Chapter 4: Skyline

 

They sat on a roof overlooking the city. It was as alive as it had been during the day, now that the rain wasn't washing people off the streets. It was beautiful but more than a little stinky. A few years ago they'd started to make the inner city car-free but the smell of exhaust fumes still permeated the air above. Besides them, Saint Dimas was hunched menacingly on a gargoyle, Cape billowing in the wind. 

 

“Question.”

 

“Hrm?”

 

“Maxine is a woman, right?”

 

“You really are a great detective.”

 

“Un moment. And Penumbra is… What?”

 

“Big purple space alien.”

 

“But Penumbra identifies as…”

 

“Bored with this conversation. What are you steering at, Dimas? If you're gay for Penny you can tell us.”

 

Dimas cleared his throat. “No I mean… Pronouns. I don't know what to use for who. The difference between between Penumbra and Spite.”

 

“Oh… Should have led with that. Maxine uses she, Penny uses singular they. We use plural they.”

 

Dimas considered for a second. “Ah,” He nodded. “C’est comme ‘vous’.”

 

“Comme again?”

 

“In French, we have a singular and a plural word for ‘you’. ‘Tu’ is singular, ‘vous’ is plural.”

 

“Interesting.”

 

“But ‘vous’ is also singular second form, if you're being polite.”

 

“We like that.”

 

“So she for Madame Maxime, they for Penumbra, and they for you. D’accord.”

 

“You're not what we expected, Dimas.”

 

“Considering how we met, Spite, neither are you.”

 

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, until something beeped. 

 

“My scanner is picking up movement at our altitude. Could be nothing but…”

 

“Let's go.”

 

—-

 

Navigating the Parisian rooftops was easy, all things considered. Easier than back home. There, they'd had to make leaps between towering skyscrapers or sneak across single-story houses. Here, the buildings were closer together because the city was just that much older. It had the footprint of an ancient giant, someone had one said. They'd never been warned that it also had the olfactory impact of one. 

 

“Does it always smell this bad?” Spite asked Dimas as they vaulted over a chimney and traumatised a cat. 

 

“Oui,” Dimas growled. Clearly he wasn't crazy about it either. “It always has. Some say it's part of the charm of the city.”

 

“But not you.”

 

His silence was confirmation. Spite was about to say something hilarious when they both froze. Having just reached the top of a roof, they finally saw it. Their disease vector. It was… Large. The size of a man and a half, it was mostly a bat. Mostly. Like a bat with extra bits and pieces, quills and spikes and horns. And more teeth than even Spite had. They'd be insulted if they weren't awestruck. 

 

“There it is. Let's attack it together. Try to force it to the ground. Without exposing it to the public, oui?”

 

Spite grinned in confirmation. 

 

“Mine.”

 

They launched themselves together, Saint Dimas with the grace of a professional acrobat as he used a rope to somersault through the air, Spite with all the elegance of a rabid wolverine fired from a catapult. They landed on both sides of the creature with relative quiet. It still noticed them and screeched at them. Penumbra rippled across Maxine's body. Clearly the sound was having an effect on them, but it stopped, they noted, before any damage was done.

They were unsteady for a second, recovering their wits, as the creature took off with a loud ‘Woompf’. As it soared overhead, Dimas fired his grapple at the thing, wrapping it around one of the creature’s feet, widening his stance to hold the creature in place. It looked impressive. It looked hilarious when it utterly failed and this two-hundred pound man was yoinked from the rooftop after the creature. 

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Spite half-laughed as they initiated pursuit of the giant bat, now trailing behind it a smaller caped figure.

 

---

 

The big…

 

Let's just call it the Vampire

 

“Yeah.”

 

The Vampire had trouble flying straight because of the less than-straight piece of ballast on its leg, which made its flight pattern indistinguishable from ordinary bats. While it fluttered frantically above Paris, Dimas tried to slowly ascend the rope, reeling himself in. It was clearly difficult because of the aggressive motions but the man must have had the grip strength of an industrial vice because he was not letting go. 

 

Spite followed the duo, sprinting after them, mildly amused at the spectacle, like two angry weightless flying yo-yo’s. 

 

Focus.

 

The biggest issues was consistently the creature gaining altitude and then abruptly changing direction, causing Spite to lose momentum and time having to find a new rooftop to work towards, and Dimas to lose his grip and a few feet of rope and progress. 

