we have to go.

Melantha

When the scandal breaks, television stations are past the bubbly morning shows and into the early afternoon news. People are hitting their lunch breaks in the cafeteria and watching the screens on the wall or in corners. In this city, people who know him or know someone in his office are actually talking to their coworkers: did you hear? Google it. In other cities, people are rolling their eyes: yet another one or seething, furious that the anchors are talking about anything but Boston or Waco, furious that it's happening at all, in the middle of political chaos, this fucker has the audacity --

The pictures they got from the private investigator hired by the senator's wife are blurred on the screen and taken through screens and through windows and past trees, but what's happening in them is clear enough. The anchors are careful to say that more graphic photos were given to them by their source that they're choosing not to show at this time, but those same photos -- and some of them without the softening and pixelation -- are all over the internet.

The woman's head is tipped back and mostly out of frame. You can make out the lower half of her opened mouth. You can make out a lot else, besides. You can see the remnants of lingerie and in the unedited photos on the internet, the redness on her rump from where he was spanking her. Twitter is ignited. In a matter of hours, millions of people have not just seen, but chimed in. They question if this girl in the photo is even legal. They question the veracity of the whole thing, particularly if they are party members of Jack's, or if they voted for him. They want to know what kind of private investigator leaks this sort of information when Jack could have probably paid him far more handsomely to keep it quiet. Someone who follows them on Facebook retorts that this doesn't make it any better: whether it was a setup or not, the dude cheated on his wife and dude, he's like, spanking some girl in a schoolgirl costume, that's so messed up.

Within those hours, someone puts together enough information from the tree outside the window and the paint color on the door that's just barely out of frame and the reflection in the window of a street sign to find out that this isn't some prostitute he got off the street. He bought this girl an apartment. By sunset, late as it is in these months, the world knows:

* yet another senator fucked around on his wife
* long term
* with a girl who may not even be 21 yet
* and rented her an apartment
* and gave her a credit card
* and a phone

By sunset, that apartment is surrounded, papparazzi waiting, bothering neighbors, asking questions. But by sunset, Melantha is gone. She leaves the phone and the card that Jack gave her behind. She has already opened up her other phone, the one she came to D.C. with, and snapped the SIM card in half, crushed the pieces under her heel. She is long gone, and people are digging through the carefully constructed persona she lived under, finding out who Celia de Luca was.

When Erich's phone rings, her name and picture don't pop up. It's an unknown caller, and it's only about six o'clock in the afternoon. The sky isn't even dim yet.

Erich

The thing about living off the grid is you tend to miss things like this unless you happen to be on your computer "borrowing" wifi from a Starbucks. Erich didn't even find out about the Boston marathon thing until the day after. He doesn't find out about Senator Jack W. Manderly until he stops off at a gas station to use the toilet. The clerk has a little TV on. He's watching the news, shaking his head because shit, are you kidding me, and Erich's going up front to pay for a huge soft drink and a couple packets of beef jerky. He glances over at what the clerk is muttering about,

sees the blurred-out photograph plastered across the news. You can't see very much of the girl but Erich would know her anywhere. He'd know the man anywhere, too, and even though he knew this was what was going on, this is what it means to be what Melantha is and do what Melantha does, it sticks in his gut like a cannonball.

He feels oddly calm. He thinks: well, it was bound to happen soon.

After that it's like he can't avoid it. It's on the radio when he gets in the car. The librarians are gossiping about it when he goes to return his books, because he knows he has to get out of town soon. At the McDonald's where he gets a burger there's some douchebag snerking about it, saying shit like well do you blame him? and bet she was gagging for it, hurr and

other ignorant shit, chauvinistic shit with a dark underlining of resentment that makes Erich clutch the sides of his tray until he almost warps the plastic. He wants to upend his drink over the moron's head. He wants to punch him through the wall.

He doesn't, though. And by early evening he's almost inured to the talk, the opinions, everyone in DC seems to have one. There's this much at least: mission accomplished, Jack discredited. At best he looks like a horny old goat who couldn't keep it in his pants. Far more often people talk about him like an idiot, what a joke, he got her an apartment, how stupid do you have to be. A few are shocked, shocked!, what's happening to this country, our values, it wasn't like this when I was a kid.

It's about six pm. Erich is climbing back into his car after stopping by Charlotte's house. She wasn't there, so he left a note with Mrs. H:

See the news? That's our cue. I'll come pick you up tmrw morning 10am.

His phone rings. He startles, and then he looks at the number for a very long time. He wonders if it's the news. Is that possible? Could they have tracked him down somehow? He doubts it; Derek-whose-mom-married-Mr.-de-Luca doesn't even exist. He hesitates another second, and then thumbs the Answer button.

"Hello?"

Melantha

There are pictures of his wife, video clips of her sobbing. His son looking blankly ahead as they walk past papparazzi, guarded on their way to the car to be driven out to their family cabin.

