I don't want to sleep, but sleep wants me. Before long I'm standing on the chessboard again. Zoe is asking me why I haven't stopped it yet. Mark is demanding to know why I would stand against the FBI. I look upwards, and there she is, like a giant towering over all of us. She's made entirely of blood again, just like the chessboard, just like the dead pieces scattered over the squares, just like the bonds tying us all to this hellish place. The only difference is that this time, half her face is monstrous like death, with running blood making up the features of bony cheeks and thin, meatless lips, the other half is Joanna, set in dried blood and unyielding in its features. I stare into her eyes.

"Lindsay has a point, you know," I tell the blood figure. "You would like nothing more than to have John in your hands."

"True. And I had him, I made him my puppet." She smirks at me, and with her two faces, it looks horrific, especially since Joanna's side is still unmoving. "You didn't actually believe them, did you? As if I would use audio manipulation to trick you. The torture comes from reality, not from manipulation and tricks."

"That's funny, coming from you." I'm looking right into her face, my neck no longer craned to see her. She's still giant, her bony nose about the length of my forearm, and I'm still standing on the chessboard, but in the reality of dreams anything is possible, and I am both standing below her and standing in her eye height. "I thought manipulation was your thing."

"I never said it didn't have its merits. I just said it wasn't the torture. True torture is real." I know this already. I haven't wanted to accept it, but for someone this powerful, someone this obsessive and cruel, it would never be enough to fake something. If Lindsay one day was able to prove that Michelle never committed any crime other than confessing to something she hadn't done, the relief would be defeat for 1,8,11. And the same goes for what I heard. However that came about, it was real.

"So what now?" I demand. "Now you torture me with uncertainties? You make me fear you for the rest of my life." She laughs condescendingly.

"Oh no, not at all. No one can make you do something you don't want. This will be your decision. You will be the one torturing yourself." Her lips curl up in one side in a twisted and crooked smile.

"I will be the one giving you your big win," I paraphrase. "We will. All of us."

"You think I care about them?" There's a mockery in her voice, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

"I do," I assure her. "I think you care enough to take Robert from them. I think you care enough to turn Michelle against them." She made it personal.

"But that's the easy bits." The condescension is back, as if I'm a slow child just not understanding that one and one equals two. But I'm not a slow child, she's just condescending.

"True, for someone as twisted as you killing a man would be easier than graffitting a word on a wall." She put more effort into me than any of the others, with me she went outside her comfort zone and into mine. I turn my head and look out of my apartment window, straight at the graffitied word. Zugzwang. The point in the game where any move you make will put you in a worse position, but you have to move. I lift my eyes up and look straight into hers. "Zugzwang," I tell her with a calm smile.

I open my eyes and look up at the hospital ceiling, a plan slowly forming in my mind. It is time to walk off the board. Karl is sitting with his laptop on the table and his phone glued to his ear, keeping taps on everyone. I have to find a way to get out of here without him stopping me. Technically they can't keep me here, I can leave against medical advice, and Karl would have to arrest me to legally keep me here. Of course, there's nothing illegal about him warning the others if I leave. But what other options do I have? Unless it's just to ask... Ask him to get me a cup of tea?

"How are you doing?" he asks, having apparently noticed I'm awake again.

"I'm okay," I say. He doesn't look away, he just watches me, his lips tight as always, and his eyes their own dimension of wonderings and thoughts. "Okay, fine," I say. "I'm not okay, not in that big-picture sort of way, but at this particular moment I don't feel that bad." The corner of his mouth moves up in a way that could almost qualify as a smile. I smile too. Robert would have liked that statement.

"Let me know if there's anything you need," he tells me and looks back at the computer. Getting out of here would be nice.

"Any updates?" I ask instead. I suppose I could let him in on the plan that's brewing in my mind, the not yet completely formed, but still my best option plan, but I don't think he would go for it. Anyways, John would have a flip if Karl let me willingly put myself in danger.

