The first time Harper had gone there with Jo, they'd stopped halfway and spent the night at the sort of roadside motel you might find in the middle of the desert in New Mexico. It wasn't far off from that, the road to Cadentia. There were old billboards, still. Joe Ray's BBQ five miles, one said. Five miles later, there was nothing but a memory of a shack on the side of the road. Westshire County Faire, boasted another, Prize Boars, Jellies, Dances.

She didn't stop to rest. She didn't stop for gas. It was, on that afternoon, like some large, unseen hands had taken two points from the map unfolded on the passenger seat of the jeep, RhyDin City and Cadentia, and simply folded the paper into fine accordion pleats that brought them near one another. It was like it was destiny.

The jeep never let her down.

Until the day it did.

Two miles outside of town, the buildings began popping up. Not as thick as they had been the last time she'd been there, and not as well-kept. Some essential illusion was giving way. But there were eyes watching her all the same., She could feel them. Something in the engine went 'ping'.

Then there was steam, pouring thick and white from under the hood until it seemed like she was driving through the fogs of dockside at night. She pulled over under the stony eye of a mid afternoon sun in the desert and watched her jeep gasping its last.

An hour and two burnt fingers later, she gave up on trying to get it going again. The saints in her pocket had fallen mute, and no friendly faces emerged from the few buildings strung along the road near her to assist. The sensation of being watched never abated. A gray slant of a look took in the angle of the sun, and she started unpacking the crates.

Both rifles slung over her shoulders, her pockets weighted down with all of the magazines she could cram into them, and she started walking, the Balkan and the rest of the munitions left behind.

The air swam actively. The only way it could when that hot, hot sun beat down upon asphalt. And the mind could play tricks on itself in the interim. Maybe an oasis here. Or a oncoming car there. But it was only desert and the abandoned jewel amongst it that had been Cadentia. The buildings still stood in disarray and disrepair, not even disturbed by looters or animals. But a fine layer of dust over everything. "Movement." A team said, tracking the vehicles on the road with a scope from far in the distance. They hadn't seen anyone in days.

Where Harper went, Colt followed. It was the nature of the bond. A dog and its mistress. Although, it would have caused him physical pain to put it in those terms. He couldn't even count the number of miles he had followed the smell of leaking coolant. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, silently cursing Harper to pay attention. When the pick-up finally slowed to a stop behind the carcass of a jeep, it was clear that she had not.

Quickly he pulled a SIG Sauer from the glove compartment, holstering it as he slid out of the cab of the truck. But even as he approached, he knew it was too late for the jeep's poor engine. The smell of melted pistons might not be apparent to the average nose but Colt didn't have to look under the hood to know that the engine had seized up in an angry fit.

There was good news. He was faster on foot than Harper so he might finally be able to close the gap. And, considering his day thus far, he was eager to grasp a hold of the sliver of hope. Grabbing his pack from the back of the truck, he shouldered it, needing only a brief moment to find Harper's bouncing energy wake. It wasn't something he saw. It wasn't a scent. It was a feeling. One specific to Harper. Camping under an open sky. It was confirmed with a deep inhale of her scent and exhaling the citrus smell of her shampoo from his nose, he plunged ahead in the direction she'd left.

The sun was ferocious, the wind sere. It beat relentlessly down on her head and scoured the evaporating moisture from her skin before rivulets of sweat could ever begin to form. She blinked at sundevils through the lenses of her sunglasses and forged ahead. One mile, two. The buildings grew more frequent, and still not a soul. There was the corner where they'd asked directions to the hotel, before. There, ahead, was the bar and grill where they'd eaten and been drugged.

The heat in Georgia was that humid type that made it almost hard to breathe. Colt had always thought that worse than dry heat. But what Georgia had that this landscape didn't was the blessing of shade. Lots and lots of shade by way of big tall oaks that had been standing since the days of Sherman's infamous march. He'd give anything to have been in the Georgia woods rather than this hell.