 

After doing this for what felt like hours but was actually exactly seven minutes and fifteen seconds, Spite saw their chance and leapt for it. They soared through the air, claws outstretched, and their talons wrapped around… Nothing. The Vampire had changed course again and now they were hurtling towards…

 

“Oh motherf-” 

 

Spite crashed through the deck of the boat. It had been slowly meandering down the Seine, couples romantically eating dinner by candlelight under tactically placed umbrellas, pretending it wasn't too cold and sometimes genuinely not caring because, come on, you're in Paris and you're in love. Nothing could possibly ruin an evening like that, although a giant black shape yelling obscenities as it thunders through the boat you took your date on might dampen spirits a bit. And your pants, once you realise that, whatever it was, also crashed through the bottom of the barge and it was now sinking. Slowly. People were, with all the stoic annoyance of the French, making their way off the boat already as it bumped into a dock. 

 

Spite didn't give them much of a thought, growing more lithe, more hydrodynamic, and a matching set of gills. With very little disturbance of the water, they surfaced, seeing the Vampire flap around over the Seine, Dimas bouncing up and down close to the surface. They swam in hot pursuit, a black shadow gliding through the water. 

 

Just then, the creature screeched. Under water, it didn't affect Penumbra as much. But it certainly seemed to have an effect on the denizens of the bridges of Paris. They flocked out in thousands towards the noise and it stopped its screams in a panic as it was swarmed by confused bats, and shot off in the other direction - again, causing Dimas to take an impromptu water-skiing lesson. 

 

When it got to the edge of the water, heading north again, it pulled up, but not fast enough for Dimas to avoid slamming into the walls aside the river, and he seemed to be losing his strength as time went on. Spite built up some speed and launched itself out of the river, immediately vaulting to the height of the rooftops again in pursuit. 

 

Clearly, the Vampire was wearing out too, having slowed down, not helped by the jolt it must have received when Dimas collided with the Seine’s edge. Spite caught up to him, and managed to grab the rope too.

 

Between the two of them, they barely managed to keep the thing grounded. Dimas didn't look good, his mask torn and he was bleeding from several cuts in his clothing. 

 

“Can you make the jump?”

 

“We think so.”

 

“Make it. I can't hold on any longer.”

 

He braced himself against a chimney with a foot, every muscle in his body taut. 

 

“Now!”

 

Spite didn't have to be told twice. Now that the Vampire was stuck, it was a lot easier to target, and with a thud, Spite slammed into it. Saint Dimas let go, his athletic physique finally giving up, and as the creature shot away, Spite sat on its back, absolutely sure Dimas had said something cool under his breath. Possibly in French. 

 

---

 

Maxine had been on some rollercoasters before. Penumbra hadn’t, but together they’d sat on the back of more moving vehicles than they probably cared to count, scaring the daylights out of pilots and passengers many times over. 

 

This wasn’t like that. This was like nothing they’d experienced before. The Vampire underneath them was a creature of instinct and muscle, thick skin and spikes. It buckled and heaved underneath them, every frantic flap of its wings making it hard to hold on. Max was certain she wouldn’t be able to hold on if she didn’t have Penny. She was half waiting on a quip, there, but they were both too focused on holding on as the thing tried to shake them off. 

 

There was noise from her earphones but she was only picking up bits and pieces. In the flashes she got of her surroundings, she could see Paris around them, the beautiful city now no longer covered in a blanket of rain. Not that she had time to appreciate it, but it was, you know, there. 

 

“Terribly sorry about this.”

 

They dug a handful of talons into the creature’s shoulder. It was imperative that they didn’t lose grip during this next bit. It screamed again, wailing, screeching, a piercing sound that cut through marrow and, more problematically, through Penumbra’s walls. Their skin rippled and she could feel Penny struggling to maintain consciousness. 

 

“Just hold on,” they whispered to themselves. “Just a little bit longer. Let’s see what - hng - your deal is.”

 

They dug their nervous system into that of the creature. It was like nothing they’d experienced before. Connecting on a neurological level with another living creature was an invasive experience that needed to be handled with care. Ideally not while stabbing it in mid-air. Desperate measures and whatnot. They followed the traces of its body - definitely human once, now no longer recognisable - to the root of the transformation, the same viral pathogen that was present in the others, dug into the brain. 