He doesn't look back up at me, but his jaw is tightened as if unwilling to speak.

"What is it?" I demand, worry now flooding me as cold sweat breaks out on my forehead.

"Sarah Winslow," he says, but he doesn't elaborate. He doesn't need to. By now the only thing he would be this unwilling to tell me, regarding Sarah at least, was that she was dead.

"When?" I demand.

"About an hour ago." So much for filling in the puzzle pieces or completing the labyrinth from the end.

"Catherine found something though," he says as if to calm me down. "The storage locker, the numbers match the birthday of Sarah and Joanna's father." That makes one piece of tangible evidence then. Circumstantial though.

This game won't end until someone ends it, and it has to be face to face. Anything else and it will all remain guesswork. I can't live with that.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed.

"Where are you going?" Karl demands. I hear the legs of his chair scratching against the floor as he gets up too.

"To get a cup of tea," I say as calmly as I can make my voice - which turns out to be more stern than calm.

"Let me get it for you," he says. He doesn't trust anything I do right now, he thinks me too fragile, which is why when I want to leave he offers to leave instead, but had I asked him to leave, he would have resisted. It isn't hard to predict, just like it isn't hard to predict that he will do everything he can to not leave me alone for long. I sit back down.

"Do you think..." I pause, hoping he will be inclined to grant wishes if I phrase them right. "I would like my own clothes back," I say. I feel exposed in the hospital gown, vulnerable. I don't say that out loud though, he will be able to figure out my reasoning on his own, and things people can realize on their own are more powerful than things you tell them.

"I'll talk to a nurse," he agrees and as I get back in the bed he leaves the room. I looked over at his table. He closed the laptop before leaving, and he took the phone with him. I look around the rest of the room, but there's no paper anyway, nothing that would reasonably be able to inform me of today's date. A nurse comes in with a bag in her hands and an encouraging smile on her face.

"The agent said you should have these back," she tells me and hands me the bag of clothes.

"Thank you," I tell her. I actually do feel thankful, for the first time in a long while. Too long a while. Maybe it's the feeling of knowing what to do next, the confidence that brings, that somehow keeps the fear at bay a little and allows for other, more normal, emotions to surface. She helps me into the clothes, my limbs still a little stiff and muscles a little tense. I will have to get over that.

"I want to leave," I tell her before she can go. "Against medical advice, if I have to, and I want you to not tell the agents. They aren't my family, I am not a suspect in anything, so they have no legal right to know." She looks at me with sad eyes, like she feels sorry for me for wanting this. "Don't do that," I order her. "This is my life, my decisions, and I've made up my mind." I have no idea if doctor-patient confidentiality covers federal investigations too, but I'm counting on it at least having to be discussed, which would buy me enough time. Hopefully. She nods and leaves, but Karl gets back before she does. He hands me the cup of tea and sits down. But then he does something unexpected. He pulls out a long, thin package and hands it to me.

"John mentioned this brought you peace of mind," he says and places it next to me. I open it, and inside I find my sword, clean of blood and as good as new. I hadn't thought I'd ever see this again...

"How?" I ask in bewilderment. Shouldn't this be in an evidence locker somewhere? Not to mention the possible legal complications of a sword in a hospital.

"I can get things done," he simply says. I look at him and raise an eyebrow. Does he mean the same way Lindsay was able to get John on the case? But his phone rings and the conversation is cut short. For once, fortune favors me, and the nurse walks in with the papers while Karl is still distracted. He signals her to stay with me, and he leaves the room to talk undisturbed - evidentially wanting to choose what information I get and don't get to have. I sign the papers and get up, the sword in hand. I peer out the door before leaving the room. Two guards are positioned outside, as well as Karl on the phone.

"Hey," I tell them. "Can you guys do me a favor? Just tell Karl I had to stretch my legs and I'll be right back."

"Sorry miss, we can't let you leave here." Obviously, I hadn't counted on that.

