They dressed quickly in the room, though Angelica remained quiet. Taylor didn’t press her but watched her with concern as she dug around and found a pair of jeans and a soft t-shirt. Comfortable things. Things she only wore when she was desperately homesick. She needed time to process everything. She only wished they had the luxury of time to do just that. He sighed a little when he looked at her and bent to tie his running shoes. She was glad that he’d stuffed the sneakers in his bag. She guessed they were for times when bootlaces might prove problematic.

She looked at her own feet and grabbed for sneakers as well.

In the meantime he was worried about her, but gentleman enough to give her the space she so desperately needed right now. When they were both dressed it was she who reached for him, placing a warm hand on his arm.

“Durand,” she said quietly. It was hard to look at him. Even despite South America it was hard to come to grips with this side of him. “I was going to let him live.”

Taylor nodded once. He knew.

Of course, given a choice, she’d keep them all alive despite the fact that they’d done terrible things. She was also able to acknowledge that some things weren’t just practical. Or even advisable. But it didn’t make the decisions any easier. Or living with the consequences of those actions.

She bit her lip, her head coming up so that he could see the things that haunted her eyes. “He would have killed me, wouldn’t he?”

“Both of us,” Taylor agreed.

“And he would have found the children again.” She shook her head, her stomach knotting. “Taylor, I still believe in the sanctity of life. I’m just not sure I’m a very good judge of it.”

“I believe, too.” Taylor smiled. It broke her heart to see how sad the smile was. “But my life, your life, those children’s lives matter, too. And those kids will see tomorrow because Durand is dead.”

She lowered her eyes and made one of the most difficult confessions she’d ever made. “I’m beginning to understand. I don’t want to. I want to go back to my innocence when I could be so sure that I was justified in my actions, and all people would be reasonable. I want to go back to my unshakable... to where I was so proud to be a healer, to where I felt so smug curing people and not hurting them. When did the world become so evil?” She shuddered.

He took her in his arms and pressed her to his chest. “When this is all over,” he said to her, his chin resting on the top of her head, “I’m treating us to the best hotel this country has to offer.”

She caught a laugh and choked it back down. “That might run into as much as twenty bucks, you know.”

“Hell, I’m good for it.”

She smiled though it was hard to do, and nodded once as she pulled back to really look at him. “We need to find Melinda,” she said, patting his chest. “But I can’t kill her, Taylor. I can’t.”

“That’s okay.”

He said it with another of those damned sad smiles that she was beginning to hate seeing. But he can. That’s what he means. He can kill. He’s had to. He may have to again. You need to reevaluate things, girl. You don’t have your safe little life anymore. You entered the real world. She looked at him, the love in his eyes, the sadness that lurked behind the happiness. But this is where he is. Where else would I be?

They went through the room, throwing things into a bag in case they had to run or change again. One change of clothing each. In her underwear drawer, Angelica found a surprise. “TAYLOR!”

He ran to her side. Both pistols were in the drawer, reassembled, cleaned, ammo already in the clips beside them.

“Franco,” Taylor said, and his tone was positively gleeful as he inspected the weapons.

“Wait. Franco was in my underwear drawer?” She looked hard at Taylor. “Ew! Why couldn’t he have left them in your underwear?”

Taylor looked at her for a long moment. “Ew!” he said and handed her a gun. She shook her head but took it, tucking it into the back of her belt as he showed her. Thankfully he still had the butt holster, which helped a great deal after he adjusted it to fit her slender waist.

They left the room, leaving behind months of her living there, and headed to the clinic. Did Melinda even know they’d escaped? Had she heard that Franco was in the hospital? She hoped the woman was on her rounds and too busy to realize what was happening elsewhere.

This time of night, there weren’t a lot of people around. By sheer luck she stumbled across one of their newer volunteers, a young woman from Sweden who’d only just joined them. Someone who very likely hadn’t discovered any secret alliances just yet or gotten involved in any conspiracies.

Hopefully.

“Dr. Johns?” The nurse shrugged. “Yeah, she’s around. I take it her surgery didn’t go well.”

“Another one?” Taylor looked at Angelica, who shook her head.

“Do you know where she’s doing her rounds?” Angelica asked the orderly, mind already racing. She knew, then, that they’d escaped. She had to.

“Strange thing. She wanted to go out into the camp and look for people there. It’s late, they’re all asleep; it really isn’t safe.”

Taylor turned and ran. The door to the clinic slammed shut behind him. Angelica delayed only long enough to thank the girl before disappearing right after him.

“Split up,” he said when she joined him outside. “I’ll go around to the left and follow that edge of the camp. You take the other path and we’ll meet on the far side. If you get there before me, WAIT.”

Angelica nodded and headed in the direction he’d pointed.

The camp was quiet. Dawn wasn’t far off but the people within the tents were still sleeping, though not as deeply as they would have an hour before. Because the night was warm, the sides of the tents were rolled up to let the air through, though the cots themselves were hidden behind mosquito netting, their inhabitants no more than dark shapes that murmured or snored in the darkness.

My senses are sharper.

Angelica paused once to listen, hearing the deep breathing of a woman sleeping a dozen feet away. How she knew it was a woman who slept she didn’t understand. How she could hear so many things, see so clearly even though the night was dark, with only a sliver of moon, she didn’t understand. The human side of her had been changed, too, in some subtle way.

Am I even still human? If not, then what am I?

It wasn’t time to worry about such things. She had a mission. She set her reluctant feet back in motion, forcing her tired body to keep going though she’d already been running all night.

