I was actually having a really good day. Things were quiet with Athan and AEGIS gone, and while I was worried about them, they had each other. Taglock and Rito, too.

So I was just catching up on some shows. Nothing exciting, but having Saga around added an extra fun element. Anything I watched, she watched with me, through me, and while for the most part this was just a little weird, it was also irreplaceably entertaining when I caught her bemusement at something in the show.

Now, granted, Saga's bemusement tended to show up at the weirdest times. The big dramatic scene when the monster is unveiled and destroying the city, hundreds getting vaporized in the blink of an eye. Or when the girlfriend of the main character dies a horrible, tragic death.

But what surprised me most was Saga's seemingly limitless capacity to enjoy children and animals. I'd been watching something kiddy because Chiho had recommended to me as a lot better than it looked, and noticed whenever I did, I'd catch Saga dropping in and feeling her charm and infatuation at the simple, cutesy fun.

It was completely out of character for her aloof, badass persona, and that made it even funnier. But I was just happy to be doing something with her, and so I was plowing through the episodes, even if they didn't do much for me personally.

So it was just after Mimi-chan had been reunited with her shaggy dog Bobobo to Saga's satisfaction that my mobile lit up with a message from Taglock.

Which was rare. He didn't like leaving messages, or anything which could trace back to him of any kind. So it had to be important. I opened it up and found it terse in tone and brief in length. And enough to make my heart stop.

> Dragon in pursuit. Mission compromised. Evacuate the target immediately. Apologies.

So professional, it definitely sounded like Taglock. But he'd never reported a failure before, even if he had more misgivings about Dragon than anything else he'd been tasked with. What this meant…

I shook my head. I didn't need to understand what it meant. I hired him because I trusted his abilities, and if he told me to evac Athan, I was going to do that. I dialed my brother without another thought.

"Lia?" he answered instantly, panic in his voice. "Lia, where are you? I'm coming."

"Coming? Where?" I asked, confused. "No, look, there's no time. Taglock says I have to get you out now, that Dragon's coming. Is Rito with you?"

"Dragon's not coming for me, he's coming for you."

"Me?" I asked, still confused. "In Vegas?"

"You're in Vegas?"

It clicked for both of us at the same time, I think, because we both started to talk about Taglock at the same time.

"Okay," Athan said, sounding just slightly calmer. "Then...then I'm supposed to just...get out? What about Taglock?"

"He's fine," I said, not sure if that was true. "Get to Rito and get out. Please."

"I don't know where she is. I don't know if she has a phone."

"Gimmie a sec--" I said, and darted from the living room back to mine, the sound of the abandoned show ringing behind me with out-of-place cutesy music. I sat at my desk and pulled up what I could, which was not much. I dialed the number I had for Rito there.

The number you dialed is not connected. Please try again later.

There wouldn't be a later, damn machine. I forced myself to think. The only people out there were the Defiant, now dead, Athan and his cohorts, and Dragon. Nobody with any connection to Rito.

"You don't know anyone who might know where Rito is?" I asked.

"Uh...her mom maybe?"

"Then call her mom."

"I don't know her mom's number. But...she's nearby. We'll do that. She's going to hate me."

"Better to be hated than dead," I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

Athan went quiet for a few minutes, talking to people in the background while I just looked at the little yellow rectangle in my hands and felt useless. It was like a window I could hear through, enough to be able to tell if suddenly Dragon showed up and killed them all, while still being utterly powerless to do anything about it.

"...-kay, gonna...do you know how to hotwire a car?" he asked.

"I do, isn't this illegal?" I heard an unfamiliar woman ask.

"Do you want to be dead?" Athan quipped back.

"Fine. Whatever. I'll add this to my reasons to hate you after kidnapping and murder. Give me the number two driver."

"Why? We're hotwiring it not fixing it."

"To take off the front panel?"

After a moment I heard a crunching noise, and then a bang, and then the sound of something popping and snapping.

"What the pig was that?" I asked.

"AEGIS just uh...did a manual override on the panel. With her feet."

She said something but was far from the mobile and all I heard was foot stuff.

"Gimmie the wire in your hair, AEGIS...okay...Athan, can you jolt this just a teensie amount? If you flip the solenoid...yeah, perfect."

"I'll get Tem, give me a second," Athan said.

It was so frustrating listening to them, but at least they had a car of some sort now. They had a plan, and as AEGIS had told me countless times, having a plan was everything.

It wasn't another minute of hearing only fumbling and breathing before I got the sound of a door thunking shut. "Drive, go," Athan said.

"Where?" asked the woman.

AEGIS said something, and then someone screamed as the engine raced. I heard gunshots, and then I heard the crackle of lightning and inarticulate yelling.

And then, a moment later, just quiet.

