Steve has a handgun now. He’s shown it to them, and taken lessons with it. He keeps it by his side. He walks around with it. It’s a different Steve.

“Hey, guys. What brings over the happy couple? Want to get a GreenGirl?”

Zack and Emily look at each other. Which one of us will say it?

“We have bad news,” says Zack.

Steve’s brow furrows.

“He’s out.”

Steve doesn’t seem to process it at first. He stands perfectly still, paralyzed for a moment.

Suddenly his legs give way under him. He bumps roughly against his bed as he collapses to the floor.

“Oh God!” Emily cries out.

Zack and Emily leap toward him, lift him up together and sit him on the bed.

Steve takes a moment to recover there. Zack hears him breathing heavily and only then realizes it’s because his breathing had momentarily stopped.

A few seconds later, Steve looks up at them. “When did this happen?”

“Today.”

He looks confused. “He’s an assassin, Zack. A professional killer, who was caught.”

Steve suddenly unbuttons his shirt and looks down at the scars of his two bullet wounds, as if to remind them all, to confirm once more, the reality of what had occurred. Six months later, the scars are still very prominent, a part of his flesh’s topography. He shakes his head slowly with incomprehension. “How can he be out?”

Neither Zack nor Emily answers. They don’t really have an answer. An overconfident prosecution team, a confused jury, confusing evidence, a narrowly focused set of charges that were misunderstood anyway—they don’t have it within them to even begin muttering their way through it, to try to explain a system that clearly doesn’t work, that clearly has failed…

There is more silence. Steve looks quietly at his scars again. All of them looking. Emily is forcing herself not to turn away. To share the reality. Those scars are like the ineradicable memories of what happened that day.

“We’ll stay with you,” says Zack. “We’ll camp out here, order food in, trade off lookout shifts, and be with you until he’s back inside.” All of them know this is impractical. Just emotional. Just a show of solidarity and support.

“Let’s double-check with the police,” says Emily. “Make sure they’re following him.”

“Maybe they can set up extra security in this area, Steve.”

“Extra security for a pro like him to skirt around,” says Steve glumly, flatly, absently. As if not even aware that he is speaking aloud.

“I’m sure they’re watching. Maybe they can make him wear a monitor,” says Zack.

Emily shakes her head. “I don’t think they’re allowed to,” she says. “You can’t monitor someone who’s found innocent under the law. That’s harassment. He could sue.”

“Let him sue,” says Zack.