Bits of the stone plaza fly up like fireworks, materializing from the thick, newly-formed clouds of dust between me and the Rifters. There are no gunshots, no shouts, no running footsteps.

I myself have a vague feeling that I shouldn’t move just yet, frozen in apprehension.

As the dust begins to clear, I can start to make out the backs of my six new party members.

One of them swivels toward me. She’s wearing gray, metal pauldrons, with a black hood, and a black cape embossed in gold with a lion: the symbol of the Bannerets. She holds a lever-action rifle at the ready.

Her expression is anxious. “Go!” She hisses. “Fight!”

So few words. So much ambiguity. Or perhaps not.

Not that there’s time to ask questions, anyway.

Bannerets have shown up to fight, or at least to buy me some time. Tanya didn’t want to endanger them, but here they are, risking their lives.

Whether they’ve shown up for my sake or for the Bannerets is a moot question. I AM a Banneret.

And I’m not going to let them down.

I make an about-face and hurl myself into the dim slit of an alley, barely able to fit the width of my body inside, shoulders practically scraping the brick walls as I run. Have to put some distance between myself and the Rifters. I don’t know what the next step is, but I doubt it’s getting shot and ejected from Rithium. Not that.

Gunshots popcorn behind me in the plaza, crackling and pounding. The shots echo ominously in the walls, transmitting clearly along this thin length of alley that’s three or four stories high and who knows how many blocks long. There’s something strange and unnatural about it, suffocating.

I hit an intersection and keep running. The alley feels like a narrow trap, but as tempted as I am to loop out of it, it makes more sense to keep putting as much distance between me and the Rifters as I can.

Thankfully, the alley starts to widen, curving outward, and then I see something that makes me run faster. Then, once I’m sure it’s what I think it is, I’m running as fast as I can, boots stamping over the mud and stones.

It’s strangely damp here. Damp and cold. A shadowy crevasse in the city.

I slow to a stop, skidding on the mud. Oscar is just ahead of me. His back is to me. He’s crouched, back and neck hunched forward, hands pressed over his head.

I don’t know how to interpret this. What it means.

More than anything, a part of me wants Oscar to get out of this unscathed, get things back to the way they were. As unlikely as that might be.

“Oz?”

I shouldn’t have said it. I should have rushed him, tried to take him by surprise. But the word is already spoken, hanging in the air.

Oscar’s head tilts toward me. His eyes are wide and bloodshot, his expression strained. He jumps to his feet.

“Oscar, wait!”

But he’s already running.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I chase after him. Twisting and turning through corridors and passages, him always just barely within my sight, barely out of reach.

He begins running up a steep, stone flight of stairs. I take after him. I try to outpace him, but no matter what, the distance between us stays the same, like there’s an invisible force field keeping us apart.

He hits the top of the steps and disappears from sight.

“Oz!”

I race up the stairs. They level off onto a plaza not unlike the market square. Dust turns and travels lazily across the ground, carried by a slight breeze. Over uneven cobbled stones. Past disheveled buildings.

I recognize this place. It’s at the center of the city, sitting just next to the Opus Tower itself.

Sure enough, on one end of the street there’s a black, all-encompassing wall, like voidspace. As if the end of this street was in fact the end of the world.

Standing in front of that obsidian voidspace, facing me, was Oscar.

He no longer has that strained, panicked look. He looks calm. Focused. Intelligent. Like he has some kind of plan, and there’s no question it’s about to be carried out.

I walk over to face him. Slow, watching his body for any sudden movements.

I’m suddenly wary of him. Closer to the level of caution that I should have had before, if I had actually been thinking clearly. The problem with me and Oscar, is that things just aren’t clear.

Oscar regards me, unhurried. Waiting.

In the distance, I can hear the gunshots. Yelling. The dragon roaring, the air pounding with the beat of its wings.

They got it. They’re holding off the rest of the forces so that I can take this chance. However slim it might be.

Movement.

I can feel muscles throughout my entire body tensing. My fingers twitch, extending toward my holstered revolvers.

Oscar could draw his pistols at any moment. It would take one shot. One shot, and I would be dead. Really dead.

But instead, he reaches into the pocket of his cargo pants and pulls out a Black Dart. My Black Dart.

I reach out and catch it one-handed, my other hand brushing against the revolver at my hip.

Oscar smirks, seeming to take satisfaction from my tense reaction, thinking it’s some kind of trap.

It might still be.

“Why?” I ask, eyes locked on him. My fingers are wrapped tight around the cord. The pendant dangles.

Oscar shrugs, face falling a little, out of the smirk. He looks sad. Solemn. “It’s time to play. For real.”

He wants to play with you. Like a cat with a mouse. But why?

But perhaps I know. Perhaps it’s the only thing he has left. The only part of our relationship left. The last thing he can siphon away before it’s gone.

Like always, we will play.

Still, I feel a plume of righteous anger building up in me, like a hot lance in my chest.

“This isn’t a game.” I say. “This isn’t split screen Call of Duty.” On a Saturday night. A minifridge in Oscar’s room topped off with OJ and Mountain Dew. An open bag of chips on the floor between them. Both of us laughing with excitement over a crazy play.

Jackie politely knocking on the door, asking to play. Oscar and I exchanging glances, neither of us wanting to share the smaller screen on the tube TV.

“You’re right.” Oscar says. “It’s better.”

“You think Jackie would say that?”

He doesn’t answer. But that in itself is an answer. He just looks at me. And I know. What I should have known. What I always did know.

Jackie really is dead. Jackie is dead. We killed her.

I killed her.

I feel the hot lance in my chest dissipating, falling. And falling.

“Why?” I don’t have to elaborate on the question. Why did you lie to me? Why did you give me a long-lost ember or hope, only to snuff it away?

Oscar’s hands move down to the black, holstered guns. “So that you would play.”

My jaw clenches, teeth grinding together.

Screw it. Let’s go.

I pull the hand off my revolver so I can put the Dart necklace over my head.

“Still not a fair fight though, is it it?” I say. “Your guns kill.”

Of course, it’s a silly and perhaps pointless ploy to try and get my gun back, get the data I need, end this right now.

Oscar shakes his head. “If I don’t win this game, we’re both dead.”

I don’t get what he means by this. But one thing at a time. One giant mountain to leap over at a time.

“I don’t know how to use this thing.” I say, gesturing to the Dart necklace. “Not as well as you.”

“That’s okay,” Oscar says, patient. “You’ll remember.”

Then, he jumps, flipping backward. When he lands, he’s standing firmly on the side of the tower, defying gravity.

He motions, beckoning.

“Come on,” he says. “What are you waiting for?”