"Guys? Athan?" I asked, realizing I'd been holding my breath.

"We're here," he said. "Fucking Dragon came back. Shot my side of the car, hitting my shield instead of the tires I think. And then again, trying to hit Whitney it felt like."

"See? He saved you," AEGIS chided.

"From a killer who's only after you."

"I think Tem got him with a laser," Athan said. "I hope that slows him down. Wish she'd used a bigger one."

"I will use larger lasers from now on."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Oh mercy, please no," their driver said.

"She sounds fun," I said. "How long until you're back?"

"It's only a few minute drive to Rito's. Maybe ten? Should I call you back then?"

I probably should have said yes. Athan didn't need to be babying me right now, and I felt my stomach churning guiltily after all the flips it had done. But he was fine now, right? So I could be greedy and keep him on the line?

"Um, stay on...if it's not a trouble," I mumbled.

"Sure, Lia. No problem," he said, and I could hear that same familiar tone in his voice he used only for me, when I was sick or sad or hurt. I loved hearing that from him, but at the same time hated it.

As it turned out, I really needn't have bothered. The...how many, four of them? The four of them spent the ride in silence. I wasn't sure if the tension with them all being silent was any better or worse than that if I had hung up and waited. At least he gave directions a couple times so I knew they were still alive.

"We're here," Athan announced abruptly. "I'll talk to her mom. You guys hang tight. I'll uh...I'll leave my mobile here. I don't want to upset her. Okay, Lia?"

"Yeah, don't let me make your life harder," I assured him. A door opened and slammed.

"I am holding Chariot's mobile," Tem said breathily, too close to the mic. I could hear her breathing getting ragged and heavy, and that was just a whole 'nother layer of disturbing I didn't need right now.

"Maybe give it to AEGIS?" I asked.

"AEGIS does not have arms right now, Lia. I'm s-s-sorry."

"No arms?"

"Things with Dragon have gone poorly," AEGIS said, then continued in a much more desperate tone. "Which in a way is a blessing. I don't think Athan would have wanted us to run just now if he hadn't been trashed already once. You know how stubborn he is."

"TRASHED?" I echoed. "Athan was TRASHED?"

"I am s-sorry, I deserve to be yelled at. It is my fault."

"No, it's not," AEGIS cut in. "Dragon is a fucking professional killer. Why can none of you accept this? We're a bunch of random idiots running around compared to him. It's expected that we'd lose, so stop blaming yourselves for everything and be glad that none of us died, at least."

"Somehow I doubt Athan sees it that way," I said, already thinking of how he must be feeling. He always took his losses seriously, and obviously tended to blame himself for things well beyond his control. He'd spend hours reviewing 'the tapes' he called them and analyzing plays...and I honestly thought it was one of the reasons he was so good at it. After a few days, he was always raring for another shot at that team, filled with new ideas and determination for how to handle them this time.

It was one of his rare, cool sides. But I wasn't going to tell him that.

So we were just lucky that Dragon had struck back before he regained his confidence, I guessed. Otherwise Athan would not want to be running from this fight. Fortunate for us, but I had to wonder if Dragon would just...keep coming, and if he did, how long before Athan would want to throw down again?

Because personally, I agreed with AEGIS. No matter his strategy or tactics or how much he studied and planned, my brother should not be willingly tangling with professional killers.

"He's coming back," AEGIS narrated. "He...does not look happy."

I heard snippets of a conversation and then the phone was passed around again as AEGIS said something which sounded like 'well, I'll just kick her ass then', and I very much hoped I misheard. More doors opened and slammed, and I wondered exactly what was going on.

"So...Lia, huh?" the woman asked.

"Yeah. Hi. Who's this?"

"I'm Whitney. I'm Athan's hostage while I fix AEGIS for him. Kinda. How do you know him?"

"Oh. I'm uh, his sister. Nice to meet you."

"Sister, huh?" I thought the conversation was done but she started talking again. "You didn't disown him when he turned?"

"No. My parents did, and then I ran away from home."

"How old are you, Lia?"

"Sixteen."

"And you ran away from two perfectly good parents to hang out with your Exhuman brother? Even though stuff like this seems to happen all the time?"

I found myself feeling hot and irritated at her insinuations. "First of all, they were not perfectly good. My dad beat me and my mom every day, and he was practically holding me down so the dingo who turned Athan in could rape me, out of some...sick...messed-up form of hero worship and surrogate son."

"Oh."

"And second, yes, and screw you. If there was somebody you loved, and they got into 'stuff like this', would you just leave them on their own, so they had even more problems and even more loss?"

"Sorry, I didn't--"

"Because if so, I can't imagine why Athan would associate with you at all, even if he did just kidnap you. Which I highly doubt."

