Half-ripe and coated with rainwater, this is the best banana Pepper has eaten in her entire life. She sinks down onto one of the less muddy patches and closes her eyes as she chews, having not realized how famished she was until she got a little something to eat. It's amazing how much the human body can endure when it has to, she thinks, and not for the first time she thinks of Tony, out there alone in the desert. This situation is far from pleasant, but it could be so much worse.

"Thank you, Rachel," she remembers to say as she reaches for her second banana, and almost immediately wishes she'd knocked on wood when she'd considered things being worse—There's a head, small and vaguely birdlike, peering out from the bushes beside them. It might seem innocuous were it not for the rows of sharp teeth.

"Cooper," she says as calmly as she can manage, gone utterly still. "Pick up the baby."