I stared at the door, defeated.

All I felt was nothing. Numb, icy, empty nothing. All I wanted was to go in, fall into my bunk, and cease to be for a few hours. Maybe when I woke up, it would all be a dream.

Instead, the barracks door was locked. Which was impossible, because there were no locks on these doors.

It was just enough to make me give up on everything. The final nail in the coffin. Somehow, this locked door just seemed like the universe's way of telling me that all my efforts in everything were just worth nothing. That I should just fuck off and give up. Take the middle finger which was my day, was my life, and stab me in the eye with it.

Why bother. Why try. Why fall in that bunk when I could just collapse in the hallway. Whether I existed here or there, or at all, did it matter?

I stumbled my way into the bathroom area. There were lockers here, benches, showers, toilets, all to service the troops in the next barracks. Our barracks, where though there were about twenty beds, there were only five...four...of us housed now. At least if I laid down here, I wasn't as likely to get run over by a tank.

I still couldn't believe Karu made that threat. I knew she and the others thought I would surrender at my earliest convenience to whatever stiff breeze happened by, but even so.

And the look in her eye that said she was serious, it sent shivers down my spine. She was a woman of extremes. I morbidly wondered how she would do it. A sick part of me wanted it to happen. To punish her for doing this to us, and to end my miserable existence.

I realized there was another door in here to the barracks and there was a note on it. I tried it and it opened. I read the note and my heart went into my throat. I had to reread it several times, even though it was painfully brief.

Ashton,

I promised you tonight at least.

Karu

I walked into the dark bunk room and turned the light on. The door on my right had been chained shut, and there was another chain and lock draped over the edge of the bed right next to me. The message was obvious. I hoped Jack would take the hint and not just appear inside as I chained the other door shut like the first.

Someone stirred in my bunk. My heart slammed in my chest as I slowly advanced on her. Shyly, Karu's face emerged from the sheets, looking embarrassed and flustered.

"Hi," I said and sat down opposite her.

She looked shiftily around and smiled with the same embarrassed expression.

"Is this...is this really what you want?" I asked. "Is this a good idea?"

She said nothing but nodded, barely visible.

"Are you sure? You're not even...acting like yourself. I don't know that I've ever seen you be shy about anything like this."

She looked paralyzed for a second and then for a second longer. Like she was psyching herself up for this. Was she forcing herself to do this for me? If this was just a twisted farewell present, or doing it because she said she would, I wanted no part of this. But if she wanted it...if it was a present for her...I didn't know if I could refuse her.

And then she threw the sheets aside and I saw she was waiting naked in there for me. I wasn't sure how she'd gotten here so fast and prepared all of this, but however she did, she didn't look cold at all either.

She was just as I remembered. Tanned and beautiful, gentle curves and a full, fit body. Her eyes glistened intensely at me, as she seemed to be waiting for my approval. I mean, she'd had that approval probably a dozen times by now, I wasn't sure why she was hung up on it now.

Tonight was just going to be different, I guess. Something of significance. There's no way it couldn't be, when I thought about it, but I was trying not to. She put the blanket back on while I slowly undressed, and again, I found it strange she wasn't jumping up to expedite the process like she always had.

"Um, how do you want to…" I asked. She moved the blankets aside and laid on the bed, slightly spread-eagle, with her eyes hidden behind her arm. "Uh. You don't want to be on top?"

She flushed and retreated behind her arm further.

I felt like everything was wrong, but I had to do this. I wanted to give her this to hold onto, if she wanted it, if she'd come all the way out here in the cold and snow. Obviously, I wanted all of that as well, but...I guess I just felt like hers were the memories and the opinions that mattered. I had to do what would make her happiest, even if it was weird and wrong.

I climbed up under her, but before I could do anything, she put down a blocking hand and held out a box.

"What is...condoms?" I asked, reading the box. "Uh."

My mind blanked a little bit. When I asked her this, after our first time, Karu had explained to me that owing to her harsh lifestyle, and the sheer number of times she'd only just limped back from a fight, she'd spent entire days of her life in a regenerator. Regenerators accelerated natural processes in the body, increasing tissue growth by a hundredfold. But they had a cost.

It wasn't aging. Special chemical cocktails in the vat kept us from waking up in a body a hundred years old. But for women, there were some cycles that couldn't be stopped. At least, not with modern technology.

So, not even thirty, Karu had already undergone menopause. I wasn't entirely sure what that entirely meant, but she had laughed it off saying it meant she could sleep around with young Exhumans and didn't have to carry tampons. I had missed most of the whats and hows, and just fixated on the sleeping around part, but was regretting that now that she was plying me with birth control.

Had...she been lying to me every other time? That would be incredibly dangerous for...for everyone. Not to mention irresponsible...and reprehensible, morally. Karu would never.

So why now? Just...another barrier between the two of us? I didn't know. I felt like I didn't know anything today. Mage, and Karu, and now Karu again. I just wanted to sleep and pretend today never happened.