But where it had been small, almost unnoticeable in the infected victims, a single-celled organism that sent faulty data into the brain, this creature’s infection was absolute. Chunks of the brain had been replaced with cells that functioned like brain cells. Like a cancer, it had spread. Not a single cell in this body was as it should be. At least this one was mostly alive. That was something, at least. 

 

They looked around. They were flying over the city, slowly climbing, and suddenly, Spite had a terrible idea. 

 

“Spite to Victoria, come in.”

 

“I’m here, what’s the situation?”

 

“It’s pretty f- woah - fucky babe. We need to know… hypothetically…”

 

“Hypothetically what?”

 

“If we fall from, say, half a click up, how long do we have before we hit the ground.”

 

“Oh my god, you wouldn’t.”

 

“We need time to work.”

 

“I… Fuck. Okay. Uhhh….”

 

“A little under ten seconds,” Ellie piped in.

 

“That’ll do.”

 

“Do what, Spite?”

 

“We’ve got the… OOF… the vector, and we can probably bring it in alive. But it - fffff - isn’t co-operating.”

 

“Just… be safe.”

 

“Uh…”

 

“Babe…”

 

“You should probably bring a van. And a couple stretchers.”

 

“To where?”

 

“Champs-Élys- GAAAh”

 

The thing screeched again. Louder this time. Longer, too. Penumbra was being drowned out by the high-pitched frequencies until it retreated inside her. Suddenly, Maxine was sitting alone on the back of the Vampire, alone. What she’d feared before was going to come true. There was no way she could hold on to this thing without Penny’s help. She tried to wrap her legs and arms around the thing, but its neck was one massive muscle, almost impossible to get an arm around.

 

“Alright then… you bitch… This is gonna hurt… for the both… of us.”

 

She slammed a hand down on the thing’s head and merged with it again, a small spike of nervous system digging into the thing’s brain, and started to heal.

 

It was incredibly hard work, and she was trying to make it go as fast as possible, trying to keep it conscious and flying for as long as possible as she scrubbed its brain from the pathogen. She tried to heal and reconstruct the brain as best as possible, but so much of it was missing. If she even managed to heal it and restore it completely, it would probably not be the person it was before. The Vampire kept screaming, and she could feel her ears starting to bleed from the assault. It’d heal, she reassured herself. Still, after a few seconds, she heard a vwop and went deaf first in one ear, than the other as her eardrums gave out. She didn’t let go. If there was even a small chance she could save the person inside…

 

The creature suddenly jerked and spasmed as she cleaned the biggest cluster at the base of its skull of the infection. The screaming stopped. The movement did, too. For a second they hung in the air, weightless, as if frozen in the air. Then, they began to fall. 

 

The brain was clean, but if this thing landed in the center of Paris, Chaos would ensue. 

 

Eight seconds. 

 

As they tumbled downwards, she worked hard and fast, cleaning and cleansing the Vampire’s body, moulding it like clay.

 

Seven seconds. 

 

The wings became arms, slowly. The fingers retracted to a normal length and lost their webbing. Elbows bent the right way again.

 

Six seconds.

 

The hairy, spiked torso became humanoid again. The leathery skin became soft to the touch again, muscles like industrial cable and concrete softened and melted into themselves.

 

Five seconds.

 

The head no longer a screeching, toothed and monstrous but a sharp face, hairless, generic. A face that was utterly remarkable in its complete lack of distinguishing features. 

 

Four seconds.

 

Legs lost their talons, had human feet at the ends of them again as the world spun around them and the ground was starting to get close very quickly.

 

Three seconds.

 

She swept the arteries of infection, forcing cleaned blood through it. Every cell was oxygenated. If they’d ever been sick before, their body would no longer show signs of it.

 

Two seconds.

 

Finally, she restarted the heart, and the Vampire’s entire body spasmed. Whatever had kept it alive before was no longer present, and she didn’t have a lot of time to keep it from dying. The lights of the big shopping street below them shone on their faces.

 

One second.

 

It was healed. It was okay. She didn’t know what their mind would be like when they woke up. If they’d even be alive in the strictest sense. It was entirely possible they’d be brain dead. The damage had been so severe. She tried not to worry too much about it. She reinforced her back as best as possible, but she couldn’t cause too much suspicion after all. 

