Deputy Gwendolyn Wolf of the Lake County Sheriff's Department tried to focus on the reality of her hands gripping the bars while simultaneously clutching to the event that was quickly fading like a dream upon waking. But it had been no dream. Her hair and her uniform were soaked through. She rubbed water out of her eyes and took a deep, humid breath that had the smell and taste of warm, wet bodies.

The screaming started softly at first.

The commotion came from behind the crowd, out in the parking lot, and worked its way inside. Someone pressed their full weight against her back. She turned, trying to find McGreevy so they could get control, but the deputy was nowhere to be seen. The slight man was lost somewhere in the mass. She shouted, but her voice was overpowered. She needed to get outside. Then the shouts and screams crescendoed, and she was shoved in unison, her head banging hard against the iron bars.

Another scream rang out, but this one came from her own throat. The next she knew, the fleshy muscle of a fat, tattooed arm worked its way between her and the human wall, granting her enough space to turn and fall against Alan.

She craned her neck and stood on her toes but still wasn't tall enough to see.

"Alan! What is it?"

"Comstock," he said.

"Fuck."

The people, pressed together like a conglomerate of rock, began to give way, and she saw the massive sheriff shoving into the cell room. He wasn't alone. Half a dozen other men dressed in military fatigues were with him. In slow motion, they slammed their riot clubs into people's heads, tasers zapping out left and right. They were not any cops she recognized; they were Comstock's militia buddies.

The people in front of her parted. A man was picked up off the floor and thrown into the swarm, and Comstock was looming over her, baton in one hand, taser in the other. He looked up at the rapidly dissolving clouds, now a fine mist through the ceiling lights, and then down at the inch of water surrounding his boots. His eyes were wide and wild, and on his mouth a sardonic grin.

"Everybody out!" he bellowed.

The hippie went down under his stick. His taser snapped and crackled as he jabbed it out, sending people jerking to the ground, knocked senseless by the powerful jolts of electricity. His wrath turned to the cell, and his fury locked on Francis. He ran his badge over the key panel and threw open the door.

"Comstock, no!" she tried to pull him back, but he shoved her hard into Alan.

He grabbed the guitar from Francis and hurled it against the bars. The delicate wood cracked and snapped on impact.

"Ahhh!" cried Francis, but his protest ended sharply when the baton slammed against his stomach with a thud-uff that doubled him over.

Comstock brought his stick down on the boy's back with a shuddering blow that sent him to the concrete floor where he lay still.

"You son of a bitch!" Alan shouted.

"Alan!" She tried to stop him, but he pushed into the cell and grabbed the stick to prevent it from striking Francis again. For his effort, he got a swift elbow to his face. Gwen saw him spin, and blood started to pour from his nose. Comstock shoved his taser into his neck and pulled the trigger—once, twice, three times—then slammed the truncheon into the back of his head.

The psychologist crumpled, and Comstock bolted out of the cell, his next target a young woman in a tank top. Fear crossed her face as the sheriff bore down.

Gwen felt someone pushing against her leg. She looked down to find McGreevy on his hands and knees. "Hey, we gotta do something," she hissed. He looked up at her, put his finger to his lips, then reached through the bars and pulled out the smashed guitar. Turning carefully, holding it to his chest, he vanished amid a stampede of people trying to make it out the door.

The heavy heel of a combat boot scuffed the top of the late Sheriff Ryder's antique desk. Gwen sat next to Mickey Verona, waiting as Comstock traced his mustache with his finger and thumb from under his nose down the sides of his mouth to his chin. In his hand was the poster advertising the concert.

He gave a ridiculous laugh. "Builds A Fire Brings the Rain. You expect me to buy this bullshit?" He looked from Mickey to Gwen. "You know, I can see this swindling piece of shit lawyer and his psycho-babble boyfriend pulling this load of fecal matter, but you, Wolf? You are an officer of the law. Verona, I don't know what your game is with this publicity stunt—"

"It's not a game," Mickey interjected. "Didn't you see the rain?" He indicated their wet clothes.

"Broken pipe," said Comstock. "You know, Verona, I got every right to toss your ass into that cage with your shrink."

"You've got no cause," said Mickey. "Alan didn't do anything but try to stop you from killing Francis."

Comstock crumpled the flyer and tossed it on the table, where it bounced off and disappeared.

"Hah! You think anyone would care if that raping little—Fuck! Assault on an officer!" said Comstock. "And he had a weapon."

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"It was a guitar," said Gwen, "just an old guitar. And Francis was only singing. And you didn't have to break it."

"You're lucky the water shorted out the surveillance, but from what I could see, there was no music, just a bunch of hippies standing around staring at that _prairie ni—_that, that boy, like a bunch of fucking retards."

He dropped his boot to the floor and leaned forward. "And where the fucking hell is that chicken shit McGreevy? Christ, when I'm elected, his ass is gone along with yours. I am done with the bullshit in this department."

"McGreevy left after he finished the filing. I said he could go early," Gwen lied. McGreevy, for some strange reason, was nowhere to be seen on the water-damaged salvages of the surveillance video. She'd sent him a text to this effect, and that she'd cover for him. If Comstock did fire them, at least he'd be able to fight it with a good lawyer—possibly not Mickey Verona.

"I guess it's his lucky day. He can take a vacation and think about responsibilities. Wolf, pack your shit. You're suspended without pay pending further investigation."

