In the morning, Rachel cut her hair. The long red locks dripped down her bare shoulders and pooled around her feet like blood. She'd looked for a mirror before starting, but the only one in the shed was so tarnished, she could polish it for a year and still not see through it.

Now, she was afraid to look.

But she took the ugly black dye Jason had bought and massaged it in. He'd been smart enough at least to get the temporary kind, the stuff she didn't need water for. Which was good because they only had one bottle left.

Her kinky, too-short curls haloed bounced against her hands as she worked, sticking out at odd angles. She bit her tongue to push back the burning in her eyes. It's just hair.

She brushed the stray locks away, watching them fall from her skin to the dirty floor. Then she pulled on the blouse Jason had bought her. It was dark blue with a soft, close-fitting undershirt and a gauzy layer fluttering over that, shimmering with rhinestones down the front. It wasn't something she ever would have picked out for herself. It fit too tightly; despite the flowing overlay, she felt like anyone looking could see each curve of her body. She felt like she was supposed to be going on a date rather than buying groceries. Her hoodie felt anonymous; this didn't.

But this also didn't look like someone who might walk in a bar and shoot it up.

She gathered up the seventy-one dollars they had left between them and stuffed the wad of cash into her pocket. She trickled a little water down Jason's throat, and he coughed, coming vaguely too. "Hey. Eat this." She crumbled off a bit of a granola bar and pressed it against his lips.

He turned his head away weakly. "No," he murmured. "No more med'cine."

"It's not medicine. It's just food. Eat, please." She pressed it against his lips again, and this time he didn't fight her. She didn't think he'd really fight her if it had been oxy either. His eyes were barely open. Her lips tightened.

Slowly, she fed him bits of granola and helped him get a drink. When he was finished, she put one of the pills to his lips. Like she'd expected, he let it pass his mouth.

But then he spit it out. He turned a lazy glare on her, voice slurred. "Stop drugging me."

As bad as his arm was, she couldn't imagine willingly opening the floodgates on the pain. "You're going to regret it."

He just shook his head. She eyed him sideways. She hadn't ever had one of her patients refuse pain medicine when they could get ahold of it. Too much pain caused its own stress on the body... but they weren't going anywhere for a while, and if he thought he could handle it... She would feel better leaving him at least somewhat in his right mind.

Instead of giving him the pill, she laid the barkeep's gun beside him. "I'll be back soon. I've got to get some supplies."

"The plan?" he inquired, struggling to open his eyes more.

"Already started. I'll check on the email while I'm out. Don't do anything stupid."

She pushed the barricade aside just enough for her to squeeze out. She walked to town, a good half hour on foot, and checked the email at the McDonald's. Nothing yet. Cursing, she walked to a little mom and pop grocer to spend too much money on water and food and clean bandages. The radio was jabbering about the shooting last night, but the clerk didn't look at her twice. Rachel checked the email one more time before taking the long walk back, the paper bags heavy in her arms.

When she shouldered and shimmied in through the blocked off door, Jason's shaking arm pointed the barkeep's pistol at her. His eyes narrowed. "Rach?"

"Yeah, maybe don't shoot me," she groaned as she lowered the heavy bag to the floor.

"What happened to your hair?" he moaned and dropped the gun.

"You did." She picked up the pistol, frowned, and brought it to his eye level. "The safety needs to be off if you plan on actually shooting anyone, you know." She showed him.

"Right." He nodded vaguely before his face screwed up in pain.

"Have you actually ever shot a gun? Here, turn over." She helped him, steeled herself against the low noises he couldn't quite suppress, and cleaned his wound.

"Yes," he said between heavy breaths as she worked. "Hunting. Mom just. Never kept. The safety on."

"Why do I feel like your mom has shot more people than I have?"

She expected him to bristle, but he just gave a breathy laugh that sent him into another body curling wince. "Maybe so," he admitted once he'd recovered.

They talked most of the day off and on, her trying to keep him distracted from the pain when he wasn't sleeping. It was about nothing important; their brains were just as tired as their bodies. She'd learned a long time ago small talk was a much better medicine than prying.

He had played basketball and run track, depending on what school they'd ended up at. He liked some of the same music she did. He hated horror movies, claiming they were unrealistic and predictable, and she let him pick apart her favorites. As afternoon wore on, his fever deepened, and his responses became less coherent. She picked up the conversation then, talking about the beach and how muggy Virginia was in the summer and random medical facts she'd picked up from her dad and her own Googling.

By the time the sun had set, the fever and pain had dragged him to sleep. It wasn't ideal; she would have rathered he were awake while she was gone, in case someone found him.

But until they got a response on the email, she had a message to put out. Which meant more trouble to stir up. She pulled her hood up, took the truck, and left under the cover of darkness.

🧬 🧬 🧬

Three days later, the small space of the shed stunk with vomit and sweat. Even between bouts of him throwing up and her cleaning him up, though, he'd been adamant—and lucid. He was not going to be taken wherever his family had been. He was not going to a hospital. And it was that clear spark in his eye, the clarity in his voice, even as it cracked, that convinced her to hold off. Maybe his fever would break. Maybe things would get better.

