But the woman didn't notice or, if she did, couldn't respond.

So you'll…

Melanie wiped her face and lowered her head into her arms.

… be home then.

And if she'd been home, like her parents wanted (well, her father, but her father's decision was her parents'), she wouldn't be here now.

None of them would.

And Susan would still be alive.

Stop thinking about it!

Bear walked past the killing room and looked in. He squeezed his crotch, half hidden beneath his belly, and barked something at Shannon. He offered his knee, said something about did she want to kick him again? She tried to give him a defiant look but stared down at her arm, rubbing the faded self-drawn tattoo of the superhero.

Brutus called something and Bear looked up. The big man was afraid of him, Melanie understood suddenly, seeing the look in Bear's eyes. He laughed humorlessly, sneering. Glanced once at Mrs. Harstrawn. But his eyes lingered longest on the little girls, especially the twins and Emily, her dress, her white stockings and black patent-leather shoes, the dress bought just for the occasion of Melanie's performance at the Kansas State Theater of the Deaf Summer Recital. How long the gaze coursed over the little girl. He reluctantly walked back into the main room of the slaughterhouse.

Get them out, Melanie told herself. Whatever you have to do, get them out.

Then: But I can't. Brutus will kill me. He'll rape me. He's evil, he's the Outside. She thought of Susan and wept again. He was right, her father.

So you'll be home then.

She'd be alive.

There'd have been no secret appointments after the recital in Topeka. No lies, no hard decisions.

"Get back, against the wall," she signed to the girls. She had to get them away from Bear, keep them out of sight. They moved as instructed, tearful all of them except lean, young Shannon, once more angry and defiant, the tomboy. And Kielle too – though she was neither angry nor defiant but eerily subdued. The girl troubled Melanie. What was in her eyes? The shadow of exactly what had been in Susan's? Here was a child with the visage of a woman. My God, there's vindictiveness, chill, raw hatred. Is she the one who's really Susan's heir? Melanie wondered.

"He's Magneto," Kielle signed matter-of-factly, glancing in Brutus's direction and addressing her comment to Shannon. It was her own nickname for Handy. The other girl disagreed. "No. He's Mr. Sinister. Not part of Brotherhood. Worst of the worst."

Kielle considered this. "But I think -"

"Oh, you two, stop!" Beverly burst into their conversation, her hands rising and falling like her struggling chest. "This isn't stupid game."

Melanie nodded. "Don't say anything more." Oh, Mrs. Harstrawn, Melanie raged silently, please… How you cry! Red face, blue face, quivering. Please don't do this! Her hands rose. "I can't do it alone."

But Mrs. Harstrawn was helpless. She lay on the tile floor of the killing room, her head against a trough where the hot blood of dying calves and lambs flowed and vanished and she said not a word.

Melanie looked up. The girls were staring at her.

I have to do something.

But all she remembered was her father's words – phantom words – as he sat on the front porch swing of their farmhouse last spring. A brilliant morning. He said to her, "This is your home and you'll be welcome here. See, it's a question of belonging and what God does to make sure those that oughta stay someplace do. Well, your place is here, working at what you can do, where your, you know, problem doesn't get you into trouble. God's will."

(How perfectly she'd made out the words then, even the impossible sibilants and elusive glottal stops. As clearly as she understood Handy – Brutus – now.)

Her father had finished. "So you'll be home then." And rose to hitch up the ammonia tank without letting her write a single word of response on the pad she carried around the house.

Suddenly Melanie was aware of Beverly 's head bobbing up and down. A full-fledged asthma attack. The girl's face darkened and she closed her eyes miserably, struggling ferociously to breathe. Melanie stroked her damp hair.

"Do something," Jocylyn signed with her stubby, inept fingers.

The shadows reaching into the room, shadows of machinery and wires, grew very sharp, then began to sway. Melanie stood and walked into the slaughterhouse. She saw Brutus and Stoat rearranging the lights.

Maybe he'll give us one for our room. Please…

"I hope he dies, I hate him," the blond fireball Kielle signed furiously, her round face contorted with hatred as she gazed at Brutus.

"Quiet."

"I want him to die!"

"Stop!"

Beverly lay down on the floor. She signed, "Please. Help."

In the outer room Brutus and Stoat sat close together under a swaying lamp, the light reflecting off Stoat's pale crew cut. They were watching the small TV, clicking through the channels. Bear stood at the window, counting. Police cars, she guessed.

Melanie walked toward the men. Stopped about ten feet from them. Brutus looked over the dark skirt, the ruddy blouse, the gold necklace – a present from her brother, Danny. He was studying her, that damn curious smile on his face. Not like Bear, not staring at her boobs and legs. Just her face and, especially, her ears. She realized it was the way he'd stared at devastated Mrs. Harstrawn – as if he was adding another specimen to a collection of tragedies.

She mimicked writing something.

"Tell me," he said slowly, and so loudly she felt the useless vibrations pelt her. "Say it."

She pointed to her throat.

"You can't talk neither?"

She wouldn't talk. No. Though there was nothing wrong with her vocal cords. And because she'd become deaf relatively late in life, Melanie knew the fundamentals of word formation. Still, following Susan's model, Melanie avoided oralism because it wasn't chic. The Deaf community resented people who straddled both worlds – the Deaf world and the world of the Others. Melanie hadn't tried to utter a single word; in five or six years.

She pointed toward Beverly and breathed in hard. Touched her chest.

"Yeah, the sick one – What about her?"

Melanie mimicked taking medicine.

Brutus shook his head. "I don't give a shit. Go back and sit down."

Melanie pushed her hands together, a prayer, a plea. Brutus and Stoat laughed. Brutus called something to Bear, and Melanie suddenly felt the firm vibrations of his footsteps approach. Then an arm was around her chest and Bear was dragging her across the floor. His fingers squeezed her nipple hard. She yanked his hand away and the tears came again.

In the killing room she pushed away from him and collapsed on the floor. Melanie grabbed one of the lights, which rested on the ground, and clutched it, hot and oily, to her chest. It burned her fingers but she clung to it like a life preserver. Bear looked down, seemed to ask a question.

But just as she'd done that spring day with her father on the farmhouse porch, Melanie gave no response; she simply went away.

That day last May, she'd climbed the creaking stairs and sat in an old rocking chair in her bedroom. Now, she lay on the killing room floor. A child again, younger than the twins. Mercifully she closed her eyes and went away. To anyone watching it seemed that she'd slipped into a faint. But in fact she wasn't here at all; she'd gone someplace else, someplace safe, someplace not another living soul knew about.

When he recruited hostage negotiators Arthur Potter found himself in the peculiar position of interviewing clones of himself. Middle-aged, frumpy, easygoing cops.

For a time it was thought that psychologists ought to be used for negotiating; but even though a barricade resembles a therapy session in many ways, shrinks just didn't work out. They were too analytical, focused too much on diagnostics. The point of talking to a taker isn't to figure out where he fits in the DSM IV but to persuade him to come out with his hands up. This requires common sense, concentration, a sharp mind, patience (well, Arthur Potter worked hard at that), a healthy sense of self, the rare gift of speaking well, and the rarer talent of listening.