Shilo Wallace turned away from the limo and walked.

Her father's blood stuck to her hair, her dress, her arms. The drying tears felt flaky on her cheeks. She did not rub them away. Her father's blood. She could feel it, thickening on her wig. The wig would probably be ruined. The thought was idle, passing in and out of her consciousness like a whisper, a breeze. Her mind was in chaos and yet she felt totally numb. Her mind was in chaos, yes, but the chaos was muted by the roaring in her ears and the thudding of her heart. The Largos. The opera. Mag. Her father.

Her father.

The numbness was a blessing to her. A part of her, the quiet part that murmured to her beneath the chaos, knew that if the reality of what had happened really hit her, she would break. She would shatter, right in the middle of the street, just scream and scream until she must stop or burst. So she walked. She walked silently, slowly, arms by her sides.

People stared at her as she walked down the street, away from the opera. Her head was high, her chin tilted up like a proud china doll's. She could hear shouts and muttering, meaningless words tossed in her direction. They bounced off of her, off of the dazed shell that somehow constructed itself around her. She walked. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't know what she was doing.

Shilo walked into the depths of the city, not looking back. She didn't know anything anymore.

The crowd thinned out as she walked down the road. There were some halfhearted attempts made to follow her but whoever they were gave up when she showed no signs of stopping. She made it maybe a few blocks before sirens screamed past her, making her jump and look around. She had no idea where she was. She studied the street signs but they were meaningless to her. She hadn't paid attention to which streets the limo took as it ferried her from her mother's tomb to the opera. Shilo didn't know where her house was in relation to the opera, and at that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be in her room, safe and secure, with the door locked against anyone who might come in and break down the fabric of her life any further. Unfortunately, she was well and truly lost. The thought flickered in her mind, to go back to the opera and try to get the limo driver to take her home, but she was wary of the Largo children. Rotti Largo was dead, and he had wanted her to take over GeneCo. A seventeen-year-old recluse in charge of the largest, most powerful corporation in the world? Surely Mr. Largo was mad when he made that decision. She couldn't even find her way home, how was she supposed to run a corporation?

The colder, more analytical part of her mind kept thoughts of her father firmly out of her consciousness. She could feel them there, floating, beating little papery wings against the wall she hastily slammed into place, trying to get in and overwhelm her. She kept them locked out and tried to take stock of her situation. No good. The situation was too large to handle. She needed to get home. That was all she wanted.

She was wary of asking people for directions. The opera had been televised, her face, her blood-covered body, were on the screens high above her as the story of the Genetic Opera was rehashed over and over for the world to see. The surviving Largos were being interviewed, their voices carrying over the channels intermixed with rapidly flashing commercials. Would people be looking for her? Of course they would be. Rotti Largo had waved the will around on stage, and he'd said all he needed to do was sign the paper. That meant that her name was already on the will, didn't it? Some lawyers would want to talk to her, if nothing else. She didn't want GeneCo, she knew that. If some of GeneCo's enforcers found her, she would be picked up and spirited away, and who knew what the Largo children would do with her. Luigi's temper was well-known, and Amber Sweet was, well... unpredictable. The best thing to do would be to hide. That was all Shilo wanted, was to hide away and figure out what on earth she was going to do.

Though these thoughts chased each other in her mind in an endless exhausting circle, she wasn't getting any less lost. It was getting later and she didn't feel capable of doing anything other than putting one foot in front of the other. She kept walking, the streets getting darker, the building even closer together, the stink of the garbage in dumpsters getting more overpowering. She took another turn, and came to a small, narrow alley. Shilo leaned on the wall next to a dumpster at the end of the street and looked down at the street before her. It was lifeless and claustrophobic, only one streetlight glowing dimly. It reminded her of the alley in which she had seen the Graverobber dealing Zydrate to multicolored, beautiful, sickening whores and addicts, and to Amber Sweet. The way they had swarmed around him reminded her of an army of mindless ants converging on a spider or beetle. Sometimes the target could fight off the tiny, vicious onslaught. Sometimes not.

She felt her legs suddenly tremble and rather than have them give out entirely she allowed herself to sink to the filthy ground. Thinking of ants and spiders made her think of her collection, which made her think of her bedroom at home, which made her think of....

"Daddy." She murmured it aloud, and her voice was cracked and wavered, like a frightened child's. She wanted her father. She wanted him to rescue her, to take her home and fuss and fret and make her lie in bed, make her rest, make her feel safe. Even uttering the word was enough to break Shilo down. The wall shattered and the first sob threatened to come spilling out. She clamped her lips shut and kept the sounds muffled as she curled up on the ground, arms wrapped around herself as her body was wracked with anguish.