Right now, all Grace wanted was a nice, peaceful sleep. In her home, without worrying about fascist militants, and over reasonable, night-time hours. Preferable for no less than 12 hours, waking up naturally and feeling well rested.

Waking up tied to a chair in the middle of who knows where with a bunch of scary men and guns around her? Not ideal.

Grace's chin rested on her chest, and as she slowly regained consciousness, she could feel a throbbing on the back of her head. She blinked several times, but everything was out of focus.

Her arms were wrapped around the back of a chair, and something cut into her wrists. She twisted her hands, but couldn't move. They were bound, and they were bound tightly. Grace doubted she could wiggle out of them.

Someone tossed a bucket of water over her, forcing her head up and eyes open. She flinched away from the liquid, but she found her legs were tied to the chair as well.

Five men stood around her, four armed, one with a now empty bucket.

"I'm honored," Grace rasped. "You clearly all think highly of my ability to escape. Really, five of you?" It was all bravado. In reality, Grace felt like her insides were melting with fear.

"You've pulled enough Houdini acts that we want to be careful." Another man entered the tent, and the other five took a few steps back. So this was the boss.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The boss man in charge chuckled. "Yes. Yes, you do. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Grace kept her lips pressed tightly together.

"Alright," the boss man said. "Let's see. You lied and used fake identification papers to cross the border in. You escaped from a farmhouse just on the other side of the border, an escape that somehow included a car chase. A car which you then crashed. Then you got from one major Underground base to another completely undetected. And then you made it all the way to our southern border, escaping direct capture, and got across impersonating our men. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was more than that."

Grace was secretly relieved that he didn't know about her first trip into the central valley, but it also chilled her to the bone that he knew so much about her movements this time around. How could he know her exact movements?

"And yes, I'm sure you'll deny all of this," he continued. "But I don't care. We both know it's true. And we both know that you have a particular skill set, a skill set that would benefit me."

"I'm not giving you anything," Grace spat. Her hands were balled into fists behind her back, her fingernails digging into her palms. "So you can fuck off."

"I expected nothing less," the boss man said. "I imagine you need a rather thick skin to survive what you've gone through. But, given that you aren't going anywhere anytime soon, I would appreciate if you would shut up." His voice grew hard with his final words, and he gave Grace a piercing glare.

She swallowed hard. As pissed off as she was, staying quiet was, for the moment, the smart move.

"Wonderful." He returned to his more relaxed demeanor. "You can find things. You can get things. And you make a pretty good thief. This, we know."

"I pay for what I find." Apparently, Grace's pledge to silence wasn't going to be very affective. "I don't steal."

"You don't steal, usually," the boss man corrected her. "We both know you have, and we both know you're good at it."

Grace just stared at him, but she didn't deny it. They both knew he was right, but Grace dreaded what he wanted from her.

"It's very difficult to run things here." His voice took on an air of victimhood. It made Grace want to throw up. "We require so many different materials and supplies that are not readily available, and it's only becoming harder and harder to find things as time passes by."

"Maybe you should retire," Grace suggested. "Close things down, go fishing, stop being a literal Nazi, that sort of thing."

The man smiled. And then he punched her across her face. "I thought I told you to be quiet."

Grace coughed and spit out a bit of blood onto the floor.

"Anyway, as I was saying." The boss man continued on as if there had never been an interruption. "We need supplies. We know where the supplies are. We just need someone to steal it for us."

"You're telling me that in this whole fucking place of lunatics there's no one you can find to steal some supplies for you?"

This time it was a slap. Less blood, more sting.

"We need someone disposable," the boss man said coldly. "And that's what you are."

"And here I thought we valued each other."

"Oh, I do value you." The man sat down, facing her. "I would like you to make it back alive, but I just don't care if you don't."

"Look, I think you know what I think of you." By some weird twist of logic, Grace was getting less scared as time went by. Maybe she was just too angry to be terrified. "And I think you know my answer is no. But I'll humor you. What do you want?"

The boss man considered her offer. "Well, I disagree. I think your answer will be yes. But I appreciate your straightforwardness." He held out his hand and one of the guards put a piece of paper in his hand. "It's simple, really." He held out the list for Grace to read.

"Guns, ammo, ooh grenades." There wasn't much imagination to the list at all. "Batteries, Kevlar, bigger batteries, gasoline, barbed wire..." she trailed off. "Well, do tell where you think I'd be able to find all of this stuff. In one place. And then there's the matter of how I would carry it all back with me."

"You'll find it at the border."

"What border?"

"The Nevada border."