Yet, in a way, he had it easier. He didn't have to concentrate on direction. Instead, all he had to do was focus on that bounding energy trail and he would follow in Harper's wake.

He wasn't even sure how long he'd been walking when he finally spotted her form. The brim of his baseball cap was tugged down further to help reduce the glare as he narrowed his eyes to confirm it wasn't his eyes playing a trick.

But, no. That was definitely Harper. He didn't trust his voice to carry far enough call to her. Instead, he whistled while extending his stride.

The sense of being watched was overwhelming. She pulled one of the guns off of her shoulder and checked the magazine, thumbing off the safety, before she stopped and turned.

"What are you doing here?" she said in a voice too low to carry. They were all around them now. She knew it. Her eyes darted left, right, up along rooflines and down at window level. Nothing moved.

There was a growl to his voice that grumbled low in response. "What the hell do you think I'm doing here?"

"You're going to get yourself killed." Her unhappiness was a raw, throbbing thing, palpable. "They're everywhere here."

"This sort of death would be better than the one that would be in store for me if you died without me." But there was less growl and none of the usual pain that entered his voice whenever memories of Yaya surfaced because he was already too busy testing the scents that danced around in the air. Desert. Sand. What anyone would expect out in the vast open space between Rhy'din city proper and the abandoned desert town.

A huff of an exhale was released as a glance was stolen skyward. "We're leavin'. Let's go."

"No. Not until I see it for myself. He's still here. I know it." Her face was sunburnt and flushed, and she was just shy of heat exhaustion but there was steel in the silver flash of her eyes.

"I don't have time for this crap, Harper. You don't have time for it either." Frustrated and tired, the growl easily slipped right back into his voice. "Look, I'm sorry your dip **** of an ex-boyfriend died. Really, I am. But this can wait. While you're out here being distracted there's demons runnin' crazy in RhyDin. We will deal with this after we deal with that. Let's go."

She stared at him for a minute, just stared. It started as a huff of breath that turned into a giggle. The giggle turned into a laugh in the windy silence of the desert.

"We have all the time in the world for this, Colt. This is all there is." Her shoulders shook with it. "Don't you see? They did all of this."

Another curse was released under his breath at her hollow laugh. It felt unearthly given their surroundings. He allowed another glance around at the question. "I don't care, Harper. I really don't care. Obviously you do. I get that so I'll be right there with you when you get your revenge. But he's dead so all you're after here is revenge. We have people we're supposed to be keepin' safe. You need to come back now."

It faded the same way it bubbled up, evaporated in the heat and the wind and blew away. "I was supposed to be keeping him safe. It's why I wouldn't date him for so long. I knew everything was going to fall to pieces, but I couldn't even do that. How am I going to protect anyone else?"

"He didn't die because of any of your demons." A hand wrapped itself around her upper arm as the laughter died, seizing onto her to beg for clarity. He dipped his chin to meet her eyes, lowering his voice further and letting it settle in calmly. "He clearly had his own stuff going on. You cannot protect everyone from everything. Like Yaya. Like how I couldn't protect her. You told me it wasn't my fault. If you believed that then you have to accept that this isn't either."

Whatever the link between them was, it connected, her shoulders sagging. "He killed him. He cut him loose when he knew what would happen, and then he sat back and just watched."

As her shoulders sagged, he released his hold from her arm and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. His eyes already moved in the direction he'd left the truck. "We'll come back, Harper. I promise you. We'll come back. But I need you to concentrate. I need you to get through this with me. Not just me. A lot of people do."

The wind moaned down the street, battered the back of the building across the dusty street. She looked up, looked around. Nothing was moving but an opaque wisp of cloud that would amount to nothing. She nodded.

And then, suddenly, there was movement. What should have been a sandstorm was military issue HUMVEEs rolling in a caravan from far in the distance, the rattle and whine of their engines loud. Men operated the .50 cal turrets that were aimed squarely at their destination. On the other side of the road was exactly the same, heading towards them from both directions. Overhead a chopper whirled past, not even bothering to hover.

