She climbs.

The barbed wire is old. Hasn't been maintained. No tension. It bows under her hands. But it still bites her, still tears ragged claw-marks in her jeans and the skin beneath. She reminds herself that she hasn't had a tetanus shot lately, and wouldn't that just be the bee's knees, escaping her killers but dying of fucking lockjaw? But she's up and over and landing hard on the other side.

The impact goes up her shins and into her knees and the pain is bad (maybe you broke something), but she doesn't stop. The fact that she can run, even with pain, means nothing is broken, right? (Says the girl who is not a doctor.)

The storage units are bathed in sodium light, but pockets of shadow remain.

Miriam darts into the heart of the storage unit. Seven rows deep. Five units in.

The stink of rotten fast food hits her, but she doesn't care; she hunkers down behind a trash can, makes herself as small as she can between the two storage units.

She waits.

That was him.

The hairless fuck with the fillet knife. The one who cuts out both of Louis's eyes and stabs him in the brain to kill him.

Proof positive, yet again, that Miriam is the one who causes this. The chain of events replays out, a cruel and taunting filmstrip, flip, flip, flip, a cascading series of what ifs: if she didn't get in that truck with him, if she didn't get hooked up with Ashley, if she didn't go back to Louis…

But still, it isn't coming together. She doesn't understand. Not yet. Louis is gone. They're here. He's not. Why would they connect with him? Unfinished business?

It doesn't make any sense.

One thing she knows, though, is that fate never shows its hand early. It always waits till the last possible moment to turn the cards.

The show ain't over yet.

She's spotted.

The only weapon she's got is a broken stick she found on the ground behind her, and she thinks, I'm not going out without a fight. She'll stick it in someone's eye. For payback. Some kind of first-strike retaliation where the revenge comes before the act committed. Vengeance of the time-traveler, vindication born of prevision.

"You all right?" comes the voice.

It's a man. Not Frankie. Not the Hairless Fucker.

Mid-thirties. Light beard. Glasses. Hair lacquered to his forehead with sweat, baseball hat in hand. He peers over and around the trashcan.

"Miss?"

She stands. She doesn't know how long she's been here. A half-hour? An hour? Longer? Sirens have come and gone from the accident. All's been quiet but for a couple-few cars coming in and out of the facility (and with each car, her heart pauses, her breath waits).

The guy's eyes widen when he sees her.

"You're bleeding," he says.

Miriam doesn't know how to respond. She remains sandwiched in the space between the two units; exposure could mean death. It's not death she's worried about. It's what comes before.