"Really? Who's going to run the department with me and McGreevy gone?"

"My deputies."

"You mean your militia pals?"

"I mean, as sheriff, I can deputize at my discretion. I don't care if you have the nicest, most liberal degree in the nation. I'm in charge. I call the shots." He jabbed his thumb into his chest.

"Verona, get the fuck out of my sight before I book you for aiding and abetting."

Mickey raised his hands. "The paperwork wouldn't be worth it."

Kroker, with the cross tattoo on the back of his head, knocked at the door and loomed there silently at parade rest. The man carried a semi-automatic rifle over his shoulder.

"I have some stuff to do," Comstock said. With that, he got up, donned his heavy police slicker, and marched out of the office.

"See ya around, I guess," Mickey said, heading to the door.

"Mickey, wait," called Gwen.

He stopped.

"Did you..."

"Hear the music?"

She nodded.

He wiped his balding head. "Yeah, I did." He looked out into the lobby. In a whisper, he said, "I saw something. I'll be back in the morning." With that, he strode across the lobby and out into the night.

Gwen looked at the scuff mark on the old desk. She took a wet wipe from a plastic container and tried to rub it off. It stayed. She sighed.

Even though Gwen had been at the department a good two years longer than Comstock, the responsibility rested with the county commissioner to set the line of succession until the next election. It was no surprise she was bypassed and the job given to Comstock on the basis that he had prior military service on the Eastern Front. A little patriotism went a long way in the conservative nest of the Mission Valley. For Gwen, McGreevy, and a handful of other career employees, there was the knowledge that both the commissioner and Comstock were militia members in good standing.

Comstock had never liked Gwen. From a litany of workplace micro-aggressions and procedural disagreements, she had come to the conclusion that the man saw her Ivy League credentials as a sign of a liberal mole in a department that he was steering hard to the right.

To his credit, Comstock was not wrong. Gwen was extremely liberal, but if it was a conspiracy, it was a conspiracy of one. She simply did all she could to inject compassion and common-sense police procedure into her job, which was enough to stroke the new jack-booted sheriff the wrong way.

She picked up her stapler and turned it over to read the engraving: Procedure is the voice of Justice. She placed it carefully in the bottom of the box on her desk. A gift from Sheriff Ryder commemorating her one-year anniversary as a deputy.

She missed the old man. He had brought a sense of humor and experience to the department that was earned from a lifetime in law enforcement. He was a tough, no-bullshit kind of guy. But unlike Comstock, Ryder had possessed compassion.

"People, we're a weird species, Wolf. We all think we're perfectly sane, until we're not. That's why we're here. And eventually, when we break, there'll be someone there to catch us and put us in a strong room until we calm the fuck down."

Gwen peeked over her box at the militiamen in the lobby—boys, really. They were laughing and playing on their phones, taking selfies with their guns. No one was watching her. She put a few more random things in the box. Then, as if she owned the place, she headed down the hallway.

Fuck these people. She'd spent the better part of five years working her ass off to make the office functional. And then Comstock, and now these interlopers!

Alan was asleep on the floor, gently snoring with his arm draped over his face. His clothes were soaked, and there was a damp circle around him on the concrete. He probably had a concussion. Francis had made it to the bunk, where he was curled into a ball.

Mickey Verona would deal with Alan's legal problems in the morning, and Francis would be on his way to Deer Lodge and out of her jurisdiction for good. She had done everything on an administrative level to keep the boy where he was, but with Comstock's stamp of approval, the matter was out of her hands. Short of kidnapping the kid and fleeing into the night, there was nothing she could do.

Task number one for the morning: lawyer. Not Mickey Verona. She would also make one final bid to Helena. For what good it would do, she did not know but was determined to shed light on Comstock and his paramilitary-juiced operation. She could go to the press. There were whistleblower protections. That was what her dad used to say: "You need to be better than them. Sometimes they're bigger, and sometimes they're smarter. That just means you hustle your bustle."

"Deputy Wolf?" The question came softly from the lump on the bunk.

"Yes, Francis?" she whispered.

"Did you like the concert?" he whimpered.

"Yes, Francis. It was... it was... amazing." It was beyond amazing. And it had shaken her to the core.

"Thank you." The words came out raspy. "I'm glad you liked it."

She turned to leave.

"Deputy Wolf?"

"Yes, Francis?"

"Do you have a gun?"

"Umm, well, I'm a cop, so yeah. I have a gun. Why?"

"You're gonna need it."

"Need it?"

"Yeah. They're here."

The fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck prickled.

"Who's here?"

"The hunters."

"What? Who are the hunters?"

"They're the ones who do this." Francis sat up. The front of his orange jumpsuit was stained dark red. He pulled down the zipper and let the top fall to his waist. The scars that crisscrossed his body were oozing blood. "It hurts, but I won't cry."

"My God," she cried for him. Her breath caught in her throat.

"They come for me after the concerts," he said, "while the ripples are still on the guitar."

"I'm going to take you to the hospital."

"No." He approached her, the fabric of the jumpsuit bunched around his waist. The scar on his chest throbbed and split open. "Get my shoes. I need my shoes."

She had been running prospective hospitals through her mind when the meaning of what he'd said struck; and parroted, "Shoes... need shoes."

"Deputy Wolf, you gotta run."

The look in the boy's eyes and the fear on his voice said it all.

"Okay," she said and headed back to her desk.