“What happened that night, with Nick?”

Izza walked to Cat’s bedroll, set down the basket and the water jug, and turned back. “I took care of it,” Izza said. She wanted to sound blunt, badass, but she knew she didn’t.

“Something scared you. You want to protect yourself. I get that. So do I. I need to know if we’re in trouble.”

“If you’re in trouble, you mean.”

“If you’re in trouble, so am I.”

“We’re fine.” But she was tired, and alone, and Cat remained in front of the exit, not threatening, just there. The woman had saved her—they’d saved each other. She deserved to know. “When I found Nick, he was about to get caught. Basically. I tried to keep him safe. Ended up running from a Penitent.”

Cat stepped into a shaft of moonlight. If Izza wanted, she could sprint around the other woman and out. She didn’t. “You got away.” Cat said it like a fact, but there was a question hidden.

“No. I got caught. Don’t worry, we’re fine, nobody knows about you. Someone saved me. Bailed me out. I didn’t—I didn’t even know him.”

“A kid?”

“No. A man in a bad green suit.”

“What’s his angle?”

“I don’t know,” Izza said. “He asked me about the Blue Lady, that was all. And he looked at me like they do.”

“Like the kids.”

She nodded. “Like the kids.”

“The Blue Lady, that’s the story you tell the children.”

“More than a story,” Izza said. “She’s real. Or she was. But she was ours. That guy doesn’t know her. Couldn’t.” She was pacing, and she hated pacing. Her hands hovered in front of her, palms up, cupped as if to catch rain. When she noticed she stuffed them in her pockets.

“But he asked about her anyway.”

“He did.”

“What did you say?”

“I ran.”

“Okay.”

“Hells, do you mean ‘okay?’” She wheeled Cat, but she did not flinch. “Why should I let another person come to me for help? Help people and you get caught. They stick you in a Penitent forever, if you’re lucky. If not, you just die.”

A rat scampered over a box in the shadows. Beneath the warehouse, Izza heard the waves.

“You’re a good person,” Cat said.

“You say that as if it’s a problem.”

“It makes what you’re trying to do harder.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?”

“Survive,” she said.

“I’ve survived this far.”