"Well, there are two of you," I argue. "It only takes one to deliver a message, and in a place this crowded it's going to be hard to get kidnapped."

"Sorry miss, you're gonna have to stay put." I lean against the door frame and put on an annoyed look.

"Oh really? Well, I'm sick and tired of being told what to do and where to go, and since I'm not under arrest or anything, I am going to simply go down to the gift shop where you like it or not." I push past them and one of them grab a hold of my arm. "You really don't want to do that," I assure him.

"You have to stay put," he orders me.

"Then arrest me," I counter. He sighs, as if I'm an obstinate child and he's a kindergarten teacher. "Arrest me, or walk with me to the gift shop for some chocolate. The doctor said it was best if I moved around, used my muscles." That's a lie, but it sounds true, so why not? He looks at his partner, and then back at me. He nods and lets go of my arm. "Thank you," I say spitefully, and start walking off.

"What's in the package?" he demands. I had the good sense to leave the sword in the package so as to not draw attention.

"A gift from Agent Holt," I say simply. "A sort of personal charm," I explain before he can ask why it is necessary to bring to the gift shop. He shrugs.

I look around the gift shop without really looking at the things but merely waiting for a chance to escape. A man comes up to the agent and distracts him, and I take my chance and manage to make it out the front doors. I hail a cab and take refuge there. That distraction was way too lucky to be chance. I give the cab driver an address, trusting that I am being followed to my destination. I just hope 1,8,11 will be curious enough to not interrupt me but let me play out my ideal before showing up.

I had the sense to leave my phone at the hospital, but bring my wallet. I ask the cabbie to let me out by a café, hand him the money and a more generous tip than I would usually afford. Chances are he will get more chances to use it that I will. Only one thought keeps me from simply giving him every dime in my wallet: if they track him down too soon the excessive generosity would prove to them exactly what I am up to.

I wish him a good day and walk the last couple of blocks - taking a short detour so he will see me walking in the wrong direction. 10 minutes late I reach the faded, blueish front door of my destination. No one but 1,8,11 would think I would have the guts to go here. No one will look for me here.

I walk through the door, but at the bottom of the stairs, I pause, frozen in place. I haven't been back here since... Since I put the rose outside the door. I put my hand on the railing. I take a deep breath. Behind me the bridge is burning, there's no going back now. Face it, or run from it. If I run, I'll have to keep running for the rest of my life. 'Face it' it is. I lift up my foot, but it hovers above the step. I can do this. I hold my long package closer to me. I can do this. I put my foot down on the step and the other one on the next step. I walk up the first flight of stairs, and the next. Before long I'm standing outside the apartment door. I had expected this to be the hard part, but I put my hand on the handle without trouble, and I unlock the door and step in. The thought of Mrs. Jones noticing me in the hallway was apparently enough to get me this far.

I look around my living room. The floor is no longer bloody, and the table no longer messy. Somehow, in my mind, it was supposed to look exactly like it did that night, only with a layer of dust added. But I know Mrs. Jones took care of this a long time ago, Lindsay told me so. I don't think it's ever looked so tidy in here, even after the spring cleaning. I pull out one of my folding chairs from the storage spot between the desk and the closet, and I put it in the middle of the floor, facing the door. I sit down, and I open my box and take the sword out. I cross my legs and rest the sword still in its stealth across my legs. Looking closer at it I realize it is in fact not my actual sword, it's a new one, but it will do too. I imagine I can hear the Jones' clock ticking off the seconds. It will be a while.

It takes an hour for something to happen. I hear a set of high heels walking in the hallway and stopping outside my door. Mrs. Jones doesn't wear heels, and if Mrs. Jones hasn't been by yet it's because she doesn't know I'm here - and if she doesn't know, no one knows. I feel my shoulders tense up and I see the door handle being pushed down. I'm about to be face to face with 1,8,11, whoever she is in real life. The door is pushed open and reveals the tall, skinny figure of a bottle blond woman with enough makeup to completely transform her face. I see what Michelle meant, that is as shielding as a mask.