 

She angled herself between the vampire and the street, wrapping herself around them, and closed her eyes.

 

With a thunderous crash, they hit the street. Maxine instantly lost consciousness. Her brain, her organs, had been reinforced, but it couldn’t do everything against a fall from that height. Not without alerting the whole world to Spite’s existence. She blinked in and out of thought as her eyes healed from the impact. After a few seconds, her hearing came back, too. Breathing was hard. 

 

The Vampire had landed on her chest. It had fractures in its spine and ribs, but it was alive. 

 

She faintly heard the sounds of panicked screams, of cars veering around them, as she became aware of the fact that she was lying in a small crater in the middle of one of the most famous streets in the world, and cars were dodging her as best they could. People on the sidewalk were yelling, unable to get to them due to the traffic. 

 

She healed her lungs as best she could, but the impact had done so much damage. It would take days, weeks, to recover from this. But they were alive. Well, for now.

 

A black car was racing down the street and the vehicular commotion had gone unnoticed to its driver, who was absent-mindedly talking on the phone. It was heading straight for them. Max doubted she could withstand a bumper to the cranium right now, and she didn’t think she could recover from a decapitation. And neither could her unconscious passenger. She was too tired, too broken, to set up her defenses. Penumbra was still out. The comforting blackness of sleep was dragging her with it.

 

What a dumb way to go.

 

Then, a shadow crashed onto the hood of the vehicle, all black leather and billowing cape, and its driver instantly jerked the wheel and slammed the breaks, crashing into the central divider, skidding to a halt just a few feet from where they were lying down. The abyss tugged at her attention.

 

Consciously she knew it was Dimas, of course, but her brain wasn’t parsing. She tried to make it out as it jumped off the hood of the car and walked towards them. He pressed one finger to the side of his cowl.

 

“Oui, I have them both. Alive, oui. I- Non. Not well. Oui.”

 

She slipped into the inky blackness of unconsciousness. 

 

---

 

There’s a certain familiar misery to waking up in an unfamiliar room with the gentle beeping of a heartbeat monitor in the background, one Maxine was all too familiar with. The smell of antiseptic was nauseating. Her vision was blurry but quickly corrected itself. V was asleep in a chair next to her bed, legs curled up underneath her as her head leaned against the wall. Max sighed in abject admiration for this woman. She lifted a heavy arm, and leaned over to grab Victoria’s hand, who slowly blinked awake. They smiled weakly and wordlessly at each other. 

 

After a few seconds, Lisa Westbrooke, now in full medical regalia and rocking the everloving hell out of a billowing white coat, marched into the room, which Max by now had recognised as a separate room of the camp Ratatouille medical building. 

 

“How are they, Lisa?”

 

Victoria yawned, stretching to clear the fog of sleep from her brain. 

 

“Better than expected, all things considered,” Lisa said, but there was still a disapproving glare from both of them at Maxine, who tried to glare back at both of them simultaneously but only succeeded in giving herself a headache. 

 

“Falls from that height are almost universally fatal, but our patient here has an unusually thick skull.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“She reinforced her back and skull at the last second, which is probably what saved her life. Still, she suffered some internal bleeding when both she and Penny were unconscious. Now that she’s up I’m sure she’ll be up and about in a few hours. Penny woke up yesterday, but the shock to her brain was quite heavy and we decided to let her sleep.”

 

Victoria nodded, and looked sideways at Maxine again. 

 

“You scared me, babe.”

 

Maxine nodded solemnly.

 

“There was a person in there, V. I couldn’t just let them go without trying. And I was like… eighty percent certain I was going to survive that fall.”

 

“Eighty? Really?”

 

“Maybe a little more. I’m pretty sturdy.”

 

You were reckless and you did good

 

Max smiled at Penny. It was always good when they were reunited. Penumbra was a part of her, and when one was unconscious the other would quickly feel a sharp absence. 

 

“Speaking of, where’s the… disease vector? Did they make it?”

 

“Y- es,” Lisa hesitated, and looked at V for confirmation.

 

Victoria brought Max’s hand to her mouth for a kiss. 

 

“They’re alive and awake, but… I’d prefer you see for yourself when you can walk around.”

 

Max frowned.

