((Continued from Psychotic Break))

The compound was on lockdown, the authorities had been notified, and everyone was on high alert. In the cramped security bank of computers, the ranking members on staff debated their options. They'd just let a dangerous criminal back out onto the streets of New York. Careers would end tonight no matter the outcome. Meanwhile the everyday security flicked through their numerous camera angles trying to figure out just where she'd gone.

Handcuffed, bloodied, and exhausted, Noel pressed herself against the building beneath a camera. The woman she'd kissed did not know where every camera was, but she had noticed the ones that she passed every day from the building to her car. The woman had also hypothesized that there was a gap in that surveillance due to the fresh spring growth.

Someone needed to trim their hedgerow.

Noel examined the cameras that she knew about one last time before she took the chance to dart into the plant growth. She crouched behind the shrubbery with a full line of cars with their front ends hidden.

Adrenaline kept her agile as she hit the unlock button on the fob she'd lifted from the Healer. Out of the line of cars, only one flashed it's unlock lights.

A smart car.

"Okay. Let's see what kind of pep you got little buddy."

Noel turned the engine over and it quietly clicked to life.

Hey. Maybe she'd outlast any tail because they'd run out of gas?

Wasn’t there some rule where if you were legally dead for four years that you didn’t have to do night shifts anymore? If nothing else, that would have would have been nice. But no. Sadly Jorge Cervantes would not be that lucky. No sooner had the man been cleared for active duty and he returned, than he was tagged to fill in for another detective who needed to swing shifts due to an unforeseen injury. Of course, Jorge was too nice to really say no. Besides, he wanted to pull his weight now that he was back in the MRC.

Even if that meant a late-night doughnut run. Thanks to his recent experiences with his new friend Devon, Jorge was actually overly qualified for this task. He knew some of the best doughnut shops in town now and, as a thanks for his return, he decided he would treat those on the late shift to a few boxes of gourmet doughnuts from a pretentious, hipster bakery simply called “The Hole”. There were a number of things wrong with all of it but he couldn’t help but admit that they made a damn good doughnut.

Driving back to the precinct in his police issued, jet-black, 2016 Chevy Camaro, Jorge made sure to take the turns easy so that he didn’t endanger the precious load of white boxes in the backseat. Only the smallest whisper of a yawn fell from his lips as he turned the corner in the empty, deserted streets of the city. It was a surprisingly peaceful night and, foolishly Jorge allowed himself to be led to believe that it was going to stay that way.

While passing through an more industrialized section of the city, Jorge let his eyes roam briefly across the cityscape – until he caught sight of a car moving far too fast. It was a few streets down but it was booking it through intersections that would have endangered lives if it had been midday. Knowing that he couldn’t let that go unchecked, and wanting to shake the rust off of his driving hands, the man called into dispatch that there was a speeding vehicle and he was going to pursue.

Turning down the street, Jorge stepped on the gas as he tried to maneuver his car onto the same street he saw the vehicle zoom through and quickly set himself on its track. Moving between the few cars on the road, he could see it up ahead. Hoping that maybe just a flash of the red and blue would be enough to deter further speeding, Jorge flipped the switch on the hidden police lights.

A cascade of sapphire and ruby painted the surrounding buildings as Jorge began to catch up to the vehicle. He didn’t know what was going on but he really hoped that they wouldn’t make it tough on him his first night back out on the streets.

”Come on,” he grumbled to himself. He spied the Smart Car getting bigger as he started to descend upon it. ”Just pull over…”

Noel backed out cautiously, all too aware of her bound hands, and then put the eco-conscious pedal to the gas-efficient metal.

The little green smart car jumped, much peppier than she'd expected, and went from from 0 to 40 in about 10.8 seconds. Which was approximately forever in getaway years.

She slalomed neatly through the curved curbs and barriers that were meant to slow vehicles and busted through the exit gate arm going 50mph. She had to let go of the wheel to turn on the windshield wipers in order to clear the windshield of debris and as a result, just barely turned out onto the main road and into the late night flow of traffic rather than just driving straight across the road and into a blank-faced warehouse.

84 miles per hour was where the governor was set on this bad boy. Noel could tell, because she'd wanted to get to 88 just in case it might take her back in time. Plus, the more space she could get between herself and them was five by five.

Red and blue lights caught her attention as she blew through first a yellow, then a red light. Blast.

Could she even do any fancy maneuvering with her hands bound?

