Spring Echoes Glen may have been a bougie retirement community, but it was still part of Noimoire, and so it wasn't until Dani had departed the community via a side entrance that she passed an inbound police cruiser on one of the main roads.

"Should we, maybe, call the detective?" Jake asked quietly.

"Sergeant Walker? Yeah, maybe. Let's check out this last place first and then we can call and tell him what we found at the place he didn't even bother glancing at."

Jake nodded silently, and Dania cast another look over at him.

"Hey," she said. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just… that sucked."

"A little," she said, glancing out the windshield and then back at him. The rain started up again, and she toggled the wipers on. "But why in particular? We've been in fights before."

"He held a gun to your head, Dani."

"So did Amari," she said with a little smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes.

"Yeah, but… I never got the sense she'd actually shoot you. That guy definitely would have."

"Probably," Dania said.

"And I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't play a card, I couldn't raise my gun—"

"You did not need to do anything, my deckbearer," Machairi spoke up from his seat between them. "That is why you have me. I did something for you."

"For us both," Dania amended. "Thanks, by the way, Creepy."

"You are welcome, Guardian."

"I just can't believe how…calm you are about it."

"I'm not," Dania said. "Not really. I just locked it in the box. I'll deal with it later, when we've got time."

A few moments passed in silence broken only by the swishing of the windshield wipers and the whirr of the tires on the wet pavement. Dania made a right, and a band of light from the streetlamps streaked over Jake's face.

"Like grief," Jake asked quietly. "You focus on the mission and then cry about it later in private?"

"Something like that," Dania said. "I mean, yes, exactly that. Only having a gun held to my head doesn't usually make me cry. It makes me super angry."

Jake barked a short, staccato laugh. He slapped a hand over his mouth, but his eyes filled with tears. Dania opened her mouth to ask him if he was okay again when the laughter spilled out around the edge of his hand. It held maybe a touch of hysteria, but for the most part, it was just laughter, so she didn't pull over.

"You get pissed….when…no fucking shit, Dani!" Jake gasped in between guffaws. Dania snorted, and her own chuckles bubbled up from within.

"I mean," she said with a sidelong grin at him. "Wouldn't you?"

That did it. Jake lost every bit of his composure. He howled with laughter, tears streaking down his reddened face as he fought to breathe through the gales. Dania laughed too, struggling to keep her eyes on the road and pay attention to her phone's navigation cues as she did.

They laughed all the way into downtown Noimoire, their mirth not slowing until Dania turned onto the street that held their destination. Then, finally, Jake's laughing fit eased.

"Feel better?" Dania asked quietly.

"Yeah, a little," Jake said, his voice still holding the echo of mirth. "I'm not sure why that was so funny, it just was."

"It's a stress response. You ever notice that military vets and cops have dark senses of humor?"

"I know you do," he said. Dania's smile grew a little.

"Yeah, well. Dark humor's a coping mechanism. It can help you keep your sanity when the world's lost its damn mind around you. I'm doubly prone to it, because not only am I a veteran, but I work in the ER. You should hear some of the dark shit we joke about down there…but it does help."

"Okay," Jake said. "Thanks."

"Just, a heads up… not everyone gets it. Know your audience, okay? I'm still hoping you'll go back to regular high school someday, and it's not the kind of thing most of your teachers would appreciate, if I had to guess."

"I don't know," Jake said. "You don't know my teachers. I bet some of them could give your ER humor a run for its money."

Dania snorted another half-laugh. "Well, you may be right," she said. "Fair enough. Looks like we're here," she added as her phone dinged its arrival notification.

"And there's Amari," Jake said, pointing. Dania looked, and sure enough, the leather-clad girl swung her leg over the cherry-red bike and removed her helmet before walking over to their truck.

"She flips her hair like she's filming an internet reel," Jake muttered.

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Dania killed the engine with a laugh and stepped out.

"Hey," she said as Amari drew close enough. "You have any problems?"

"Nope." Amari shook her head, raising a hand to tousle her curtain bangs back into place. "Saw a couple of cops headed the other way once I'd gotten about ten minutes away, but no issues. I even got here in time to assign my levels."

"Nice," Jake said. "What did you—"

"We can talk about it later," Dania cut him off, glancing around at the piles of garbage piled next to the building's entrance. "When we're safe at the Haven. This place is a straight-up slum. I don't like it here. Let's do what we came to do and get out."

"Right," Amari said, eying the dilapidated high-rise in front of them. "Number 332. Third floor, you think?"

"Probably," Dania said. She checked to make sure her jacket covered her holstered weapon, touched her chest to pull her deck, and started toward the double glass doors at the front of the building.

Apartment 332 was, in fact, on the third floor. The elevator didn't work, so the four of them took the nearby stairs. Hush had disappeared, as he often did. Dania was pretty sure he'd just pop out from under one of the pieces of furniture once they got to the apartment.

They emerged into a dark hallway lit only by one flickering fluorescent tube. The musty scent of mildew and despair wrapped around them as they crept down the corridor, avoiding the piles of trash and occasional shard of broken glass.

332 was about halfway down. As Dania drew closer, she could see that the door wasn't actually closed, but rather sitting against a battered, cracked door jamb. With her senses on high alert, Dania touched her chest and pulled her deck. She looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with Jake and Amari, both of whom drew their weapons. Machairi stepped up until he was directly behind Dania, and then nodded his readiness.

