"So then," Karu said, taking off her white knit cap and tossing it with the rest of her clothes in the open suitcase. "I believe the first question you asked of me was regarding seeming happier. I am happier. Thank you."

"Is there...a reason why?"

She crossed her legs under her and played with the short bristles on her head. "Hmm. Certainly yes, but...I am not certain how to put it succinctly."

"Then don't put it succinctly. I've got time."

She laughed. "Well...do not take this egotistically, though I know you may despite my request, but your words had a profound impact on me. Both of the last two times we spoke, you made your relentless nature clear. You repeatedly informed me that you would not let me vanish from your life. Let me be clear that I did and still have very...let us say...confused feelings regarding you."

I nodded. A couple sentences in and this was getting pretty serious and pretty...well...a lot more me-centric than I had expected.

"When I first spoke with you, I was in depression, wishing only to part with you no matter the cost and free myself from all of the pain and confusion you and your actions...and my actions...had brought into my life. But you made it clear you would not let me slip away--and while I may contest that if I tried my utmost you would not have been able to stop me--at the time...I was far from my utmost."

"So you gave up on running away."

She smiled morbidly. "A trapped animal lays down to die. I thought, if I can never rid myself of you, if I cannot escape, I must simply endure the pain. I wish I could claim it was humility which brought me to giving up my wings, but it was simple defeat. I could not do it any longer."

She frowned. "I mentioned then, and I wish to reiterate, but Blackett and other deaths...I view as murder. I understand that as soldiers, death is a constant fixture in our lives, but there is a world of difference between a death on the battlefield and cornering a man in his home or office, as it were."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd have a problem with it. I...I wish I hadn't made you do that."

"As do I. It is a delicate mental balance we walk between paid killers and just defenders, and I believe much of the pain you are suffering now is on account of being on that edge. The girl you alluded to, you regret her death, despite her being Exhuman?"

"I didn't kill her, Karu. I just couldn't save her."

"Ah. My condolences."

She spent a moment just staring into my eyes making me feel ever more uncomfortable. Eventually she spoke again.

"I was not in a strong emotional place to begin with, and then had murder push my conscience into the pit in which you found me. I began to second-guess myself at every turn, and was no longer fit for service as a hunter. I tried and failed at a few other things and then you found me selling pies, as it were."

"And that made you happy?"

She laughed. "Not in the least. I detest the servitude, though I will admit there is a simple joy to be found in such work."

"Then what did?"

"Let us say it was your words," she said, seriously. "When you confronted me three days ago, I had begged you to leave me alone again, and again you refused. But more, I finally broke down and bore my soul to you. I hid myself for so long in the fear that if you saw the monster I was underneath--" she clutched at her forearms as though in pain. "I did not plan to ever, yet you did not blink. You did not cast me out or judge me. You told me, no matter what form I take or who I am, you would not forsake me."

She leaned back, propping herself up with her elbows, with the side effect of making the front of her sweater, uh, stand out...fairly incredibly.

"And I thought it empty words at first. Or foolishness, charitably. I nearly talked myself out of thinking anything of it. Of course you would accept me, you are Athan Ashton, hero and champion. You would overlook anything."

"Hey, that's--"

"And then something remarkable happened. I contacted your sister and friends, as I said, to coordinate our efforts in liberating you. And the most incredible miracle transpired. Can you imagine what it was?"

I blinked at her. "AEGIS cooked for you and you didn't die?"

She laughed. "No. I was under the impression she was a proficient cook? But I saw how pitifully broken they all were. AEGIS transforming herself into that mechanical hulk. Saga tiptoeing around the very compel she placed in your sister. Your sister more afraid of creating conflict between the others--or horror of horrors, having them dislike her--than she was with progressing toward your freedom. They argued and bickered and cowered amongst themselves the entire time I spoke with them online, and it was an unmitigated disaster which yielded not an modicum of result."

"Yeah that sounds like my life all right. How was this a miracle?"

"Because," she said, laughing again "I was not the greatest fuck-up in God's creation. So liberating. So freeing."

"How great for you," I intoned, wondering exactly who was then.

