Watchers

Chapter 40: Until the morning light

Daniel and Sasha don't get to sleep long. Dawn comes sooner than expected - a real dawn in which the sun streams through the car windows and is warm against Daniel's face despite the winter outside.

He stirs out of a superficial sleep and finds his hand linked in Sasha's just like on their very first night together in the shelter. Her face is turned toward him in the cramped space at the back of the station wagon and she snores lightly. He's gotten used to that sound in the past few weeks and now that they have their freedom back, he wonders if he'll be able to sleep the same without it.

"Mm-morning," she says as the sun wakes her and she wipes the sleep from her eyes.

"How's your chest today?" Daniel asks.

They sit up and keep the blanket on their laps to soak up as much warmth as they can before they have to go back into the cold. Sasha puts her hand to her sternum and then says, "Better. I think the swelling is going down."

Then Daniel has to ask the question he had avoided last night.

"What now?"

He knows their lives have been strung together out of nothing more than circumstance and now that they're free of the Elimination Game house and free of Father Gary's House of Horrors, there's nothing demanding that they stay together any longer. Daniel doesn't want to be alone - he knows that he's not brave enough to go crawling back to his father just yet, and if he stays on the streets then the junk will start finding him again. But more than all that, he doesn't want to part with Sasha - he's grown attached to her.

She looks at him with something close to hope in her eyes.

"I have to go back to the shelter and try to rescue Jane. I know it's crazy to go right back into the fray and I don't even know if she's still there," she says, and Daniel can fill in the words that she leaves out - I don't even know if she's still alive. She goes on, a little more hopeful now. "But I have to try. What about you?"

"I have no plans," Daniel says. "I don't know."

"You should go to your father," Sasha says. "Bury the hatchet before it's too late, or you'll regret it."

"I don't think he's interested."

"Your differences aren't so great," she argues. "You're fighting for the same things. You're just going about it in different ways."

"And therein lies the problem," Daniel says. "He thinks his way is the only way. I can't go home right now."

"Umm," Sasha says, "well in that case, would you want to come with me? I could use some backup."

Daniel doesn't want to sound too eager - they're talking about a man who poses as a priest to lure homeless people into his web - but he also doesn't think he can bear to watch Sasha walk down the street away from him.

"I probably should," he says. "You know, in case he gets you strung up by your ankles again."

"A lot of good you did," Sasha retorts with a little smile. "I seem to recall you were passed out on the floor."

"He cold-cocked me," Daniel objects, and then their mirth dies down and they're left facing the enormity of the task ahead. He asks solemnly, "So how do we go about this? We don't even know if we're in the same city."

"We are," Sasha says. "I got a glimpse of the skyline downtown when we were running from the drones, and after so much time on the streets, I'd recognize it anywhere."

"Okay, that's step one," Daniel says. "What about when we show up and they immediately recognize us as a couple of people that they tried to kill off?"

"I don't know," Sasha admits. "I guess we'll have to figure out disguises."

"And if he tries to turn us into tonight's chili?" Daniel asks. "Sasha, this is so dangerous. We just got out."

"I know," she says. "And you don't need to come with me, but I have to try. Jane did a lot for me and I might not have survived my first few months on the street if she hadn't taken me under her wing. I owe it to her."

"Okay," Daniel says. "We'll go, but let's iron out as many details as we can now to give us the best chance of success."