Pearl's rhythmic galloping lulled Gracie to sleep within minutes. I stared down at her resting against my chest, my heart aching at the events of the last hour. No child should have to witness such violence. I prayed she wouldn't remember anything that happened tonight.

As we made our way through the shadows and backroads of Grayson, I had to continue swiping at my forehead, wiping the seemingly never ending flow of blood from my laceration.

"We need to stitch you up," Ruby whispered.

"Later. Once we're outside of the city," I murmured, trying to keep my focus.

But we only made it a few more minutes before the blood before the blood was flowing so much that I was getting lightheaded and my vision became obscured. Ruby ripped a strip of cloth from her hospital gown and wrapped it around my head, but the fabric was soaked within minutes. She searched through our bag, but it was mostly filled with water and food with a few measly bandages.

"We need real medical supplies," she said with a sigh. "You won't make it if we don't figure something out."

I racked my brain for options, pursing my lips as the obvious solution. My parents' house was the next street over, and my mother kept a large supply of needle and thread. If I could find a way inside, I could gather the supplies without them knowing I was even there. It was dangerous, of course- for me and for them. Though it wasn't ideal, it was the only option we had.

I steered Pearl into the backyard and tied her to a tree in the shade, just out of sight in case someone wandered by. I climbed down from the saddle and unbuckled Gracie from her carrier.

"Stay here," I said, handing the baby to Ruby. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, go on without me."

"Mia..." Ruby started, but I cut her off.

"Gracie needs to be our number one priority," I reminded her. "If I don't come back, get her out of town. Promise me, Ruby."

With a frown, she reluctantly nodded. I turned and walked away, feeling calmer with Ruby's reassurance, but hoping it didn't come down to her choosing between me and our child.

I tiptoed up the back porch of my childhood home as quietly as I could manage. The door was locked, but with a little luck and lots of practice from living in this small house, I knew how to shimmy the kitchen window just the right way to get it open.

I made my way through the dark house- the layout like a maze etched into my mind- to the cupboard under the stairs where my mother stored her sewing kit. I rummaged quietly through the boxes until I found what I was looking for. I knew I should hurry back to Ruby, that we didn't have time to lose, but instead I found wandering around the house, inhaling the scent of my childhood home one last time.

So much had changed since I'd last been here, so many scars etched into my body, spirit and mind. Yet things in this house never changed. There was the dining room table that had once belonged to my grandmother, where so many of our family meals were eaten. In the next room was the grand piano my father enjoyed playing- he had tried to teach me, but I never took to music. Upstairs was my bedroom where Charlotte and I spent so much time. I wished I could see it after all this time, but I didn't dare take the chance.

If I closed my eyes, I could still smell the soft hints of citrus and linen, the aroma taking me back to a time when life was simpler, back before I worried about abusive husbands, infertility, and fleeing the city without being caught. The person who lived here was a girl, wise beyond her years, but still oblivious to the ways of the world. If only I could find a piece of her in me, to channel that innocence one last time, but I feared she was buried so far beneath the pain and suffering that she would never surface again.

I would have been content to stand in my parents' living room for ages, but the laceration on my forehead was still bleeding, and I was starting to feel weaker by the moment. Ruby was right- I needed stitches right away.

With a resigned sigh, I said made my way toward the faulty window in the kitchen. But before I could crawl to the safety of the yard, I felt the cold metal barrel of a shotgun pressed against my temple.

"Don't move," a soft voice said.

I froze as requested, willing myself to remain upright, despite the continual dizziness in my head. Though I was aware of the gun pressed against my skull, I wasn't afraid. The voice that threatened my life was the same one that sang me lullabies as a child, that rung with laughter when I tripped over my own feet, that had offered me love and wisdom my entire life.

"Mom?" I murmured.

Though the gun barrel fell away, I remained frozen in place. I heard the click of a lamp, and the room filled with a soft, luminescent light. Gentle hands gripped my shoulders and turned me around, so that I was facing her.

"Mia?" she breathed in disbelief. She took a step closer, her eyes furrowing as she studied my face, searching for her daughter beneath the cosmetic surgery. "Oh, it really is you," she whispered, pulling me in for a warm embrace. "What are you doing here? And what happened to your head!"

"It's a long story," I muttered, in part to keep her as naïve to my predicament as possible, but also because the unsteadiness in my body was becoming unsettling.

I swayed slightly and she caught me, gesturing for me to sit down. Her forehead creased with worry as she took in my wounded head. She wet a washcloth and began dabbing at the injury, cleaning the dried blood from my face.

"Do I want to know what happened?" she asked, threading a needle.

"Probably not," I laughed, wincing as she stuck my skin with the sharp point. "I don't want to get you into trouble."

