"I need to tell you something," she said, but paused to finish up wrapping the bandages.

Trying to be gentle about it, she put a latch and sealed it, before taping it off. With a heavy sigh, Ramona leaned back on her ankles. "Better?"

Leif nodded and grabbed his hoodie, leaving his soaking tee behind him. Lunging at Ramona, he stuck his hand in the pocket where she held his knife and grabbed it, waving it in her face. Ramona smirked.

"Fine, take it. You've earned it, I guess."

With a grin, he flipped it back into his pocket. He then used his spotty gaze to prod Ramona, pointing at the carve in her chest that the archer had made.

Ramona smiled. "Oh, that." It was like a paper cut down the line of her chest. If she had been wearing her coat totally buttoned, the woman wouldn't have been able to make it. It didn't hurt more than any other aches and pains she had from the day.

Grabbing gauze and dumping water on it, she cleaned the wound and taped it shut. She'd probably rip it off in an hour.

Next, Leif asserted his attention, big eyes staring at her expectantly. Eventually, he mimicked 'talk'.

She wasn't sure what to say, or what she wanted to say before. "Thank you for, you know, helping me." Looking back at the woman groaning on the floor, she pointed and said, "but don't do that again."

He frowned at her and rolled his eyes. She sighed. This mess was both new and old to her. They said that you get used to this life after a while, and she had, but she hadn't gotten used to the fact that she was used to it. The only thing she blurted out was "Look, I don't like who I am."

Starting with a sneer, he eventually nodded and pointed at himself, throwing up a "two" sign. She smirked back. "I suppose that was obvious. No one does anymore." Standing up, she put her arm down to help him up.

Leif then jabbed her to watch him. She thought she understood him: 'You are not like me'. "No. But I'm not different from you either," she said. Her voice dropped, the words themselves thin.

He patted his side. Ramona looked back at the archer he shot, but then he jabbed again. He gestured for a pen and paper. When he had been searching for her gun, he must have found her notebook.

It had not occurred to her to give him the journal. It was so personal and regular to her person that she had forgotten it was there. Taking it out, she flipped it to the last pages and handed him a pen.

They began walking, him slightly behind her writing it out. In his cracked scrawl - probably due to a crappy pen - he wrote: No one asks my name. No one cares.

Ramona waved it off and handed the notebook back to him. "I just needed something to call you."

He took the pen and all he did was underline: No one cares.

With a smile, Ramona gestured for her notebook back. Leif shook his head and continued writing.

My wife would like you.

A rock was in her throat, like she was gagged, and with a cough she managed out, "Your wife?"

He nodded and smiled. Giving Ramona the notebook, he then moved to reach into his hoodie. Out came his necklace, and he showed that the ring fit on his finger. Even more giddy, he jerked his knee up so that his shoe was at his chest. He reached to the base, and in between the sole and the base was a cut out. He pulled out a folded piece of paper, and extended it to Ramona.

Hesitantly, Ramona traded the notebook with the paper. With trembling hands, she unfolded it, almost folding it back. She didn't want to see this, but he wanted her to see it.

Throw it at him, tell him you don't care.

His watchful eyes didn't allow for that though. It came into fruition, and suddenly it was much more than just a photograph. There was a weight to the paper, and it nestled right in between her shoulders.

It was a photograph. It was a photograph when Leif could afford photographs of him and his family. They were in front of a brick building, a restaurant or cafe or bed and breakfast - it really didn't matter. His wife was a petite woman, young and pretty, a chubby smile and sweetheart eyes. Their baby had the same. And Leif, Leif did not have a cut on his face or any sense of poverty dragging him as he did now. The Leif in this photo had no idea what Leif was like now.

It was as though his wife had come out the picture and kicked her, under the ribs, a place where if she had something sharper Ramona would die immediately. For a moment, she wished she was dead. There was nothing to say, no words could make it out her mouth. Instead she was stuck on the same thoughts -- tell him to leave, he has to go, you cant make him do this.

He raised his hands up in a 'what?' sort of position.

Ramona choked, and sputtered out, "You have a beautiful family."

With a finger on his temple and then out, a gesture she had learned meant 'I know'. He smiled, refolded the photo and stuck it back in the hiding spot in his shoe.

Tell him to leave. He cannot do this.

"You aren't what I thought you were," Ramona said instead. Really, they weren't that different at all.

I hide them for safety, he wrote. The money will be to start over.

Looking back at where Leif shot that woman, the woman they had confronted together, she realized that who was in front of her and who was in that picture were not the same. He was willing to murder someone, his family was likely desperate to do anything. They had gone too far to turn back now, just because he had a family.

Such reasoning was not good enough, but Ramona kept her mouth shut.

They made their way down the path slowly, more bone-tired than before but both knowing that they couldn't stop moving. The intensity with which Leif was scrawling in her notebook tipped Ramona off that this next note was going to be another lovely piece of information she'd have to digest.

A family. He has a damn family.

Pinching the bridge of her nose and squinting her eyes shut, Ramona hoped the pain could distract her. Digging her nails, she stopped when she thought she would finally break skin. Then she thought back to the curator.

It all felt too fishy, so complete in a way that was outside the realm of what Ramona knew. It unnerved her. This wasn't just not being in control, she felt like she was being played. She had been, most likely.

It was the curator that Leif wrote about. Despite all his time writing, all that was legible and unscratched was, You shouldve taken the curator.

"Who is he?"

Leif had predicted that question, all he did was flip a page. He got us our first job.