She was partway around her circle when a shape detached from a cot. Angelica faded back into the shadows and watched as Melinda smiled at a young woman and child. She looked for all the world like a compassionate doctor. Was she marking these two? Possible shifters for her experiments? Angelica began working her way over to her, careful to not get noticed. She looked for Taylor but couldn’t see him. People were stirring. The sun was coming up.

She’d cleared half the distance to Melinda when a voice called out, “Doctor!”

Angelica turned. An old man waved her down, one of her previous patients. His left hand was bandaged with a thick pad that was caked with dirt and filth. It needed changing. He smiled and held up his hand, gesturing to her that he wanted to talk to her.

Not now. Please not now.

Melinda also turned at the call. She saw Angelica and her eyes grew wide. She spun and tried her best to run, but in the overcrowded conditions of the camp the best she could do was sidle through the beds and crowds of people rising to start the day. Unfortunately, Angelica couldn’t do much better. Her own progress was inhibited by a line forming, refugees needing to wash, that they might go to their shared duties within the camp. Breakfast would need to be prepared. Babies woke fretting, needing to be fed, to be changed.

Life. The camp was so incredibly full of life.

Angelica had made rounds through the camps once each day. Since Melinda was a surgeon she wasn’t as well known in the camps, and that was the deciding factor in the slow, bizarre footrace that followed. Angelica was stopped several times, people asking for advice, for fresh linen, for anything. Angelica was known, approachable. Melinda was nearly at the entrance to the camp.

“Angelica!” It was Taylor, just coming into view. Angelica raised her arm and pointed in the direction of Melinda’s retreating back. Taylor raised his hand over his eyes and scanned the camp. He didn’t seem able to find her in the crowd. His expression was strange. Mystified. Worried.

We lost her!

Suddenly Taylor ran. But he took off in the wrong direction.

It occurred to her that he was taking to the periphery of the camp, running the fence where few people were and making good time. She threaded her way back again and nearly caught up with him as he ran past.

Angelica followed, forcing her tired body into a hard run as soon as she was able.

She didn’t get far.

“Doctor Truman!” Manchester called out, waving for her to join him.

No. Absolutely not. I can’t have anything to do with him. She ignored him.

“DOCTOR!”

Angelica hesitated, more from habit than from any desire to respond to such brusque treatment. His face was bright red with frustration and he pointed, pointed to the ground in front of him as if she were a recalcitrant child being brought to heel.

She looked and him. Looked at Taylor’s retreating back. Looked back at Manchester, and in that moment resigned with a single raised finger. The look on Manchester’s face was worth the loss of her job.

Hell, I’ve already quit. I can’t imagine how a lion can be an acting doctor anyway. That’s got to violate some kind of sanitary guidelines at the least.

She was becoming giddy. Lightheaded from hunger and fatigue.

Melinda was still getting away.

Angelica turned and headed after Taylor. She burst out of the camp proper and headed for the administration building. She’d lost Taylor entirely; whether or not he’d lost Melinda, there was no way of knowing. But she hadn’t passed them, and the clinic was next to the administration building, so it was the most logical option.

A door slammed somewhere. Angelica followed the sound. She pelted around the corner of the building and staggered to stop. There was no one in sight, and no doors to account for what she’d heard. She looked around. The wall next to her was unbroken but for a handful of windows, all securely shut.

Cautious now, she walked slowly to the wall. Now, what? Check for hidden doors? Secret panels? She leaned against the cool brick wall and rubbed her face. The gun in her belt dug into her hip and she had to shift to release the pressure.

“Well, good morning, Dr. Truman.” Dr. Webb came around the corner of the building, a cigar clutched loosely between two fingers. “Fine time for a stroll, if I do say.”

“Dr. Webb,” Angelica turned, still trying to catch her breath, to get her bearings. He was in danger being by the building. If Melinda had a gun, or Taylor had to shift... “What are you doing out here?”

He held up the cigar. “It’s a very bad habit, I fear. You see, I got addicted some years back and, well, a doctor who smokes? Unheard of. Scandalous. So I wander off once in a while and enjoy my little slice of decadence unobserved.”

“Have you seen Melinda? Dr. Johns?”

“Oh my, yes.” Dr. Webb’s smile was distracted. Benign. “Many times.”

“I mean recently.”

“I did, now that you mention it. I have indeed.”

“Do you know where she is?” She shoved her hair back up off her sweaty forehead. Her fingers twitched a little. This is why I don’t like guns. I’m one more stupid answer away from shooting him.

“No, I don’t. But I can tell that just a few moments ago she was heading for the other entrance around this corner. In quite a hurry, too, didn’t even—”

Angelica started to go around him, but he reached out and caught her arm.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

She tried to shake him off, but his grip was surprisingly strong. “Excuse me?”

“You’re chasing her, like that super-sized reporter you’re engaged to. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You don’t really want to go after her.”

“Dr. Webb!” Angelica tried to calm her frustration. She pulled her arm again. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Look,” Dr. Webb pointed to a large tree branch that was lying on the ground nearby. Leftover, from pruning the trees back from the building. “If you would be so kind as to give me a minute.” He waddled over to it and hefted it, jamming the cigar between his teeth. His speech became harder to decipher through clenched jaws.

The stick had once been a bough from one of the common jungle growths that ranged around the building. It was four feet long and about as thick around as her fist. He picked up one end and proclaimed. “AHA! See?”

Angelica never saw the swing coming. She should have, but she didn’t. Somehow it had never occurred to her that the rather innocuous Dr. Webb would hurt her. The bough connected to her temple hard enough to crumple her to ground. She didn’t even realize she’d fallen. The second blow was almost overkill.

The ground came up to meet her and she planted her face firmly in the soft grass. Her last conscious thought was that she felt something wet dripping down her face.

Blood. Skin split. Concussion, swelling. Can cause... death.