Blondie made no sense because paradigms were contextual, and in context, mean girls and their cliques were territorial social hierarchies. Put that same behavior in a lone kid in an unfamiliar place and all you got was an immediate social outcast.

If Steven Hayes was right about Karen McFadden, and if Blondie was really McFadden’s kid, she would have spent her entire life on the move.

Friendships, if she’d had them, would have been temporary and fleeting.

No territory. No social hierarchy. No queen bee.

What you got instead was a cultural chameleon adept at reading people, quick to pick up unfamiliar social cues, capable of rapid integration. That’s what this was, and with understanding, Kara’s insides unclenched and clarity followed.

She said, “If it’s on me to pick a name, I’ll go with Jen.”

“I like that one.”

Kara said, “Thank you for letting me know my guys are safe, and for explaining the rules of engagement. What I really need most right now is to use the restroom.”

Jen nodded toward the sealed-off space within the cabin.

“Toilet’s in there,” she said. “Shower, too, if you want to clean up. Just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll set your feet loose.” She stood. “I’m not going to stay to keep an eye on you, so we can do this one of two ways. You can use the time alone to try to get out of your restraints and make a jump for freedom, which won’t work and will force me to hurt you. Or you can accept the situation for what it is and deal with the inconvenience as best as you can.”

Kara said, “And what exactly is the situation?”

“Just a long, boring train ride, unless you try to mix it up.”

Kara parsed the words for source and context, searching for completeness and meaning, just as she would have if they’d been handed to her as a transcript. Within the many unknowns, this much she knew:

Her captors were capable of inflicting great harm but preferred to avoid it.

They responded to violence with violence but didn’t initiate it.

They were rational, methodical killers averse to killing, willing to take prisoners, but not sociopathic, ideological, or even evil—though morality was wholly defined by who did the moralizing—and try as she may, she couldn’t get this to fit the narrative headquarters had handed her. Not that she discounted the narrative entirely. Political assassination might very well be the end goal, but that assessment was oversimplistic.

From nearly the beginning she’d known there was more.

More was why she’d been grabbed.

Kara said, “Are you planning to let me go?”

“When this is over, yes.”