Sam was doing her best to guide Jack — their views of the world were very different. Hers looked like noon on Venus, while his probably resembled The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as they jogged along a darkened road enclosed by ancient oaks. For all she knew, maybe he expected them to start grabbing at them Wizard of Oz style... but he was probably too young for that connection.

Rebecca was a few yards ahead, trying to get someone to report in over the radio. Chrissie was first to respond. "A few of them circled back or something. I got one of them, but they dragged that same girl off again, the one from upstairs."

Oh, for fuck's sake. Her again? Sam had to be careful not to groan.

Rebecca was replying to Chrissie. "Do we know which way they went?"

It occurred to Sam that she'd really like one of those IR-equipped drones circling overhead right about then, but if she was getting to submit a wishlist she had a bunch of other suggestions too. A platoon of other people to start doing all the running around would be a great start. Their dog. Any mocha-based ice cream, she wasn't picky. Maybe a therapist.

"We think they're cutting through the fields. Maybe they were going for those cars at the shed, but we've got people over there with guns and lights now."

Jack stumbled and pulled Sam off balance, but she manage to keep him from wiping out on the uneven road. "You okay, buddy?"

"Sam, I'm really thirsty. Do you have any water?"

"Me too, Jack. I'm sorry, we left in a hurry. I should've grabbed some." Her own throat was starting to burn and her tongue felt cottony — she raked her teeth over it to try to get a little more saliva to come. The poor lil' guy was probably in worse shape.

Rebecca slowed and looked back at them. "Rosie?"

"He's doing his best to keep up but I don't know how much he's got left in him."

"I'm sorry!" Jack was gasping for breath, but trying to put on a brave face.

Rebecca led them into the grove where they'd parked before and stopped. Poor Jack dropped to his knees panting, and Sam propped herself up, partially bent over with a hand on her knee.

"It's okay, Jack. Sam, keep him safe. I'll go on ahead."

Sam frowned at Rebecca — even though it was hidden behind her goggles — and shook her head. "We shouldn't split up."

"We also shouldn't drag him into a firefight, or leave him out here by himself. We both know it's the right move."

"I hate it when you're right."

"That sounds familiar." It did — this conversation was a reversal of that big nighttime fight back at Broadway.

Rebecca was detaching Felicia from her sling and held the rifle out to Sam. "Here, give me the Tavor, I can move faster with it and it'll be more maneuverable out there."

Sam unclipped it and traded weapons with her, but Rebecca lingered. Holding the Tavor with her left hand, she pulled her pistol from its holster and pressed it into Sam's offhand. "Put this in a pocket or something, I want you to have a secondary if someone gets in too close for the long gun."

Sam frowned again. "Okay, but turn on your infrared strobe so I can track you. Please be careful, and you know I'm going to be covering you."

"I do." Neither of them got into the unspoken concerns about Rebecca's recent anxieties.

Regardless, Sam still wanted to be encouraging. "Phrasing, dear."

Rebecca grinned below the bizarre-looking night vision headgear, covered Jack's eyes with her hand, and quickly kissed Sam at an awkward angle to fit their goggles past each other. Then, she took off at a faster pace towards the fence line.  Sam heard her telling Chrissie to send at least two people in an SUV to pick them up.

Sam sighed and turned to Jack, guiding him towards the shelter of a particularly thick tree. He looked up at her as she did. "Did you two just kiss?"

"Ugh, don't be a twerp, and focus, will you? Duck down here and stay out of sight. I'm going to be right over there, even if you can't see me, okay?"

"Can I have the little gun?"

"Hell no, kid."

"Fine... what about a flashlight?"

"Yeah, okay." She pulled a compact light from a velcro pouch. "Don't use it unless you absolutely, absolutely have to, 'kay? It'll give away our position and might blind me with these goggles."

"Okay. I'll be good."

"You're a rockstar, little man. Keep your head down." Sam turned and found a tree with a wide Y split that she was able to scramble a few feet up and lay on the sloped trunk with the rifle pointing out towards the fields. She really wished the goggles had some kind of zoom function as she strained to pick out details amongst the pale pixels, watching the progress of the blinking infrared light on Rebecca's back.

**

Rebecca kept low as she scampered through an irrigation ditch, trying to remind herself that she was carrying an entirely different gun. She was definitely moving faster, but it was taking time to reprogram short-term muscle memory and get used to the different weight balance. The tradeoff was still worth it — she'd probably have been smacking Felicia's longer barrel into fenceposts and dragging it through the dirt over the last several minutes otherwise.