Beads in the distance, only. But the line was coming and they were clearly greatly outnumbered and outgunned.

((Based on live play with the players behind Jochin and Harper.))

The dark man held his dark hand out to Harper, a broad, wolfish grin smeared across his face, and nodded to Colt in reassurance. He still didn't say a word. His dark eyes were unsettlingly lifeless.

"It'll be okay," she said again, and swung her legs out of the truck, dropping down out of the cab on her own, without taking the man's hand.

Boy didn't bother to walk behind Harper. He let her approach the old man alone, crossing his thick arms and watching Colt with a huge, inviting smile. Come and get some, it said. You know you want to.

Colt's hazel eyes ticked away from the steering wheel to narrow in on the large man. A growl bristled deep in his throat, but he stayed put with a pale-knuckled grip on the wheel.

Behind the truck, Cavanaugh approached so he could speak quietly over the desert winds.

"You know Annie-Love," he said like he was giving her a lollipop without her mom and dad knowing. "Normally when the Hunter goes rogue like Jo did, the Freemasons are supposed throw everything they have into killing him. But I was so close with the boy that all I did was convince the Priests to revoke his Blessing. If that?s what he wanted, that normal life, then I wasn't gonna keep it from him. I always saw him as a grandson, ya know. Molly would be right tore up if I had to come home and tell her I gave the order to have poor Jo killed."

"You knew what would happen to him." She wasn't buying into the grandpa Walton act. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, as if that could help her squelch the anger pressing out against her ribs. The wind was blowing hot and hard into her face, air and sand making her squint at him despite her sunglasses. "You knew he'd fall back into his addictions. You didn't warn him. You just cut him away and then sent those men."

"Oh, honestly, Annie-Love. Think. He was drunk most of the time. You really believe we would have done it like that? A spear, with everyone seeing? We could have just pushed him into the ocean and everybody would have thought he fell in. We could have sent a round through his head anytime we wanted to. No witnesses. No fuss."

"If it wasn't you, then who was it?" She still wasn't buying what he was selling, but something in her tone allowed for the slim possibility that he might - for once in his miserable life - be telling the truth. She glanced away for a moment to check on Colt and the Ape-boy. Neither had moved.

Cavanaugh pulled off his glasses and wiped the perspiration from them again with his handkerchief. "No idea. His enemies were our enemies, but he wasn?t a threat to anyone anymore. They should have left him alone, but that doesn't mean they would have.? He paused a beat to let her think about that.

?And ya know, Annie-Love,? he continued as he stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket. ?All of that aside, who?d make me pay for it if I was responsible? You think all those guns you brought with you would've done anything in the end?"

"We'll never know," she answered sweet as sugar.

"You're right." He smiled jovially but his eyes were calculating. He took a step back from her and the men with the large automatic weapons stepped backward with him.

Cavanaugh turned grandfatherly again. "Have you found the body yet? Because if you do let me know. Jo always told me he wanted to be cremated."

She clamped her mouth shut around the response she wanted to make to that, and spat out nonchalance instead. "Do what you want if he turns up. He broke up with me the night before it happened."

He clucked his tongue at the news and gestured toward the guards flanking him. They lowered their weapons and slung them across their chests. The men manning the turrets at the HUMVEES, however, remained in place.

"Boy, help Miss Harper and Mister Daniels get on their way properly, you hear?" Cavanaugh turned and slumped his way back to the black Cadillac. Boy stood and waited for Harper to climb back in.

"Touch me and I'll break your teeth," she told Boy as she backed away from Cavanaugh and toward the truck.

Boy let Harper pass by him and climb into the truck. When she was settled, he reached for the door like he was going to close it for her. Instead, he grabbed it by the handle, and with a grinding twist and snap of metal, pulled the entire door off the frame. Dust billowed where he tossed it to the ground. "HaHA!" It was the first and only sound he?d made through the ordeal, crowned with that big smile before he turned and simply walked away, climbing back into the Cadillac the old man had returned to.