There's going to be an investigation of funds used, of things said -- there's some odd emails and messages on that phone they found, there's mention of a brother they're trying to track down now.

But all of that is coming later. Soon. Very soon, just as soon as the sun is sinking down toward the horizon.

"Remember the first time you saw me go camping? Not the time you went with me. The time before that. That's where we are. Just for a little while to refuel, then we're going to keep heading that direction." Browntown. West. Who is we? Melantha is talking so fast, so clipped, so unfamiliar, that it's hard to recognize her voice at first. She's all business. Because this is busine--

no it's not. This is war.

"One of the doormen told someone what your car looks like. I don't know if they have the plates. They're going to figure out the truth about Derek pretty quick." Namely, that he doesn't exist. "Please don't go anywhere without her. She doesn't have a pigeon."

Those last few words are so plaintive, so earnest. She mentions no names except the false one. She tells him very little, in fact. But it's the first time she sounds like herself. Taking a breath, Melantha finishes: "Did you see some of the pictures?" she asks, with worry. "Are you okay? I know, it's so gross."

Erich

For a moment he thinks maybe she wants him to meet her there. There where she went camping the first time, and he met her at yet another gas station, and he began to understand that she is more than meets the eye. But no; that's not what she wants him to do at all. She's just calling to tell him she's there, she's stopping to refuel, she's leaving.

He'd be heartbroken. Except he has a pigeon. He wears its little clay home around his neck like an amulet that can protect his heart from shattering. He likes its tiny sparkling eyes, the miniscule impression of feathers on its side. His hand has gone to it as he listens to Melantha. Quite unconsciously, he clutches the bead that binds him to her in his palm.

"I won't go anywhere without her," Erich replies. It sounds like a promise. "I already left her a message. We're leaving tomorrow morning. And don't worry. Even if we get separated, she can find me."

A small pause.

"It wasn't fun to see the pictures," he admits, "or to hear everyone talking about it. But I'm okay." A faint smile creeps into his tone. "You really tanked him."

Melantha

That's what he's waiting for, isn't it? For her to call to him, summon him, come find me. After their little party with Charlotte, neither of the wolves have seen Melantha. Erich's barely heard from her. He touches the pigeon on its leather strip around his neck like it will soothe something in him. It may not be the first time he's done that recently.

He makes her a promise -- doesn't use the word, but that's what it is. He won't leave Charlotte behind. Charlotte is their sister. Of course he won't leave her. Melantha exhales, and the sound is relieved. He tells her that Charlotte can find him, and Melantha thinks: of course. Charlotte's not a child. Charlotte is a Theurge. I'm a jackass.

She doesn't answer his pride, his words. She just tells him: "I don't know when I'll be able to call you again. We're about to get back on the road."

Erich

And just like that the smile is gone again. He turns away from the window, hunches over the center divide, because his ears feel hot and he wants to howl. Or cry. Or both.

"Okay," he says softly. "Thanks for calling me." Another quiet. "You still have the bead, right?"

Melantha

"Of course I do," she says, as though the question breaks her heart. But then: it's logical. What if she didn't. What if it got broken or stolen or she had to leave it behind? "It's on my wrist right now," Melantha tells him. "Just like at the party."

There's a voice in the background. She's distant a moment, like her jaw is turned away. "Okay. Give me just a second. ...I said give me a second."

Her voice comes back to his ears. "We have to go. Please go get her. Like... now if you can. The more they can find out about you the more holes they'll start finding and digging at, and then it's all for nothing."

Erich

"Okay. I will. I'll get her right now and we'll leave as soon as she's ready. M--"

-- he bites it back just in time. The corners of his jaw ache from holding something, everything back. He's squeezing the phone between his fingers.

"Don't forget, okay?" he says, no louder than anything else he's said. "Don't forget to break the bead when it's safe. Don't forget me. I love you."

Melantha

She exhales in a way that's almost a gasp. Almost a laugh, too. "You... you moron, I'm not going to f--"

Duck reaches past her mid-word, snapping the cradle of the payphone down. Melantha whips her head around, giving him a murderous look, teeth on edge, nearly bared at him. He smiles that same tight, almost pained smile he always smiles, right on the verge of a smirk. His eyes are different, though. She's known him a long time.

"Let's go," he says, and her spine begins to unknot. She feels the weight of it all start to descend on her. She realizes, as she walks back out to the car and climbs in the back with Damaris, that she feels afraid.

Veronica, the P.I., twists around from the front and gives her a smile. "I hear you might get to retire now," she says, then clicks her tongue against her back teeth, winks, and gives her a thumbs-up.

Melantha returns the smile half-heartedly. "Yeah, I guess. Maybe." Without thinking, she leans against Damaris's side, and without thinking, the older woman wraps her in one arm. She murmurs something in the language only the two of them share. She calls her Kassandra. She says: perhaps we should get you a new name, hmm? as they begin to drive away from Browntown, and farther away from D.C.

No longer 'she who entangles men'. She's something else now.

She doesn't know what.