 

“Is something wrong?”

 

“Not… quite. But... “ V looked back at Lisa who Max had a lot of trouble reading. She didn’t look worried as such. Victoria looked back at her and grinned. “I kind of want to see your face when you meet them.”

 

Now it was Maxine’s turn to glare.

 

“Y’all playin’.”

 

Victoria leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

 

“Heal, baby. You saved a life and maybe a city. And nobody saw Penny, Spite or the really big bat.”

 

“Oh, speaking of which, how is Dimas?”

 

“Bruised to all hell, but fine. A little salty he’d been seen in public but saving you two boosted his reputation among the citizens of Paris even more, so it’s not a total loss. He’s taking it in stride.”

 

She paused.

 

“He saved your life. Say thank you.”

 

“Oki.”

 

Maxine spent the next few hours working with Penny to slowly stitch her body back together. Over the years, they found that they could survive almost anything, but damage done to their body while Penumbra was unconscious was harder to heal from. Lisa had some theories, but for the most part “try not to” was still the go-to advice. Slowly but surely the hairline fractures on most of her skeleton creaked shut, the pain in her… everything subsided. 

 

It was at around 6, the sun beginning to set outside, that she took the first few steps out of bed. Every joint popped and locked back into place for a second, like going through diagnostics. They dislocated and relocated every limb to make sure everything was in the right spot. It was then that she turned around and saw Lisa staring at her. The look on her face was comparable to one someone might have if, in the middle of a conversation, you took an onion out of your pocket and took a big bite out of it, and then put it back. It was a mix of incredulity and something between awe and disgust. 

 

“That was the freakiest thing I’ve seen all…”

 

She paused.

 

“Past eight hours.”

 

“Funny how normalized weird shit gets with us, huh?”

 

“I mean… since day one.”

 

Maxine laughed. It had the quality of a string of bells.

 

“Yeah, it’s been a wild ride. I promise you it’s probably not going to stop.”

 

Lisa tapped her pen against her teeth.

 

“I think I’m fine with that.”

 

Pause.

 

“Am I fine with that?”

 

She seemed to consider some things. Several expressions slowly drifted across her face, and finally she settled on a content smile. 

 

“Yeah, I’m fine with it.”

 

Max sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her legs up.

 

“You still like working with us?”

 

“With Lit? Yeah. We do good work.”

 

“Just for the work?” Max shot her a completely neutral sideways look.

 

Lisa grinned like she got caught eyeing the cookie jar.

 

“Okay, maybe not just the work. You’re all… You’re good people.”

 

“So are you, W- Lisa. You’re one of us for a reason.”

 

“Is that reason that you think I’m gay?”

 

“Only a little.” Max winked. “Nah, it’s because you’ve got a tolerance for weird. And… 

Don’t take this the wrong way…”

 

“Don’t worry. Go ahead.”

 

“You’re a little broken. A little bit damaged. And all of us are, too. It lets us help better. Help you. And others.”

 

“I… get that. What happened in Kabul…”

 

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

 

“No I… I think it’s just… Nobody should see people they care about like that. I mean… war is already horror… but nothing could have prepared me for that thing.”

 

Maxine shuddered to think about it.

 

“Too many mouths.”

 

“Too many faces. Faces of brothers. Sisters.”

 

“You’re safe from them, you know that, right? It can’t get you here. V and I… we’ll keep you safe. We promised that then, and that’s still true now.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I really do know that. But it… It came for me and…”

 

“Hey, hey,” Max got up and walked over to her. She recognised the cognitive spiral Lisa was in - she’d experienced it herself often enough, seen it in the rest of the team - the memory clearly taking shape in her head as more and more details wrought themselves from the depths of her mind. She wrapped both arms around Lisa.

 

“You don’t have to relive this if you don’t want to. Right now, that’s something you’re healing from. Picking at it right this second won’t help. You’re already doing a lot of work to heal.”

 

Lisa’s eyes had gotten red, and she sniffled. 

 

“Y- yeah. Sorry.”

 

“You have nothing to apologize for, Westbrooke. Like I said. We like you here. You fit in.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“And you’re gay.”

 

“Just a little bit.”