Colt frowned past Harper with a single shake of his head "What a dumb sh*t," he muttered under his breath as he fired the great rumbling engine of the truck to life.

She pulled her seatbelt across her lap and snicked it into place. "We need to get out of here before he changes his mind about letting us leave." Before she changed her mind and went for Cavanaugh anyway, hung in the gap between them.

The HUMVEES roared to life and the entire caravan, like a train, turned off of the paved road and headed out over the desert. The turret-guns stayed trained on them as the vehicles fell into line, and sank into the distance of the horizon.

Colt leaned over and hit the button to unlatch her seat belt once again. "You need to blow up the jeep."

"What?"

"It overheated to the point that the engine seized. It's dead. You've got to let it go and we aren?t leaving that stuff to fall into his hands. You want to go back and tell Alain that you let some bad guy type get his hands on his weapons? 'Cause I sure as hell don't. Blow up the jeep."

Clean up your mess.

She checked the caravan, gauged the distance on the arms they were packing, and propelled herself back out of the cab, making a show of crouching and lifting the sundered door, tossing it into the back of the truck. "Get turned around. We?re going to want to run."

Keeping her head low, she ran for the back of the jeep, pulling herself up and hopping in. She was going to need the tire iron to get the crate open. In it, grenade rounds for the Balkan waited, lined up in foam packing like a delivery from the Fruit of the Month club.

"Colt!" She shouted to be heard about his engine. He?d thrown the truck into reverse and three-pointed it around.

She plucked a grenade out of the crate and held it in her hand like an apple, staring at it. The wheels in her head turned. It would be really easy. Except...

"The sooner, the better, Annie-Love." He called out the open driver's window. That?s when he saw her face reflected in the side view mirror. He knew that expression. It only took a moment to place it. He knew that expression because he'd seen it in the mirror on his own face in those long months after Yaya's death in which he was locked away. Because with Yaya dead, they didn't trust him not to hurt himself. The sight of that very same expression on Harper's face rattled him to his core.

His voice deepened urgently. "Now! Let's go!."

She set the round carefully back down and jumped from the jeep, leaving the tailgate open and making a run for the bed of Colt's truck and the rifle waiting there. "Go!" she hollered as soon as the solid thunk of her landing rocked the truck.

With her command, an exhale of relief was released and his foot transitioned from brake to gas and he began to put distance between them and all of the mess that had just happened.

Count to ten. That's how long it took her to sight the jeep and adjust to the bumping jostle of the hard-packed desert road. She held her breath.

Three. Two. One.

Now. She squeezed her finger.

Hell exploded behind them.

((Based on live play with the players behind Jochin and Harper.))

From the outside, the 'Tower' was a nondescript factory building in a nondescript area crammed with more of the same. To the casual eye or the unaware visitor, it was on the inside exactly what it appeared to be from the street. But if you knew the right entrance, and had the right clearances, it was like stepping through a force field from one reality to a twisting other. For those who passed safely through to the other side, the non-existent Division was very much alive and well. S.P.I.'s reach went deep into the roots of the earth there, and spread far wider beneath ground than one might have imagined.

It also lived up to its name. From the center atrium, it was an M.C. Escher hive of stairs and tiers that climbed to the height of the building, all bustling with a sense of purpose, activity, mystery. Harper had one of the glass-windowed offices ringing the upper tiers, almost directly beneath Alain's. She was there now, buried in the details of a file.

To say that Sophie would have preferred to visit Harper anywhere but here would have been a huge understatement. Sophie was comfortable leading troops into battle, negotiating peace treaty with unruly dictators, and buzzing around a wide variety of social circles but spy work was not her thing.

She typically preferred to meet with SPI personnel at the New Haven home and, considering she was a baroness and was Sofia Rhovnik even before she was Sofia DeMuer, it was awfully hard to tell her 'no'. So out of touch was she with the building that she had to be led to Harper's office by a prim-looking woman who had little to say on the walk to Harper's office. Sophie didn't mind. She never had much to say this week in June. The woman motioned to the door and disappeared back down the tiers as Sophie lifted a closed fist to knock.