"And," she said, crawling forward towards me now, her chest swaying under her "it was verifiable proof of your words. No matter how dark the lives of your friends have become, you did not abandon them. And in holding them together, they persist, as you do, in seeing the darkness within each other and refusing to blink. Perhaps they disagree and argue more, yet they remain together despite their differences. I could not fathom it all quite at the moment I saw it...I found it initially frustrating honestly, if for no other reason than at their inability to act."

She laid down facing me, chin propped up on her elbow, her sneakers waving lazily in the air. She was still making no sense to me. "And that's all it took to make you happy? Realizing you weren't the worst? Hell I could have told you that."

"No, I am not quite that simple. Only close." She sighed. "I told you this was not a succinct tale."

"Just keep going," I said. "I want to hear it."

"After those events I had time to chew your words, as it were, recontextualized with the fact that, more than just idle promises, more than just being a decent person, they were very much beliefs you were tested upon daily. You added that you were lost, torn between knowing too much, having too many desires, no longer liking yourself, and were pushing towards a simpler, better, more dangerous you. It was like you were speaking from my own pain, my own heart, but instead of giving up and turning inward, here you were, chasing me down, smashing up my place of business in an immature way of fighting, yet fighting still, no matter how ineptly. Refusing to let me go quietly. Adding me to your pile of woes by choice, on the strength of your beliefs alone."

"Sorry about that again."

"It is forgiven. Do not do it again, or they will charge me for the plate."

"Okay."

She let out a deep breath. "I am saying many words and not making much sense, I feel. And I am far from having answered your question."

I shook my head. "A few days ago, I was begging for you to tell me anything. I'll take anything you feel like sharing, whether it goes anywhere or doesn't."

She nodded. "Yes...I think...we've finally touched on what is, succinctly, the change which made me happiest. I could not flee you, or diminish my value to the point where you would leave me. And when last we met, I learned there is no value in hiding my truth from you either, in pretending not to be me. I am...in many ways...in ways you still do not know, I am certain, a wicked, detestable person. I disgust myself," she said with a smile "but somehow, I do not disgust you. And your friends are equally broken and yet they are tolerated by you and each other as well. I discovered that hiding my true nature...is overrated. I no longer have to pretend to be a beacon of right and good with a dark shape lurking beneath. Instead," she shrugged "I am simply a dark shape. And it is liberating beyond words."

Still propped up on her elbows, she rolled up her sleeves and showed me her forearms, still criss-crossed with scars, but no fresh cuts.

"I can show these to you now. I can bare my pain openly...and in doing so...it has lost much of its hold on me. It is no longer something secretive and guilty and forbidden, and in so being, much of the fascination of it has gone away. I cannot fully explain it, though I am certainly using an abundance of words to try, but...I suppose instead of feeling bad and guilty about it, now I merely feel bad. Does that make sense?"

"And you're happy you feel bad?" I said, like, at least seventy percent lost now.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Happy that I do not feel guilt, or shame, or like I am one I detest. Consider my life when you met me, Ashton. I would gladly kill you, but keeping our relationship secret is what nearly destroyed me. I may be a flawed, even terrible person, but now, at least I am honest with it."

She beamed at me. "It is intoxicating."

"I'm glad. I really am," I said, returning her smile as best I could.

And I was. And I understood her, to a degree. I wasn't much one for lying either, and if I had some dark obsession like cutting myself up, I could imagine the lies and guilt piling up on me until they were a monster on my back a million times worse than whatever drove me to self-harm in the first place...enough even push me to hurt myself more, in a cruel cycle.

Not that I understood the appeal of cutting, but now of all times I was certainly not going to judge Karu on it, given that she'd both just explained that it was my lack of judgement which helped her break free, and that she was apparently recovering.

But to be totally honest with myself, I was disappointed. Karu's problems, while superficially like mine, really weren't. And while she'd somehow gotten something out of my life to help hers, I saw nothing in the words she'd given me which would make my situation any clearer.

Could I?

"Karu, do you think I'm a bad person too?" I asked her.

She rolled her sleeves back down as she thought before answering. "No. I think you are more a pinnacle of virtue than I ever was."

"Not to be pedantic or anything but...can you tell me what it is about me that makes me just so gosh-darn great?"

