Page 31 of Monster Queen Rising

"Probably ten minutes. Less if they think you’re leaving."

Her eyes drop to the duffel, then come back to me.

"That bag's been packed for six months."

"Tell me why."

"My CBC came back wrong last fall. Numbers my doctor couldn't explain. She ordered a follow-up, the second panel came back the same, and then she stopped returning my calls. That was the first thing."

"What was the second?"

"Around the new year a man showed up at the ER and asked for me by name. I'd never given my unit to anyone. He left when I was in the back, came back the next week. The third time, I told my charge nurse, she put security at the door, and he stopped coming. But I knew somebody was looking."

"And the cars."

"Last week. A large sedan two days ago, and again yesterday. I've been packing this bag and re-packing it for months. The van showed up yesterday. I figured that meant they'd decided to move."

"And you didn't run."

"Where would I run? I don't know who they are. I don't know why they want me. I've been trying to decide if I’m just crazy or if anywhere was safe."

I pick up the duffel off the running shoes and hold it out to her.

She breathes out. "You are not crazy and we need to go."

We are down the stairs and out the side door in three minutes. Daron has the truck nosed up to the mouth of the alley, running, the passenger door already swinging open as we cross. Elma climbs into the back with the duffel. I take the front. He pulls out before my door's shut.

We make the corner, and behind us the van door rolls open.

I catch it in the side mirror — the cargo door of the white van sliding back, men coming out of it fast, three of them, moving across the lot toward her building at a dead clip. One peels toward the propped front door. Two take the side. The way they move says they already know which unit, already know the layout, already know she's on the second floor behind a chain and a deadbolt that would have held for about as long as it took them to put a shoulder through it.

The duplex slides out of sight as Daron takes the next turn.

Elma is twisted around in the seat, watching out the back glass. She saw it too.

"That was for me," she says.

"Yes."

"If you'd knocked twenty minutes later."

"We didn't."

She faces forward. Her hands are shaking on the duffel.

Daron checks the mirror once, twice, takes a third turn that isn't on the way to anywhere, and watches the road behind us empty out. "Clear," he says. "They went for the door, not the street. They were looking up at your windows. Not at us."

Daron lets out a breath, and for a second the tactical drops out of his voice. "That was closer than I wanted."

Elma looks at the back of his head. Something in her shoulders comes down half an inch.

"Okay," she says.

I turn in the seat to face her. "I'm going to tell you what we know. If you want me to stop, say so."

A short nod.

There's something in her blood. The Syndicate has been after it for forty years. Women who have it can carry a pregnancy the program has spent that whole time trying to make work, and almost none of it has. They were going to use her.