Harper didn't look up. The back end of her pen continued to move in a line across the lower edge of a row of text, which she was comparing to something in an open book at her left hand.

"Enter."

The brisk command actually caused Sophie?s lips to flicker up into a brief smile. There weren't many people who had ever spoken to her like that and there were a whole lot fewer these days. It felt nice, even if it was only because her identity hadn't been confirmed.

Stepping through the door, she drew it closed behind her. Her head tilted to the side slightly at the view out the windows and instead of a greeting, she immediately launched a question at Harper. "How many floors up are we?"

Beyond the railing, people moved back and forth about their business: up, down, around. Harper looked up, surprise prompting a momentary break before she answered. "Ten."

She set a marker down where she'd left off in her painstaking translation work, set the pen beside the notepad, and waited. Such a visit, unprompted and unexpected, had a reason behind it. It was all about waiting for things to be revealed these days.

The Baroness folded her arms across her chest as pale blue eyes dropped from the view out the window to Harper. She remained on her feet for now. "I came to see you for myself. I'm sure you understand considering how often my husband trusts your judgment and that I will be off world for the foreseeable future."

Brows lifting slightly at that prelude, Harper motioned to her guest chair. She didn't stand. "Here I am."

Sophie unwound her posture to take a step forward and sink into the chair. Her hard lines eased as she did. It was exhausting keeping up pretenses this week. "You're the psychologist. I'm just an art history major. What am I supposed to ask?"

Harper?s head tipped to the side slightly, the ghost of a dimple ticking at the corner of her mouth as she eased back in her chair. She looked exhausted, controlled, focused. A couple of packs of gum decorated her desk, mostly empty wrappers, and a bottle of water stood by them. Her trashcan was full of unused, wadded or shredded tissues. But she was calm, and that flicker of humor was lurking there.

"I think the first question I'd ask is 'what is the purpose of modern art?', but that's just me."

The laugh was sudden and it finished off her icy entrance. Sophie was no Elsie Rhovnik. The act could only be propped up for so long before it crashed down around her. When her laugh died, she drew in a deep breath, releasing it in a measured exhale while reaching down to pick at imaginary lint on her skirt.The quiet extended for a moment until she trusted her voice enough to speak. "The anniversary of my sister's death is tomorrow."

Annie-Love?s mind ticked back through the file, a sudden flash of mental rolodex that filed everything away, possibilities and realities tumbling until they resolved on the memory of a page in a file and the truth of that statement was a shocking blow to her gut.

"Ah." It took all of her breath to say it.

Blue eyes lifted to watch the reaction play out across Harper's face. She hadn't known, which meant that Colt hadn't brought it up. Typical. Her hands curled around the curves of her knees, ankles crossed. "I didn't come here to talk about Alain. I know you'll keep him as safe as you can. And I certainly didn't come here to lay my heart out to the only therapist I would trust with it on the eve of the anniversary of Yaya's death. I'm not that enlightened. I came here because of my trip to New Brittany and because I don't know if I will make it back. There are some things that I haven't told you, things that I haven't told Alain. And you deserve to know."

Harper?s chin lifted; her shoulders straightened and her posture communicated without a word spoken her wary permission to continue. She was listening very closely now.

"Alright."

"I'm the one who pushed Alain to pairing Colt with you. I knew what would happen because it happened with Yaya." Her fingers spread out wide across her knees as a release of restless energy but her eyes remained locked on Harper. "I can't believe she has let you live this long. It may not be much back-up but I knew that if the bond was made, he'd lay down his life for you. I did it for your protection."

"And when she decides not to anymore?" A flash of that same anger that had burned in her belly when she'd confronted Alain about it flashed in Harper?s eyes again. "What happens to him then, Sophie?" Her fingers splayed flat on the top of her desk flexed but stayed put. "Because you know that it's coming. I know that it's coming. I've always known."