"If you wish to fish for compliments as it were, you need only say so," she grinned. "You are strong and capable, though emotionally pliant and always willing to learn. You are confident enough to act when you must, though humble enough to reflect on your past. You possess the fantastic stamina of youth, and are pleasingly equipped."

"Uh..."

"You are curious enough to tolerate experimentation, and durable enough to survive it."

"Sex? That's all you view me as good for?"

"I believe I made it clear I am now an uncloseted wicked individual? I am permitted to profess desires of the flesh."

"Not really the kind of compliments I was looking for. I more meant, what makes me righteous and virtuous, as you would put it."

"Ah. Well, your morals, simply put. I may not always agree with your definitions of right and wrong, but I cannot argue your willingness to fight and die for them. It is all too easy in this world to find one with strong opinions which wither at the slightest resistance. To find one who not merely holds them, but holds them sacred, is motivated by them...well...it feels as though you are a natural force. A trumpeter from the heavens, and all around you threaten to get pulled into your wake as you charge determined towards your goals, undeterred by anything in your path."

I frowned. So we were pretty much on the same page. I hadn't misunderstood anything.

"Karu, my goals...they would destroy the XPCA," I said.

"Perhaps."

"And with it, the world would get thrown into chaos. America might get destroyed. The world might get destroyed."

"Exhilarating, isn't it?" she beamed.

"No! That's super messed up."

"That is your brain trying to silence your heart. Your heart is pure and righteous, and it will destroy what it must to create a world of goodness. Your brain languishes in this comfortable limbo where all live half-lives and suffer through them. Follow your heart for long enough, and the world you dream of will be realized, I believe."

"And what, just throw away the lives of everyone who lives here and now so that someday there might be a utopia? Throw us all into anarchy in the hopes that when we come out of it, we'll escape the corrupt system we built before? Karu, you're talking about killing people, real people on the off-chance that whatever comes next might be better."

She smiled and shrugged, her sneakers waving in the air behind her. "Blackett was a person. He resembled the order of which you speak, and you had no qualms with cutting him down for your dream. There are many like him who may need to die."

"He was sick."

"This world is sick. You have professed as much yourself many times." She sighed and sat up. "I am not an anarchist. But I do realize that much of the XPCA is a bandage which does not treat the real problems this world faces, and only serves to hold things together while an infection festers beneath. The world needs strong idealists such as you to effect real change, and that is why I see you as virtuous, and why I could never leave you. Do you understand my position?"

"Yeah," I said, glad that she had clarified more. "Yeah, and I agree. The XPCA needs a lot of reform, and I want to bring it there."

"Good," she said and then swing her feet around and stood up and stretched. "Are you sufficiently educated on the state of my brain for tonight? I am not certain how many more words I can throw upon the same topic before growing tiresome."

"Yeah, sorry. After my last few days, I guess I have picked up a thing or two about interrogations."

She laughed and walked past where I sat by the door towards the bathroom. Something flew past me towards her luggage, and then another something, this one I recognized as a pair of jeans.

"Uh, Karu?" I asked, not looking anywhere in that direction.

"Oh. Would you prefer to shower first?"

"No, just...warn me before you start stripping?"

"Why? We have established nothing untoward will occur."

Something tiny and blue and white striped landed on the floor right in front of me and I got up and moved to the bed before I also decided to become a bad person.

In minutes the sound of running pipes and water slapping against the floor advertized just how wet and naked the bombshell I would be sleeping with was, and despite the odd rising within my chest and the less-odd rising elsewhere, I sternly fixated on my mobile, playing a few minutes of a game AEGIS had given me and reminded myself that while she was a big metal cockroach at the moment, AEGIS was still my girlfriend.

Eventually the water turned off and I just laid there on my side facing the wall and trying to keep my breathing even. My ears seemed attuned to every single sound as her damp feet stepped gently from the tile floor to the carpet. The gentle rustle of her hands in her suitcase. Fabric pulled over long legs, and the weighty thump of a towel being dropped to the floor.