Holy shit. "You're delusional." Grace expected another hit, but he just looked at her mildly. "No one ever goes to the border and comes back."

"Then how do you know I'm delusional?" the boss man countered. "Do you know what's there?"

"So just to clarify," Grace said, her head spinning with the idea of something being at the border but not wanting to show it, "you want me to go to the state border where there's apparently a weapons cash, steal a bunch of stuff for you to continue terrorizing the central valley, somehow carry it all out, and then just hand it over? And then expect you to not kill me afterward?"

"In a nutshell, yes."

"Uh, no."

"Expected." The boss man got up. "And I'm guessing you've already run through all of the threats we could make, torture, death, all of that, and gave your answer regardless of all of that, yes?"

Grace nodded, not trusting herself to keep her voice steady.

"As to be expected." He looked down at the list of materials. "You know, we don't just need large batteries for lights and generators and such," he said. "We also need small ones. For things like this." From under his jacket, he pulled a small radio.

"The major towns use them to communicate," he informed her. "Makes things easier than just normal mail."

For some reason, Grace was getting extremely nervous. She had a feeling he had a motive for giving this specific example.

"When you escaped that prison just a few days ago, when your friend was almost executed, you were given help." He put the radio down on a small table, directly in Grace's line of sight. "There are resistance spies everywhere, we know that. We even know who some of them are, we just let them be until a good opportunity presents itself to eliminate them.

"But you see, we also have spies. And each one carries one of these." He gestured to the radio. "Of course, to keep their cover, we can't be the first to communicate with them. We can only talk when they contact us."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"The only time we would communicate with our spies first is when we're prepared to blow their cover. And in this case, given the necessity of getting these items, that is something we would be prepared to do."

"Whose cover?" A pit was growing in Grace's stomach.

"In all of your travels, you weren't alone," the boss man said. "And you were looking for someone in particular, that's correct?"

Grace's hands started to tremble. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn't bring herself to say the words. She just stared at the man with mute terror.

"Are you dumb enough to think we didn't have a spy in Underground 109?" the boss man asked.

Grace's mind flashed through all of the people she met at 109. She couldn't see any of them, not even Paul, betraying the group like that.

The boss man seemed to read her mind. "That's because despite how messed up you are, you're still good at heart. After all, you came all this way to help someone you didn't know find someone who meant nothing to you." He paused. "You have figured out why the Ocean Train came this way, right?"

At this point, he was just goading her. "We paid them off, of course," the boss man told her. "We wanted some extra labor, they wanted extra money, it's simple really."

It was the explanation that made the most sense, but it still made Grace's insides turn as he said it. "But yes, back to the point," the boss man continued. "There is a spy, and right now, he's with your friends. Hunter and Anna, correct? A lovely brother and sister, reunited at long last?"

It was like the blood in Grace's veins froze. "Who is it?" she asked.

"Don't you have a guess?"

"Who is it?" Grace repeated. She didn't want to guess.

"I think you actually spent a little time with him." He gave a tight smile. "His name's Charlie."
"You're lying."

He picked up the radio. "Do you really want to test that theory?"

"You expect me to believe that Charlie would kill two people in cold blood?" Grace couldn't wrap her head around it. He was a respected member of Underground 109. He had been kind to her, listened to her. It just didn't make sense.

"Over these past few years, he's done a lot worse than that," the boss man said. "And he follows orders."

Grace didn't know what to say. Her head was spinning, and not just because of the lump that was forming on the back of it. The longer she thought about it, the more it made sense. Charlie would have known exactly what Grace and Hunter had gone through to get to 109. But he wouldn't have necessarily known about Grace's first trip into the central valley. The only two people who for sure knew that were Paul and Yesenia.

"So, do you change your answer?"

"How do I know you're not lying to me?" Grace challenged. Her voice shook, but she was beyond caring at this point.

"You don't," the boss man said. "The only way you'll know that is if I make the call over this radio. But then your friends are dead." He leaned down over Grace, putting his hands on the arms of her chair. "Are you willing to risk it? Are you willing to risk Charlie putting a bullet through Hunter's head? Driving a knife into Anna's heart?"

Grace felt sick. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But none of that would help her now.

He stood up straight and picked up the radio. "One last chance. Or else your friends are dead."

Grace stared at the radio. His thumb hovered over the call button.

"Alright," she blurted out as his finger twitched to make the call. Panic gripped her, but the words came out, anyway. "Alright, I'll do it."

The man smiled and put down the radio. "Like I said, I knew your answer would be yes." He pulled out a knife and cut through Grace's bindings. "We have some work to do."

She had just signed her very own death certificate.