^^Above, chapter title credit: Song by Blue Oyster Cult.^^

{Geoffrey}

I can't believe I'd be ever saying this, but my wife's been arrested. I get the call in the middle of the meeting, when Eckles is talking about something that involves a complicated pie chart with so many colors it makes my head hurt. The secretary from the front desk came in and tapped me on the shoulder, leaning down as she spoke in my ear.

"Mr. Cromwell, they've got your wife at the police station."

Now, waiting in the lobby after paying her bail – fifteen-hundred bucks – I can't help but feel a little annoyed. What the hell was she doing that led to her arrest?

I don't address it until we're out on the street, and she's followed me there like a sullen toddler. I round on her so suddenly she stops in her tracks. "What the actual hell, Raina?"

"So now I have to explain myself to you too?" She scowls.

"You got arrested! Of course you do!" I see the defiance in her eyes, and I feel a swell of pride too. She's done something brave enough to risk arrest. Stupid, but brave.

"Felicia," she says petulantly. "She deserved it."

"Raina, tell me you didn't actually mean physically go after Felicia. Take her down some other way. Any other way."

"I won't apologize for it." She sets her jaw. "Felicia's the reason El's dead."

"Goading them won't do any good, Raina." I cup her face. "Neither will making a criminal record."

"It was worth it," she says as we join Hugo at the curb, holding a taxi for us. "Thanks, Hugo."

"Any time," Hugo says with a grin. "Saw the whole thing. It was totally worth it."

I shake my head and roll my eyes. "Don't encourage her."

≈

I get the whole story out of her when the blurb about it appears in the paper. Ridley's got more than one reporter in his pocket, because it portrays Raina as desperate and attention-seeking, threatening and assaulting Felicia – who apparently saw herself as an innocent victim.

"'Innocent victim' my ass," Raina says savagely when I show her the paper after breakfast the next morning. "She brought it on herself."

"Did you threaten her?" I ask, catching Raina's arm and holding her still. "Tell me truthfully, Raina."

"With ruination, yeah," she concedes. "But only after I told her everything she seemed to already know."

"Well, people do hate being put in their place."

"Some more than others." She rubs at her cast as I let go. "Should have seen Ridley, though. He must have thought he was doing me a favor."

"Yeah, probably." I could just see Ridley now. He was probably celebrating that small victory right now, seeing the girl he couldn't have be led away in handcuffs.

"But just think about it," she says, as Mila joins us, leading Cam. He's able to walk a little bit now, his feet going out sideways with every step. Raina takes Cam's other hand. "Mommy almost has a criminal record."

"Not something to be proud of, you know."

≈

I watch her sleep that night, when I can't. I try to think of anything I wouldn't do to keep them safe, but there's nothing. I love her, and her ferocious protection of our kids. Her recklessness when it comes to dealing with Felicia. And her complete honesty about how she feels around Eckles.

She moves in her sleep, revealing the bruise spreading down the side of her rib cage. At first she'd tried to downplay it, saying she'd just bumped it. But after some coaxing, she'd mentioned the Wigmore security guy hitting her there to knock her down.

I kiss her shoulder as I fit my body to hers, pulling her close so her back presses against my chest. Then I bury my nose in her mess of curls, taking in the sweet-smelling softness there.

When I wake up the next morning, she's gone. I hear the shower running, and I'm almost tempted to get up and join her when the telephone rings. I pull on a pair of shorts over my boxers and go answer it.

"Cromwell residence."

"Good, it's you," says Ridley on the other end. "I was afraid it'd be your wife. Trailer trash, your whore, now a criminal too. I don't understand why you want a woman like that."

"She's actually none of those things," I snap back at him. "What do you want, Ridley? Surely not to just berate my wife behind her back."

"No. I don't care enough about her to do that. I just wanted to know if you're still coming to my election party. I'm planning on popping some champagne when Salinger concedes."