Time to find out.

At the next intersection, Noel let go of the wheel in order to pull the E-brake. She wrenched the wheel wit the help of her knees in order to jackknife the car, changing directions from going south to, quite suddenly, going east. She released the brake and hit the gas again. 16.2 seconds from 0 to 60.

The lights had a hypnotic effect. Jorge had noticed that from back when he was a beat cop that those red and blues could easily draw anyone’s attention. Even someone who was drunk off their ass could respect those lights and the people who utilized them. There were those that ran but they never lasted long. As soon as they started running, that was when the police force would be on them. Just like newscasters who report these highspeed chase incidents live, the only thing that pursuing officers could think of "Why do they run?” There was no point in putting more lives at risk because you were stubborn. It wasn’t worth it.

And yet still…they persisted. Maybe it was just a natural instinct to flee when facing the ramifications for your actions? That seemed to be case as Jorge pulled up behind the fleeing smart car and flared his lights. While he had been hoping that the perpetrator would see reason in pulling over, reality just liked to prove him wrong. The area became alit with red and blue and the only response he got from the car ahead was a hum (he guessed that was supposed to be a roar?) before it peeled off ahead of him.

Seriously?

The squat little vehicle took a sharp turn, skidding across the concrete like a hockey puck as it bounded around a corner and pushed on down the street. It would have been humorous to watch if Jorge wasn’t on the job. But with a determined look, the Jorge shoved his foot down onto the gas petal and activated the screech of the siren as he pursued.

The smart car…wasn’t a fast car. Jorge’s standard issue Camaro easily caught up with the vehicle but it was small and buzzed like a bee as the escapee bolted in and around the late-night traffic. That was the only thing that was keeping Jorge from pulling up next to the car and forcing it to stop. His car was fast and maneuverable, but it didn’t have the small stature of the smart car ahead of him. He would have to pursue and wait for his opening.

In the meantime he was going to have to call this in. Tapping the speaker on his phone, he called in to station. ”Dispatch this is Detective Cervantes. I’m in a high-speed…umm…make that very medium speed pursuit of a fleeing vehicle. License plate number…” he rattled off the number as he weaved around another pair of cars. This couldn’t be easy…could it?

Her best and possibly only bet was to put as many car-bodies between herself and the cop. The smartcar, which had somehow earned the name Betsy in her mind, slid between the smallest of traffic gaps and as they approached the late night hub of the borough, those gaps were growing tighter.

A cab hit the brakes and stopped tailgating a top-down lamborghini. Noel and Besty were in like Flynn between the two. She slowed to drop behind an SUV with heavily tinted windows and then hit the accelerator again in order to pop out in front of the same vehicle. They quickly crossed four lanes to slide behind a tall crossover so that the next right she took was maybe, hopefully shielded.

It was hard. She couldn't quite get the turns right without her full range of motion so there was a peculiar jerk as she had to constantly let the wheel go to readjust. She also could not hit her blinker and that killed her inside, but the point was to lose the policeman. It was better that she wasn't able to indulge that neuroticism.

She was looking for a parking garage, a car park, a big shrub, anything where she could stop the chase or confuse the cop. She knew how these chases always ended and the odds were NOT in her favor.

Noel slowed between a cab and a minivan and tried to emulate the soccer mom's casual law abidance. She was a small, green, earth-hugging shadow.

Maybe... he would forget she'd been speeding?

This was getting ridiculous. When this night began, Jorge did not in any way believe that he was going to have to be chasing down a smart car in the late-night traffic. Why were there so many people out in the road as it was? Didn’t the flash of red and blue alert them that they needed to get out of his way? Sadly it was looking like he was the only one who understood this rule as people were maneuvering in all directions in a futile attempt to open a path for him and just making matters worse.

Jorge honk his horn at a taxi that attempted to cross several lanes to get out of his way, effectively cutting him off, and an SUV that did -50 trying to pull over to the side of the road. The man was growling as he tried to keep his calm and maneuvered around vehicles to the best of his ability. People were still getting in his way but slowly and surely he was beginning to make a path for himself? But was it going to do any good?

Every time Jorge looked up to check where the car was, he would see it getting further and further ahead of him. If he didn’t do something now he was going to lose it so, with a rev of his engine and a firm and determined look, the man pulled forward, squeezing between two cars that were both trying to pull over to the same side and weaved between them. When he finally caught that whiff of open street up ahead, Jorge shoved his foot down on the accelerator and bolted forward.

