force behind her decision to run back into the fire, risking life and limb for someone whose name she didn't even know.
Alexia could feel Reese's words eating away at what little self-esteem she'd built up. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was just as stupid and selfish as he was making her out to be. She felt the depression taking hold fast.
Or, she thought, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself.
Despite this revelation, Jess's advice was still echoing through Alexia's thoughts, telling her that she deserved to be happy and successful, despite her mistakes. A breath escaped her nose as she looked up at him, her face firm.
"You're right…I should've considered that before I acted. I'll be more careful next time."
Reese looked surprised by her admission. He didn't let it show for long, though – instead, he scoffed at her.
"Yeah, I've heard that before."
"Well, I mean it now. I'm gonna make my uncle proud. He's always looked out for me, so now, I'm gonna look out for him. Just watch and you'll see."
"Oh, I'll be watching plenty." Reese nodded. "Your uncle might trust you, but I don't trust you one bit. Just know that if you step out of line again, I'll make sure you regret it. Copy?"
"Copied."
Alexia swallowed. She was pretty sure Reese was threatening her now, and this frightened her, but she didn't want to let it show. In that moment, she believed she could make things right with him by sticking to Jess's advice. With her help, she'd be sure to succeed in the Skulls.
At that moment, Doctor Patel came back up to Alexia's bed. Reese laid back in his own bed, folding his hands over his chest like an embalmed body.
"Are you two playing nice?" she asked, her eyes laser-focused on Reese.
"Yeah. Just, uh, giving the new kid a heart-to-heart. We don't want her bumping her head too many times, you know?"
Doctor Patel smirked. "Maybe if she does that, she'll be as smart as you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked her playfully.
"It means you're half-drunk on Deludamol."
"Well, you're the one to blame on that front." Reese sighed. "Can I wear some normal clothes now?"
"I guess so." Doctor Patel reached into her lab coat and handed him a key. "I will say though, you look much prettier in a dress."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Reese stood up on his bandaged feet. "I'll see you in a minute, okay?"
"Sure."
Reese leaned over and kissed Doctor Patel on the lips before walking away, toward a changing room at the back of the clinic.
Doctor Patel sighed. A flushed smile crossed her face as she looked after him.
"Sorry. He's my husband," she informed Alexia. "Never thought I'd be married to the Skulls' resident money launderer, but when you're in your 30's, you take what you can get…How's your throat?"
"Better." Alexia grunted, rubbing her neck.
"That's good. Any numbness or tingling anywhere?"
Alexia shook her head. The doctor held up her index finger, and Alexia's eyes followed it as it made an X across her vision.
Doctor Patel smiled. She wrote something down on her clipboard.
"Well alright, honey. I'd say you're good to go. You be careful out there, okay?"
"Sure…"
As the doctor unhooked her from the IV and the oxygen machine, Alexia felt the breath in her lungs. She'd gotten lucky this time. She didn't know how long her luck was going to last, but one thing was certain: Alexia was going to try her best to stay alive. Too many people were depending on her to allow for recklessness.