It was unnerving walking down the streets I was used to seeing full of life when they were so empty. No, empty was the wrong word. The streets were emptier than normal, but they were unfortunately not empty. Bloodied and broken corpses were everywhere, as were the nightmares that caused them. We’d found more than a few straggler civilians too, often being chased by said nightmares, which consequentially meant we had picked up an unwanted following as we made our way towards the shelter. Heavensword had naturally argued against it because it meant we needed to deal with more nightmares whenever a wave passed. For once I actually agreed with her reasoning—not that I would have admittedly it aloud—but our only good options for warding them off were tying them up, having Newter touch them, or me flying us all away at speed, all of which were unpalatable for varying reasons.
Of course, our journey hadn’t been quite as unnerving as it would have been…
“We’re close,” I announced to the group as we bore right on Avenue P as it crossed the weirdly designed intersection with Kings Highway and 21st Street. “Maybe 5 minutes wuh-lk.”
“Do we have time for a snack?” Mischief complained. “Mischief was hopin’ for a snack…”
… because we had Mischief with us.
Delible and I groaned simultaneously and shot one another withering glares when we noticed the coincidental timing, but it was Newter who actually called him out as he jumped from an awning over a shop up to grip the vertical front of the next building down. “Dude, we get it. You’re hungry. Find a vending machine, get some rats there, and do your thing.”
“Don’t have any money on me.”
My eyebrow twitched. The reason the Changer had no money was he was entirely in the nude. A side effect of his power, apparently, was he could reform from rats, but his clothes and anything he had on him couldn’t. Thankfully his fur was significantly long and thick—though his power related to rats, he himself looked more like a dark furred werewolf than a rat—so his junk wasn’t in everyone’s face at all times.
“So stee-yul some food,” I ground out.
“Mischief will have ya know Mischief is a higher class of criminal than y’all mercs,” he quipped, his previously displeased tone flipping to cheery quicker than I could say ‘Mischief.’ Never mind that being cheerful in the middle of a goddamn Endbringer fight was woefully out of place, to say the least. “Ya might be content ta break inta vendin’ machines, but Mischief wants…”
The chipper Changer tapped his finger to his chin in thought, and Heavensword who, besides Newter and the currently mute Labyrinth, was the most tolerant of Mischief’s eccentricities gamely suggested, “Ratatouille.”
My eyebrow might have twitched again as my eyes scanned the streets, watching for any signs of nightmares lying in ambush.
“Ratatouille?” he echoed, his head tilted and tone inquisitive.
“‘Tis a French dish,” she replied, the trails of blood smeared down her face twisting with her wide smile. “A medley of stewed vegetables. A lovely dish when prepared by a chef worth the name.”
“Sounds good! Ratatouille it is!” he agreed with a fanged smile as he swept his clawed hand through his hair as if slicking it back. “Mischief is a refined criminal.”
I was briefly tempted to remind him that it wasn’t that long ago that he quite literally ate that powered nightmare, but I frankly wanted to forget it just as much as he likely did, if for different reasons. We had crossed and spawned more nightmares on our way over here, but mercifully none had been a repeat performance of that particular manifestation of the Endbringer’s power.
I settled on diplomacy instead. Most of our group jumped as I plopped a vending machine I had grabbed from nearby in the middle of the street in front of us, its glass falling out and shattering on the street as I warped the metal sides to make getting inside easier. “Eat or don’t. Just puh-leez stop come-plane-ing you’re hun-gree.”
Mischief’s ears perked up, and several rats leapt out of his furry legs and scurried over to the vending machine as we all passed around it. “Mischief thinks perhaps that exceptions can be made, since funny-talkin’ girl was nice and got food for Mischief.”
Heavensword beat me to the punch, sharply informing him, “Her name is Meteor, and you would do well to not speak ill of her.”
If our situation weren’t so precarious, I might have actually laughed at how quickly his recently uplifted ears shifted to laying back and flat. “Sorry. Mischief knows what it is like and didn’t mean ta be mean.”
The genuine contrition in the Changer’s voice soothed my ruffled feathers, and I returned to keeping a close eye on our surroundings while studiously ignoring the brief flash of gratitude and vindication I felt when Heavensword had defended me.
