^^Above, chapter title credit: Song by Echo & the Bunnymen.^^

{Raina}

Felicia shoves a foot under Hugo's shoulder and rolls him over. With a start I notice how thin he is, hollows visible under his ribs and his collarbones. I knew this whole thing with Ridley had been stressful, but I wouldn't have been able to guess what it had been doing to him, how it had eaten away at him like this. He'd probably been looking over his shoulder at all hours, just waiting for someone to leap out and grab him.

"You'll notice we haven't tried to kill him yet," Felicia says, with a condescending tone to her voice. "We wanted information out of him first."

"A journalist never gives up his sources."

She looks over at Pascal, looming in the dark, and jerks her chin towards me. He lumbers over and punches me, point-blank, in the face. The hit knocks my chair over, and my head cracks against the floor. There's two of him as he picks the chair up again, setting it solidly back down.

"Told you we shoulda bolted it down," he growls.

"A small inconvenience," Felicia says, and I can tell she's clearly annoyed. "Now tell me, Raina, how was Mr. Thomas here getting all his stories, if it wasn't from you?"

I spit blood out of my mouth, flicking a glare at Pascal. "Ask him."

She crosses her arms, stopping him from coming at me again with a look. "Dominic?"

"I don't know anything, Fee, honest."

"You don't?" I don't know what makes me do it, but I know it's crazy. And a gamble on my life, probably. "Well, here's what I know, then. You and dear Dom here have a baby together. He's on the sex-offender registry to prove it, because he raped you, Felicia. You've never been able to forgive him for it, which is perfectly understandable. But instead of trying to turn your hate and anger into something for good, you've turned to evil instead. You got into Geoff's head, making him think I wasn't good enough for him. You got close to Ridley, giving him power he wasn't supposed to have in the first place. You went to Banks and Wigmore, convincing them that they were working for a greater good. But as soon as Ridley was in office, you were going to sell them out."

"I did no such thing," Felicia snaps. "And if I did, you have no proof."

"But I do." I indicate Hugo. "You'd do anything to protect your baby, wouldn't you? Motherhood does that to you. You were going to gain Ridley's confidence so that once he won the election, he'd ensure safety, security, and immunity to his allies. By default, that was you and your baby. So you offer to become his campaign manager, and initiate the mudslinging against his opponent. Hugo's very good at what he does, Felicia. He was interested in this campaign long before this. Possibly it was when we first got wind of it, over a year ago. He was willing to go deeper than any reporter has before and take the campaign down from the inside."

"He won't be doing it for much longer," she says, but her voice is different. She almost sounds afraid. "Once we're done with him."

"But you wanted information, remember? Information that only he can provide. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd asked someone close to you and to Ridley to dig into everything without you noticing. Someone who you wouldn't even think would betray your confidence. Someone who, until now, just wanted to see you gloat for a little while before pulling the rug out from underneath you."

"Yeah? And who's that?" Pascal barks, his fists balling up again.

"Do you really want the answer to that question?" says a deep gravelly voice. Another bull of a man steps into the light, dressed head-to-toe in a shiny black suit with flashes of electricity arcing across it. Even his face is covered.

"Who are you?" Pascal begins to back up, and it's almost comical how scared he looks now.

"I think Violet Storm over there would know exactly who I am," says the super, his head turning in Felicia's direction.

"Never Mind," Felicia says grudgingly, almost like the words were pulled from her. "Howard. Never thought I'd see you back in costume."

"And I'm surprised you're not," says Eckles. "If you and Ridley weren't the Destructive Duo, this could be called a farce."

"Watch them," Felicia snaps at Pascal. Then she turns back to Eckles. "Let's take this outside, Howard, shall we?"

"Gladly," says Eckles.

When they leave, Pascal exhales visibly, his rough-and-tough attitude back. He sneers at me as he passes, disappearing off into the darkness to stand guard.

Hugo groans, his head rolling loosely on his neck. I see his fingers twitch, and his eyelids flutter.

"Hugo!" I hiss.

His eyes pop open, startled. He blinks a couple times, his blurry expression evaporating. "Raina?"

"I hate to ask this of you, because you just woke up, but...you think you can get this tape off?"

"Yeah." He sits up, rubbing his neck, and then he crawls over to me, starting with my ankles. "Where are we?"

"No idea." I check for Pascal, but so far, no sign of him. "But Felicia's here, and so is Pascal."

"Saw him." Hugo frees one ankle, and moves on to the other. "He knocked me out."

"Eckles is here too," I say, with a rush of relief followed by a rush of guilt. "In his super suit. I don't think I've ever seen it before."