"So you have no doubts? At all?" His numbers were still pretty bad, running about twelve points behind Salinger. And the gap widened every day.

"I can still pull it out at the last minute," Ridley says belligerently. "Why? Are you thinking I won't win? Even with your companies behind me?"

"Well..." I dither intentionally, to irritate him. I remember Eckles's ultimate plan, to completely pull the rug out from under him at the very last second. "I guess..."

"Geoff, seriously. I don't need your wishy-washy attitude. Are you coming or not?"

"Sure. Why not." I hear the shower go off, and I know Raina'll be out here in a second if she hears me on the phone. "I should go, Ridley. I need to get to work."

Then I hang up before he can say anything else. As I reenter, Raina's just coming out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and pulling the plastic bag off her cast.

"Who were you talking to?" she asks, crossing in front of me to get to the dresser.

My first instinct is to lie, but I know that's probably not the best idea. "Ridley."

"What'd he want?" She doesn't look at me as she pulls on underwear, and then shorts from the bottom drawer.

"Election party. He still thinks he's going to win."

"Cocky, isn't he?" She finishes hooking her bra, and finally turns to meet my eyes. "You're looking disturbed again. Is everything okay?"

I take in the scars on her torso before answering. There's so many of them, and each one intentional. "He insulted you again, Raina. Behind your back."

"What am I this time? A convicted felon?" She raises an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest.

"No, he..." It makes me angry just thinking about it. "He called you my whore."

"I've been called worse," she says, not the reaction I was expecting at all. "Namely, in lipstick across my locker in gym, a sl*t. And that was junior high."

I say nothing. Girls in junior high were mean, and especially if they knew something about you.

"So this election party," she says, changing the subject abruptly. "Did he even have the courtesy to tell you when or where?"

"No, but Raina..." I hated the way Ridley looked at Raina, like she was nothing better than a street prostitute. One he thinks he can have, cheap.

"Don't." She holds her hand up. "You might think you have to defend me every time Ridley insults me, but do me a favor and don't this time. You're just giving him exactly what he wants."

"So...you'll let him?"

"Hell if I will. I may be your wife, Geoff, but I'm not a damsel in distress. Ridley wants to insult me, he can do it to my face."

Then she turns away again, to pull on a shirt. I shake my head, but drop the subject anyway. I didn't doubt she could hold her own. I just wasn't sure if she could take on Ridley while she was at it.

≈

Things really hit the fan when the article comes out. Hugo had mentioned something about the opportunity to interview Ridley prior to the election. I guess he took it, because the weekend before Labor Day, I open the newspaper and find Ridley's face staring out at me, taking up a quarter of a page. The article has the completely uninteresting title "High hopes" but it's what the interview's about that catches my attention. Down in the third column, close to the end of the interview, Ridley mentions something odd: the supers. Everybody knew about the supers, obviously, but it's what he says about them that really puts me on alert.

I think the supers have immense untapped potential, says the article. They have the ability to help people in more ways than through their powers alone. I envision a world where a super could become invincible, with the ability to acquire multiple sets of powers at a time. He would be able to fight all manner of enemies. And he would be unstoppable.

"What's that you're reading?"

I look up. Raina's coming in, leading Ettie by the hand and holding Cam on her hip. The second she sees me, Ettie lets go and runs to me, standing up on the balls of her feet.

"Up, Dada, up!"

I pick Ettie up under the arms and set her on my knee, and she proceeds to drum her heels into my shinbone. Raina sets Cam down in his high chair, brow furrowed as she looks over at me. I want to tell her everything, but not in front of our kids.

"Dada," Cam says, pointing at me with his chubby hand.

"Very good, that is Dada." Raina smiles and runs her fingers through his curls as she sits down next to him. "And who's sitting on his lap?"

"Issy," says Cam, and then tries again. "Sithy. Sissy."

"Look at you, little man, such a big vocabulary already." I reach over, past Ettie, and give him my finger. "Where's Mommy? Can you show me?"