Freedom!

The was a small stretch of open road ahead of him, just enough so that he could catch up to the fleeing vehicle. The smart car, at this point the driver, was a bitch to catch up to but the watermancer wasn’t going to let himself be stopped. Easily he closed the growing gap between them and found her weaving back in and out of traffic. He just barely caught the car pulling off to the side before a massive semi blocked his view. He slammed his hand down on the wheel and managed to slip his way around it and back into view of traffic.

He blinked as he looked about – wait…where did she go? He cursed under his breath as he peered about, his eyes roaming all the cars that were in his vicinity. For a moment there it really looked as if the speeder was gone, but that wasn’t possible? He ground his teeth and shook his head until he looked directly to his side. There, next to him, was the car and the driver inside.

He stared through the window until he caught her eye. He then blinked as familiarity crossed his mind. The driver…he knew her…

Noel shadowed the minivan and pulled over. She was definitely pretending she was a tow-behind luggage rack by pulling in obscenely close to the back bumper of the van.

You see nothing. Don't look over here. Don't look, don't looooook.

Since Noel was decidedly not looking, she wasn't sure if the policeman had spotted her. That seemed like a bad idea to not know so Noel hit the side view mirror adjustment button. It whirred even slower than the actual vehicle and stopped when Noel met the policeman's eyes in the reflection of the mirror.

Oh. That wasn't good.

Noel dove for the glove compartment. It was mostly papers, but she did find a tissue box wedged in there. It wasn't enough on its own, but if she gave up a shoe...

She turned the wheel first so that she would not forget and then ducked down and MacGuyvered the shoe and tissue box as best as she could to press down on the gas pedal. Noel slid across the seats and went for the far door before she kicked the gearshift from park down into reverse.

If the car'd been any bigger she might have hurt her leg, but with its top speed being what it was and the distance from the door to the gearshift being so small, Noel was fine to make a running break for it while the car went backwards with a hollow crunch into the car behind it.

Now she was on the lam with her hands in cuffs, unable to speak or read English, and missing one shoe. Noel was looking for somewhere to be, anywhere that was safe. Or dangerous. She could go for dangerous as well at this point.

Jorge stared at the woman’s eyes in the reflection of her side mirror. In her attempt to blend in to the crowd, she had afforded the detective a chance to pull up next to her and box her into a corner. Of course she would have gotten away with it had the man not been observant enough to catch both the make of her car and her gaze in the rear view. There was just something about the look of a guilty person’s eyes. It was something that most cops grew an instinct for based on how long they spent in the job.

The eyes were all he needed to draw his attention.

As he stared at her, she stared back at him. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure whom he had been chasing but now he had a vague description that he could rattle off to dispatch. As she ducked under her seat (he guessed in some vain attempt to hide), he pulled up his radio and called it in.

”Dispatch. Subject is Caucasian, female, brown hair, disheveled attir—“ he stopped in his report.

As Jorge looked up, he could see that she popped back up again and was now revving the engine of the car. At first he didn’t understand why. She was effectively boxed in and there was no place she could conceivably go. Even if she wanted to hop the curb and attempt to drive it, the myriad of parking meters and street lamps would stop her vehicle dead in its tracks. It was a fool’s errand. However it would quickly become apparent that that wasn’t the woman’s intention.

With barely an explicative leaving his lips, Jorge braced himself as the driver’s side door of her car was pushed open and the vehicle came careening back towards him. He just had enough time to brace himself against steering wheel when the speedy little smart slammed into his vehicle, sending his own car backwards. Jorge’s entire body jolted. The smart car didn’t have enough space to gain any fast momentum, but it still moved with enough horses to plow into his own car. Jorge shaken for a second but as his eyes readjusted, he looked into the street to see the woman breaking into a run.

Another curse and Jorge called in to dispatch that there was now two damaged vehicles and he would be pursuing on foot. Snapping off his seatbelt, Jorge climbed out and broke into a run after the woman who had disappeared around a corner. He noticed she looked rather odd while she ran, her arms held firmly in front of her. But he didn’t give it too much thought as he just knew he needed to catch up.

”Stop! This is the police!” he shouted after her. Oh he would chase this woman to the ends of the earth if he had to. She made him abandon the doughnuts!