Her brows furrowed with worry. "You're going away, aren't you?" When I didn't respond, she let out a deep sigh. "I can't say that I'm surprised. I always worried something like this would happen."

I stared at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"You were such a strong-willed and courageous child, even when you were a little girl," she explained, pulling the thread taunt. "I blamed your father's story books for a while, thinking they were putting fictional ideas in your mind about long-lost paradises and women who were invincible; that we were heroines who could do anything if we put our minds to it. I worried such notions would hinder your ability to survive in our world.

"But in reality it was something more than the storybooks, something deeper. Like a flame that burned hot within you, refusing to be extinguished. I had hoped that marriage would tamper some of that determination," she admitted, "but you were never made to be submissive. Clever women were not made to submit to the wills of man, and you my dear, are nothing if not a visionary. And that's why I understand why you have to go."

I bit back tears. "I don't know if I can leave you and Dad again. This time it might be for good."

My mother gave me a sad smile. "You're not leaving us. We will always be here," she said, gesturing to my heart.

She brushed my hair behind my ear and I leaned into her hand, inhaling her vanilla perform. "You need to hurry before the Guardians catch you. If they do, you will suffer a fate far worse than this one," she whispered, staring fervently into my eyes. "Head north. When the officials come to search our house, I'll send them the opposite way to try and bide you time," she said, pulling me in for one final hug.

I bit back tears. "I love you," I murmured.

"And I love you," she smiled. "Now go."

I opened the back door and stepped into the yard, disappearing into the shadows where Ruby waited. I stared back at my childhood home where my mother stood in the window, sending her only child off. I wished that I could come back again, to have one more home cooked meal with my parents, perhaps introduce them to Ruby and Gracie. Of all of the people in the world who would accept me for who I was, no matter the laws of Grayson or the immoral judgements from the rest of the city, it would be my parents. But I knew that could never happen. I had already endangered them enough as it was. So instead, I climbed onto Pearl's back and gave my home one final goodbye before fading into the darkness once again.

***************

The sirens resonated through the town before we'd even left my parents' backyard.

"They know the No Name women were freed," Ruby murmured in my ear. "We have to hurry."

I tapped Pearl's reigns, willing her to move faster. Everything that we'd done tonight would be for nothing if we got caught before we made it out of Grayson. It wouldn't be easy- that much we knew. The Guardians were posted at every entrance and exit coming and going from the city. Between avoiding them and moving quietly to keep hidden.

When we got to the edge of the woods, we climbed down from Pearl's back, leading her by the reigns to lessen the noise. The sun had set now, masking the forest in terrifying shadows that were hard to discern if they were inanimate objects or people.

The forest was crawling with Guardians. It was like the city officials had called every guard to search for the missing women.

The only benefit to the Guardians searching the forest was that they'd left their posts at the border. We would have a straight shot to freedom if we could just make it past the tree line. But that was a difficult feat. Every few feet of progress we made, we would have to backtrack or dart behind trees or rocks to avoid being seen.

My heart hammered in my chest as we traveled, my body rigid with anticipation and fright. Gracie was so quiet I had to glance down a few times to make sure she was okay. It was like she could sense the intensity of the moment and knew she had to be silent.

I wrapped my hands protectively around her back as she nuzzled against my chest.

They'll never take you, I thought silently. They will have to kill me first.

The idea of Gracie in a Guardians' arms made me anxious. I wanted to hurry, to run across the tree line and make it to freedom already, to make sure Gracie was safe. The anticipation was killing me as we crept slowly from tree to tree to avoid detection. But being hasty would only cause more trouble than taking our time and being patient.

Slow and steady wins the race, I reminded myself.

We had nearly made it to the edge of the trees when the sound of men shouting send us scurrying behind a line of bushes. I thought for sure they'd caught us, but their flashlights were facing the other direction. In the light, I saw a group of four No Name woman that we'd freed earlier that afternoon, trembling with terror.

"Please," one of the women said. "Please don't make us go back!"

"That's not really up to us," one of the Guardians said. I could have sworn I saw a look of regret on his face as he tied the woman's wrists in handcuffs, but that could have been the light playing tricks on me.

"We should do something," Ruby murmured.

I shook my head. "There's nothing we can do. If we try to help them, we will just get caught, then all of this effort would be for nothing."

Instead of helping the women, we used the Guardians' distraction to run the rest of the way across the forest, heading in the opposite direction of the women who would probably be dead by morning. Guilt gnawed at my stomach for leaving them behind, but I couldn't save them and save Ruby and Gracie. I had to make a choice, and it was never a contest. I just prayed it wouldn't come back to bite me later.