She hurriedly unzipped her jacket pocket. Unidentified number.

Did she want to answer it? Was she ready to give up and let the outside world help again?

She pressed the “answer” button. “Yes?” she said, holding the phone to her ear.

Nothing but dead silence for four seconds. “Is there anyone there?” she demanded, feeling ominous dread.

A click, then a man’s voice said “Hello, hello?”

“Yeah, I’m here, you called me!” she snapped, then finally recognized the familiar pattern of a marketing call. The man’s voice dripped with professional good nature, “Ms. Sally Yan? How are you this evening, Ms. Yan?” She pressed the “End” button and fumed.

Lavinia laughed weakly. Sally started, then laughed herself. Just like in the state beach parking lot, a wave of crazy merriment washed through them both. And just as the laugh started to die away, Lavinia said in a weak whine, “No pushing.” They laughed again until they could barely breathe.

Oh my god, Sally thought, how much better the world looks!

“Well,” she said finally, eyes soft with love again, “I guess I should get you outside. As soon as the sun comes out, I bet it charges you up again.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Kaboom,” Lavinia whispered.

Her boots thumped as Sally dragged her over an uneven spot where two flat stones joined. The cold clinging mist outside was like a living thing. Even the nearby buildings were only mysterious humps through the swirling moisture. She stretched Lavinia out in the widest open space, where she would get sunlight if only the mists would clear away.

“Get me… naked,” Lavinia demanded. “I’ll soak up whatever I can.”

Stripping Lavinia held no sexual pleasure, nor did Lavinia take any. It was a tedious task manipulating the heavy body to pull off all the layers and when Lavinia was stretched out on the grass, pale even with her olive skin, she looked like a corpse.

Sally busied herself gathering all their belongings and packing them up so that the minute Lavinia was charged up again, they could leave.

But would Lavinia get charged up enough to fly again? Had the encounter with the Christian Church changed everything? Always the rules changed, or deeper more complex rules emerged.

As she thought of the changing rules she had that aggravating sense that she was missing something that would help her enormously if she could just make the connection. Why did Charla Thorp’s flat face fill her mind suddenly, grinning with triumph? She was glad she had blasted that woman with every thought in her head.

Hey, she had signal! Duh, she could call for help. If she knew where she was, she could get someone to send a boat but at least she could call someone in San Francisco or her old buddy Steve and ask him for help! She thought of all the people who would have helped if she’d asked.

Maybe she didn’t even have to call anyone. Maybe somebody would show up here, that chain-link railing had looked fairly new –

A tall figure loomed shockingly out of the mist as if she’d summoned him, and jerked when he saw them.

The man scrabbled at his hip. Sally expected him to pull out a wooden stake but he produced a service pistol.

The deadly black hole centered on her heart.