Noel ran until she could no longer hear the sound of the SmartCar's still spinning tires. She heard the man yell. Or, she assumed it was the officer. She was too busy running to double check. When she did, the split second of taking her eyes off of where she was going was enough for Noel to runn full-on into a late night reveller. He spilled backwards onto his bum, but Noel only bounced back a step and a half despite their weight difference. That was a distinct advantage of not being drunk.

"Hey!" Was a pretty universal thing to shout and she could guess the few things he said next. It didn't matter. Noel ducked behind the drunk's friend and both hands to vault over the nearest cafe's low fence. The fence was more decorative than anything else, meant to denote who was in the restaurant's patio and who was not. Now, Noel was. She scrabbled between tables and into the restaurant itself, grabbing a slice of garlic bread as she passed.

There was always time for garlic bread.

Through the kitchen, she ran with the bread already in her mouth.

This was fast turning into her worst nightmare. Useless. Helpless. What could she even do? Step one, get rid of the cuffs.

Noel grabbed a chef's knife as she passed and darted out the back exit and into an alleyway. No. Maybe her step one should be to get rid of the cop.

Except... except... she didn't hurt police. Police were good, if misguided. That was what she knew to be true. Noel stopped and pressed herself against the wall beside the restaurant's exit wishing she could sink right into the brick.

The angle was good. If he ran out to follow her, he might pass right by without seeing her. Of course, she didn't trust that her luck would be that good, she was preparing an ambush. With a knife? The memorymancer shifted the 8" blade in her grip.

Yeah. With a knife. She could hurt him without killing him. He might even have one of those universal keys for the cuffs...

Medium-speed car chase, minimum collision crash, and finally now he was chasing down a woman on foot. Clearly this was not the night that Jorge envisioned it would be. Not that he should have expected anything less. This was New York City where every Starbucks at the corner dished out heaping cupfuls of crazy for free. The woman was charging away from the scene and Jorge followed after her. Though he had been away for quite some time and not in the most active duty, he never let himself get complacent. The man ran and he ran hard.

As he rounded the corner he watched the woman fled from another individual whom she had just knocked down. He stopped for only a second, making sure the man was okay. He merely continued to curse in his slobbering way as he pointed off in her directly. A cursory glance showed the man was clearly fine, just drunk off his butt, so he turned and left him behind to pick himself up. He still had a suspect to catch.

Hearing more commotion, Jorge snapped his attention up to see that she had vaulted a small, decorative fence and was now running into a restaurant. With a growl on his lips, Jorge followed suit, hopping the fence and launching into the patio area. As he ducked inside the restaurant, his eyes swept over the scene until a frantic woman screaming about her stolen garlic bread pointed in the direction of the kitchens.

That tears it. No one steals another person’s garlic bread and gets away with it in his town.

With a firm nod, Jorge followed after the woman, dodging around waiters and pedestrians, all of which were following suit and pointing towards the kitchen. For whatever reason the detective didn’t even think it was possible that she could have snagged a weapon from the cutlery box nearby, so he blindly continued to run. When he spied the doorway into the alley, he burst through it, gun out, as he stepped into the darkness. He still had his momentum carrying him forward but in a split second, several things happened.

One, when he ran out into the alley he couldn’t see which way she went. And two, he didn’t need to see her because he could see that globular, humanoid shape of water that made up all humans coming at him from behind. With a growl he spun back around, gun up and towards her.

”Freeze, goddamit!”

Breathe in. Hear the door bang open into the dumpster. Breathe out.

Noel saw his hands first. She had to do it now, while his eyes were still adjusting from the light of the kitchen to the darkness between buildings.

Just a little jab. In the buttock. Or maybe a thigh. He wouldn't die from that and then he wouldn't be able to chase her. She could search him. It was the right call.

She was silent as a cat so she had no freaking clue what tipped him, but he was tipped. Noel went from preparing for a little jab to slashing upward toward those hands as he shouted and turned. The gun was a priority, but her timing was off. She was already too close.

The knife tip caught on something, shirt or arm or sleeve- she wasn't exactly looking, as Noel surged forward to barrel into his chest with her shoulder and knock him off his balance. She had to press the offensive if she wanted to keep this small advantage, and yet, she still didn't want to kill him. Not even accidentally.

This was not the fight she'd been looking for.

Noel abandoned the knife in order to grip the cloth of his shirt. She pulled her feet up and pushed against the restaurant wall to get the power and leverage she needed to take him completely off his feet. She rode him to the ground.

