Sloan pulls out on the highway. The store was supposed to be here somewhere. Right down the road. There it is, Jim’s General Store-If you need it we got it.

Sloan parks her car and gets out. Live bait—Firewood—Fishing License—Beer—Supplies. It looks like they have a little bit of everything. She goes in and looks around. They do have everything. She goes to the back and gets some clothes, a couple of pairs of jeans for both her and Ed. She looks in amazement. They have bright colored Hawaiian shirts. She gets 2 for Ed, for herself she gets some flannel shirts not pretty but warm. She goes up to the counter to pay for things and asks, "Can I leave these here, I need to get some more things."

The man at the counter says, "All right with me. If you need any help let me know."

She goes back and gets a couple of jackets. They will help if they have to stay here for more than a few days. She gets toiletries and junk food for Ed. With the fresh vegetables and milk, she thought she had all that they would need.

"How much is it?" she asks, as she opens her purse.

"Well, It comes to a little over $200. If you want I’ll throw in a couple of trout. I caught them this morning." She looks over in a cooler and sees a couple of fish swimming in the water.

"No, thank you. I don’t know how to clean them."

"I tell you what, I’ll pack all this up and put it in your car. Then I’ll show you how to clean a fish. Everybody should know that."

"Well, OK."

Sloan gets out several 20-dollar bills from her purse as he packs everything up and puts it in 2 boxes. They go out to the car and put them in the trunk.

"Now, I do my cleaning over to the side. You just wait a minute."

Sloan looks in the box of clothes and gets one of the jackets out and puts it on. She might as well be comfortable.

She watches as he turns a tap on and water sluices down a board to a sink. He deftly slits the fish’s gullet and scrapes the entrails out. He rinses out the body and repeats the process with the other fish. "Now I think the best way to have fresh fish is to fry them in a little butter with some lemon if you want. Salt and pepper and its finished."

"Thanks for every thing. I guess I’m going to need some butter and salt and pepper."

He wraps the fish in a sheet of butcher paper. "Here you are. Don’t worry I’ll go get you some." He returned with a small bag with a cube of butter and picnic salt and pepper containers.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Why don’t you recommend me to your friends? Maybe I can get more people up here to fish and come to my store."

Sloan raises her eyebrows, "To come to your store or give you an excuse to go fishing more."

"Maybe a little of both," he says with a chuckle.

"Thanks again," Sloan says as she got into her car. She slowly pulls out onto the highway. Almost no traffic this time of year. She knows that someone is probably following her, but she could see no one.

When she gets back to the cabin she calls to Ed, "Open the door." She sees him look through the window at her, and then he opens the door as she opens the trunk. She passes one of the boxes to him and takes the other herself. She balances the box with one hand as she shuts the trunk.

She follows Ed into the cabin. "We’ve got some clothes and food for a couple of days, and junk food for you."

She looks around and notices that Ed has cleaned up their mess from lunch.

"How did you know what size I wear?"

"Ed, I’ve known you just short of forever. Besides, I undressed you, remember."

"Oh, yeah. Hey, surfer shirts. Flannel shirts too. Not for me."

"Yes, for you if it turns cold. I’m gonna change." She grabs a pair of pants and a shirt and goes into the bathroom. "Ed, I’m gonna shower. She pokes her head out the door and motions to him to come. With the water running she says, "If the phone rings and its Attwood he’ll give you some numbers to punch in. It’ll scramble the phone call. Don’t mention any names."

Ed nods.

"Now out with you"

Sloan enjoys her shower. She lets the hot water wash her fear and worry away, knowing that they would be back. She lets the heat soak into her and allows herself to relax. The past day almost had her undone. In the heat of the shower and smell of the shampoo and soap she sank to the bottom of the shower and lets herself cry. The bitter tears of regret and guilt. As she sobs she knows that if it hadn’t been for her, Tom wouldn’t have been taken. He could have fought. He would have known that they were there. When the sobs finally stop, she turns the water off and dries herself. She didn’t think about getting new underwear. Well, now Ed gets to find out what it’s like to have a roommate.

She gets dressed finding it odd not to have underthings, making her mind wander to other things. She shakes her head as she wraps a towel around her hair.

"OK, your turn. You may need to let the water get hot though." she says as she steps out and turns so Ed can get the full effect of her in jeans and a flannel shirt.

"Somehow that is not the image of you that I have."

Sloan rummages through the box and finds a comb and starts to take the tangles out of her hair. Ed comes up behind her and holds her hands. He slowly turns her around and looks into her eyes. "Are you all right?" He has a concerned look in his eyes.

"I’m all right. I had a bad case of shoulda, coulda, woulda." She pats his hand. "We’ll get out of this somehow."

