The wind whistles around her, whips at her skirt, updrafts in tiny cyclones through her hair, tousling it, blowing strands into eyes that gaze straight ahead unblinking. She makes no effort to brush them aside. She only stares, fixated, at the office windows across the street. The wage drones inside are beginning to notice her now. There is confusion, some laughter, some concern. It's New Orleans. If this is the strangest thing they see all day, they'll probably be doing alright.

She waits. She is patient. Because they can't reach her. Not the people across the street. Not her pursuers. For the first time in years, she is motionless and unafraid. Time is all she has left, though she does not have a whole lot of that, either.

Her gaze shifts, slowly, deliberately. Down. Down over the edge of the parking garage she is standing on. To the sidewalk five stories below. Now there is no laughter in the office windows. Now there is burgeoning chaos, people beginning to guess what her intent is, people trying to find a way to communicate with her. Some reach for their cell phones to frantically dial for help. Others reach for theirs to begin filming, callous documentarians of an uncaring world.

Sirens, distant and growing. The police won't reach her either. No. Today it ends. Today there will be peace.

But for now, she waits. She is patient. They need to hear this message. There needs to be witnesses. The Others will try to cover this up. They will try to paint her as insane. They will try to destroy everything she ever was, just as they destroyed everything she thought she knew. She needs witnesses. She needs them to see her, calm, collected, and aware. They will do what they must to discredit her, to make her a statistic, a mentally ill child trapped in a woman's body, a failure of the system.

The office windows on multiple floors have filled up now, with inquisitive eyes that do not want to watch, but cannot look away. In so many ways they are like her. If they could only truly see.

Sirens, wailing and imminent. A crowd on the sidewalk. The slowdown of traffic, the snarl of rubberneckers spreading its accordion effect in every direction from Commerce Street. The world is nearly ready. She is nearly ready.

She removes her coat and lets the cold wind off the river cut through the fresh wounds on her arms. Carved into flesh so that no one can erase them. Symbols, messages, knowledge the people need to learn to survive, to fight the coming battle. Yes. They will have to remove the limbs to remove the message. Someone will see. Someone will know. There can be no covering this up.

Sirens, immediate and urgent. Police, some moving toward the entrance to begin a desperate race up the stairs. Some calling up meaningless platitudes about the worth of a life they know nothing about. She only stares at them.

Calm. Collected. Sane.

She hears the footsteps behind her, but the stairwell door has not opened, nor have the police had time to reach her. The Others have found her. The familiar fear creeps toward her, but she reminds herself she is in control this time.

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And time is up.

She steps forward.

The wind whistles around her, whips at her skirt, plasters her hair straight back behind her. She does not blink. She stares at the sidewalk as it grows. And smiles.

They can't hurt her anymore.

***

Beneath the late autumn twilight they sat, staring out over the mirrored surface of the pond as pinpricks of light appeared, one by one, above and below. There would be no moon tonight, leaving the constellations to their own devices as they made their slow reveals. The first fingers of winter crept across the world, silencing the landscape beneath the still, cold air, save for the sounds of the frantic last-minute foraging of the squirrels and the racking sobs of the girl on the log.

"I can't. I can't. I can't." A mantra repeated into the shoulder of the boy, between gasps for air and uncontrollable shudders. She, a soggy mess of tangled auburn hair and bruised cheeks. He, an overwhelmed young man of 15, unsure where to even begin.

An arm around her shoulder felt like a start, but the path seemed dangerous and undefined from there. He pulled her close and let the words and the heaving continue, hoping it would evolve into something more on its own, something he could work with, contribute to. Long after the sun had surrendered its last grasp on the sky and Orion's hunt was well under way, some normalcy returned to her breathing, and the words finally changed.

"I can't do this anymore," she elaborated between labored, foggy breaths. "I can't. I can't go back there, to him, I can't deal with this anymore. I'm tired of being afraid. I just want it to end. I just want to end..."

The arm around her shoulder tensed and pulled her closer.

"You don't mean that," said the boy, reflexively. Deep down, he suspected that wasn't true. "We're going to get out of here one day, away from him and all of these small-minded idiots. It's going to happen, okay? You've just...gotta stick with me. Can you do that?"

In the scant ambient light, he watched her tear-stained old soul eyes turn to him.

"I don't...I don't know. I really don't. Some days I just wish I could--"

The pain radiating from them was such that he had to turn away, play it off, pretend to comfortingly bury her face in his shoulder once again. Now was not the time to even hint at the doubts that he was strong enough to face this with her.

Escape is a vague concept when you don't even have a driver's license yet. Except...

"Morgan...can you keep a secret?"

A half nod, half nuzzle deeper within the folds of the thick wool blanket they shared was the only response the boy received. The fight, the flight, the sobbing, it had taken too much of her energy for much more than that.

"I can get us out of here now...if you like."

"Padraig, you don't have to just say things like that. We're a little old to be running away with a blanket and a pack of crackers. Besides, we're half frozen already, and we still have to walk home."

She flinched at the word, perceptible only as a rustle in their fabric cocoon.

"I'm serious. We can leave. Now. If you want."

Her head roused from the crook of his arm, eyes narrowing, focusing, growing cold as the night. "Don't play with me like this, Pad. This isn't even remotely funny. Not now."

When the conviction in his face refused to fade, she began gathering the fabric of her jacket around her, shaking loose of their shared space. "Look, whatever, you don't even begin to understand what he'd do once he found me--"

"He wouldn't find you."

"He will always find me!" she yelled, the fear and hurt adding kindling to repressed, internalized emotions as they reached their flashpoint.

"Always! I am never going to get away from this and stop trying to fill me with this false fucking hope! I'm going to die here one way or another and you know it, so just...leave me alone, alright?!"

She shoved him, hard, but lost her footing on the frosting grass.

He grabbed her arm, as though to steady her.

And then they both disappeared, the blanket falling, drifting soundlessly, joining the darkening landscape of the cold, still night.