Dania took a deep breath and touched the single Dire Wolf Tracker that came up in her first draw. Their "blitz attack the enemy deckbearer" approach had worked well enough at Joe's house—except for the one guy who held a gun to her head, but she was definitely going to try and avoid getting into that predicament again.

A tiny whimper, like that of an exhausted child, filtered out through the cracked door. Dania swallowed hard and eased the door open, listening.

Another child's whimper, followed by a scuffling sound and a muffled, pained groan.

Dania stepped across the threshold, gun in her right hand, her cards floating in front of her. Go, she thought to her Dire Wolf Tracker. He loped forward, sniffing the air as he went.

"Doggy! Doggy, mama!"

Oh gods, that's definitely a kid. Please tell me we're not looking for a toddler deckbearer!

When no one else spoke, Dania followed her card into the living room and froze.

A shirtless toddler wearing only an overfull diaper sat on the floor, grinning and clapping his or her hands. Next to him, the hulking Dire Wolf Tracker sniffed at the crumpled form of the woman lying on the torn, stained living room carpet.

"Jake, Amari," Dania called as she holstered her weapon. "Check the rest of the apartment. Think it's a studio, but be sure."

She knelt down and looked at the baby, automatically dismissing the deck pull notifications from both Jake and Amari.

"Doggy!" the kid, who couldn't be much older than eighteen months, said.

"Yep," Dania said, automatically slipping into her "ER Nurse" voice. "He's a big doggy. Be careful. Is this your mama?"

"Mama owie."

"Mama owie," Dania repeated, pushing down the sickness threatening to rise in her throat. She desperately reached for the blank, clinical mindset she'd learned in her job, and shifted her attention to the woman.

"Got a pulse," Dania murmured out of habit. "Weak and thready. She's been badly beaten about the head and shoulders, suspect multiple skull fractures… easy there, Mama. Try not to move."

The woman let out another groan and rolled to her back, and Dania couldn't keep from gasping.

Her round, full belly looked like someone had shoved a watermelon under her torn t-shirt.

"Can you hear me?" she said lowly to the woman. "Can you tell me how far along you are in your pregnancy?"

"Thirty-four weeks," the woman whispered. Or at least, that's what Dania thought she said. To her horror, she could see a red slick of blood high on the inside of the woman's thigh.

"Okay. We gotta get you to an ER now," Dania said, waving Amari over.

"No… no ER."

"You won't have to pay," Dania said. "You need medical attention right now to save your baby."

"He'll…kill…me…"

Fuck! Amari walked over, and Dania reached into her pocket and shoved her phone at the girl. "Call Sergeant Rhett Walker. Should be under "new contacts". Give him our address and tell him to get here asap. And bring someone with healing cards if he can."

With wide eyes, Amari took the phone and walked a little ways away to make the call, just as Jake emerged from the kitchen area.

"Apartment is clear," he said. "She okay?"

"No," Dania said. "She's not even close to okay. Jake… what did the Haven say about people dying?"

"Um… you can't die there of anything except old age."

"Is that true of everyone?"

"Yeah."

"Even the unborn?"

Jake's eyes went wide and round, and his face drained of color.

"I-I don't know, maybe."

She blew out a breath. "Okay," she said. "Can you…she's going to miscarry this baby if we just sit here. If Machairi and I take her and the kid to the Night Haven, maybe we can keep them both alive for Rhett to get here. Card cops got healers on staff, I told Amari to tell him to bring one. Maybe we can—" She broke off, because Jake nodded, clearly understanding her fragmented, garbled plan.

"I wish Hush were here."

"I aaaammm, deckbearrerrr." Dania looked up to see Hush detach himself from a shadow in the doorway of what she thought was probably a bedroom.

"Help me lift her—" Dania started, but broke off when Hush flowed over and lifted the woman as if she were as insubstantial as he appeared to be.

"Mama!" the little one cried. Dania reached out and beckoned to the child.

"We're not taking Mama away," she said. "We're going to go try to fix mama's owie, okay? Can you come to me and I'll make sure you stay right next to Mama?"

The baby stared at Dania for a long moment, and then plopped down to a seat with a vilely wet squish and crawled over to where Dania knelt. Despite the kid's filthy state, Dania gathered the little one up and held him or her close, and then got to her feet and dismissed the Dire Wolf Tracker.

"Bye Doggie!" the little one said, sounding somehow cheerful and sad at the same moment.

"Sergeant is on his way," Amari said then, turning back to them. "He asks a lot of questions."

"He's a cop," Jake said. He walked over and flipped a switch next to the refrigerator, turning on a buzzing fluorescent light. He stood just inside the archway between kitchen and living area, letting his shadow stretch across the stained linoleum floor.

"Okay," he said. "Go ahead. I'll wait here with Amari for Sergeant Walker and tell him where you've gone. If he's got a healer, we'll bring them, too."

"Look around the apartment," Dania said as she followed Hush to the shadow. "My Tracker didn't alert on anything, so there's no deckbearer here, but there's got to be some reason this apartment was on that list. Maybe see if you can find an ID, or some clothes for her and the kid. Oh, and Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful. Amari, Machairi, take care of him."

"Always," Machairi said, and Amari nodded gravely as she handed Dania back her phone.

The little one in Dania's arms—a boy, she thought, now that she was closer—started to sniffle and cry as Hush stepped through Jake's shadow and disappeared.

"It's okay, kiddo," Dania said, stroking a hand over his dirty hair. "We're gonna go with Mama right now."

With one last look at Jake, Dania took a deep breath and stepped through.