Lanie found herself wishing she was back in Qalcad, facing down raiders and gunfire and explosions rather than spend one more minute having dinner with her son.

She leaves him for the other side of the tiered circle of stone benches surrounding the big open fire pit. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to follow her. Mickey’s already roasting some marshmallows among the throng of people with long sticks.

Cursing more savagely now, Lanie stepped toward him. This was not the meeting she’d envisioned between the two of them. And at the same time, now that it was happening, she felt an inexplicable dark mood settle over her.

She turned on the most plaintive look she could muster. Soon, she’d fill him on her plans, but right now she had to find a way to get the pounding out of her head. “I need to kill something, Jake. If I don’t, this stress is going to do me in.”

It was quiet now. Holding her breath, she peered around the corner, and despite her best efforts and preparation for the worst, she was so wired and strung out from all that had happened yesterday that she couldn’t help but scream when she saw the hulking mass of man on her couch. Without thinking any further, she fired.

She didn’t remember how she got there, but she knocked on the open door of room 245. Only one bed was occupied. The woman was covered in bandages, and the places that didn’t have bandages were bruised and swollen. She was plugged into almost every wire and tube in existence. Lanie was still staring when Susan’s eyes slit open.

Now, he cocked his head at her. The light grey of his shirt tamped down the brightness of his eyes, darkening them to rainclouds.  They were dilating now, and widened with surprised curiosity. “Do you think I’d submit to you?”

“Ben, if you won’t let me look, you should let the Chief. Someone has to assess you. Or do you want me to take you to the hospital?” Although McGuinness says it gently, Ben flinches as though he’s been offered a trip to the morgue

This morning, while her other daughters slept, the mother made two shrouds. One for her child, one as a donation for a future corpse. Or maybe she wishes she could use it for herself.

“I think he’s stupid. He doesn’t stop to think about what would happen to him, and he puts the burden on everyone else to look out for him, and patch him up, and save him.”

His lungs were filled with razors. His head was a balloon about to burst. His whole body was agony, and a tiredness as heavy as an elephant lay on him.

She pressed against him, making him moan and kiss her deeper, playing his tongue in her mouth. For a moment, she pulled away. “B,” she whispered against him. “Touch me. I need you to – ”  

“The last time I saw him, we had a minor disagreement about methods for disciplining a seven-week old baby.”