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“Do you think you’ll have enough time to rest?” said Gina.

“Maybe... Garovel says that Abolish probably won’t make another move for at least a few days, so...”

“Why does he think that?”

“Oh, because of Lynnette.” Hector smirked faintly. “She fought Desmond and Andres by herself... and she fucked them both up.”

“Heh.”

“We, uh... we couldn’t kill them for good, unfortunately, but... they’ll probably need more time to recover than I will. They both died twice.”

After that, Gina let him go to sleep. He was out within minutes, and after making a couple more calls, she finally turned in as well.

In the morning, she was early to rise, more out of compulsion than because she felt fully rested. She’d never been much for sleeping, really, and so decided to whip up a large breakfast for everyone. Mr. Edith had beaten her to the kitchen, however, apparently having had the same idea. She offered her assistance with the preparations, which he happily accepted.

There wasn’t a large enough table for everyone, nor even enough space in the tiny dining room, so they all gathered in the garage and ate in a kind of rough circle, some standing, some sitting on the floor or in the back of a truck.

Lynnette, William, and Hector were the last to arrive, each one looking similarly ragged. Gina pitied Hector the most, however, as he became the target of a barrage of questions from Lynnette’s mother.

“So if you’re not really a mass murderer,” Isabelle was saying, “then why does everyone seem to think you are?”

“I... ah... that’s... not easy to... agh...”

Gina looked to Hector’s mother, expecting her to pitch in with something, but the woman merely listened. Gina had to help him out herself. “He ended up being blamed for something that someone else did.”

She actually knew more of the details than Hector probably realized. She’d looked into the events rather extensively and found several contradictory testimonies from people who’d been in the school at the time of the attack. In particular, there was the version given by one of his teachers, Ms. Trent, who claimed to have been saved by Hector.