I look her over as she stands in the doorway, still not crossing the threshold. Her heels are high and thin, in an elegant but painful-looking way. They are bright red, and she's wearing tight black leather pants, a deep-cut black top over a pushup bra, and a short leather jacket. Her blond hair falls in elegant curls over her shoulders, over one of which is a long bag filled no doubt with torture instruments intended to be my death. There'll be an obsidian knife in there, and a stone bowl where my heart will burn and stink up the place. Her collar bone is prominent, as are her chin and jawline. Her lips are colored a bright red to match the shoes, and her eyes have so much dark shadow she could almost be a panda.

She tilts her head and looks quizzically at me. I stand up and turn my back on her. I go to the bathroom and grab my makeup remover and go back to the living room.

"We both know only one of us is leaving here," I tell her. "Have the courage to be here." I throw her the bottle. She smiles crookedly, her head still tilted, like she's sizing me up. She takes a measured step in and throws the door shut behind her with a carefree move. She reaches up, but I speak before she can pull off the wig.

  "Why don't you go ahead and lock that, don't want any interruptions for this." Her lips tighten and twist, but she follows my order. I can see the gun at her back when she turns around, and she notices it in my face when she turns back to face me. She pulls off the blond wig with a smile, and the hairnet beneath it too, and a river of brown hair falls down to her waist. She runs her fingers through it a couple of times, untangling the loose curls and pulling it to a rest over her right shoulder.

"Happy?" she asks, and now I am all out of arguments or doubts. I haven't met Joanna too often before, but the voice is the same I heard with John over the speakers.

"Give me an hour," I assure her. "For now let's settle on content."

"You've got balls, I'll give you that. Too bad John prefers damsels in distress - but also ones who can think, put an intelligent sentence together."

"Is that a pity plea?" I smile back at her. There's new courage to be found in the plain reality of this. Lindsay is right, she isn't a supernatural monster with a biological advantage, she isn't a psychic, she doesn't have claws - well, unless you count the bright red clip-on nails. She puts her hand behind her back and pulls out the gun. She smiles superiorly at me but doesn't answer my question. I look down at the floor, collecting my face in the right folds.

"You brought a gun to a sword fight?" I ask with laughter in my voice. "I've spent all this time being terrified of you, buying into the hype, and now you pull a gun on me?" I look up and look her in the face, a mocking smile on my lips. "What do you plan to do with that? Shoot me? Draw attention to the apartment? Make a lot of noise and have the cops sent here? Well, since you're here I assume your 'protection' detail is dead, so cops might not bother you too much. Still though, a gun? I'll bleed out if you're lucky, or if you're unlucky I'll go into shock or even die. Seems... inadequate torture for the 'great monster terrorizing New York'?" I say the last part in a mocking tone. I should be scared, I know that, and the fear is bubbling somewhere under the surface, ready to jump out at a moment's notice, but right now I am just relieved. It will be over soon, one way or another, I will be free.

"You assume I don't know how to use it," she says teasingly. "That's bold of you."

"What can I say, bold is my thing right now." I unsheathe my sword and turn it over in my hand. She clicks something on the gun, I assume it's safety off or some other gun thingy. "Got a silencer for that thing as well?" She smirks at me and pulls out a cylinder from a pocket of her bag. She twists it onto the gun with easy, relaxed movements. She is in her happy place, a victim within reach and no one to stand against her. I turn the sword around in my hand so it's pointing backwards, less threating. I take the three steps that separate us, and I reach out for the shoulder strap of her bag. She lets me have it willingly enough, undoubtedly because the gun gives her the advantage in the game. But I'm done playing her game, I have my own goals now. She wants to kill me, I just want certainty, and I will take death if that's the price to pay. I pull out a leather case and open it. There's the obsidian knife. I pull out the stone bowl and place it next to the knife on my coffee table. An idea strikes me, a tiny glimmer of hope of getting out alive. I pull out a box of gloves and a full body suit in plastic. Makes sense how there was no physical evidence then. But her fingerprints are on my door already. I look again, and I find bleach and two other bottles of something unlabeled.