She tried to estimate how far someone could run in the time since the shooting, and set herself a course roughly intersecting an arc three quarters of the way across the field from the corner nearest the house. If the ambient star and moonlight hadn't been enough, flashlights were shining into the field from the far edges, brightening the view in her goggles — almost to the point of discomfort when was looking towards them. She hoped that would funnel this latest batch of aggressors right into her grasp, like beaters hounding a fox.

She heard Sam's voice over the radio and fumed at the mixed feelings it gave her — the usual reassurance was preceded by a frustrating jolt of surprise. "Echo One, if you're still in that drainage ditch, I've got movement ahead of you, heading towards the hay bales. Move fast though or they'll pass you."

"Dammit. Copy."

Rebecca hauled herself out onto the road, feet slipping on the sloped sides and wasting precious energy. She allowed herself one full breath's pause at the top, then willed herself upright to hustle towards the stack of hay Sam mentioned. It was piled at an intersection on the road ahead of her, seemingly a convenient midpoint between two sections of fenced pasture outside the swaths of crops closer to the buildings. A heap of beaten-up forklift palettes occupied the opposite corner — fortunately she could see through enough of the gaps to not worry about any threats behind it.

She ran as fast as she thought her remaining endurance could sustain and heard distant voices when she got closer. She was encouraged that they were still off to her right — she'd catch them after all.

The stack of hay was a welcome source of support as she let herself run into it with a soft thump and sucked desperate gasps of air. Jack was right, she found herself in a situation where she might literally kill for a drink of water.

The voices drew closer, and she began to circle around the hay to her right, hoping to come up behind them as they passed — but Sam stopped her.

"If you hit them behind the pile I won't have eyes on you. Wait until they're past it and take them from the near side."

Rebecca would have preferred to simply wait for them to get far enough she could wrap around all three sides to still approach them from behind where Sam could see, but didn't have the breath to explain. Sam would probably argue about being able to use the hay bales for cover, she would have to explain they wouldn't stop anything beyond a pistol round, Sam would tell her that was better than nothing...

... so she stopped her advance and just spent the time taking a couple of extra breaths instead. It was probably better for her aim anyway.

While she waited, the voices became clear enough to understand. The girl's voice — precious "Stephanie", she reminded herself — didn't sound angry or defiant like Jack's. In fact... it was almost nagging? Demanding?

"Now what? I thought you said you had a plan, baby."

The fuck? Rebecca's mind rapidly unspooled the possible implications of that as she swapped her Tavor to her left shoulder and backtracked to the corner she'd originally approached from.

"I did. That was before those bitches shot Danny!"

Maybe "Danny" was the guy at the truck?

"Well, now which way should we go?"

Wow. Stephanie really was making this easy for her, even if she wasn't trying to like Jack. That's the kind of question you'd ask, y'know. At an intersection.

Sam could help her confirm. Rebecca cupped her mic with her right hand to muffle her whisper. "Echo Two?"

"They're in position. I have the one on the left."

Oh great. So there's more than one. Of course there were! God save her from hillbillies and their crazy girlfriends.

She turned the Tavor's laser on for emphasis, then pivoted around the corner to aim at them. Two young men — maybe late teens, early twenties — carried AR-15 style rifles and flanked the same damned brunette who'd been the source of so much trouble so far. Rebecca swept the laser across them to settle on the rightmost and announced herself.

"I'm really fucking tired, can we get this done the easy way?"

"Oh shit!" The voice coming from the jackass on the right told her he was "Baby".

Stephanie gasped. "Oh my god, please help me, they said if I didn't come with them they'd kill me!"

Rebecca was briefly entertained by how quickly she changed her tune. But, her acting was... maybe a B+ for high school drama? She wasn't working up the crocodile tears fast enough for a lead role, and Rebecca remained unimpressed. "Oh please, save it."

Baby looked at Stephanie in shock. "What? What the hell?"

Rebecca sighed. "Wow. You are a real piece of work, girl. I almost feel sorry for you, dude."

He snapped his gaze back to Rebecca, full of misplaced aggression. "Hey, fuck you bi—"

If he'd left his gun down, she might have been inclined to see how this whole orchestrated Romeo and Juliet bullshit went down. But, he started to lift his gun even though she had the drop on him, so...

She heard Felicia bang in the distance as she put three rounds from the Tavor into Baby, center mass. Just as he fell, Sam's round finished its trip and clipped his companion high near his shoulder, which bought Rebecca the time to switch targets and finish him.

Meanwhile, Stephanie stood between them shrieking, hands near her face and one foot in the air like she was trying to curl up into a ball, but lacking the good sense to do it on the ground.

Again.

Any other day, Rebecca might have found it all amusing in that "facepalm hard and sigh" sort of way. But today, she was just really fucking done.

"'Sup. I'm 'the girlfriend'. Now start walking, you little shit."