"Did the child services people show up?" Lassa asked after the hug. Freya’s mother looked like she might fall over. Her eyes were red rimmed, with dark crescents of fatigue beneath them. She was going to have a fit when she saw a mirror.

“No,” Freya answered. It had taken all morning to bail Lassa out. Lassa hadn’t thanked her, and Freya didn’t expect she would. At least they were outside, away from the flickering fluorescent lights and the faint smell of urine that pervaded everything.

"Are you okay?"

There was a long hesitation before Freya replied.

"Yes."

"Good. I’m not coming home with you. I have to get to get cleaned up and back to the lab immediately. When child services arrive, text me. They’re going to ask you a lot of questions about whether you get enough to eat, if you feel safe, and so forth. Use the card and buy some groceries. No junk. Make sure the fridge is full."

“Okay.”

Lassa took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry I hit that stupid cow. You shouldn't have to deal with this. You've been through enough." Lassa almost never apologized, and the effort it took was plain on her face.

"It's okay."

"If that girl or anyone else hits you again, you hit them back, understand? You can't just surrender."

Freya looked at the sidewalk and didn't reply.

"Answer me," Lassa said, and there was a note of warning in her voice.

"I don't want to hit anyone," Freya said, feeling herself crumpling inside.

"You have to fight back. I am going to put you in a Krav Maga class. Very effective self-defense like we learned in the army. You can see how well it works."

"I don’t-" Freya began.

"You are going.” Lassa said, emphasizing each word.

"Do I still have to take guitar lessons?"

"Yes, and it's not have to, it's get to. You are very lucky to have Mr. Mathis. When you are older, you will be very happy you spent this time productively learning something."

Freya wanted to protest, but what good would it do? Lassa's voice had taken the sharp edge where it was pointless, even dangerous to argue. She kept her eyes on Lassa’s hands, anticipating a slap.

"Krav Maga is the same way. There are a lot of bad people in the world. People who will rob you, rape you, or even kill you if you can't defend yourself. You have to fight back."

"Can't I just have a gun?" Freya asked and, at once, she knew she'd made a mistake. Lassa would connect her thinking about a gun with Randall's Kimber. She might look in the closet and see it had been disturbed. Then Freya would have to answer questions.

Lassa gave her a look. She was just uncanny at finding things out. Part of her time in the Finnish army, she'd been an interrogator. It only came up in arguments. Lassa didn’t like to talk about it.

"Not until you're eighteen. When you're eighteen, I will pay for you to take a CCW course and get a permit. But you still have to take some kind of self-defense, and you will keep playing guitar."

Freya nodded.

"There is another thing. You will have to go see someone, too. A therapist. Probably every week."

Freya shut her eyes. She didn't want to do that.

"I know. This isn't me making you do that. The school is insisting. Hopefully, just for a month or so. Maybe it will help.” Lassa clearly didn't think it would. She loathed psychiatrists.

Freya was silent.

"The time will pass easier if it is full," Lassa said, and Freya turned her face away. Her mother clapped her hand on Freya's shoulder and pulled her into an awkward hug. It took too long for the cab to arrive and, as it pulled away, all Freya could think about was the river. She was sure she could do it the second time around.

* * *

On the ride back to Sillas, Freya considered skipping the supermarket. No matter what she bought, Lassa would complain. If Lassa was going to give her a hard time either way, why bother? But when the taxi dropped her off in front of the Black River Market, Freya knew it was a daydream. She was in the flock. She would never dare.

Still, she didn’t have to obey immediately. In a meager act of defiance, Freya walked past the supermarket to the TacoTime! on Paumanok Street. An exhausted woman in a paper hat took the order for a single taco. Freya felt guilty for wasting her time.

She dropped her change in the March of Dimes box, sat in a booth by the window, and took a single bite. Then she wasn't hungry anymore. Freya and the tired woman behind the counter were the only ones in the restaurant.

Freya sighed. She wanted to take the meteorite to school to examine it, but it seemed impossible. There would be so many eyes on her, so many questions. She opened her backpack and peeked at the bundle. She’d wrapped the metal shell in a dish towel to keep it from coming apart and rattling around.

On impulse, she unwound the meteorite and took the purple sphere out, holding it in her palm. It was hard to believe it had been in space yesterday. What did she even call it? An orb from outer space. A meteorite core. A Starball. For the thousandth time, she wished Randall were here. He’d have known what to do with this Starball.

