I don't expect you to understand. Nor do I expect you to forgive me. I need neither of those things.

But I know you will do what must be done.

Praise be.

----------------------------------------

Sol'hathazar lunged, an arc of orange fire trailing behind his fists. With millimeters to spare, Abel ducked out of the giant's grasp.

"We can talk about this!" Abel yelled. Sol'hathazar's burning hands crashed into the waiting area's wall. The blows sent their hands clean through, leaving gaping craters in the plaster. Licks of flame ate at the edges. Abel's eyes went wide.

"Maybe we can't," he said, his mouth suddenly dry.

Abel scrambled back down the hall they had just exited. Vel'tek was right behind him; light from her Pacts could be seen glowing from underneath her armor.

"Do you know them?" Abel asked between pants.

"Nope. He seems to know you though."

Male. Got it.

Abel threw a glance over his shoulder and let out a yelp. Sol'hathazar was right on their heels.

"Oh, no you don't," growled Vel'tek. Without stopping, Vel'tek spun to face their pursuer, firing a pulse of blue light from her palm in one motion. Abel glanced back to see the hallway behind them scorched beyond recognition. The beige carpet and white walls were now an ashen black.

Sol'hathazar didn't flinch.

"Vel'?" Abel asked in disbelief.

"I'm working on it!" she yelled back.

They passed by Bar'hew and Kelt. Both seemed awestruck by the abrupt chaos of the situation. Vel'tek grabbed Abel's shoulder.

"Hang on!" she said.

"What do you mean-" Abel said before she wrenched him off his feet and pulled him at bone rending velocity towards the far end of the hall. His teeth chattered and limbs flopped as he trailed like a rag doll behind Vel'tek.

How is this hallway so long?

Suddenly it was over and Abel stood in font of another room almost identical to the one Vel'tek had entered earlier. Vel'tek threw the door open, then tossed him inside, slamming it closed behind them.

A series of rapid fire blows sounded from outside the door that refused to let up. Each second that passed the door buckled further. Vel'tek hauled Abel to his feet and pushed him farther into the room.

"This is going to be very weird for you," she said.

"Weirder than it already is?" Abel coughed, still recovering from the violent transit to the room.

"Very," she said, crossing the room to a black panel on the wall.

The thumping of fists against the door halted.

"Give me the Abomination," Sol'hathazar said, his voice muffled by the metal. "This doesn't concern you."

Vel'tek's eyes went wide, the request halting her in her tracks. She shot a glance to Abel before looking back at the door.

"Like you actually know what he is," she shouted back. "Nice try."

"I know more than you think," Sol'hathazar growled.

"What'd he call me?" Abel hissed.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Vel'tek looked back to him, unease crossing her face. Abel felt the weight of her silence bore into him.

"Nothing. Let's just get out of here," she said. She smashed her fist against the panel.

The floor fell out from under them, rushing towards the ground at breakneck speed. Abel felt like he had the wind knocked from him as air rushed into his mouth, gasping with panic. He tumbled end over end. Any sense of control left him as the world dissolved into revolving colors and lights.

His uncontrolled free fall suddenly leveled out. He stared down at a floor several stories below him. A pair of arms gripped him.

"Vel?" he asked, hoping Sol'hathazar hadn't somehow followed them.

"Who else?" she grunted. "Hold on. I'm lowering us but I'm losing strength."

The ground grew larger and faster as they descended. They hit the ground with a sickening thump, the hard floor doing nothing to cushion their fall. Abel bounced and rolled. It was all he could do just to keep his limbs from snapping under his careening body, and the wall stopped his roll with a jarring crack.

Abel groaned.

Vel'tek struggled to stand beside him. Her arms shuddered under her own weight.

"You good?" Abel asked, his body crying out as he tried to stand. Vel'tek grunted.

"Good," Abel said. He couldn't stop the grin that had spread across his face. Everything he had been through so far was ridiculous.

"We'll need to move," Vel'tek said, finally on her feet, "I doubt that will stop him for long."

"How did you do that?" Abel asked, motioning to the room around them.

"It's part of the building," Vel'tek said, wincing as she made her way over to a door set into the wall.

"What?"

"When N.Z.T. gained control of this building, they found that many of the rooms had connections to the entryway. They just exploit them."

Abel stared at her, her words meaning nothing to him. "When they gained... Who would build giant death traps in a building? And that let you slow our fall?"

She shrugged and keyed in a code into the pad next to the door. "EndsMarch. And no, that was one of my Pacts."

"EndsMarch?"

"Did I stutter?" Vel'tek snapped. The door slid open with a hiss. "Now come on, before he jumps down on you."

Abel glanced up at the chute they had fallen down. "He can do that?"

"No idea, but I'm not sticking around to find-"

Her voice caught mid sentence. Abel peeked over her shoulder to see the lobby a wreck of its previous self. The front desk lay in two pieces, snapped in half down the center. Cracks littered the tiled floor. Guards laid in heaps near the corners of the room. The receptionist crawled, one arm limp at her side, towards the smashed in glass doors, a streak of crimson trailing her from an open wound in her side.

Vel'tek shook herself and rushed to the crawling figure. Vel'tek's right should glowed a faint orange as she pressed her hand into the wound. The receptionist let out a gasp, but stopped crawling, turning to face Vel'tek.

"Lie still," Vel'tek said, her eyes set on her task.

"We just told him he couldn't come in," the receptionist said between gasps.

Abel didn't have to guess who she was talking about.

"How did he get past security?" Vel'tek asked. With small cracks and flicks, the skin mended beneath her fingers. Sweat formed on Vel'tek's brow. Abel didn't know just how much she had recovered from her previous egg stunt, but he was certain she would not be one-hundred percent recovered.

Who would be after something like...that.

"The code input responded to him, somehow. He didn't use any of us," she gasped, another string of flesh stitched itself to her side. "I didn't think I would make it."

Vel'tek frowned, her shoulder losing its glow, and stood. The receptionist was stable, at least, from what Abel could see. The guards laying in heaps around the room were unknown.

"We just escaped him ourselves," Vel'tek said.

"Go to your unit. The Commission will handle this," the receptionist said. She sat up but winced and settled for a half prone position. "It will be safer there than around here."

"What about you?"

"I'll be fine." She waved them off. "Go."

Vel'tek nodded and grabbed Abel's arm, pulling him towards the smashed door with an impressive amount of strength. A crowd had gathered around the entrance, jostling each other to get a better few of the chaos inside. Vel'tek pushed her way through them, with Abel in tow. Eyes darted to them and lingered longer than Abel liked.

He felt naked. He didn't belong here.

Something itched, a half-formed realization, at the back of his mind until it finally clicked.

"They don't know you're on the run, do they?"

Vel'tek remained silent. Abel yanked his arm away from her.

"Vel'tek, was that guy after us specifically?"

"I don't know."

"Then how did he know about me?

Abel flinched at the outburst. Vel’tek cast her gaze to the ground.

“I don’t know, alright? I don’t know why he is after us, I don’t know why I’m even still considered an active employee after the stunt you pulled, I don’t know why Keepers are after you, and I don’t know why I helped out an Abomination!”

She spat the last word, her eyes now turned toward him, boring holes through his own. Abel remained silent, unsure of how to respond, or even the implication of that last word. He could guess, though. It didn’t sound pleasant.

Space had formed around them as if the crowd of was wary of getting near. Abel could feel eyes on him; judging, cautious, spiteful eyes starting at him from every direction.

“Come on,” she said, turning away from him. “We need to find somewhere safe.” The crowd parted for her without saying a word.

Abel followed. Loneliness was the last thing he had expected in the crowded street.

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