Nathan calls Dwight and claims Mara escaped. Dwight says he'll send members of The Guard across town to look for her. Little does he know that Mara is with Nathan, aibeit chained up. Duke appears and gives them a few supplies. Duke says Nathan's plan is crazy, but he'll do his best to keep the others from figuring out that he's helping Mara escape. Duke mentions that he buried Jennifer. Nathan swears he will find a way to restore Audrey's personality.
Duke goes home and cuts his hair as a sign of mourning.
Nathan offers Mara some breakfast. She spits out her coffee and complains that it doesn't have any cream or sugar. He reminds her that a lot of people in town now want her dead and he's saving her, so she'd better be grateful. Two Guard members drive up. Nathan plays it cool and pretends he recaptured her. They thank him and say they'll take it from here. One of them draws a shotgun and tries to kill her, but Nathan attacks him. The other attacks her with a knife and nicks her shoulder before she beats him down and strangles him with her chain.
Duke goes to The Grey Gull, which is closed, and finds his old childhood friend Jody is robbing it. He asks why she's doing this; the last time he checked, she gave up being a thief when she got married and started a family. Very nervous and agitated, she desperately says she needs as much money as she can so she can get herself and her kids out of Haven. Suddenly, the entire building becomes pitch black, and then two powerful laser beams emit from her torso, scorching everything in her path. Jody freaks out and runs around, causing the lasers to turn and destroy more stuff and forcing Duke to dodge them repeatedly. The lasers stop and the lights turn back on. Duke sprays the fires with a fire extinguisher and puts them out, but Jody runs to her car and drives away.
Nathan leaves the two Guard members tied up by the side of the road, and they swear revenge. Mara calls him a fool for not killing them. He points out her cut, which proves that despite her claims of superiority to humans, she can still be injured and killed like one. They drive to a cabin in the woods and he quickly attaches the end of her chain to a chair.
Duke and Dwight go to Jody's house, where they find it burned and Jody's sister dead. Her children are alright.
Mara says she knows the only reason why Nathan is helping her is because he still believes Audrey is in her. She tells him to wake up: Audrey is dead. She taunts him about how his love for Audrey is the only thing that gives his life meaning, and how it paved the way for her revival. If he hadn't shot Agent Howard in a misguided attempt to stop Audrey from disappearing, then The Barn would not have been destroyed and William would not have been released. He turns the taunt around by pointing out giving people Troubles and using them to cause pain and suffering seems to be the only thing that gives her life meaning. In fact, since she said she wanted to bring William back so she could have access to more aether, he guesses that she's only with William for his usefulness and doesn't really love him. She loses her temper and throws a towel at him.
Duke questions Jody's daughter while assuring her that they will do whatever they can to help her. She explains that Jody came home, then a laser fired from her torso and blew a hole through her sister. She ran away to not put her children in danger. She also mentions Jodi had never been the same since her husband abandoned the family. Duke starts feeling sick and coughs.
Mara says she isn't Audrey, but since she has all her memories and Nathan can feel her, she is a perfect substitute. She starts acting really seductive. He gives into temptation and they make out.
He detaches the chain from the chair and carries her to the bed, but snaps out of it, attaches the chain to the bed, and says he'll sleep on the couch. She complains and says she's horny and how else are they supposed to pass the time? He suggests they talk. He asks her about the world she came from and if her giving people Troubles serves any higher purpose other than sadism. She says she has family back in the other world and she plans to visit once she can keep the Thinnies open and is done with this world. She claims Troubles are to educate and evolve the lowly humans into something greater. She starts hitting on him again and asks why he won't sleep with her when he was so willing to sleep with Audrey Parker and Sarah Vernon. She says since he wants her body so much, he should have met some of her other personalities. Lucy Ripley was a slut and one named Veronica was bisexual. He frowns and tells her to go to sleep. She takes off her shirt and bra, but he doesn't budge, so she pouts and sleeps.
A squad of Guard members storm a cabin in the woods, but it is the wrong one and is empty.
In the middle of the night, Audrey apparently wakes up. Nathan is overjoyed, but she says Nathan talking to her and reminding her of her life is the only thing giving her the strength to surface. She falls asleep and he can't wake her. He e-mails Duke saying he's figured out how to bring Audrey back.
The next morning, Mara wakes up to find Nathan cooking pancakes (Audrey's favorite food). She's disgusted and says she hates them, but he happily greets her as Audrey and says breakfast is served. She asks if he has lost his mind. As a test, he asks her about how she woke up in the middle of the night, but she claims she has no idea what he is talking about.
Duke and Dwight find Jody holed up in an empty store. She's a total wreck over her sister's death. They try to calm her down, but the lights go out and four lasers emit from her torso. Again, she panics and flails around, forcing them to dodge the beams. Dwight notices the lasers do not affect a fire retardant blanket and points it out. Duke grabs the blanket and manages to get close enough to wrap it around her, stopping the beams until they die down. The lights come back on.
She collapses and says that whenever she's out of the light she feels tired and sick. Duke grimly deduces how her Trouble works. She absorbs ambient light and stores it until it is released as lasers, but she also needs to absorb light to survive. Keeping her in the dark will keep the lasers from coming, but she will eventually die unless they can come up with a better solution. Duke gets another message from Nathan saying his plan is working, but he needs more time. Annoyed and feeling sick, he decides to go to their cabin.
After breakfast, Nathan plays some classic music on a radio and detaches Mara's chain, asking her to dance with him. She refuses, but he grabs her and pulls her into one anyway. She moves very unenthusiastically. Eventually, he picks her up, seats her on the couch, and grabs her foot. She tells him to cut that out because she is ticklish. He says he knows and starts tickling her all over. She collapses in a fit of laughter and reverts to Audrey. She worriedly points to Mara's jacket and tries to tell him about the black bead in her pocket, but she runs out of strength and can't finish her sentence. He misinterprets what she wants and wraps her in the jacket, then hugs her, while she can barely move or speak.
At this moment, Duke enters and demands to know what they are doing. Mara regains control and freaks out upon waking up to being hugged by Nathan. Nathan chains her up again and yells at Duke for ruining all his progress. Duke points out that there is a possibility that Mara is just pretending to be a resurfacing Audrey just to fool Nathan, but Nathan insists it really is Audrey. Duke coughs up some blood.
Mara comments that she thought he would be dead by now. She confirms what William said earlier: all the Troubles the Crockers have absorbed over the centuries are now within him, and his body cannot handle it. The only way he can survive is to periodically trigger them, so some of the pressure is relieved. Duke confirms this: when he manifested the Barrow Trouble the other day, he felt instantly better. Mara says she can trigger a minor one within him now, but she needs to know what Troubles his family has absorbed. Nathan asks why she's helping them, and she claims it's because if the pressure builds up too much, Duke will explode. Duke remembers that his grandfather Roy and father Simon wrote down everyone they killed in their journal, but he buried it with his brother Wade's body. Duke is now so sick he won't be able to move very far, so Nathan volunteers to retrieve the journal while Duke guards Mara.
Once they are alone, Mara brings up the time Audrey and Duke kissed in "Magic Hour Part 1", but he says she can't fool him. She is not Audrey. He asks how she can trigger one of his internal Troubles, and she says all she has to do is put her hand over the hand print she gave him earlier. Suddenly, Dwight and several Guard members burst in.
To Be Continued...