If Freya went to Grayson, she could take a closer look. But she wasn't supposed to be at school. Mr. Farrelli ran the biology lab, and he was about the nosiest person she’d ever met. He would want to know everything about the meteorite, and if he thought it was important enough, he might even take it away from her. She didn't want to give the meteorite up. It was all she had.

Freya wondered if she could just buy a microscope. Where could you even do that? She remembered the big department store in New York City where Randall bought his telescope. It was out on 9th Avenue and run by orthodox Jews, they had to go early because the store closed at 2 PM on Fridays. She remembered the bins whizzing overhead on motorized tracks, people talking in a dozen languages, and salespeople in green vests everywhere.

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The optics department salesman was a dour man in a yarmulke, but he became animated and funny after realizing Randall was serious about buying a telescope. They'd talked for over an hour while she wandered around the store. There were bowls of sour candy everywhere. She nearly made herself sick grabbing handfuls as she wandered around looking at keyboards and microphones. Finally, Randall bought an 890mm Vixen.

It had seemed like all the money in the world, but Randall was rich. He'd won a big tournament in Vegas earlier that month, they'd driven here in his brand-new truck, and he wore the special baseball cap they’d awarded him for first place.

The cap had an embroidered eight ball on the front, with wings of golden thread. On the back it read: "STRAIGHT POOL CHAMPION - SEVEN SANDS CASINO." Some people would have kept a hat like that at home to preserve it, also because it was gaudy as hell. Randall wore it everywhere. He liked striking up conversations with people. He had a corny joke that he'd won the hat from the actual champion playing pinochle. Freya had heard him tell it a dozen times.

After Randall paid for the Vixen and arranged to have it delivered to their house. He'd taken Freya across the street to the music store. With an enormous grin, he told her she could get any instrument she wanted. Freya tried out a drum kit, a piano, an upright bass, even a harp. At last, she saw a piano-black Ovation guitar with leaf-shaped rosettes.

Instead of one big hole above the bridge, it had many small ones over the leaves. Randall pretended to be astonished at the price, but he bought it anyway, after extracting a promise she would practice hard and take lessons. Then they went to Macy's to pick out something for Lassa. Freya picked out a necklace with ruby teardrops suspended from golden chains so thin they looked like thread.

It had been such a happy day, and such an ugly aftermath. When they got back from their trip to New York, Lassa had been furious he'd spent so much. She'd made Freya go to her room, and then shouted at Randall. Freya still remembered her father’s voice through the door, patient, never rising.

It was the voice of someone who'd dealt with thousands of angry people, and it never failed to make Lassa furious she couldn’t upset him. Her voice grew louder as the argument raged. Finally, the garage door rolled up, the truck’s engine started, and then grew quieter as Randall drove away.

For a long time, Freya cowered in her room with the lights out. Without Randall to protect her, Lassa could burst in at any moment to scream it was all Freya’s fault. She had to pee terribly, but she didn’t dare go across the hall. She waited for an eternity for Lassa’s footsteps to pass and the lights outside to turn off. When Lassa went to bed, Freya counted to one thousand before she dared to slink to the bathroom in the dark.

The next morning, Freya woke up and checked the garage. The truck wasn’t there. Randall wasn’t at his spot at the kitchen table. Instead, there was an empty bottle. It was like someone had opened a valve and drained everything inside of her.

Freya got back in bed and stared at the ceiling. She wouldn't get up when Lassa called her. Lassa came in the room and asked her what was wrong, but Freya wouldn’t speak. When Lassa dragged her out of bed, she went completely limp and laid on the floor. Lassa had slapped her, but Freya just curled in a ball. Everything seemed so far away.

No amount of shouting or striking could get her to move. Lassa gave up and left her behind. When she came home from work, Freya hadn't eaten the sandwiches Lassa left on the table. Lassa shouted until she was almost purple in the face, but it was like watching a lion roar behind glass. The words couldn't reach Freya. Something broke in Lassa, her face crumpled, and she went into her bedroom and sobbed and sobbed.

Hearing her mother weep broke through the glass. Freya remembered feeling compelled to go comfort her, but she swallowed the desire. Lassa had to learn. There was a long silence after her mother stopped crying. The air in the house was as tense as a guitar string one turn of the peg away from popping.

Eventually, Lassa picked up the phone. In the silent house, Freya could hear every word. Lassa pleaded, she was desperate, defeated.

