They were in the garden when Saytarnia finally found them.

After tracking them across the world for over four years, she crouched on the roof of their house in between two skylights, semi-hidden by the shade. The location of the building only made her mission easier, tucked out of sight away from the two main roads on either side of it. The neighbourhood was affluent enough own several CCTV cameras but not so well off that it strayed onto the radar of normal burglars.

A familiar laugh glued her feet to the tiles beneath her and, after several seconds, she crept over to the roof edge. Steadying herself with a hand, she leaned forward to peer at the people below her. Her heart nearly tumbled out of her mouth and landed on the path three floors down. Satara chased a brown haired child around a pond, dangerously close to the water, with a wildness to both her expression and movements that Saytarnia recognised at once.

“Be careful, you two!” called out one of the two men watching them directly beneath her.

A single glance was all she needed to identify him and she drew in a deep breath. Blue Lightning danced around her fists. Chris Cunningham. One of the people she had sworn to kill even before she learned his name. She shuffled across the tiles and dropped down onto the roof of his neighbour's garage before crossing the fence and slipping behind several bushes a couple of meters away from him.

Peering through the leaves, she discerned the second man too. Joe Cunningham. A person she would have taken out voluntarily even if he hadn't played a part in her sister's abduction. She half slid her katana from its sheath and shifted her weight, zeroing in on all of their exposed weak points. They were almost asking to be cut down and today she would gladly indulge them. She would rescue Satara from their lies. It would be only too easy to put the children to sleep while she took care of the other adults in the house after they betrayed everyone else involved.

“Who cares if she falls in?” muttered Joe, searching his pockets. “A little water isn't going to kill something like her.”

Something. Not someone. Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her weapon but she didn't move. By the pond, Satara stopped and rubbed one of her ears as if it had blocked without warning.

“We need her alive, not half drowned.” Chris glanced sideways at him. “You of all people should know that.”

“It's not like the extraction can't take place if she's in a coma.” He shrugged.

“Where'd you hear that from?” muttered his brother. “Been drinking with the higher ups again, have we?”

“Those guys aren't the real deal. They're probably haven't even met the higher ups themselves,” said Joe, finally pulling out his phone. He frowned before putting it away again. “They're just here to make sure we don't chicken out.”

“Chicken out?”

“I think they're worried we're might start seeing that thing as one of our own.” Joe barely muffled a scathing laugh. “That we might get attached to it.”

“Is that what they think?” Chris narrowed his eyes at the children playing in the corner. “Or is that what you think?”

“What? You think I'm worried my own brother's going to start having feelings for a kid?”

“Do you have to put it in such a disgusting way?” The other man grimaced. “We're not all as perverted as you.”

Her memories released the scent of sandlewood and Saytarnia forced her fingers to relax around her katana hilt.

“Hey, I've never touched a kid on purpose!” hissed Joe, looking all around before lowering his voice. “It's not my fault they can do crazy stuff with make up.”

“That girl was fourteen and you knew she was still in school,” said Chris. “Don't pretend you didn't know when you already admitted you picked her up after school.”

“Yeah, I'm not taking that from a guy who kidnapped a four year old from another country just because a secret organisation told him to.” They both kept their voices down but Satara stopped again after tagging Janie and watched them from beside the pond.

“I only took the job because I was trying to save your ungrateful as-”

“I am grateful. Why else do you think I've been helping you out all this time?” Joe held out his fist with a disgustingly saccharine grin. “We're in this together so there's no point in us judging each other. We've just got to finish the job and get the hell out here.”

“It'll be hard to start over anywhere with a comatose kid in our care,” said Christ, tapping his fist against his brother's without looking at him. “We've got to keep her safe and healthy until this is all over.”

“Only a few days left now. I guess we can stop her from drowning until then.” said Joe. He wandered over to the children and greeted them with an enthusiastic wave. “Hey girlies, how about we go play somewhere else?”

“No matter what you do, you always sound like a ped–” Chris approached them too.

He didn't see Saytarnia who hid herself in a veil of zai and scaled the wall back up to the roof, glancing at one of its windows. The story behind her sister's disappearance was longer than she thought. She had to tear out all of it pages before she could take Satara back home safely. But to do that, she needed someone who could find those pages in the first place. Fortunately, she knew someone who had the potential to be the perfect candidate for the task at hand.

After all, they were responsible for helping her find the Cunninghams in the first place.

<><><><><>

“What the hell is this?” The stranger stood up so abruptly their swivel chair toppled over.

She stepped back to avoid them, waiting for them to pick it back up and sit down again before leaning over his shoulder. Zai rippled across her skin as they started scrolling through the document they had opened on their laptop. The shock in their voice and the soft hitches in their breathing prepared her for the information on the screen, provided by the USB she had stolen from the Cunningham's loft.