 

---

 

She walked out of her room feeling herself again and, almost as importantly, dressed in jeans and leather jacket/boots combo, looking stylish as fuck. The rest of the medical building was mostly empty, as there had been no more new infected after they caught the vampire. The latter was a shape in the bed closest to the door, and Dimas and Billy sat on both sides of it keeping it under close watch. She wondered why, as it was most clearly not a giant bat person. The body had perfectly normal and average human proportions she thought as she approached. No reason at all… to…

 

The Vampire turned towards Maxine, who saw her own face looking back at her. But it wasn’t her face as it was now. It was her face from five years ago. Angular. Not an unpleasant face to look at, if you weren’t Max. To her, it was like seeing a living nightmare. 

 

“What the fuck?” she whispered. 

 

Yeah, what the fuck?

 

She turned to Saint Dimas.

 

“Dimas… what?”

 

“Not a clue, Maxine. She was like this when you two hit the ground.”

 

The figure in the bed spoke, and did so with a voice that was a bit like hers, but a bit more hoarse. Surprisingly, the accent wasn’t French.

 

“Hello.”

 

“Yo. Hi. Hello. Um.”

 

The Vampire blinked.

 

“I’m really gonna need something here, guys. Why is the person that was in the giant bat creature wearing my face? Why the FUCK-”

 

“I’m glad to see you’re up, sweetie.”

 

Victoria’s voice came from behind her as she walked in. It was like a hot compress on a sore neck, a glass of cold water on a hot day. Maxine felt a large chunk of her stress immediately evaporate.

 

Regardless, the creature in front of her was making her feel dysphoria in a way she hadn’t for… shit, years. She turned to her wife. 

 

“What’s going on here, V? Why does it look like… like… him?”

 

Victoria put a hand on Max’s cheek. 

 

“That face never belonged to a ‘him’, Max. And,” she turned to the bed, “we honestly don’t know if it does now.”

 

“So what happened?”

 

“There was… significant scarring on the brain when you brought them in. We think the virus ate away huge chunks of it and you healed it. But you didn’t have enough to work from. The “correct” body template wasn’t available anymore. Their brain, simply put, didn’t remember what it was supposed to look like.”

 

“So…”

 

“So you subconsciously filled in the blanks.”

 

“With That.”

 

“With what you felt was appropriate for what you perceived to be a giant, hairy, ugly monster, yes, Maxine.”

 

There was a little bit of a reprimand in her tone. 

 

“That face, Max, that body… I think it’s the exact one you turned back into when you and Penny first met. The “this is what ugly monsters deserve”-body. Do you remember what I told you about it?”

 

Max sighed and sat down in a chair at the wall opposite the bed.

 

“I do. It’s just… I haven’t seen that face in so long, V. I feel dirty knowing I had it inside me after five years.”

 

“You had it inside you because, even though it wasn’t you, not really, it’s still the face you wore while you were finding your own. It’s a piece of your history. I… don’t think you should disown it.”

 

“And the… personality? Any memories?”

 

“That’s the tricky part.”

 

“How so?”

 

“They don’t seem to have a lot of memories. The ones they do have seem to be choppy or vague. And some of them I think might be yours.”

 

“Oh fuck me.”

 

“Yeah, it’s not ideal.”

 

The figure in the bed waved.

 

“I’m right here, you know. You could just… ask me.”

 

A look of disgust flashed across Maxine’s face. Victoria caught it. She’d known Max too long.

 

“Is it the voice?”

 

“Yeah. Sorry. This is a lot to take in,” she said, but she got up anyway, and walked over to the bed, and offered a hand. “I’m Maxine.”

 

The figure on the bed shook her hand. “Nice to meet you Maxine. I’m… not clear on it but I think my name is Ja-”

 

Nobody in the room, not even Victoria, had ever seen Maxine move that fast. Her hand had shot out and clamped it across the vampire’s mouth. Her face was contorted in ugliness and rage. A second of absolute silence hung in the air. Then, Maxine looked at her hand, her hands, in fear, abject terror, and backed away until she hit a wall. Subconsciously or not, her hands had grown long, sharp talons, the hands of a nightmarish monster, and she was scratching at her arm almost absent-mindedly, not paying attention to the wounds she was causing herself with the razor-sharp claws.. 

 

She was sobbing by the time she was on the floor. The world grew very small indeed as Victoria rushed over and did what she could to keep Maxine from hurting herself.