Freya had won.

Randall returned that night, and he went right to Freya's room, barely even offering Lassa a hello. He apologized for leaving, saying it was an adult thing, and she would understand when she was older. But she already understood. There was a thing in Lassa that would rule them all if they let her. They’d had to make a stand.

"If you ever have to go again, take me with you," she'd begged, and he'd started crying, and she cried with him. He convinced her to eat something. She was lightheaded and wobbly as she walked to the kitchen.

It made Randall angry. His eyes flashed at Lassa, and she covered her mouth with her hand and looked away. It took a long time before things felt normal again.

After the truce, Randall conjured up a creaky old bluesman to give Freya guitar lessons. Mr. Mathis always looked like he’d just come from a funeral in his all-black suits and perpetual grimace. But when he picked up a guitar, everything changed. All the suffering in his face became seriousness, and he pulled sounds out of his old six string New Yorker like no one she’d ever seen.

Though the Ovation was too big for her, she kept trying anyway. She grew into it quickly. She had Lassa’s long fingers. The guitar still looked brand new. Each time she finished practicing, she wiped the fingerprints off its front with a microfiber cloth and put it carefully back into its case.

Could that really have been six years ago? She had been lost in thought for a long time, and her taco was getting cold.

A fist banged on the window beside Freya, and she jolted in her seat. Blinking back to the present, she saw four people peering in at her. She shoved the Starball into her pocket, afraid they’d seen it.

Tammy Daud, Regina Sailor, Maurice Jones, and Malcolm Lewis were outside. Tammy hit the glass again. Now that she had Freya’s attention, she flipped the bird and shouted, "FUCK YOU!" It came muffled through the glass.

Freya glanced over her shoulder to the door. Would the tired cashier even help if they all came howling in and beat her up? She doubted it. She wished she had Randall’s gun. Four people could mess her up bad. Four people could kill her.

Freya’s hands trembled as she took out her phone. She pointed the screen at the wolfpack so they could see she’d dialed 911.

"GO AHEAD! CALL THEM!" Tammy shouted. She pounded the window with both hands. Maurice tugged at Tammy’s jacket, but she kept wailing on the glass.

“STOP!” the cashier shouted.

Freya slid off the bench and backed away. It felt like the glass might shatter at any moment. The 911 operator picked up and asked if anyone was there.

“I’m here!” Freya answered.

"911 operator number 718, what's your emergency?"

“I need help! Four people are after me. They’re banging on the window! I’m at TacoTime! on Paumanok Street.” The words tumbled out so fast they were almost senseless.

Tammy banged on the glass one last time, then turned and ran. The others dashed away in different directions.

"It looks like they're running away. I showed them I was dialing 911. Can I still file a report? They're trying to-”

A fist-sized rock flew at Freya. It hit the plate glass window with a BANG and shattered it. The stone barely missed Freya. She yelped as glass rained down with a tremendous crash. Pieces of glass skittered everywhere. There was a big shard sticking out of the vinyl booth, right where she’d been sitting.

Both the cashier and the 911 operator yelled at her, but Freya was stunned. She stared out the window, unable to believe they’d thrown a rock at her. Cold wind blew into the restaurant from outside.

“What happened?” Both the operator and the cashier demanded.

"They threw a rock at me!”

“Jesus Christ!”

The taco she’d taken one bite of was buried under a pile of glass. Freya felt like she’d been punctured, and all the air hissed out of her. Why were they doing this? Why wouldn't they leave her alone? The operator chattered into her ear, and she mouthed responses without thinking,” Yes, I'm okay. Yes, I'll wait for the police.”

As she talked to 911, the cashier jabbered at her. It was hard to hear both. Freya held up a “wait a second” finger and got an annoyed huff in response.

"The police are coming,” Freya told the cashier. The woman stood with one hand on her waist and a palm under her chin, shaking her head at the damage.

"What did you say to those kids?”

"I didn’t!" Freya protested, immediately frustrated the TacoTime lady acted like this was her fault. "I didn't say anything."

"Is that what happened to your eye?"

“Yes.”

Freya cried, covering her face in the sleeve of her jacket. She didn’t want to cry in front of this awful woman, but she couldn’t help herself, and it made her feel even worse.

“Jesus Christ," the woman muttered. Then she went to get a broom. She never asked Freya if she was okay. She didn’t even offer to replace the glassed taco.

It took a long time for the police to come.