She didn't want to kill him, but she also couldn't understand a single word. He didn't look Finnish so she assumed that she needed to do something in order for them to communicate.

So she kissed him.

It wasn't a polite peck. Noel had to dig deep to find those language memories. She had to go back to the time and place where this man had learned his words. Sitting in a mother's lap, running his finger along the bottom of his letters and sounding them out, seeing an object and asking... it was a lot to take in. More than she'd expected and it wasn't fitting quite right.

"Leave me alone." Was what she tried to say. It wasn't English. It wasn't Spanish. It wasn't Finnish. It was some unholy mixture of the three.

Noel should have learned her lesson last time she'd botched pulling a language from someone's head...

She was quiet. When Jorge caught that mental picture of the woman approaching behind him, he didn’t even hear the smallest whisper of a sound. She moved on cat paw and, normally, that would have meant that the man was as good as deadly. Thankfully she didn’t know of his ability to sense water nearby, even water inside of a human being. Though he couldn’t outright see if it was her he did know that someone was approaching him from behind so, playing it rather safe than sorry, the man turned, gun up, and commanded her to freeze.

It was a blur what happened next. The woman didn’t even say a word as she suddenly moved her arm and Jorge felt a biting pain slash across the forearm that held out his gun. A hiss of pain fell from his lips as he felt his gun hand instinctively recoil, an attempt minimize any exposed targets for the young woman.

The fight soon move into something far more close quarters. After she had relinquished her blade, she suddenly shoved her smaller, solid mass into his much taller but ill-positioned frame. Jorge felt the wind get knocked out of him as he partially doubled over. And if that weren’t enough, she then grabbed a firm hold of him, kicked off the wall, and proceeded to topple the giant before her. Jorge fell with an audible thud, the last of his breath fleeing from his body as he saw stars for only a second.

And then he felt a kiss.

Unlike Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, Jorge was not some Disney Princess that suddenly came to life at the merest touch of a woman’s lips upon his own. Rather it only exasperated the pain he felt running down the back of his skull, shoulders, and spider-webbed throughout the rest of his body. This was no lovely kiss to awaken the dead, it was a firm and cruel lip abuse.

His eyes widened as he realized that she was kissing him. His hands gripped her covered arms, trying to shove her off but finally that lack of air and pain had made the man momentarily senseless. Steadily his strength returned, however, when he finally pushed her face away from is and was surprised by the stream of words that fell from her inappropriate lips.

>> ”¡Jätä me solo!”

He blinked. The **** she just say? He tried to process what she was saying, pulling some English and Spanish from the short sentence that was mixed strangely with a third language that he couldn’t identify. He needed to get control of this situation otherwise he was going to find himself dead. In the corner of his eye, though, he saw his solution – her bare hands. With a growl, Jorge suddenly released her arms that had been holding her back and both hands grabbed one of hers.

The connection would be instant. He could sense every particle of water in her body. He felt them nourishing her bones, muscles, and blood. He pushed his influence in, snagging onto her voluntary functions like the strings of a puppet and held tight. Still holding her hand, as he didn’t need to let go, Jorge struggling to remain holding his influence onto her – he only had a limited window to do this.

”Get off me…” he commanded. He wouldn’t be releasing her hand until he got some answers. ”And tell me who you are.”

He pushed her off and Noel didn't fight it. The confusion in his eyes cemented what she'd feared. He didn't understand. She'd just made it worse. How did she say I don't want to kill you, don't make me? Noel scrubbed hastily through the memories she'd absorbed, but nothing felt quite right. He might be a cop now, but when he was a kiddo, there wasn't a whole heap of death on his plate.

Noel started to shift her weight so that she could better keep her knee in the old man's gut to keep him pinned and not quite breathing at his most comfortable, but he grabbed her hand. He grabbed her hand and Noel's body went still.

He said something that brought to mind playground memories and shoving. He didn't want her here. Well. That made two of them. Only, she couldn't move for some reason. She wanted to move. Why wasn't she moving?

The man added a second demand.

"Who am I?" The woman smiled with a broad mouth and love dancing in her eyes.
"My mama!" Noel's memory replied.
"And who are you?"
"I'm your mijo!" The woman laughed and suddenly there was nothing more wonderful in the world. Noel could feel the warm fuzzies radiating from the memory of it.
"No! Tell me who you are! Your name? Don't you remember?"