Several names, some familiar, had been scattered across the pages of the previous document along with a logo shaped like the letter A. It seemed to have been a database containing information about the fake family and their associates. Her helper had opened a folder called extraction and clearly hadn't expected the gruesome images on the screen. Most depicted examples of various torture methods, some of which she had become intimately familiar with. Waterboarding, electrocution, sleep deprivation, and other acts of cruelty that stirred up the demon inside her.

“What the hell is all this?” breathed the person in the chair.

The documents contained images of very specific torture devices too such as spiked batons and silver blades, complete with links which most likely led to sites where such items could be purchased. Her helper was clever enough to think twice about clicking on any of them, however they gave into temptation and clicked on an embedded video labelled Simulated Extraction – Stage One.

Roughly a minute or two after it started playing, amid the screams of the victim being tortured in the video, they rushed from their seat. She scrolled through all the pages and checked the contents of as many folders as she could in the time it took them to finish throwing up and return from their bathroom. This was what they had planned to do to her sister, even as they fed, clothed, and convinced her that she was safe with them.

Each word, picture, and video file opened a door to yet another shadowed section of her mind. Rooms she rarely tried to enter without supervision. She fixed the desktop on their screen so it looked exactly the way they had left it and watched them stagger back into the room. They swore under their breath and ran an unsteady hand over their pale face before removing the USB and deleting all traces of its contents from their laptop. Once she was sure they had finished, she knocked them out with a palmful of zai and tucked them into the bed opposite their desk.

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“Thank you,” she murmured as she brushed the back of her fingers across their brow.

Stepping back, she pressed her fist into the palm of her other hand and offered the unconscious person a shallow bow before heading for the Cunningham house with a glacial brilliance to her gaze.

Tonight they would pay for their intentions as well as their actions.

<><><><><>

That night, I – They were going to – Satara remained dry eyed even as the memories shuddered through her body like soundless sobs. She lifted her forehead from the floor as if she been bowing to an unseen emperor called the truth but pressed her fingernails into the carpet. She left me alive and let me go through hell to save me from something worse. But I still don't know why I could've have gone with her back then. And how did the Cunninghams know about Chirean in the first place?

Her body ached as if she had been beaten and then run through with a thousand crackling zai-blades. The circle on the wall flickered out of existence like an unfinished book. Like a story only half told. At this point, does it even matter? Who cares how they knew? They're dead now. All of them. Because I –

“Even after all this time, you still fight the truth, little one,” said Saytarnia from behind her.

Satara stopped breathing for a long moment and wondered if her overexposure to zai had damaged her brain permanently. She can't be here. She can't. Why would she come back now?

“Why have you?” asked her sister.

Satara sensed her approach. She's not going to kill me. Not after she went through all of that to save me. I don't have to be on guard around her. She grabbed the table beside her and habitual paranoia dragged her to her feet.

“Why didn't you take me with you back then?” Her voice sounded as airless as a corpse. “Because you had something more important to do?”

“Would it sadden you if I said yes?”

Satara stifled a laugh. Her hold on the table edge tightened. “You're worried about making me sad?”

“You've only ever deserved happiness.”

Don't think anything. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Why are you here, Satara?”

Don't think it!

“I was looking for the truth.” She turned around and smiled coldly at her sister's neutral expression. “Looks like I found it.”

Deep blue eyes narrowed. “All of it?”

“I still don't know why you thought it was a good idea to leave me with a bunch of strangers.”

It's not like I wouldn't have been safe enough. The darkness inside her hummed in agreement.

“Do you truly wish to know?” Saytarnia looked exactly as she had that day at the hall.

“I doubt knowing everything will make things any worse.” Satara shook her head. The flashbacks seemed to have wiped out her ability to panic. “Honestly, what could be worse than what I –?”

“That wasn't your fault –” Her sister's tone grew blade-like.

“– Don't lie to me,” she snarled softly. “For someone so hell bent on the truth, you really lie a lot.”

Saytarnia watched her for a moment and something like anger or uncertainty hardened her features.

“I've never lied to you, little one. So don't lie to me either.” She raised her palm in Satara's direction. “If you think you're ready for the truth, I'll believe you.”

“You probably shouldn't trust me that much.” Satara forced herself to step closer to her sister, pausing just out of range of her hand. “I don't trust you.”

“That might be wise.” agreed the latter. “This world can be hell for the unguarded.”

Unlike Sinastar, her sister radiated heat. Her fingertips tousled the arch of Satara's fringe.

“Sounds like somewhere only a demon could survive.” Non existent blood seeped from beneath the fifteen year old's nails as she curled them in towards her palms and tried to smirk.

Saytarnia mirrored her faint expression. “Or a half demon.”

“It makes no difference to me.” Satara pressed her forehead against her sister's palm and the illusion vaporised upon contact.

I should've known you weren't really here. She smiled bitterly as she dropped into unconsciousness once again.

Saytarnia's voice reached her before the new memories could.

“None of us were born demons, little one.”