"You'll have to show me," Hugo says, finished with my ankles now. He scoots over to my wrist. "So how are we getting out of here, anyway?"

"Just give me a few minutes, and I'll think of something."

≈

As soon as I'm freed, rubbing my wrists to get the feeling back into them, I inch over to the lamp and turn it off. Hugo starts to protest, but I have to grab his hand tightly to keep him quiet.

"What are you doing?" he whisper-hisses at me.

"Trying to figure out where we are," I whisper back. "Quiet for a second."

Then I pick my way over to the window, sticking my face out into the cold air. At least twenty stories below me is the street, the traffic gridlocked for three blocks. I take a risk in checking the other direction. Snow's starting to come down, and I feel the flakes landing on my skin. We're not even near the top – there's probably fifteen or twenty stories above us too.

"Any luck?" Hugo says when I duck back inside.

"We're going to have to try to get past Pascal." I wish we had something heavier than the lamp, but maybe together we can take him out. "Think you're up for it?"

I wonder right away if that's a stupid question. Neither of us is dressed for the weather, nor are we wearing shoes. Not to mention my head's throbbing where I hit it on the ground and where Pascal hit me, clouding my thoughts. And Hugo's so thin it looks like he might snap right across the middle.

"I think we can do it," he says, to my surprise.

I have to think fast. We're going to have to work fairly seamlessly to make it out of here alive. One of us is going to have to distract him while the other tries to find an escape route. If that doesn't work, we'll just have to ambush him. And as I expected, Hugo's in favor of the second option. Two against one, he thinks, but Pascal's big enough that he could take on four people our size and still beat us.

"You get him from the front, then, and I'll get him from the back," Hugo says. "Simple."

"I just hope you're right," I say, and that's all I'm willing to give him.

My eyes are pretty accustomed to the dark now, and I can see we're in a construction zone, the metal skeletons of walls in a maze around us. But beyond them, along the far wall, I can see faint light coming through clouded glass, and a large, broad-shouldered shape behind it. It's Pascal.

"Follow me," I say to Hugo. "And stay quiet."

We creep closer, our bare feet making no noise except for the faint rustling of the sheets of plastic taped to the floor. There's a faint boom from above, and I have a feeling I know what that is: Eckles and Felicia are finally slugging it out.

When we get to the glass, I press my back up against it and wait. Hugo does the same, but it doesn't take long for him to talk.

"What are we waiting for?" he whispers.

I put my finger to my lips and nod. We're close to the door, one of those solid glass slabs that can swing either way. I take one step forward, and then two, keeping Hugo from following me with a hand out. If I can get Pascal away from the door, Hugo can get him from behind.

I take a deep breath, wrapping my hand around the door handle. Here goes.

Pascal doesn't see me at first, because he's picking at his nails and hardly paying attention. I slip out completely, finding myself in an office space. The entire room's filled with desks, grouped in fours.

"Dominic," I say, stopping in front of him.

His head pops up, and immediately his eyes narrow. "Hey, how'd you...?"

I don't let him finish. As soon as he starts coming at me I curl a fist and aim a punch at his face. My knuckles hit something soft, and he grunts, which means my aim was good. But he recovers quickly, grabbing my wrist and twisting it around. My entire arm screams with pain and I yelp, unable to move for a second. Then my instinct kicks in and I stamp on his foot, letting my heel take most of the force. He growls with pain and releases my arm, instead going for my neck. His large hand wraps around it before I have time to block it, and he slams me down on top of a desk. My vision blurs and my ears roar as I struggle for breath, trying to pry his hand away. I can't, though. He's too strong for me.

"Shoulda finished you a long time ago, you little b—"

Then there's a thud and he lurches sideways, his grip jerking away. I collapse to the ground, seeing him staggering away with his hand held to his head above his ear. Hugo's there, brandishing a short section of rebar that he must have taken from the construction site.

"You want to finish that sentence? Huh?" Hugo's eyes are blazing, and his grip is so tight his knuckles are white. "Come at me, Pascal."

And like a bull, Pascal does, lowering his head and plowing towards Hugo. At the last second, Hugo jumps out of the way and trips him, so he goes sprawling across the floor. I pull myself to my feet, going over to Pascal and pinning him down by his neck.

"Listen to me very carefully, Pascal. This ends tonight, you hear me? You and Felicia and Ridley are all going down. And if one of you shows your face around our city again, so help me God I will sic my husband on you. Got that?"

He growls, and makes to get up, but I force him down again even though it makes my shoulder protest.