Oh. Name. Noel glanced down at her wrist where her tattoo was. No. Where it should have been. Because now all there was on her arm was a dark smudge of ink that was seeping through the sleeve of her shirt. A bubble of panic blossomed in her chest.

"Noel." The name choked out like it was painful. It was Noel, right?

Was this another simulation? A test? Or... the healer. Noel tried to jerk her hand away from the policeman. She didn't get nearly as much movement as she'd hope so instead Noel closed her eyes and tried to run through the memories for something, anything more useful in what she'd picked up. She would not panic. She would...

"Georgie, you're an absolute bum! Get off your *** and stop this Iron Butternutsquash nonsense!"

Noel locked onto that memory like a scent hound. This woman was bossing a young Jorge around and he was listening. She knew the sounds and the context made the meaning clear even if the language wasn't exactly making sense. So she copied it as best she could.

"Georgie, you're an absolute bum. Get off your *** and stop this Iron Butternutsquash nonsense." Noel opened her eyes. There. Now they were speaking the same language. And now he should know that she wanted him to stop whatever he was doing to her. She meant as much business as this memory did. It should work.

Jorge held tight to the woman’s hand. He really did hate to use this gift but at times like this, he knew that it was his only option. To have complete control over another individual was not a gift that the man had ever asked for. Sometimes he had to wonder just how strong he was going to become as the years passed but, at the same time, he knew each and every ability he possessed somehow managed to save his life more often than he could have asked. This was one of those times as clearly the man didn’t know this woman’s intentions but he doubted that they were painless.

Gripping her hand, hard, he commanded her to stand but, unfortunately, it seemed that his words weren’t being processed. Oh she looked like she wanted to get up but something was keeping her rooted in place. There was some kind of internal conflict in her but it was far beyond Jorge’s abilities to understand what it was.

She still had her knee firmly planted on his chest, keeping him from gaining a full breath but she wasn’t attacking him anymore. He had some kind of a hold on her but something was getting lost in the translation. He demanded that she get off, but she didn’t, and when he asked for her name, he didn’t get any response to that eith—

>> ”Noel.”

Noel? Oh so maybe she actually could understand him. Well at least he finally had a name to go with the perpetrato—Wait…Noel? There was the smallest and most vaguest sense of familiarity at the sound of hearing her own name. He didn’t know why, there had to be tons of people named Noel in the city, let alone the world. As a matter of fact, one of his favorite television shows as comedic character named Noel. Clearly that short little bald man was not this Noel, but why did she sound, and look, so familiar?

He blinked as he stared at her face, his memory digging deeper and deeper, trying to find that lost connection. It was there, digging into his brain like a thorn that had been jabbed into a corner of his brain that he just couldn’t reach. Who was she?

>> "Georgie, you're an absolute bum. Get off your *** and stop this Iron Butternutsquash nonsense."

[/color]

The expression on his face must has been reminiscent of some pufferfish just about to be devoured. His eyes bulged as his brow furrowed in confusion. He looked at her, closely. He knew those words, precisely as they were said. That was an argument from years ago when he and his sister, Jayda, were having a fight about his high school band. She was giving him a hard time, as normal, and to hear this person say those exact same words were disarming to say the least.

”What…the…hell…?”

He gulped as he stared at the brunette and her fiery eyes – the same look his sister gave him. Too stunned to realize what he was doing, Jorge’s arm dropped as he let go of the woman’s hand – a mistake that he would surely pay for later…
[/div]

He surprised her by letting go. Triumphancy surged in her chest and the feeling carried Noel to her feet. She hesitated, standing over the policeman.

"Look, I'm not tryin'a crush your dreams. I don't want to hurt you." But the throbbing that had started in her skull took serious precedence. She needed to sort this language crap out before she slept; before it became permanent.

Noel continued to parrot the memory. The girl was good. She had made this man feel the feelings Noel wanted him to understand now. He had already let go of her hand. It was already working. She skipped the bit about some instruments or papers with words. That was irrelevant to the here and now.

"You've got so much more ahead of you in life than this."

She did feel a little bad for kicking out at his face after that, but she needed to get away and the stun from a hefty kick to the chin wouldn't kill him unless he was already on his way to being dead.

<No more knife.> She conceded in Finnish, but the word, "Promise," came out in English for some reason. Her promise to him. No more trying to stab him in the butt. She'd leave the knife for him.

Noel turned and ran.