8:00 PM

Karen sat beside David's hospital bed. From time to time his pulse quickened, as shown on the monitors. His eyes moved beneath his eyelids, as though he were dreaming, but when she touched him, held his hand, or kissed his cheek, kissed his mouth, or cried over him, nothing happened.

He was supposed to stir under her kiss, eyes flutter open, and he was supposed to sit up; to tell her he was hungry, and ask for something to drink.

"You need to wake up, Baby."

David lay there, dreaming whatever he was dreaming. She thought of her conversation earlier with Suheila, and wished she understood what the hell the girl was saying. She thought of Cameron, and then Gina - and Gina's expression today at lunch. She wondered how she would feel if David loved someone else than she, and if he did, what would she do?

What could she do?

Poor Suheila was raised in the stories of Cameron Dean, and Cameron Dean had no idea she existed... meanwhile, she and David were lifelong friends from birth - cousins if you wanted to be gross about it - and they were soulmates. When in the company of the other, it was impossible to say where one began, and the other ended; they could finish one another's sentences, or sense in one another trepidation. They schooled together, and had David not been hurt, would have completed their advanced education together.

David twitched, and Karen took his hand in hers, and closed her eyes, holding his hand to her cheek.

(...if she dies, I hate you...)

Karen opened her eyes. She was certain she heard it - a voice - a whisper echoing through the quiet room, but it was only she and David. Her pulse quickened, and the hairs on her arms stood on end.

Outside the hospital room, outside the window, she heard something like a faint screech in the distance, a sound she found unfamiliar, and unsettling.

(...I don't think you're generic.)

"Hello?"

Silence, but the steady rhythm of David's heart as translated through the cold beep of a machine.

Karen would burn Driftwood to its foundations, given the opportunity, destroy every last standing building, and lay the woodlands to splinters if she thought it would return David to her side. She would stake her territories, and build their home from the ashes where once a city stood, and challenge anyone who threatened what was hers.

That was the expression on Gina's face today, at lunch.

The girl wasn't a bad person. Older than she by two years, older than Cameron by one... but she was strong, and fast, and smart. Had she been given the rites, and blessings, she might give Karen a run for her money.

Maybe.

"David. Oh, David. Wake up."

(...if she dies, I hate you...)

Karen stared up at the ceiling, wide eyed, slid from his bedside to her knees, and prayed. "Dear Lord, we have only ever served your House. We bear your blessings, live, and die for your cause. Bring my David back to me, because..."

Karen listened to the stead beep of the EKG.

"...because if he dies, I hate you."

✟ ☧ ✟

10:00 PM

"What's wrong?" A very tired Karen walked out to meet with Bart Walker on his back porch. She felt the subtle surprise in him, though he did not show it. Karen took careful barefoot steps across the deck. The wood deck was rustic, smoothed out sanded logs, planed down to a flat surface.

They were warm against her feet, in the dreary gray, cool night air.

"You're getting very good at that."

"I've been practicing." Karen tilted her head. "You were telling me what was wrong?"

"Some asshole stirred up a shit-storm over at one of our strongholds today."

"How'd they get in?"

Bart looked at her cautiously. "It wasn't one of our normal strongholds. It was that... adult... bar they closed down—The Lockdown."

"The one we took in November?" Karen shrugged, watching one of the greatest Master hunters of his time, staring worried faced at the woods just beyond the acreage of lawn in his backyard. She continued forward until she was standing next to him. She put her hands on the log rails at the deck side. They were somehow smooth, and rough all at once. The wood was grainy, older than she, and somehow not sun bleached... not there was much sun in Driftwood.

The one we took in November. Bart grinned a moment, but it faded. "The same."

Karen nodded. "I can see you have a lot on your mind... I just wanted to drop by. Your home smells like David. I miss him."

"Don't go just yet, Karen."

Karen blinked. "Do you need help with anything?"

Bart put a hand on his lower back, and slouched. "There's a book that's just too out of reach, and I can't lift a stool to the bookshelf. Could a strapping young -"

"- Okay, okay. I get it. What do you need?"

"I live - well I lived - in Salem... but I was born here, and I grew up here."

Karen nodded, trying not to look too uncertain.

"When I was growing up here," Bart's voice was absent, though he glanced at Karen. He cleared his throat, and scratched briefly at his cheek. He pointed into the trees beyond his yard with a large calloused finger. "Those trees right there didn't exist. They're small still, but grew pretty large in Clayton's life, and most of J—" Bart coughed.

Karen arched an eyebrow, and waited.

"They've grown pretty large in David's life that he's been here. When I was growing up, there was about two hundred feet or so of space that went back. My yard was a little bigger then."

"Silly," Karen put her hand out a moment. She stared at it, and then at Bart Walker —the Bart Walker— the Master Hunter who managed to survive his entire career without so much as a scratch. She reached up hesitant and put her hand on his broad shoulder. "It's still your back yard, Bart."

He rewarded her with a gruff chuckle, looked down at Karen with a lifted a bushy eyebrow. She was watching the darkness of clouds over the horizon. She didn't notice him eyeing her. He returned his gaze there as well. "Bart huh?"

"It's what my grandpa calls you. He'll be dead soon; my father retires when I take the helm. I thought I'd try it on for size."

"Fits well, Karen. I look forward to the day you're in my family."

"Me too, Bart," She said, pushing her luck. "Me too."

"So how do you figure that two hundred or so feet is still mine? Those woods... they grew over it, pushed over it. Reclaimed it."

"Cut them down." Karen stared at the overgrowth of trees. Most of them were not all that big. "Anytime something's invading your territory, cut it down, cull it out. Kill it... and clear the space. That's the entire way of The Order. That's the way of nature. For lack of a better word, it's Darwinian."

Bart stared down at her with disbelief.

She stared thoughtful into the woods thoughtfully, her brow furrowed a bit. "When David is well again, I have to go back to Salem. I know I'm not of age yet, but I mean this when I say it: don't let him hurt himself over all of this."

"Why would he?" Bart stared down at Karen. She was tall, especially for her age, but not nearly tall as he.

Karen turned her head, staring him in the eyes. "I know what's going on with David, and I know where David is."

Bart stared at her, straight at her. She was looking into him. "David's in a—"

"I don't expect you to tell me. I don't expect you to explain anything to me. Just know that I know." She said. "So long as he is where they say he is, he's in danger."

Bart chuckled. "While we toil here in our private wars, the world is in strife. People suffer at home, and abroad. Just today, two American Black Hawk helicopters went down in Mogadishu. We fight our private war, and sometimes forget there's a world outside our own. We fought our war and often fail - we all fail - to see beyond the borders of Driftwood."

"Or Salem."

"...or Salem." Bart nodded.

"Their wars... our war. It's still war. It doesn't matter to me where. War is. Theirs for one reason, ours for another. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. Sometimes we kill them. Sometimes they kill us. It's war. People will die."

"Do you think that's alright?"

Karen shook her head slowly. "No. I don't cherish the war that began with William Phips. The dissolution of the Court of Oyer and Terminer didn't end the trials. It only hid them from the public eye."

"Almost textbook. You'll do well in your Advanced Training."

"I'd like to train with David."

"Rites and Blessings for him one way or another, Karen."

"I want to receive mine when he receives his. We were born the same day... I mean, I'm a minute older, but all the same. Everything together, or nothing at all."

"If only everyone in The Order thought the way you did. This war would be over."