"Hugo, that wastebasket over there, please."

Hugo scuttles over to get it, and then back to hand it to me.

"By the time you wake up, we'll be long gone."

Then I whack Pascal in the temple with it, as hard as possible. Instantly his body goes limp. I drop the wastebasket and slump backward, into the desk. I can feel the blood pounding through the bump on my head, and when I reach up to touch it, my fingers come away bloody.

"Raina." Hugo kneels down next to me. "We should go, before he wakes up."

That sentence is punctuated by another boom, louder this time, and the lights flicker.

"Yeah, you're right." I take his hand and he helps me stand, and for a beat we don't speak, glancing from Pascal's body to each other. "You think we should tie him up?"

Hugo nods. "I think we've earned that right."

≈

The elevators aren't working at this time of night, so Hugo and I take the stairs. Occasionally we have to stop and listen, just in case Felicia had other guys guarding the exits. But there's nothing, except for the fight still going strong on the roof.

"So I was thinking..." Hugo says as we hit level six, our legs burning from all the stairs. "What should we name the baby?"

I give him an incredulous glance over my shoulder. "That's what you've been thinking about all this time?"

"I mean...Aisha won't do it. I don't even think she likes being pregnant."

"Right." Unfortunate, really, but I couldn't really say much. I'd already done it twice.

"You and Geoff seem to love having your kids around. I'm afraid Aisha's not going to."

"Here's the thing, Hugo." I stop at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the rail. "I didn't want to be pregnant the first time it happened, and I was nineteen. But as soon as Ettie was born, I forgot about all of that. She's so smart and fearless. She has so much personality, even when she was tiny, I barely thought about what it was like before her. A kid fills up your life, even though you don't realize it, not until they come. So don't worry about Aisha. She'll come to it on her own terms."

There's another loud noise from the roof, this time a dangerously close crack. The lights flicker and go out, replaced soon after with the backup ones. Hugo and I exchange a look, and right away I know what he's thinking, because it's the same thought in my mind.

Run.

≈

The skin on my face and the bottoms of my feet are numb by the time we stop, at West 50th. Now it occurs to me we were somewhere between the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Plaza, but I'd been too occupied with trying to escape to pinpoint it. Hugo's bundled in Pascal's leather jacket, but he's in worse condition than me, his lips blue and his knees knocking together. We duck into the lobby of the Winter Garden Theatre, where a play's in progress. I can hear the applause from the auditorium nearby.

"Excuse me, sir, ma'am?" An usher, dressed in a vest and bow tie, hurries over. "Are you all right?"

"We'll be fine, just..." I can't stop shivering. Even rubbing my arms vigorously doesn't help. "We'll be just a second..."

"Do I need to call an ambulance?" he asks, concerned.

"No, we just need..."

Hugo keels over, out cold.

"He may need one, actually." I try to control my shivering long enough to get my next sentence out. "Do you have some spare clothes? There's something I have to do."

Seconds later, I'm in the bathroom, peeling off my dress and pulling on his spare sweatshirt and jeans. They're much too big for me, especially the jeans, but I cinch the belt as tight as it goes and call it good. His snow boots are a relief to my cold feet after hours of no shoes.

When I finally emerge, Hugo's being loaded into the ambulance at the curb. I think of his innocent question back in the stairwell – What should we name the baby? – and wonder if he took what the conversation was really getting at to heart.

"Hey." The same usher's running back over to me, flummoxed and concerned. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," I say, hoping he doesn't ask about the blood crusting my hair. My head's stopped bleeding for the moment, but my thoughts are still fairly foggy. "Thank you."

"Glad I could help," he says, offering his hand. "I'm Terry, by the way. Terence."

"Raina." I give him his handshake.

"You look familiar," he says. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"

I know exactly what he's talking about. We'd made the front page when Ridley blew up the company benefit – it was a press shot, of Geoff in his black dinner jacket and bow tie and me in my dress, jewelry, and heels. It didn't even look like us. I didn't recognize us, at least, and I begin to think that maybe Eckles was right. All of this dressing up and acting like we support each other was a front. A farce, he'd said.

"I just have one of those faces," I say quickly. "Nice meeting you, Terence."

Then I leave the theater without another look back. I didn't like being recognized on the street, like some sort of minor celebrity.

A loud boom, like a bomb exploding, stops me in my tracks. A plume of flame, taller than the buildings, lights up the darkness. It's coming from the direction of Central Park, and only one thought crosses my mind before I take off, at a clopping jog: Geoff's in trouble.