"I guess you'll have to work really, really hard to stay alive if you care, won't you?" Steel infused Sofia Rhovnick?s words. The same steel she'd had when she had made her 'victory or death' pact the year before with Seamus. But it ebbed as she continued on, forcing her shoulders to relax. "This is what he's wanted all along anyway." Her pause was only a beat long. "Has he told you what happened when Yaya died? My grandmother didn't pass on very much information in his file."

"Not much." Steel met steel as their eyes touched. It was the truth, but Harper wasn't offering over any of his confidences to Sophie, knowing how he felt, either. Her mind was still whirling. How much did Alain know about her, and how much had Sophie gleaned? The pairing with Colt was nothing short of a tragedy in the making, with Jo stirring the hornet's nest of Morana's jealousies. "I read the file, what there was of it."

Not much, she would have been quick to tell Harper should the question have been voiced. Particularly lately. Since the attack, Sophie had cut herself off entirely from it. It needed to be over. "Colt knew before I did. My grandmother sent a team to pick him up as soon as she had word from Ad Lucem that Yaya was dead. She was instructed not to tell me. This whole meeting between Alain and I was planned by Ad Lucem from the very beginning. It was all a set-up. Had I known that she was going to pick him up.... well, I would have stepped in. But I didn't know. And he was a mess. If they hadn't have done something, he would have found a way to kill himself."

Harper hated herself for asking. It was the flinching skirt of her eyes that admitted the pain of it, her tell. She was worn very thin for it to be so obvious. "And what did they do?"

"I don't know all the details. I was so wrapped up in finding Yaya at the time. And I blamed him for not being able to find her. And then when I found out she was dead, I blamed him for that." Admitting the hollowness of her own anger caused her to rise to her feet, arms crossing back over her chest once more. "He was locked away for months; they used electroconvulsive and chemical shock. We don't understand what he is so they didn't understand how to treat him. I suppose they were in so much of a rush to get him back into the field that they immediately leapt to the outrageous."

"Well." Annie-Love exhaled, anger bleeding into sarcasm. "Maybe I should be thankful I'm not quite so valuable a tool."

"I didn't kn--" But before the angry statement could be fully released, it was sucked back. Her eyes lifted from Harper out the window beyond again, fingers tightening their hold on the opposite arm. "I've got somewhere to be. I just wanted to make sure that he had what he needed to get through tomorrow. It'll be his first anniversary without the Rhovniks around."

"Sophie." Annie-Love stood, the tips of her fingers planted on the edge of her desk, anchoring her through the rising heat of her agitation. Not just anger, worry. An impatience now to be where he was that had been rootless before the visit, but present all day.

"We don't know what he is,? the Baroness spoke slowly, contemplating where her loyalty lay exactly.

Maybe she'd said enough. Maybe it was on Colt to say more. But deep down... she was worried too. He had been so much less of a concern in some ways when he was under Rhovnik control. ?They don't know how to cure the broken bond completely. From what I understand, they did the best they could but they still have to sedate him around this time of year. The entire week is what they did last year. I wanted to make sure he'd been able to get his hands on something strong enough."

It broke a little bit of the tension, the rueful gust of breath from Harper at that. It should have been a laugh. "I don't think they're going to let me check anything out of the quartermaster's for a while here."

"I'm guessing not." There was a knowing sliver that slipped into her tone. Let Harper see Colt curled up in a ball mourning Sonja like she had died just the day before and then they would see how much they had to worry about whether or not she was a danger to herself. Sophie was playing Harper's very own Ghost of Christmas Future in a way. "Call me and I'll have something sent over if he hasn't prepared appropriately."

She took a step back towards the door, her arms falling back down to her sides. It was easy to avoid tomorrow when she was concentrating on other things but she was running short on them
suddenly. "Take care of yourself, Harper."

"Yeah. I will." Until the end, she'd sworn once. It wasn't so far away now, be her reckoning. "You, too. And... thanks."