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Never did I imagine her triggering the self-destruct.

The absolute last resort, for when things were so bad there was no choice but to wipe it all away. A means of escape made possible by obliterating all that was forty years in the making.

Destruction that is complete and total, all but a basic outline of the two main structures reduced to rubble. Charred and debris flung outward in a wide arc.

A dark smudge of black and gray against a pristine white background.

APPLESAUCE. One word. Ten letters. All capitals.

This safe word was drilled into Ham time and again as she was growing up. A phrase meant to let her and the numerous other girls passing through the refuge know danger was near. One of the various forms of evil they were all hiding from had somehow found them tucked deep in the Idaho wilderness.

A simple term Ham never once heard put to use during her formative years there, the numerous precautions taken to keep them safe more than sufficient. Defenses that have now somehow fallen short, meaning that when the single word arrives in her texts from an unknown number late one night, there is no doubting the sender or the unspoken meaning behind it.

She needed to get to Idaho. Now.

Just minutes removed from her most recent assignment, Ham begins her trek north. A mad dash through the night where she arrives to find the only home she's ever known destroyed. The closest thing to family she has left forced to go on the run.

It's the beginning of a sprint far more intense than anything she's ever encountered. A race to find her surrogate relations and keep them safe while unraveling the various forces and motivations acting against them.

A list of possibilities that goes back decades, with reach and resources far greater than anything Ham could have imagined...