It’s normal to be thankful when someone defends you, but she’s still a goddamn murderer insisting she’s your mom, I reminded myself as I swept my gaze back and forth. Or ‘mother,’ whatever the fuck that distinction is supposed to me—
I probably would have tripped if I hadn’t been hovering along with the rest of the group instead of walking to conserve energy. Every time Heavensword had brought up the topic so far, I had been so caught up in denying any ties to her that I had missed the blatantly obvious implication that Mom was a lesbian.
Was she? The thought of her doing anything with anyone was alien. Mom had basically never left the hole in the wall apartment we shared for anything, and she’d never had anyone over. Groceries were obtained from the convenience mart we lived over, trash was placed in the hall outside our door to be collected, and a ‘friend’ of mom’s had delivered new clothes periodically—a friend who, after Masuyo’s revelations, I realized was probably with the PRT witness protection. I hadn’t properly realized the outside was anything more than something seen through our dirty, painted shut windows until she dragged me out one morning and dumped me on the sidewalk to wait for the school bus. The exact details of the memory were blurry at best. I had no idea how I got on the school bus, much less how I got home… But I remembered being goddamn mystified by basically everything.
And I remembered the loneliness.
“There!” Newter called out, and despite the obvious cheer with which he said it, I still found myself tensing for an attack. That tension eased when I saw the small crowd dispersed over the street outside the shelter, and it bled away altogether when I saw Gregor in the midst of it all, easily standing out.
“Gregor!”
I literally flew the last of the distance between us, Labyrinth at my side courtesy of the metal bands I had left around her, and Newter right behind us. Before I knew it, I was throwing myself at him and squeezing tight as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and patted the back of my head.
“Thank goodness! We were worried when you two were not to be found,” he rumbled. “You as well, Newter, though we at least expected you to be away.”
I flushed a little at the gentle chiding I heard in his words. “Sorry…”
“All good, Gregor,” Newter replied unworriedly. “So what happened to you, Spitfire?”
I blinked and pulled back from Gregor to check on Newter. He was near a mailbox just past Gregor that I hadn’t noticed, against which Spitfire was propped up with a pinched expression. Concern lanced through me at the sight of her hand pressed against bandages wrapped securely around her left arm, my worry overwhelming what lingered of my reluctance to be in her presence. I made a silent promise to myself to treat her better. For better or worse, she was a member of the crew now.
“Wolf projection,” she tersely replied as she adjusted her grip on the bandages, which I realized were beginning to soak through with blood.
“Bad?” I asked, gesturing weakly at her wound.
Her lips stretched into a clearly forced grin. “Well, on a scale of 1 to ‘oh my god, this is the worst pain I’ve ever felt’….”
“She requires medical attention soon, but it is not as dire as she proclaims,” Gregor insisted.
Thoughts of injured arms reminded me of the past, and before I knew it, I was joking, “Meteor puh-oint. Made it to pass-tuh your fur-stuh job bee-four getting in-jur-duh.”
That seemed to draw a more earnest, if still pained, grin out of her, and while a smirking Newter explained about my own, far more grievous injury in Providence, Gregor gave me a pat on the back and a smile.
“Meteor, dear, won’t you introduce me to your friends?”
I sighed and tossed a weary glare over my shoulder at Heavensword, who had just walked over and casually inserted herself into our conversation. “I’m say-fuh, so go away and lee-vuh us uh-loan. Please.”
She smiled and didn’t budge, her gaze sweeping over Gregor and Spitfire as Delible stepped up to her side. “You must be the rest of Meteor’s crew. I wish the circumstances of our meeting were better, but ‘tis nevertheless my pleasure to meet you. My name is—”
“Heavensword,” Spitfire breathed out, her voice abruptly packed with emotion. I struggled to parse it all. Fear, yes. Horror? Something like it, at least. And anger…?
“Indeed. I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Ms. …?”
Spitfire looked away, trembling, and Gregor spoke up as he casually stepped in between them. “Spitfire, and I am Gregor. You say you are Heavensword? Forgive me my rudeness, but…”
“You question if I am Heavensword of the Teeth, yes? I am she. I can imagine what you all think of me, but know that so long as my daughter remains with you, so too will I.”
I whirled on her, incensed. “That’s not what we uh-greed on! Too-geh-thur for sayf-tee!”