Cam jerks his arm a couple times towards Raina, taking my hand with it. "Mama."

We manage to entertain the two of them through breakfast, and then it's time for Cam's midmorning nap. Ettie's a little harder to get rid of, but at least in a couple weeks she'll be starting preschool. That'll give Raina a little bit more downtime.

"So show me what you were reading," she says when both our kids are finally gone, Ettie babbling nonstop to Mila in the next room. "You don't usually read the paper that closely."

Without a word, I fold it back and slide it over to her. She begins to read it, hunched over the paper, her brow furrowed. Numerous times she runs her hand through her hair, tangling it. And when she's done, she leans back and rubs her face with both hands.

"Raina...?"

"I don't know what I just read, but this is insane." She drops her hands. "Ridley's insane."

"I think that's already been established, yeah."

"And this...this thing about a super having multiple powers at a time? What's that all about?" She squints down at the paper and rakes both hands through her hair this time. "Why?"

"Because he's Ridley, and because he's insane," I say as I cross my arms and rest them on the table edge. "Hugo's going to get hammered for it, I'm sure."

"For what? The part where he says something about Ridley's ego, or his sense of entitlement?" Raina's hand clenches into a fist. "He's not going to like that."

"Because Ridley's so great about everything else?" I take a deep breath and let it out in a hard exhale.

"What'll we do? I bet Ridley knows where Hugo lives and everything." She shakes her head. "And Aisha...she's pregnant. He goes after her, it's all over."

"I'll warn them." I get up, giving Raina's shoulder a squeeze as I pass her. "Just promise me you won't do anything reckless. Like get arrested, for instance."

She lays her hand over mine. "I'll do my best."

I bend down for our customary goodbye kiss, just a quick dry touch of lips. "I love you."

She smiles, just a flicker. "I love you too."

≈

"I'm not scared of Ridley, if that's what you're saying," says Hugo when I finally call him during my lunch break. My secretary's gone, so she can't listen over the line.

"Hugo, listen," I say for perhaps the fifth time since we've started talking. "You know what Ridley's capable of. Remember what he did to you for trying to stop him shooting the water full of his green stuff? He had two guys come after you and beat you to a pulp."

"Yeah, but this is different. I'm not afraid of a fight."

"And that's great. But you know what happens when Ridley's pissed. And this time it could be at you." I remember what Raina said about Aisha and the baby that's coming. "Don't you want to keep your wife and child safe?"

"Of course I do," he says, his voice hard and defiant.

"Then you should be smart about it and lay low for a while, until the storm blows over. Vacate your apartment for a few days, just until we know if Ridley's going to come after you. He's got powerful allies, Hugo, and he won't stop at smacking you in the press, I can tell you that much."

"I'm not like you, Geoff, I can't just leave. I have to make a living."

"I know, but..." I feel a twinge of regret for dumping this all on Raina, but to keep our friends safe, both of us are going to have to make some sacrifices. "It's only for a few days. Come up and stay at our place. We have a ton of space, and I'm sure my wife would like some company. Yours would too."

I hear him take a deep breath, and the sound of a pen drumming on paper. Then some muffled chatter, and I almost think he's gotten up and walked away when he speaks again.

"Okay, fine. Three days only. If nothing happens inside them, then I get to keep on doing what I'm doing."

Does that mean risking your neck? I think, but I don't say it. Instead, I say, "Good. I'll have Roberto come pick you up tonight."

"Guess I'd better get home and pack," he says, without a touch of humor.

After we've hung up, I call Raina and explain everything. She goes along with the arrangement, something that seems to surprise me less and less as the days go by. Then, a little more unexpectedly, she tells me she'll take care of everything, since I already have so much to do. I want to counter with the argument that between two kids and everything that comes with them, she's got enough going on. But I don't. I trust her enough that I say nothing. She's been through enough already to be able to function even under pressure. I think that's what makes me love her much more.

