SS: TIE 023

“Sorry, Lora.” Rey keeps her eyes on Kayla. “I’m already gone.” She hits the end button and sighs.

“What’s wrong? Who was that?”

“Nobody.” Rey rubs her thumb along the screen. “I don’t have any money anymore. But I’ll buy you another one.” She tosses the phone away into the dark and takes Kayla’s hand. The warm night air surrounds them like a blanket. A distant siren wails.

Kayla laughs nervously. “Um, OK. Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

SS: TIE

Glynda’s stare is flat. She’s Tracy’s age, and conspicuously busty even in an orange jumpsuit. The dark circles under her eyes and the tightness in her jaw are not pretty. Her glasses have gotten cracked, and there’s a bruise forming on her cheek.

She’s lucky that’s all she’s gotten; the narrative that Glynda is somehow the mastermind of the bloodbath at the marina is already making the rounds thanks to a few leaks to the press, and most of the police **** has no reason not to believe it.

Maybe it’s a good thing that Sally is here, in the back of this transport van, rolling through the night. The three other officers make it obvious that they’re waiting for Glynda to give them an excuse to do something.

Sally sits across from her, and it’s difficult not to be curious.

Glynda’s a go-between; she’s never been the one calling the shots. She must have connected with Rey and the others in Afghanistan. There were records of her working with a large, European PMC in logistics and communications.

It makes Sally think about how there are two different worlds. While Rey and the others were getting shot at in the desert, she had been drinking Starbucks and fantasizing about the beautiful professor who had smiled at her once. And one didn’t have to cross the Atlantic to find that divide; it was here as well. Sally and Tracy’s idea of a problem was that they didn’t take as many trips or make love as often as they used to. For other people, it’s struggling for rent or food. Survival.

Sally touches the bandage on her head. It’s survival for her as well, but this is trouble of her own making.

“Surely it doesn’t take this long to find a quiet spot,” Glynda murmurs.

She doesn’t understand what’s happening to her, and Sally doesn’t have it in her to try to explain. Nothing can change it now. Nothing except Rey. Sally checks her wristwatch. Her hunch was wrong.

It’s just as well. Sally doesn’t want to see her again, especially not under these circumstances.

She clears her throat. “I can’t speak for what happens after you get to prison. But no one’s going to hurt you before you get there.”

Glynda snorts derisively.

The van jitters and sharp, rapid thuds that come from the front, like the striking of heavy hailstones. The van jolts and metal screeches as they grind to a halt, sending Sally and everyone else tumbling into chaos.

SS: TIE

This long, dark, deserted stretch of highway can’t be called quiet under the circumstances.

Lili steps onto the road, inserting another magazine into her UMP. She puts it to her shoulder and opens fire as she advances on the van, now ruined by her IED and a barrage of bullets. She lets off a few short bursts toward the distant headlights on the highway. She doesn’t know if that’s a follow car, or just an unlucky traveler, but she isn’t taking chances. She reloads again as she passes the smoking wreckage of the lead car.

Frogs croak in the night as she circles the van with the UMP up to place her improvised breaching charge. The shots are still echoing in the muggy night. She ducks to the side and presses her back to the warm metal.

The van shudders as the charge goes off, and Lili’s earmuffs reduce the noise to a dull bumping sound while still allowing her to hear the faint movements of the people inside. She turns on the light on the UMP and steps in, firing two shots to drop a groaning figure in tactical gear. This van is packed, but the explosive did its job. Lili grabs the stunned Glynda and drags her out.

Glynda does her best not to be dead weight, but still stumbles and falls; she had nothing to protect herself from the explosion in that confined space, and is as stunned as the cops. Still, hearing loss and a concussion beats a life in prison. Lili hauls her upright.

“Stop,” says a choked voice behind her.

Lili turns her head.

Sally has changed a lot, but she’s still recognizable. Barely. There’s a bandage, and blood on her face. The pistol in her hand shakes.

Sally can’t even focus her eyes. She’s barely ten feet away, but Lili likes her odds. She sees the gleam on Sally’s finger.

Bathed in the crimson glow of the taillights, Lili smiles. “Is that a wedding ring?”

Sally can’t answer; it’s all she can do to keep the gun up and one eye open.

“Sure this is how you want to die?” Lili asks.

One of Sally’s eyes is caked shut with blood; the other is full of impotent rage. Lili curls her finger around her trigger, breathing in smoke and gunpowder. Sally’s gun is pointed at Lili, not Glynda.

“Lora’s over there,” Lili says to Glynda, indicating with her eyes. “Go.”

Glynda hesitates, then takes a staggering step. Her slip-on jail shoes crunch on broken glass and metal shavings. She stumbles off the road.

Sally fires and Lili whirls, shooting back as she crashes to the ground. Hot casings spill around her. She groans, blinking up at the big moon above. Grimacing, she sits up as Sally’s pistol clatters to the pavement. Jaw tight, Lili touches her abdomen and considers her bloody fingers. She dumps her UMP on the ground as Glynda hurries back onto the road to help her up.

She stands with a grunt. With Glynda supporting her, Lili limps into the tall grass.

Behind her, blood drips down the bumper of the police van. Breathing raggedly, Sally stares as the two figures vanish into the gloom.