Lucid was a language they had given up on this morning. When she'd woken, his breaths were fast and hard, no matter that he'd hardly moved in ninety hours. His pulse raced. His eyes tracked things that weren't there. She sat beside him on the mattress, her hand in his as he squeezed with the last vestiges of his strength, spasms of pain rippling over his face. He couldn't have fought her about the pain meds if he wanted to, but she was afraid to give it to him now. He was fighting. If she made him too comfortable, he might just slip off.

Before, what they were doing was dangerous, but she'd told herself she knew the limits. She'd been monitoring him closely. She'd seen enough cases of infection to know the tides could turn for the better at any moment, to know humans were wonderfully resilient. She'd done this for years now. As bad as it had looked, as much as she'd needled him to go the hospital, she'd—hoped. Plenty of her patients had gotten better. Every morning, she'd told herself it could be the morning the fever broke.

But now on the spiral to the end. He'd turned quicker than she'd expected—like they do sometimes. Her eyes burned. She squeezed them shut, and too many dying boys' faces flashed behind her lids—all gone. We'll make due, Rafe had said, but she didn't have what it took to save them. Not from sepsis.

Jason might have a couple more days in him. Or he might have a couple hours. She picked at her lip. She hadn't been awake when the sepsis symptoms started; it could... Her breath caught, and she bit down on her lip hard. It could be less than that.

Death had been on their doorstep for too long, and they'd pretended like they couldn't hear it knocking. But she couldn't lie to herself anymore. There was no chance he was getting better on his own now. And when Death was ready to take what was his, he didn't knock anymore. He just came in and left the house quieter than he'd found it.

Her stomach curled. Blood tanged in her mouth. She shoved to her feet, vision blurring, and shoved over a rotting shelf. It crashed against the other junk in this infernal hole and splintered about.

Jason was dying, and their message still had no sign of being heard.

She'd gone out every day for the last three days, sometimes even twice, and repeated the stunt. She always picked a different target, always came at random times. People were noticing. The local news had run a story about her; in her morning internet reconnaissance missions, she'd found a few videos online. The town hadn't been bustling to begin with, but it was ghostly now. People stayed indoors more, afraid that the next time she shot, it wouldn't be toward a ceiling.

And yet she had nothing in her inbox. Nothing of any value at least. The police force had contacted her several times, offering everything from food and shelter if she would cooperate with them to long, drawn-out threats if she didn't. But no one who knew Jason's password.

She kicked at the junk. Wood splintered. Glass cracked. A handbell with no ringer fell from a shelf and thunked to the floor. Its hollow thud echoed through the room.

No one was coming. No one had ever been coming.

For the first time, she regretted holding him back in that Sunset Park apartment. Maybe then, he wouldn't be dying. Whoever was after him might have needed him alive, or at the very least, he'd have been with his sister. Sometimes, in his fever, he murmured the girl's name. Sometimes, Rachel thought he might even think she was Ana.

Her lips twisted so hard her sore twanged. With quick flicks, she wiped the dirt off her hands. Rafe wasn't in charge anymore. And neither was Jason, for that matter. He wasn't gone yet.

And she was going to get him to a hospital.

Screw the Adrian Fosters of the world who might find him. They hadn't cared enough to pay attention to the videos. They could have emailed her just as easily as this supposed 'Resistance'—which Rachel still thought sounded like a ridiculously juvenile thing for it to be named. Maybe Foster wasn't looking anymore. Maybe, like she'd thought before, no one cared.

And screw the government too, she thought as she shoved out the door and yanked the tarp off the truck. Because after she took him to a hospital and they figured out he didn't have any parents, they'd ship him off to a Home. Rachel would do a lot of things, but she wouldn't follow him there. Too many kids went missing from those places: "moved to a more accommodating Home" was always the claim, but the Lost Boys who had come from there said other things, that people with dubious work contracts or offers too good to be true came through the doors and the next day, friends were gone without a goodbye.

Maybe Jason's fake ID will save him, she hoped, the truck's wheels kicking up dust as she sped toward town. It said he was nineteen. So he was free and clear, at least from the government.

As long as they didn't realize he was tied to that arson in New York. Nausea crawled up her throat. The road blurred, and she blinked hard to clear her sight. Her foot pressed down harder on the pedal.

By habit, she ended up back at that McDonald's. Whatever. It was as good a place to call 911 as any. She could tell them where he was at, and then...

She bit her lip. Then she didn't know what. But that wasn't Jason's problem anymore, and he couldn't be her solution. She'd call, and then she'd leave. No worse off than when she'd left Hampton.

Just emptier.

But there was no point in both of them getting caught. She'd done for him everything she could. It hadn't been enough. Sticking around couldn't add anything to that.

She threw her door open to go ask someone to borrow a phone with actual service. They might recognize her from a video. She decided she'd whip out the gun they were expecting if they did. She just needed to make one call, and then she was gone for good.

As she stepped out of the truck, her phone dinged. She frowned down at it. It dinged again.

It must have connected to the wifi automatically. She had an email. Two emails.

One was long enough that for a second, she thought it was another saccharine plea from fear-stricken sheep. The opening words were similar enough. "My name is" insert name Rachel didn't care about here. But the next few words were startlingly different. "I'm Jason's aunt. I want to help..."

The notification didn't show more of a preview than that. When she clicked on it, instead of taking her to the full message, it opened a preview of the other message beneath it. Written there was only one word: Jessica.