Ed walks into the bathroom. "Hey, what’s this?"

Sloan laughs. ‘That’s what happens when you have a woman as a roommate."

Ed looks at her from head to toe.

"Uh hum, you sleep in that bed by yourself tonight. I have grown attached to this body and I do not need it rearranged for any reason."

"I’m gonna lie down," she calls to Ed.

As she lies down she looks at her feet. I should have gotten some socks but that’s the least of my worries.

When he gets out of the shower, he sees Sloan on the bed in an exhausted sleep. He looks around, and the places that comforter over her. He goes through the boxes and puts the food away in the refrigerator. He smiles at seeing the junk food. Sloan knows what he likes to eat. He pulls the chair aside and sets in it waiting for her to awaken. He knows she needs the sleep, she was up all night driving. He sits there eating chips and wondering if he should lie down and rest to. It seems as if she has been watching over him instead of him watching out for her. With his headache fading he wonders how they are going to get out of this mess.

He looks outside and sees that it’s nearly sunset.

He decides to look around and see what she got for supper. He finds the fresh fish and the bag of butter, salt and pepper. He grins. Sloan doesn't know that he can cook. He gets up a frying pan and starts heating up the butter. The he slips the fish in the butter. He watches it sizzle and pop. He puts the cooked fish on a plate. He cuts open the lemon and squeezes it into the butter. He takes the pan off the fire.

"Sloan, wake up". He says gently shaking her shoulder.

"Suppers ready."

"What do you mean ‘suppers ready’? I didn’t get any pizza or take out for supper."

"Look" he shows her the fish on the table. "I like pizza and take out but I still know how to cook. We can have fish and potato chips, a well balanced meal."

"Ed, I don’t know how you got to be a doctor if you think that is well balanced."

"Simple, internship. As an intern that was a well balanced meal."

They were half way through their meal when the phone rang. Sloan cautiously picked it up. "Hello"

"3-6-4" She keys in the numbers.

"Sloan, listen carefully. Pack up and travel north. We have arranged a traffic accident in order to separate you from your tail. When you are motioned over leave your car and move across the highway to a van. The driver will take you to us. Keep down, we don’t want anyone to see you in the van. Leave in no later than 30 minutes, preferably 20." The phone goes silent.

She nods and motions Ed to the bathroom. When she enters she turns the shower on. "Ed, we’ve got to leave. Attwood says 20 to 30 minutes. We’ll be transferred to a van. Our tails will be taken care of by a traffic accident. Let’s get going." She grabs all the underwear hanging in the bathroom and throws it in the box with the clothing. She got everything together and remembered. She motioned Ed closer and whispers in his ear. "The black bag. When we leave don’t let go of it for anything." Ed nods.

Sloan gets a $100 bill out of the bag and puts it on the table. It’s been 15 minutes since the phone call. They get ready and leave. She has her keys out and opens the trunk. Both boxes go in. Ed has the bag slung over his shoulder and she carries her purse. They shut the trunk and get in. Exactly 20 minutes after the call she pulls out and starts driving north. She has never been so scared in her life, not even when they had been shooting at her. If she screws up she may never see Tom again, and she doesn’t know if she could face that.

Its dark and she doesn’t know how long she’ll have to drive at the first opportunity she stops and fills her gas tank, cash is a wonderful thing. She notices that Ed is keeping the black bag on his lap, just as she is keeping her purse over her arm. When they have to move they don’t want to forget the things they need. She drives north and hopes for the best. With the CD player on she talks to Ed, "Do you think they can hear us?"

"Well, if they can, I hope they like rock and roll." He says, as he leans over to talk to her. "I put the loudest and worst rock on that I could find. Not that there is a lot of bad rock and roll." He adds.

After driving about 20 minutes the traffic starts to get congested, they slow to a crawl. An hour later they come to an officer directing traffic. "What’s wrong, Officer?" Sloan asks.

"There’s a traffic accident up ahead that’s blocking off the entire lane of traffic. We’re directing people through for safety."

She drives slowly in the traffic wondering which of the cars behind her contains the Ice Queens tails. She giggled, maybe she should call them dogs. She knew she was getting hysterical.

When they are waved through they are the last car of the group. Sloan drives carefully, looking for someone to wave them off. After they round the bend of the curve a man in an orange vest and flashlight waves at them. They stop and run to the panel van stopped in the other lane. The driver tells them to stay on the floor to make sure they are not seen. The man helping them in the van has the blank expression that Sloan has come to associate with a dominant on a mission. She had seen that expression on Tom’s face before.