But I hadn't satisfied her yet. I struggled getting the unfamiliar thing on, and she just watched, curious, but embarrassed.

Finally, I was ready and lined myself up.

"I...I love you, Karu. I want you to know that. That this...whatever this is...well...I just want to do what makes you happy."

She nodded and hid half her face behind the box of condoms. I pushed forward and…

...and…

Something wasn't right. It was like I was skipping a rock off the surface of a lake. A very dry, very tight lake.

"Are you okay?" I asked? She nodded from behind her box, which meant no. "Look, I think...we should stop, okay? I don't want this, and you obviously aren't into--"

She leaned forward and kissed me, catching most of my top lip, but quickly correcting.

She was desperate and passionate like before, almost...too much. She pulled at my hair, and her lips and teeth were all over me. Was this what she needed to get in the mood? If she didn't want it, why was she trying so hard?

Whatever her reasons, I had to try. I reached down and sunk my fingers into her breasts.

And...sunk them right into her breasts. Right through them, like she wasn't even there. Like a ghost of Karu, my fingers passed right through her.

My hand was wrist-deep in her before I felt small, bony flesh underneath.

I jumped and recoiled, and she backed into the corner, shaking her head and holding her breasts. I tried to process what had happened. What I'd just felt, how it was possible, what trick or power--

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I seethed with sudden understanding and slammed my fist through Karu's face, and felt a crack as I connected with her cheekbone, snapping her head back into the wall.

Tem's head. Not Karu's. The illusion disappeared. Tem was lying naked on my bed, holding her face and bleeding from the back of her head. I was about to hit her again and forced myself to stop. I felt tears on my hand and realized they were mine.

"Tem, why," I cried. "Why would you do this to me? Why today?"

She reached towards me and stopped, blades of lightning in the air between the two of us, forming a cage she couldn't illusion her way out of.

"I was there. Following you tonight," she whispered, her voice barely there. "I s-saw...heard everything."

"Why did you follow me?"

"I follow you often. Ever since you s-s-stood up for me, ever since you s-stood up for S-Steffie. I just...feel better watching you."

"You stalk me?"

"No! You're just...the only person who's ever...ever told me I'm worth anything. The only person who has believed in me...ever. Not even me. And I just...being around you makes me...makes me happy."

"So you do stalk me."

"I didn't mean to. I'm s-s--"

A lightning blade drew out of formation and levelled itself with her throat, poised inches in front of her face. It crackled and buzzed ominously in the air. "You are so past apologizing at this point, Tem. Explain yourself, and then get the fuck out of my life. But do not fucking dare to apologize to me."

"I won't apologize," she said. "I don't regret what I did. I love you."

I laid down in the next bed over and put my head in my arms. What did this fucking idiot child know about love. She'd only known me for a month, we'd only saved Steffie a week ago. If she was to be believed, that's when she did it? A week ago. And only a couple of weeks after I'd hospitalized her for merely existing.

"You don't love me, Tem."

"I do!"

"No, you fucking don't. You're just confused, or have a crush or something stupid."

"No, I love you. I know it. I s-saw you with Karu and...and I realized what was going on, I thought your heart was breaking s-s-so much, you were going to die."

"Yeah, maybe so, Tem, and that's what fucking love is. It's not...this. This is just fucking sick and wrong." I shouted at her. "YOU ARE SICK AND WRONG."

"No. I love you. I didn't want you to be hurt. I came back and...I didn't even know what I was going to do. I did this. I wanted to make you...make you feel better, if only for one night. I wanted you to be happy."

"No, you're a fucking stalker and you just wanted to have sex with me."

"No! I did this for you! I didn't even want to. It was all I knew!"

"You didn't even want to? You planned the fuck out of this. You got rid of Jack and Tower somehow, you found locks and chains, I don't even know where. You fucking bought condoms. Don't tell me that's something you keep in your goddamn purse every day just in case."

"I was ready to s-s-sacrifice everything for you. Even my body. I didn't care. I couldn't let you be...be miserable like that."

"That's the most fucked thing I've ever heard, Tem! Holy shit. I can't...I just…" I stood up and paced. "I can't believe anyone on this entire goddamn planet would think this is a good idea. What was your plan for tomorrow, Tem? Or the day after? Or how about if I ever talked to the real Karu?"

"I don't...don't know. I just couldn't s-s-stand s-s-seeing you in s-such pain."

"Fucking stop saying S's if you can't fucking say them, goddamn it."

She recoiled like I'd hit her. Like my death threat meant nothing, like her...I don't even know what that was. Attempted rape? Like that was nothing. It was telling her that she stuttered that crossed the fucking line.

She looked at me, her face stony. "I apologize, then."

I wanted to pull out my hair and scream. Everything about her, I loathed. I couldn't believe it was possible for the world to produce such a fucking shitstain as her. She was worse than that Dipshit, the child-killer. She was worse than Brick. Because somehow, this...this was the one thing in the whole goddamn universe she would put her foot down on. Apologizing to me, here and now, when I'd already threatened to kill her over it, over fucking stuttering.