When the workday finally ends, I go straight home. Normally I'd take the long way, but since we have guests coming I forgo that option. We don't have time to be loitering around anymore.

"Oh, good, you're home," Raina says when I walk in the door, setting my briefcase on the floor. She's carrying a broom and a couple rags, hair pulled into a messy ponytail. "When was the last time you had anybody stay in the guest suite?"

"Uh..." I remember when she stayed over for Thanksgiving that one time, but we gave her the room that's our bedroom now. "A while, I guess."

"I gave Roberto directions to Hugo's and Aisha's apartment," she says as I follow her upstairs. I notice she's wearing one of my old shirts, the one with the ink stain down the front. "Just in case, even though he seems to know the city pretty well already."

"Dad wouldn't have hired him otherwise." I remember when he took him on, as a nineteen-year-old immigrant with a green card and only forty dollars to his name. He'd been living in the city since he was three, when his mother abandoned him. He was a foster kid, and then a street kid, with nothing higher than a tenth-grade education but street smarts that made him equally capable of being a bodyguard. "He's been around the block a few times."

"So have I," Raina says, glancing over her shoulder at me with a wink.

The suite's already mostly straightened up, and it looks like the only thing left is the bed. I can see why – Ettie and Cam are on it, bouncing around on the bare mattress. Cam's laying on his back, and Ettie's punching the mattress next to him, making him briefly airborne. Their squeals of delight make me smile.

"I can't get them off of it." Raina sets the broom aside and tosses the rags down next to it. "The last time I tried, Cam called me 'bad Mama.'"

"He must have learned that from Ettie," I say, rolling my eyes. Then I cross to the bed and sit down, Ettie immediately scrambling into my lap. "Do you want to help us make the bed, Ets? We have company coming tonight."

"Who comp'ny, Dada?" Ettie asks, fiddling with the end of my necktie.

"It's Uncle Hugo," I say, setting her down on the ground and then picking up Cam under his arms as he rolls over and crawls towards me. "You like him, remember? He gave you that book you like so much."

Ettie's brow furrows, a mannerism so much like Raina's. "Je-nny Gir-affe?"

"That's the one." I ruffle her hair and then set Cam down on the floor, where he crawls across the carpet and tugs on Raina's pant leg. "Look at that. He wanted to see Mommy."

"Hello, sweetie." Raina kneels down and picks him up, and he blows a spit bubble.

"Mamama," he says, his little hand latching onto her shirt collar.

We manage to get the bed made up, and right as we finish, the phone rings again. Raina goes out to the hall to answer it, pulling her hair free of her ponytail as she does. I hear her picking it up a second later, and that's when I set Ettie and Cam back on the bed. They begin to play with the pillows immediately. She comes back in a few minutes later, eyes darkened by worry.

"What's wrong?" I notice it right away.

"Roberto thinks Hugo's changed his mind. He's called the apartment three times and no one's picking up." She rakes a hand through her hair, tangling it.

Of course he did. Hugo hadn't seemed keen on the idea from the beginning, so it's not much of a surprise to me that he's reconsidering now. "He's probably still at work. I'll call him."

Sure enough, once I've gotten through the switchboard, he picks up his office phone. "Hello?"

"Hugo, did you really not take me seriously earlier? My driver's at your apartment waiting to pick you up."

He sighs heavily. "Geoff..."

"No, Hugo. You agreed to three days, and I'm holding you to that. I'm going to have Roberto call me once he's gotten you both in the car, and then you're coming straight here. Got it?"

"Fine, fine, I'm leaving now." I hear his chair squeak as he gets up.

"Good. You'd better. We're worried about you, Hugo. This is to keep you safe, you know."

"Okay," he says, with finality. No "thank you" yet. Then he hangs up. I tip my head back and bump it against the wall. We wouldn't have had to do this if he hadn't been so reckless. He can't take Ridley on by himself, and I know we're going to have to be the ones to do it for him.