i hadn’t expected the food.
That was the honest truth of it, standing in the backyard of a house in Brigantine with a crowd of people she didn’t know, watching bowls get filled and passed along a table, she had expected a lot of things and this hadn’t been one of them. She wasn’t complaining. In a world where every tin of food and every bag of rice represented a decision soone had made about priorities and survival, being fed as a prisoner was not nothing. It was, objectively, better than the alternative.
That didn’t an she felt good about standing in line for it.
She hung back for a mont, arms crossed, watching the others, older prisoners, people who’d clearly been here long enough to know the routine, move toward the food.
She stepped into the line.
She looked around while she moved with it, naturally, casually, the way you look around when you’re bored rather than the way you look around when you’re planning sothing. There were people stationed at the periter of the garden. Two near the back gate, one on the raised ground near the house’s rear wall where the sightline was better. Ard. Alert in the passive, settled way of people who weren’t expecting anything because nothing had given them a reason to.
There was no clean exit. Nothing she could move toward without being visible from at least two positions simultaneously. Any attempt from this location, in daylight, with this many bodies between her and the periter, would end within thirty seconds. Probably less.
She turned back to face the line moving ahead of her and set the thought down.
So she waited, then. Is that what this was? She waited here, keeping herself intact, keeping herself visible enough to be manageable and invisible enough to be ignored, until Ryan and the others found her?
The thought sat uncomfortably.
Did they even know where she was? Even if they’d tracked her to Brigantine generally, the specific location was another question entirely. And if they ca, when they ca what they’d be walking into was a fortified position with ard people.
And by then will she be alright?
She thought about Gaspar’s face crouched in front of her that morning. The yellow light in his eyes.
She thought about Williams and his threats.
A shiver moved through her before she could stop it, fast and involuntary, gone in an instant, but there. She hated it. The automatic physical response to fear was sothing she’d never been able to fully suppress and had always resented, because it confird the fear was real even when she was working hard to act like it wasn’t.
She forced her breathing even.
Callighan, at least, seed to work on a different register than those two. From what she’d briefly seen, the way people around here moved in relation to him, he maintained sothing resembling order. Structure. Whatever his reasons, he ran things rather than simply indulging in them. That made him dangerous in a different way, a more calculated way, which was arguably better than the alternative. He was commanding n like Gaspar and Williams, which ant he wasn’t good, anyone who held that company couldn’t be. But he wasn’t the sa species of threat.
Small rcies.
"Hey."
The voice ca from just behind her.
It was Keith.
She didn’t turn around. She kept her eyes forward and moved with the line.
"You’re new," Keith continued. "I don’t recognise you from before. You weren’t here when I arrived. You’re from the Boardwalk group, right?"
"No," i said. "Different group."
A pause behind her.
"There’s another group?" He sounded genuinely thrown by this. "You people didn’t have a better city to land in?"
"Why are you talking to ?" i cut him off.
"I’ve been there for three months, you are a new face," he said.
"And you are with Callighan, so stop talking," i said.
"Like hell I’m with them!" Keith flared a bit. "My sister is the one working for them. I’m here because they told her if she cooperated and kept doing what they needed, I’d be safe." He snorted. "Safe. They’ve had locked in that room for a damn month."
"You’re not helping your own situation," i said. "The way you behave."
"No, probably not," he agreed, without particular remorse. "But I’m not built for sitting quietly and pretending everything’s fine. My sister would’ve handled it better. She’s better at the managing so why even Callighan gave her the State Marina to handle at Atlantic City." Sothing shifted in his voice when he ntioned her. "I just want to get back to her and get out of here."
"Your sister is at that State Marina," i repeated.
"Yeah," Keith said. "Keeping Marlon’s group from cutting through the inlet to reach Brigantine. His jaw tightened. "These bastards threatened to leave us to the Infected, she had no choices." He stopped. Started again. "She’s holding that position so they don’t hurt . And I’m sitting here being ’protected.’" The word ca out with enough contempt.
They’d reached the front of the line. A bowl was pushed into i’s hands, sothing hot, thicker than she’d expected, with a sll that reminded her distractingly of things that no longer existed in any reliable way. She took it and moved aside.
"She shouldn’t have to do that," Keith said beside her, taking his own bowl, his eyes on the middle distance. "None of this should be happening."
i didn’t reply walking off.
Keith joined as they stood at the edge of the gathered group. i looked down at the bowl in her hands and thought about eating it and about what accepting it ant, and then thought about the alternative, and started eating.
"You’re thinking about getting out," Keith said.
"That’s a stupid observation," i said.
"Right. I an specifically, I’ve been thinking about a route." He lowered his voice. "The house they’re keeping us in sits close to the water on the south side. If you get out of the building, ten minutes of running south puts you at the water. You swim out far enough to clear the periter and co around to the road that runs behind, it leads straight up to the Golden Nugget and the State Marina from the outside."
i ate in silence for a mont.
Then: "Do you know the actual distance of that swim?"
"I know it’s doable—"
"Do you know the specific distance," she repeated. "In the water. At pace. With ard people potentially watching from elevated positions on the south side of the property."
Keith said nothing.
"And at the end of it," she continued, "you want to arrive at the State Marina, which is by your own description, another location controlled by Callighan’s people. Where the only person sympathetic to you is your sister, who is currently being used as leverage against you—"
"My sister will get out," Keith cut her off seriously.
i gave him a wary gaze. "Why are you telling your great plan to get out of here?"
"You helped earlier," he said slowly. "And you are right next to my room."