"I never thought of it like that."

"Then maybe don't tell other people what they should be doing," I snapped, and she just shut right up.

So, maybe not the best first impression.

"Is everyone else gone?" I asked.

"Yeah, just...me and you. And the car. And Seraphim."

"The mobile?" I asked. "Athan's mobile?"

"Yeah. Oh, he said you customized it. Good work with her. She turned out really well."

"...thanks?" I shook my head. "Are you really kidnapped? Wouldn't you drive away now if you were?"

"...yeah. Well. They said I could go before. I don't know."

Her voice muted weirdly at the end like she was holding her hands over her face. I found it a little hard to sympathize given our brief and brutal history. But I took a breath and tried again.

"So...you're not the type to abandon Athan either, even if he does 'this stuff' all the time," I said.

She laughed derisively. "Are you kidding? I run from everything. Sometimes I feel like it's all I do."

"You're not running now."

"Yeah. But everything in me wants to."

"But you're not?"

She sighed. "I guess I'm not. I think I'm stupid to not. Or selfish, or something. I'm just...never mind. It's dumb."

"What?"

"It's dumb, forget it."

"You got something better to do now?"

She sighed again. "I've always just felt like...every day becomes every other day. Go to work, time goes by, go home, sleep, do it all over again. I'm not a real...party girl. I don't vacation or...or have friends...or plan big things. Every day's the same, just something different I'm working on. And I love my work, I really do. It just...sorta feels like...what I'm going to be doing until I die, because of biological limitations saying I someday will."

"Oh," I said, not expecting this to get quite so heavy, quite so fast.

"I hated these words when I was younger but...you're just a kid, I don't think you'd understand. Growing up is interesting. School is interesting. You get thrown in with random people, all your age, all your same interests...and then someday you grow up, and you find out if you want that stuff, it's a lot of work. And some of us were stupid and never learned how to. So we just play with machines."

It wasn't exactly a lifestyle I had a lot of experience with, but damn if she didn't do a one-eighty on my ability to sympathize with her.

I was just sitting there, thinking over her words, really caught off-guard by the sudden bout of honesty. I was just working up to saying something...I didn't know, something equally personal and touching maybe? When she spoke up again.

"Oh. They're here. Oh no."

"What? What's wrong?"

"It...it looks like Tem has the woman's mobile, and AEGIS is going through it, and she's trying to go through Athan to get to them...by throwing cookware."

"Which is exploding?"

"Yeah."

"Oi. What a mess."

"My thoughts, exactly. Oh holy heck, someone's here. How long has she been standing there?"

I grinned at the mobile. "Rito! Yessss. Okay. Do not look at Rito, whatever you do."

"Ummmmm," I heard, and then the car door opened. I heard yelling and explosions going off. What sounded like gunfire and Athan shouting orders.

I held my breath again as I heard it all, trying to figure out the scene in my mind's eye. Dragon back? Was anyone shot? Could they not escape with him watching? My hands wouldn't hold still any longer, and I began spinning a pencil in my other hand while pacing with my mobile to my ear.

That didn't hold me, and soon I was chewing on the poor thing, until I tasted blood and realized I'd bit right into my cheek without even knowing. My hand felt sore gripping my mobile so tight, and as another explosion went off, my hand shook as though it were here in this room blasting me.

And then silence. Just...dreadful, horrifying silence.

"Athan? Athan!" I shouted into the mobile. "Athan, you stupid big brother, ANSWER ME!"

"I'm fine, tell her I'm fine," I heard him say, both in the phone in my hands and from somewhere behind me. I jumped and turned around, crashing through the door to my room and into the living room where he was standing. Him and AEGIS and Tem and Rito and the other girl. Safe and sound and in one piece, thank God.

I couldn't stop myself from squealing like a child as I threw myself at him and wrapped my arms around his middle. He made a noise like 'oof', and laughed, his hands finding their place messing up my hair like he'd done so many times before.

"Sorry to scare you," he apologized in a soft voice.

"If you're so sorry, stop doing it!" I said, peeling away from him enough to glare at him. For some reason, the look on my face made him laugh instead of any kind of appropriate reaction, and I suddenly felt violently frustrated at all the bison he'd just put me through. I informed him of this in the shoulder, with my fists.

"Easy there, killer, I'm still bruised," he said, blocking me easily. "We're okay. We're all okay. Dragon is hundreds of miles from here, and we're all safe."

Something about his reassurance finally punched through all the frustration and confusion and anger I had and touched me very poignantly inside, and I felt stupid tears welling up in me, no matter how much I tried to fight them back. I couldn't even talk without just sounding like a whining weenie.

Athan just held me while I cried and snotted all over his shirt like a little girl, knowing exactly how tight to hold me to keep me from falling apart.