"Ever watched Elementary?" I ask casually. "They had an episode where someone had made a concoction that dissolved bodies."

"I know," she says with a smile.

"Hold on," I say lightly. "Let me get you some nutmeg to go with that." That was what they used in Elementary, and it will give me a chance to get the salt too. If Lindsay is right and Joanna is unstable, dissolving in her own mind, then salt might just be enough for me to win a gunfight with a sword. I reach up on the spice shelf above the stove and pull down the two containers. I think about it again, and then reach up and pull down the sea salt as well - if I spill both there will be nothing she can throw over her shoulder. I put them both in my back pockets and go back to Joanna in the living room, thankfully not having to turn my back on her at any point. I open up the nutmeg and pour it into her stone bowl.

"How nice of you," she mocks. "So thoughtful. But I suppose you won't be needing it once you're dead."

"True," I say. "Very true. I guess I won't be needing this either then," I continue while pulling out the first salt container and ripping off the lip - not an easy thing to do while holding both sword and salt shaker in one hand, but I do it, and I turn the shaker upside down. She freezes in place as the salt pours out onto the floor. "Whoops," I say. "I seem to have spilled a little." I think the superstition is that the one who spilled will be the one with the bad luck, but she is frozen in place. I take the chance and I swing the sword around knocking it straight into her hand. She drops the gun and lets out a strangled cry of pain. She looks up at me, and death is in her eyes. Before I know what's happened I'm flat on my back, a strong pain in my stomach where the punch landed, and she's reaching for the gun. I ignore the pain and thrust out my sword again. It hits her hand and cuts through her skin like it was butter.

"I'm sorry," I say hastily, and then regret the reflex. I catch a glimpse of her face, contorted in fury. She lifts up a foot and stamps it down on my knee with such force my eyes blur over and I scream out loud without meaning to. She swings around and her foot collides with my side. I roll over and hug my arms around me. The heel of her shoe hits me in the shoulder. I'm thrown back onto my back, and I can't stop the scream. She drops to her knees. Her fist finds my jaw. I try to shield myself. Curl up in a ball. I can't see her anymore. Something collides with my arm. With my back. With my tailbone. My back again. And again. I reach out one hand. I have to make this stop. Make it stop. The hilt should be right here. I don't know when I lost grip of it, but it should be right here. I force one eye to open. There. My hand closes around the hilt of the sword. Her foot collides with my back again. I grip it tight. Now or never. I swing around. The blade finds her stomach. She staggers backwards, a hand over her wound, blood rushing out between her fingers. She sinks down against the wall, below the window. I stare at her, and she stares back. Her hair is a mess. Tangled up. Her eyes are... scared? Surprised? I can't tell. I don't care. I won. I won over the monster. I am safe.

I put my hand against the floor and edge myself up on my elbow. The sword is still in my hand. I loosen my fingers slowly, they are reluctant. I push the hilt away from me, pretending the bloody blade isn't there. I push myself up to a sitting position, and from there I get to my feet. My knee gives in and I fall back down. I try again, keeping my weight off that knee. I take a hesitant, limping step. I can stay upright. What a relief. I take another step and reach out to the door for support. She makes a kind of grunting sound. I turn to look at her. Fear. It's definitively fear in her eyes now.

"Your turn," I whisper pettily. I unlock the door and support myself on the wall as it opens. A pair of sensible shoes are standing in front of my door. I raise my eyes and find Mrs. Jones' terrified face.

"Call an ambulance," I tell her and push past her. I am a few steps away when she comprehends the whole scene and screams. I limb to the staircase and cling to the railing all the way down.

I am half a block away when I hear the sirens. I keep walking. I am free.