"The first job." It took Ramona a minute to remember that his group had claimed to have taken the prince off the streets in the first place. "That was actually you guys?"

Leif shook his head, then recanted his response. He wrote more. Just me and Hitch.

Ramona raised her eyebrows at that. "Hitch? Who the hell is Hitch?"

Leif sheepishly went back to writing, then with a smirk, presented: Big guy you shot.

"I shot him because he looked like he could kill me with his bare hands." Ramona began chewing her lip. "Then who was the chatty guy, the loud one?"

Leif shrugged, then pointed back at the curator.

"Hired by the curator," Ramona was just thinking out loud by this point. The curator was probably not the mastermind, but he was higher up than Leif and Hitch and everyone else. Big enough to make decisions. Knew enough to change things. "Why do you know where we need to go? How long were you a part of this prince kidnapping scheme?"

Leif shot her something worse than a scowl, some sort of twisted remorse and betrayal, madder and viler that made his eyes look cold and cracked, his mouth flat, his ears steaming but his face pale. Flipping through pages, he wrote angrily, the slant to his words looking sharper from where Ramona could see them, the furrowed brows so close they could become one.

Not my specialty. He shoved that one in her face first. Family comes first, was the next.

"It wasn't meant to be judgmental, gimme a break."

Wasn't my plan to come out here. Selling the prince was yours.

Ramona raised her hands up in defense. "Woah, woah. Knock it off, angel, your hypocrisy is showing."

The red behind his ears had made its way to his cheeks. This was the kind of anger you get from a frustrated bureaucrat, or a drunk; not from someone who had thieved and murdered. I left. Then I was forced back. He stared at Ramona for a moment before shaking out and writing more. The curator is the least of our problems.

"What does that mean?" Ramona did not like where this conversation was going. This felt more and more like a trap. "Are you tricking me, are you hoping we both get killed? Because if I am walking into a death trap, my last act in this world will be shooting you, I swear."

They're not there.

"Who are they?"

Leif tapped his closed mouth and shook his head. He didn't want to say. "You think I give a shit if you don't want to tell me?" Leif shook his head again.

"If they're so damn important, where are they going to be? Because I think safeguarding this guy, dead or alive, is probably a big fucking deal! There's a billion dollars worth on his head! Didn't you think about that?"

Leif jabbed the page at they're not there, again. He then wrote, be quiet.

"Where will they be? Can you answer me that? Where else could possibly be more integral to this?"

Leif's breathing shuddered, and he gave her a panicked look. Ramona took out her pistol. "Tell me."

With a gulp, he started writing. Only reason I know is cause they think I can't tell anyone. His eyes became shifty, just like when she first saw him. Glancing everywhere, keeping close attention to every rustle.

They were both high-strung paranoids, it's just whoever's was stronger at this moment. Ramona cocked her gun. "I think we can both agree these people are terrible. Betraying them is not your big concern right now, anyway."

They'll kill me.

"I'll kill you." It was halfhearted, but Ramona wasn't sure he knew that. The truth was, she couldn't let him leave now. If this was some large operation she was walking into, she needed insider knowledge. If he was going to walk away, she was going to have to as well.

Really, it might be time to walk away.

In response, Leif gave her the notebook, with the pen stuck inside. She pushed it back in his hands, but he shook his head.

"I need you to tell me. If you don't, I'm gone."

Leif shook his head at that. Ramona wanted to scream, instead she threw the notebook at him. It dropped to the floor. She didn't wait for him to pick it up.

Ramona hadn't been that far off from being able to leave this damn country. If she stuck to her regular scheduled heists and ops, she'd have the money soon enough. Within a year, probably, maybe. She'd just wanted the extra push, especially when it seemed so tangible. This was a mistake.

Her chest was constricted, her voice was raw. She'd prefer he didn't know she was panicking, but she was. He started it, and that just made this all worse.

"Quit being so damn cryptic."

Leif ran up from behind her and put the notebook in her hands.

You can't walk away anymore.

"The hell I can't," Ramona pitched back. Leif shook his head vehemently and began writing more. Ramona fought the urge to tip the notebook away from him.

We're already almost there, and people have been watching. People know where we are. People know who we are.

"We're in the middle of the fucking woods Leif," she jammed the notebook back into his hands. She sucked in a breath, "Nobody's here."

No one's out here, no one's watching. They just killed the only woman who knew. The curator sent one person, and they failed.

It wasn't that easy, was it? That would be stupid, to send one person. One fairly incompetent person. The trail had been populated, there had been people a long while ago and now there were not.

It was the box cars, the buggies. Those cabs that he glared at, the people with lanterns who seemed a bit more curious than the common traveler. He had been watching them, the anger came from more than just jealousy.

Ramona bit her lip. She had quieted down, but the fire still burned. Embers of rage nestled in her stomach, her heart was pounding so loud that it resonated with the aches in her body. Still, they couldn't stop moving. "What's our plan then? Because I have a feeling that when we get to where we need to go, we're going to be in for a lot more than just a snatch and grab."

Leif nodded, then passed her another note. We can do it. We need to be quick, then we need to disappear.

Ramona looked at him. His panic was offset as well, and something else was there. A determination, a sort of sympathy that just pissed her off.

"You're so damn stupid. What about your family?" Ramona shut the notebook and tucked it away. "What are they supposed to do if you die?"

She didn't give him the chance to respond. Perhaps it was selfish, stupid for her to take away the only clear communication he had. But she didn't want to hear anything more from him. Not tonight.