"Dr. Parker, in about ½ an hour you will be able to sit up. I only do this as a precaution. It is doubtful that anyone even noticed. My people will take your car to northern California and abandon it. You will have vanished without a trace. Or would you rather have it burned in an accident?"

"Could you have it lost in a way that it would never be found. Perhaps crushed for scrap or something. If the people who have Tom think I’m dead they might use that to hurt him. I don’t know. If they think I’m alive they might not stop looking. I ran because I knew SHE would come after me, eventually. I don’t know why they took him, but she said she would keep him alive. I don’t know if that is good or bad."

The man who helped her into the van goes to the driver and whispers something in his ear. The driver’s eyes narrow as he looks at Sloan and he turns and drives down the highway.

Sloan feels as if she had been on this trip forever. It seems much longer than the trip up here when they were fleeing from the Ice Queen. In the van she can’t see where they are heading. She hears the sounds of traffic and knows they are in a populated area. She hears the truck drive into a building, perhaps a garage. They stop and open the back door. "Dr. Attwood, I have never been so glad to see you. Have you heard anything? Do you know what is going on?"

"Sloan, what did she say? Do you remember?"

"She said she was borrowing him and would give him back alive, but only if I didn’t come looking for him. If I came looking I’d see him at his autopsy."

"Hmmm. She probably has a job she wants him to do. I’m glad you left. If she can’t get him to cooperate she’d come and get you. I think she has underestimated you Sloan. I think she expected you to sit and wait and be a sitting duck. By the way I’m a dead man as is Ray Peterson. I sent him to get his family undercover. I hope things work out for him."

"What do you think she will do now?"

"She’ll try to break him and that will take time. The more time we have, the more likely we are to find him. Come, I want you to meet Mark, and we have a lot to talk about."

Sloan and Ed are introduced to Mark; a tall, black Dominant, as of now, the head of the co-existence faction. They all sit around a table in the warehouse the dominant faction has rented. Not far from where the pillar was destroyed.

"I’ll tell you what happened to us in a little while, Sloan, now I have to tell you our circumstances. We are cut off. We have no resources and no place to go. All our research has been confiscated and we are quite literally, outcasts. I have a few resources from my years of government service, however once we use those we have no more."

"What kind of resources do we need?" asks Sloan

"Everything, money, equipment, a safe house. Right now we are dependent on the kindness of strangers and that won’t last long."

"Ed, give me the bag." Sloan takes the bag from Ed and takes out her laptop and hands it to him. "Will this help?" she says as she upends it on the table and watches the bundles of money pour out. At the bottom of the bag is a large, sheathed knife. It lands on top of the bundles of bills on the table. "I think it’s Toms chameleon money."

Mark seems less interested in the money than the knife. He looks at Sloan and asks, "May I?" He picks it up and looks at it carefully.

Sloan looks puzzled and nods. Mark unsheathes the knife and looks at it meticulously. It has an 8-inch blade and a tang that goes completely through the hilt. The hilt is black ebony chased with silver. It is wrapped with leather at the top and bottom for a better grip. The blade is exceedingly sharp, at least 3/8-inch thick at the back and over 2 inches wide at the widest point. 1/3 of the back of the blade closest to the hilt has ridges and a blood groove runs down the blade, without compromising the strength. The guard was wide enough that even in the bloodiest battle, the wielders hand would not slip on to the blade. He carefully tests the balance; it weighs slightly less than 5 pounds. Even at this weight it is well balanced enough that it could be thrown accurately, if necessary. It is a fine knife, even an incredible knife, but it is not a chameleon’s knife.

"Is this Toms’?"

"I guess so. I’ve never seen it before. It was in his bag so it must be. Why?"

"It is unusual for a chameleon to have a knife such as this. It is too recognizable, too traceable. If he needed a knife for an assignment he would buy one and dispose of it when finished. This one has been well used." He resheathes the knife. "Look, at one time he wore it often and close to his body. The body oils have discolored the leather of the sheath. The blade shows signs of wear where it has been used, and used often." He sniffs the leather of the handle. "He has fought with it, at least once. I smell old blood where it has seeped into the leather. I suspect this was a gift to him from someone. It is quite expensive and handmade. Take good care of it. He will want it back."

She looks at the knife with interest. "Could it have come from Lewis?"

"I doubt it. This was meant to be kept and perhaps passed down to a future generation. He kept it concealed, even from you. It could mean the person who gave it to him is dangerous, either to him or others.

Walter looks at Mark with renewed interest. He will talk to him later about this, but for now he gathers a half dozen bundles of $100 bills and gives them to him.

"Here take this. Will that be enough to set us up a safe house where we can work? I think the best bet may be to hide in plain sight."

Mark nods and takes the money. It’s going to be a long night.