<><><><><>

The woman's ear-splitting scream echoed through the house, nearly loud enough to rouse the dead strewn across its floors. Acrid pain saturated the air as Saytarnia yanked her kunai from the woman's arm with a vibrating string of zai, eliciting another cry. She turned to the latter's husband as he yelled at her.

“What the hell – is wrong with you?” Unlike his wife, Chris Cunningham didn't have a single open wound on his body but the pallor of his skin and his sluggish movements betrayed the extent of the internal injuries she had dealt him.

“I could ask you the same thing.” He flinched as she pointed her other hand at him. “But I do not care.”

“Why are you – doing this?” He tried to roll onto all fours but his elbows gave way.

“You know why.” She adjusted her grip on the kunai and Fei Cunningham whimpered a meter away, clutching the back of her ankle. Blood trickled between her fingers from her sliced tendon and formed a puddle beneath her left foot. “I will not wait much longer.”

“We don't know anything – Argh!” Blue Lightning shot through his nerves and he writhed on the ground making strangled noises until Saytarnia closed her fist once again.

His straight hair started to curl and his arched back relaxed once again.

“Speak,” said Saytarnia, raising the kunai meaningfully. “And I will end it for you.”

“Leave her – alone!” screamed Chris. “She's innocent!”

Saytarnia grabbed him by the throat and shoved him up again the nearest wall as if he weighed no more than a sugar bag.

“So was my sister,” she growled. Purple Lightning played about her hand at his throat and her abruptly elongated fangs, illuminating the fear in his eyes. “Stop wasting my time.”

“I already told you – we don't know –”

“That's a lie.” Her grip tightened until he choked. “Just like your wife's innocence.”

“You're the – evil one,” he gasped, clawing uselessly at her arm.

“Evil?” Saytarnia loosened her grip. “I am just a mirror, Mr Cunningham.”

Her other hand flashed towards Fei, who yelped as the kunai pierced her thigh, then screamed as the fifteen year old tugged it free again.

“I doubt it touched her artery but that does not matter,” whispered Saytarnia. “You know we can use our powers to hurt. Do you know what else we use it for?”

“What?” He tried to pry her hand from his neck and grunted as she sliced his shoulder. Incomprehension and panic formed lines in his face as she covered the wound and healed it. “We can't – tell you – what we – don't know.”

“You do know.” Saytarnia dragged him forward. “And we can do this over and over again until you remember.”

She slammed him back against the wall. Once. Several times. Until he started to go limp and Fei begged her to spare his life.

“You can't do this to us,” sobbed the woman who had pretended to be Satara's mother. “What about our kids? If you kill us, what'll happen to them –?”

“They no longer need your care.” Saytarnia let go of Chris and stared at her pitilessly until the woman understood.

“No. You didn't –” Fei shook her head and shoved her bloodied fingers through her hair, eyes wide. “You – They're just kids.”

Satara had been younger when they kidnapped her. The faces of the children still flashed through Saytaria's thoughts.

“You have nothing more to live for,” she said. “Your deaths at least should have meaning.”

“No,” groaned Fei, rocking on the floor. “No … Janie … Brian …”

“Fei.” Chris tried to crawl to his wife but collapsed, his fingers inches away from her wounded ankle. “It's okay. Everything's going to be okay.”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep.” Saytarnia stepped on his outstretched arm and threw her weapon again, opening up several shallow wounds across the woman's torso until she fell backwards and wept inconsolably. “I don't need to hear it from him. Who told you about the curse and how to get onto the island?”

“We're – only agents,” said Fei in between tearful gasps, one hand pressed to her thigh and the other to her mouth. “They wouldn't – tell us – anything – like that.”

“Your family was responsible for stealing my sister and holding her hostage.” Saytarnia forced the words out past her fangs. “One of you must know something.”

“Dave was the – only one who could – contact the higher ups – directly,” panted Chris. “But he's – dead now – thanks to –”

Saytarnia splayed her hand at Fei. Blue and purple sparks rippled down her arm and crossed the gap between them. Fei choked and spasmed on the floor. The electric coils around her body lit up the blood stains on the walls and ceiling.

“Okay, okay – I'll talk.” Desperation shattered whatever was left of Chris's composure. “I'll talk – so stop – just stop –”

“Who helped you steal Satara?” Saytarnia's tone darkened like distant storm clouds. “You could not have done it without inside help, no matter how deep your people's claws were in my homeland.”

“I don't know – if it's the – same person – and I don't know – what they – look like but –” The hum of Saytarnia's zai loudened and Fei's eyes rolled back. “– but Joe heard – Dave on the phone once – saying a funny name.”

“What was it?”

“Xade.” Chris' arm twitched beneath her foot and tears rolled down his taut face “Please stop – It was – Xade.”

The stream of Blue and Purple Lightning ended without warning. Fei convulsed on the floor as an internal shock wave knocked back Saytarnia half a step. She barely managed to stop her hand from flying towards her chest as she repeated his name softly in the dark room that reeked of blood.

“Xade?”

In the silence, she heard the rapid footsteps of a little girl running home.