Beth
Beth parked in front of her apartment complex. Before she got out, she removed her cell phone from her purse and hit a button to light up the screen, in case anyone was watching. Then she typed a quick message, stepped out of the car, held the phone up over her head, and cleared her throat.
“Butler, if you or any of your dickheads are here waiting for me, you should know I just typed out a text to 9-1-1,” she announced loudly. “I guarantee I'll be able to hit the button before you take me down, and then the cops will know exactly whose door to come knocking on. Now, do you want to come at me, or do you want to fuck off? I'll wait.”
She looked around, waiting for them to emerge from the shadows and attack her. No one did.
A boy and a girl—both young enough to be in the early years of grade school—were playing with dolls and action figures in front of one of the other buildings. They looked at her, wide-eyed.
“Lady, you just said a swear,” the boy said.
“Two of them,” the girl chimed in solemnly. “The D-word and the F-word. My mommy told me that it's bad to say those words.”
Beth chuckled to herself ruefully. “Your mommy's right.”
“Then why did you say them, then?” the girl asked, tilting her head.
“Because I make lots of bad decisions. So listen to your mommy, okay? Don't be like me. I suck.”
The boy gasped. “Now she's said the S-word.”
“That's not the S-word, stupid,” the girl replied prissily. “I know what the S-word is. I've heard it lots of times.”
They returned to their toys, dispassionately arguing over which of them was more stupid.
Beth shook her head, proceeding to the front door of the complex. She wondered if either of the kids had ever seen the inside of a prison. She hoped not. She hoped they never would. She hoped they'd stay young forever, and never make the kinds of awful choices she and Hank had made to get where they were today.
When she stepped into the first-floor hallway, she awkwardly unlocked her mail box with one hand, keeping the phone in her other hand. The box was mostly crammed with junk mail, but there was a folded blue post-it note on top of the heap. She took it out and opened it, immediately recognizing Bib's handwriting: “Don't Freak Out – I'm In Your Apt. -B.”
I'm starting to feel like I'm in a spy movie, Beth thought. Fake IDs, secret messages...
She left the junk mail in the box so she could keep her phone at the ready as she went up the stairs to her apartment. When she tried the door, it was unlocked. She put the phone in sleep mode and slipped it back into her pocket, walking in.
Bib was sitting in the dark again, waiting for her. “Did you get my note?”
“I did. Thank you. At this point, I think another surprise like last time would take about twenty years off my life.”
Bib nodded, pulling a creased envelope from the back pocket of his jeans. “Everything's taken care of. I set you up under the name 'Elizabeth Laszlo.' You've got a birth certificate, Social Security number, driver's license, the whole deal. Should hold up to scrutiny, as long as you don't try running for office or anything. Now come on, let's get you over to Nebraska. I got in touch with some guys out there in McCook—they'll keep an eye on you, make sure you stay safe.”
Beth hesitated, thinking of everything that had happened that day.
“What the hell's wrong?” Bib asked. “I said come on, let's go. The sooner we're on the road, the sooner you can get settled into your new place and put all this crap behind you.”
“I can't do it,” she answered quietly.
“You can, and you will. I don't know where this shit's coming from, but you gotta know I'm not gonna let my niece stick around here when her life's in danger.”
“I'm not the only one in danger, Bib. Hank is too, and so are the rest of the Warriors in Bluebonnet. I can't just run away from them. Not when I can still help them.”
“There's nothing you can do for them by staying,” Bib insisted. “I keep telling you, they're tough guys. Until I figure out a way to get shit under control again, they can look after themselves.”
“You're wrong. I saved Hank's life today. The Aryans set him up to get killed by the Sinners in the showers, and I fought them off. All four of them. If it weren't for me, he'd be dead now.”
Bib let out a low whistle. “Jesus. Really? Four of them? All by yourself?”
“Damn right. And tomorrow I'll take on fourteen, or forty, or four hundred, or however many more of those assholes they send after him. What I won't do is leave Hank to be butchered, with no one there to look after him. So if you want to try to carry me out of here and toss me in your trunk like you said before, hey, take your shot. I already put down four guys as big as you today, so I like my odds.”
Bib let out a long sigh which ended in a weary laugh. “Goddamn. You are just like your mother was, you know that? Same damn mouth on you, with a spine of solid steel to back it up. But please, I'm begging you, okay? Don't do this. Don't make me stand by and watch you die. Not when all this shit is my fault to begin with. Let me make it right.”
“If I were one of the guys in the club, you wouldn't talk to me like this,” Beth said. “If I were your Sergeant-at-Arms and I told you this was something I had to do, you'd respect that and you wouldn't try to talk me out of it.”
“But you ain't no Sergeant-at-Arms.”
“No, I'm not. I'm the one who protected Hank while your Sergeant-at-Arms stood aside with his thumb up his ass because some Nazi told him to.”
Bib pinched the bridge of his nose, frustrated. “At least tell me you've got a plan.”
“Right now, my plan is to keep Hank alive and safe. I was trying to come up with a way to help him escape, but so far, I haven't thought of anything that will work. There are too many guards and cameras on every entrance and exit. There has to be a way, though. And if I come up with one, I'll need another set of fake papers from you for Hank to use.”
“Okay, but you'd better think of something fast. This open-ended shit doesn't sit well with me, and the longer you're there, the more the noose is gonna tighten around your neck.”
“Believe me, I don't want to be in that fuckhole for a minute longer than I need to,” Beth assured him. “As soon as I see any opening at all, Hank and I are gone. How about you? Have you thought of anything?”
Bib's face tightened almost imperceptibly. “Not yet.”
Beth could see how hard it was for him to admit this—how powerless he felt. She kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Uncle Bib.”
“I love you too, Bethie. And I can see how much you love Hank, too. If you guys make it out of there alive, I hope you get a chance to show him how much. Now get some rest. I've got a couple of the guys outside to keep an eye on the place in case Butler or his guys show up.”
“Really? I didn't see any Warriors out there.”
Bib winked. “See? That's how good they are.”
They embraced, and Bib left. Beth took off her clothes and slipped into bed, grateful for the chance to finally rest after a day of extreme emotional and physical stress. She was so tired that she felt like she could sleep for two weeks straight.
But each time she started to doze off, she felt an intense pressure on her bladder and ended up running to the bathroom to pee. The first few times annoyed her—she couldn't stop watching the hours tick by on the clock, counting off how much time she had left before she'd have to get up and go back into work. Still, she supposed it was probably a nervous reaction to everything she'd been through that day.
Then, when she came back to bed after the fourth bathroom trip, she noticed a few spots of blood on the sheet where she'd been lying down.
She realized she hadn't been keeping track of her periods for the past few months. She'd been too worried about Hank after he'd been arrested, and then she'd been too busy completing her training as a corrections officer, and then she'd been too stressed about taking orders from Bull, and then, and then...
Beth sat down hard on the bed, thinking about the faces of the children outside and wondering if she was about to have one of her own. The thought seemed distant, unreal, especially in the middle of everything else she was dealing with—like a flying saucer suddenly appearing over a battlefield.
She'd need to take a test the next day. She'd need to be sure.
But if it turned out that she was pregnant, what then?