And then something landed heavily next to me in the bed and risked a glance over my shoulder. Boyshorts revealing way, way too much leg, and a tank top with obviously no bra on underneath. She gave me a cheshire grin and pressed against me, and I thought I was done for, but her arm reaching across me never settled on any part of my anatomy, and instead simply picked up the remote for the wall holo on the nightstand on my side of the bed.

"Expecting something else?" she teased, and jerked the remoted in her hand at me with a pumping gesture.

"Nope!" I said and stood up and made for the bathroom.

"Good," she said and turned on the holo.

When a cold shower was proving ineffective at subduing my body, I determined that cranking one out in the shower was the next reasonable line of defense. I even tried to keep focused on the idea of AEGIS, remembering the one beautiful night we'd shared together. Real love. Not just hormones. Not just a lot of leg and huge breasts you could see plenty of through the large armholes of the tank. Breasts which stayed pert and never sagged through the magic of the regenerator, despite their size.

No. Bad. We were in here to get away from Karu, not fantasize up a new one.

But no matter how I tried, every thought of AEGIS turned into black beetles and vinegar rice, and my thoughts of anything else turned to Karu, and how tragic it would be if her flying blue and white striped panties had struck my shield and detonated, leaving her without bottoms until the end of the night, while we were forced to hold each other tight as the heating in the terrible motel failed around us in the cold New Mexico night.

I emerged from the bathroom in my pants, reddened and slightly out of breath. Karu was stretched out on the bed like she was posing for a shoot, and just like that I already felt my efforts in there going to waste as my body helpfully pointed out for me.

"Were you thinking of me at least?" she asked, her eyes bright and playful.

"Let's go to bed," I sighed. She giggled full-bodily but complied without complaint, turning off the lights and holo and turning to face the door.

The bed was comfortable enough, and big enough that we weren't touching, which was a blessing, but even so. I'd been spoiled with AEGIS' constant sexual attacks for months, and then nothing for the last few weeks. And now I was sleeping next to her? She who'd voraciously thrown herself at me time and again?

I laid there, unnaturally still but for the pulse pounding in my ears. Was I just going to do this all night? Eight hours of staring at the wall? I'd go crazy. I'd go crazy and jump her, and we'd have insane awesome sex like we always had, and then AEGIS would dump me, and I'd be dating a recovering waitress instead of a beetle robot.

Which all sounded great on paper, except I wasn't going to. I couldn't hurt AEGIS like that. Last time I'd broken her heart, we weren't even officially going out. Doing it this way...and with Karu again, Jesus...I had to be sick in the head.

"Karu, you awake?" I whispered.

No reply.

"I missed this. I think I might be messed up in the head, but I missed it anyway."

I rolled over and looked at her sleeping form, breathing evenly, her face clearly visible without her hair in the way. Apparently she didn't hold the same sexual frustrations keeping her from drifting off.

"When all my problems were just which girl to like. Who to date and who to hurt. It sucked, but it was such simpler times. When I did something wrong, I knew it, and I could regret it, and go to the person I'd wronged and make it up to them. Now, I'm just trying to make it by, not sure if I'm hurting or protecting people, or who deserves hurting or protecting, or if what I did will be wiped out by some asshole shadow ops the next day."

I stared at her face, creepily maybe, lit by the yellow glow sneaking from the parking lot through the blinds. And what I saw there...she was beautiful, certainly. Sensual. Lips I'd kissed, eyes I'd stared into. But what struck me most about that face was that right now, she looked at peace. I thought of how haunted and sunken and beige she'd looked the last few times I'd seen her, and now she was brimming with vitality. When we'd talked, her eyes seemed alive again, and I hoped she held onto that forever.

She really was amazing, I thought, and I should consider myself lucky to have a friend like her. Someone capable and strong and smart, with a perspective which challenged me constantly.

I rolled over and thought of her and me, not sexually anymore, just all we'd gone through together. All the things she'd taught me and all the times she'd helped me prop myself up.

As I faded into sleep, the last words on my mind was a story she'd just told me.

"Keep your winglets vertical," I murmured into my pillow, and drifted away to dreams on blue wings.

A few minutes later, Karu heard the even breathing of my sleep and opened her eyes slowly, a glow and a smile on her face.

"I missed this too," she whispered, and then sighed and continued her fruitless efforts to go to sleep.