“I don’t know, but it’s something. And do you really think Raymond’s going to waltz into St. Elizabeths and get Simon to play ball? That’s not how Simon works. But regardless of what Raymond does with Simon Gutmunsson, something will happen. It might happen soon. The bureau is angry about Cooper’s murder—they’re not going to put the Butcher on the back burner now.”

Bell’s next word comes out like a groan. “Cooper—”

“I know it hurts. I feel it, too.” A tearing pain. She swallows hard, controls the urge to break down, to just sit here and collapse. Cooper would not approve. “Listen—you’re wasting your energy, and we might need that energy. Cooper would be telling us to use our advantages. He’d be telling us to get ahold of ourselves.”

“He was good at that.” Bell shakes his head at the floor. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Emma sighs, walks to where the two spare foldout chairs are propped.

“I just can’t… I can’t get my mind around it.”

She takes one of the chairs and opens it out, sinks down on it, her legs watery. “I know.”

Bell lets out a deep exhale, like he’s exhausted, and slumps back with his butt on the desk. “What Raymond said to you—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Emma drops her gaze. “And I don’t trust him. At all. But I think we can rely on Martino, and there’s Howard Carter, and the other names Cooper gave us. And I think we could talk to Westfall and his people if we needed to.”

In the quiet of the gray office, Bell steadies himself with his hands on the desk. “Question?”

“Sure.”

He hesitates before launching in. “Emma, why are you still here? I get why you joined the unit, but why are you hanging on, after everything? I swear to god, I’ve been trying to figure it out, but I just…”

Emma knows this question is important. For the longest time she didn’t know the answer, and even now, she’s still parsing it out.

“Travis…” She closes her eyes. “Travis, why do you think I cut my hair?”

“You used to have long hair?”

Emma nods.

“I bet it was real pretty,” Bell says gently. “Did you cut it after Huxton?”

She nods again. She’s opened her eyes, but she’s looking at her hands.

“You fought him, didn’t you? A physical fight.”

“Yes,” she says. Her throat feels thick, her tongue wooden.

Bell pauses. “Did your hair get… tangled up?”

She takes a breath. “Yes. He grabbed it, and I nearly didn’t… I nearly didn’t get away.” She exhales slowly and completely, pulling her sanity back on a fine string. “You think this stuff is over, and eventually you’ll forget. But for a year after, every time my hair caught on something, I’d get… I’d have a reaction. Then I buzzed it off and I felt better.”

Bell nods steadily. “If you do something, you feel better.”

“Yeah. So I think I joined this unit to save prospective victims, but also to save myself.”