At least those others had some reason for being the worst possible scum of the Earth. She was just handcrafted by God to do everything in the world humanly possible to make me hate her, for no reason whatsoever.

And she loved me.

"I fucking hate you," I said, slowly.

"I know."

"No, I don't think you do. I hate you. I hate you."

"I know."

"I loathe you. I wish you were never born. I wish your mother was never born."

"I know."

"I wish...I wish I'd never even tried to save your life. I wish the last thing you ever saw when you died was me, being happy you were dead. Smiling, because hey, we might be fucked, but it was all worth it because at least I got to see Tem die before I did. Get to see her standing in line for hell in front of me, and know that she made it there too, thank God."

"I know!"

"I don't think there's a single thing about you I don't hate. I hate that you have the strongest powers of any of us and you can't use them worth a shit."

"I know!"

"I hate that you apologize for every fucking damn thing. Your apologies mean fucking nothing, Tem. They are as worthless as you are. Nobody knows or cares if you apologize for anything."

"I KNOW."

"And your body image problems. And a stutter. There are people...friends of ours, who fought and died out there. There are billions of people whose lives and safety depends on us propping up this shitstorm we call the XPCA, and you're sad because you're s-s-s-so fat?"

"I FUCKING KNOW, ATHAN. S-SHUT THE FUCK UP."

"Or what? You'll rape me? I fucking hate you so goddamn much."

She screamed, and as she did, everything I saw became hazy. Everything as far as I could see looked like it was churning on itself. I thought it was an illusion, but I realized...this was a laser. Bigger than the entire damn tower, ready to disintegrate a new asshole into the side of the world.

Fine by me. She'd die, I'd die, the XPCA would die, the world would die. Kind of a crap world anyway. Fitting way for it all to go out.

And then I thought of something that gave me pause. Two glistening emeralds in the dark.

"Tem, do not," I said.

I put my swords away, and sat down, looking intently at her. The churning air around us slowed and paused, at the point of breaking, like heaven itself was ready to pour out of nothingness all around us. It looked like the silver lining of a dark cloud, but everywhere. And moments away from lethal.

"I know. I know you hate me. I know," she said. "And everything you...you mentioned, it's all true. I know. I'm pathetic, I'm deplorable, I'm weak. I'll never be a tenth or a thousandth of the girl Karu is."

She stared at me, her silver hair the same color as the glow coming off of everything, billowing softly in the sheer amount of light filling the room. I noticed her eyes were such a light blue, they almost looked silver as well. I don't think I'd ever really looked her in the eyes, and then I realized, it was because her eyes were always on the floor, that she'd never looked me in the eyes.

"I know I can't be, but I wanted to pretend that you could love me, if...if only for one night. But you're right."

The glow began to dissipate. Somewhere in the base, uselessly, alarms were going off. Even at this time of night, the entire base was always on high alert for Exhuman activity, and Tem's was hardly difficult to notice.

"It was...foolish, to think you could. Because I hate me too, for all the reasons you...mentioned. If I were you, I'd kill me right here on the...right here. And I'd deserve it."

"You fucking would."

"I would. I don't have to imagine what you must be feeling because that's how I feel about myself every day, Chariot. I just thought maybe for one night, I could know what it was like...to feel like everyone else."

She stood up, now that my swords weren't in her way, and headed towards the door.

"Another thing which...I know you will hate me for. I must apologize one more time."

She smiled at me. Naked and serene, like somehow, in my words or hers, she'd found true happiness. I didn't understand.

"S-s-sorry, Chariot. I really did love you."

I saw the hazy cloud forming above her too late. She looked up towards it as I stumbled from the bed, reaching towards her.

Everything seemed like it was in slow motion. My feet moved so slowly under me as she shone like an angel, brilliance gathering all around her, the only imperfection on her, the swelling under her eye where I'd punched her. Little strands of light started to form and crystallize in the air, scattering impossible rainbows dancing through the barracks.

It was beautiful. She was beautiful. Finally at peace with who and what she was in the only way she knew how. Her skin shone and her eyes glittered, and another of my steps landed, impossibly slow and heavy.

She was only feet away from me, just on the other side of the room. Just out of reach. Always out of reach.

I saw the light galvanize with a flash as it achieved coherency. The flash came only a fraction of a second before the beam. I was still so far away. Not you too, Tem. First Mage, then Karu, and then Tem, all in one day. I couldn't lose her too. I hated you, but I loved you too. I wanted you to die, but I would sacrifice anything to save you.

I didn't have anything left to sacrifice but myself. And so, I did.

The situation called for the impossible, and having no choice, that's all I did.

When I came to, I was still lying on top of her. She seemed peacefully asleep, using me as a blanket and nothing more.

I'd...done it. Somehow. I don't know that I could have ever done it again in a million years. I couldn't move. I couldn't think. The only thing that mattered was that the girl under me was still there, and still breathing.