He waited a bit before continuing.
"Two people figure things out better than one. And in exchange I want you to take us to your Group," he added at least.
i narrowed her eyes.
Here she wondered what he would ask.
"You are Atlantic City right? Are you guys settled down there?" He continued.
"How about you ask the Boardwalk’s help?" She asked.
"You are kidding? My sister may not have killed her people directly but she commands the people who did it, they will kill he Ron the spot, they know her na and even her appearance," Keith replied with a glare.
i fell silent at his words.
She couldn’t deny it.
"So. Do you want out or not?"
Keith asked her.
"What a pointless question," i said.
Keith smiled. It was a small smile, and underneath the exhaustion and the bruising it had sothing clearly determined in it.
"Then we figure it out," he said.
"Try figuring out how to swim three miles first," i said. "Because that’s roughly what we’re looking at. I’m not an Olympic swimr and I’m guessing you aren’t either."
Keith didn’t miss a beat. "There’s a boat."
i looked at him.
"A fishing boat," he said, dropping his voice another register. "Small, wooden, paddles. I know it’s there because I used it before they locked up. They keep it moored on the south side of the property, right where the garden backs up to the water."
"And you think it’s still there," i said.
"No reason for them to move it. It’s not exactly a tactical asset, it’s a beat-up fishing boat. They probably haven’t thought twice about it." He paused. "But we’d need soone to get it positioned. Behind the house, in the water, ready to go when we move. Otherwise we’re standing on the bank trying to untie a boat while people with guns figure out what the noise is."
"Good luck with that part," i said.
"I know soone who might," Keith said.
His gaze had shifted.
i followed the line of it across the yard.
Tommy.
He was standing apart from the others, holding his bowl without eating from it, his eyes on the dark-haired woman from the corridor — the one he’d guided out earlier, the one with the raw hands and the absent expression. He was watching her making sure she wasn’t going to run and was eating.
"Him," i said.
"You heard him in the corridor," Keith said. "He’s done. Whatever arrangent he thought he was part of, he’s checked out of it. He wants out and he wants to take her with him."
i watched Tommy for a mont.
"With her?" i pointed toward the dark haired woman.
"No, another one. Emily," Keith said. "Don’t ask her full story because I don’t have it. What I know is she’s not, normal. Like Gaspar isn’t normal. She’s sothing else. He keeps her sedated most of the ti from what I can tell, or close to it. She’s locked sowhere but it doesn’t matter. " He shook his head slightly.
Emily.
The na landed in i’s head and stayed there, turning over slowly.
Ryan had told them about Emily. Not extensively but enough that she was soone important to him, his forr classmate also soone who had Dullahan.
Ryan had a Symbiote. He’d passed sothing of that to Rachel. To Sydney. To Cindy. There was a precedent for what that connection could an, for what it could do in terms of reach and recognition.
If Emily carried sothing similar, then soone who shared that might be able to reach her in ways that Gaspar couldn’t or simply hadn’t bothered to try.
"It could actually work," i said, mostly to herself.
"That’s what I’m thinking," Keith said, misreading slightly what she was working through but arriving at the sa conclusion from a different direction. "Tommy helps us with the boat, we help him get Emily out. Everybody gets what they want."
"Except the part where Emily, by your description, is unpredictable and prone to reacting badly to people," i said. "And the part where Tommy walking out of here with her is sothing Gaspar won’t allow right?"
"Right, maybe it’s better to let her but that Tommy is just an idiot. Gaspar’s the only one who can handle her," Keith said grumbling.
"Because he’s like her," i said, turning to look at him directly. "That’s your reasoning."
"I guess, yeah, they’re both whatever they are—"
"I know soone else who may be able to help her," i said suddenly.
Keith looked at her surprised.
He opened his mouth to ask.
But the yard went tense suddenly..
Gaspar ca through the gate at the far end of the garden with a smile. He moved through the gathered prisoners without looking at most of them, a path opening naturally ahead of him as people shifted without being asked.
His eyes went straight to the woman with Tommy.
She saw him before he reached her.
The trembling started imdiately. She took a step back. Then another.
"No," she said. "No, no—"
Gaspar crossed the remaining distance smoothly and caught her before she could get further, one hand coming up to her face — not violently, which was almost worse. His palm against her cheek, turning her toward him.
She shook under his hand like sothing being held in a current.
"It’s alright, Penny," he said softly. "It’s fine. I’m not here to hurt you."
Tommy, standing a few feet away, decided to walk off.
"Please," Penny said pleading. "Please don’t."
"I’m actually here to give you sothing," Gaspar said, his thumb moving slowly across her cheekbone. "I’m going to let you go, Penny. Soon. Almost ti."
Her eyes opened slightly, letting tears roll down her cheeks."But first," Gaspar said, and his smile returned, slow and widening, "I need you to do one small thing for ."
"What—"
"Just find soone," he said. "Soone in Atlantic City. Not far. You know the feeling, you’d recognize them if you got close enough, wouldn’t you? The signal." His hand at her neck now, not squeezing, just present. The skin of his hand where it touched her had begun to shift, the faintest yellowing at the edges, sothing pulsing just beneath the surface. "It won’t take long."
Penny shook her head, terrified.
Gaspar’s grip tightened.
"You’ll do it," he said quietly just keeping his smile.
"Won’t you."
Penny stood completely still.
Then, by degrees, she stopped shaking. Her eyes went slightly distant, like sothing behind them had receded, and she nodded.
Gaspar’s smile reached its full width.
"Good girl," he said.
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