“And to answer any questions you have along the way,” she added without missing a beat, turning to me with a smile. “Incidentally, you have yet to take advantage of such.”
“En-ee-thing you tell me would be a lie!”
Delible bristled only to still when Heavensword laid a hand on her arm. The older woman’s expression shifted, and in a more subdued timbre she replied, “I have never told you a lie, and I promise I will always tell you the truth.”
Whatever response I might have made was cut off by Faultline’s sudden appearance as she stepped around a cluster of civilians behind Gregor. Huddled together as they were, I imagined them a family. “A promise from a member of the Teeth is questionable though, wouldn’t you agree, Heavensword?”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Faultline!” I all but tackled her, overwhelmed by the intensity of my relief at seeing everyone together again.
“It’s good to see you two safe,” she said with a couple quick pats on my back that belied the relief I could hear in her voice. “When we get back, you’re both running laps around Palanquin until I decide you’ve had enough.”
I laughed with relief, the sound wet with my tears. “Yes ma’am.”
Labyrinth wandered over at her own pace and silently wrapped her arms around the two of us, and for a moment, everything was okay. There was no Endbringer attack, Spitfire wasn’t injured, and there were no Teeth nearby. We were back home at Palanquin, off the job. I was reading a book with Elle, pressed against one another in the kitchen where Gregor was cooking something and chatting idly with Masuyo. Melanie sat just down the table, pouring over paperwork with a quiet intensity, and Newter was arguing with Emily about what band was better.
Then a fuzzy pair of arms wrapped around us, dragging me right out of the moment with a groan. “Miss-chiff!”
“What? Everybody was doin’ it. Mischief wanted ta too!” the Changer argued, unrepentant.
“Mischief, is it?” Faultline dangerously intoned. “You have until the count of three to unhand me, or I will unhand you. One.”
To his credit, Mischief didn’t even let her get to two, immediately letting go and backing off. “Mischief didn’t mean any harm. In fact, Mischief has a gift for ya, Miss Faultline! Newter held onta it for Mischief, seeing as Mischief has no clothes.”
I shuddered at the reminder, seeing as he had just wrapped himself around us, but Newter handily distracted me when he reached into his jeans and procured a flash drive. “The mayor’s probably got other concerns right about now, but hey, we’re Faultline’s Crew, and we always get the job done!”
“I see. I imagine the drive comes with strings attached, Mischief?”
The perpetually chipper Changer’s ears drooped, his posture slumping, and Newter answered in his place. “Blinds got hit hard when the attack began. Almost all of the capes are dead, and a lot of the non-capes are dead too.”
Surprisingly, it was Heavensword who spoke up first, somberly asking, “Does Tint live?”
“In Mischief’s heart…” Mischief replied, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him over the background noise.
She gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “As will he in mine. Tint was an old friend and a good man.”
What?
Before I could ask what the hell was up with that reaction, something on Faultline’s wrist beeped three times. A moment later, the digitized voice of Dragon announced, “James Madison H.S. shelter alert. Portal to immediate medical attention will be available for injured capes and critically wounded civilians. All others proceed through secondary portal for evac.”
Someone in a brightly colored outfit floated up into the air nearby and began to call out to everyone, organizing them, but I only had ears for Faultline, who immediately began to address our rag tag group. “Mischief, you’re with us until further notice. We will get Spitfire the attention she needs, then we are leaving New York until this is over with. The Endbringer hasn’t emitted a wave in quite a bit, and the last time that happened, it created powered projections. Be ready for anything. Understood?”
“And what would you have Delible and I do, Faultline?” Heavensword replied. I might have thought her tone challenging, and while it was challenging, it was also something more that I couldn’t place.
“I quite frankly don’t care what you do, Heavensword, so long as you and the Butcher—or whatever it is you’re calling her these days—leave Meteor and the rest of my crew alone.”
My blood ran cold. “She’s the Butch-err?”
“Is that true? Tell me!” Delible—the Butcher shakily demanded as she turned wide, hurt eyes at Heavensword, who flinched under her scrutiny.
“It’s true you killed the fourteenth, but you have never exhibited signs of being the next Butcher. You have never used any power beyond your own, you have never mentioned hearing voices—”
“You lied,” I snarled. “You said—”
“I said that I am not the Butcher,” she insisted, her gaze switching to me. “If I had any inkling, any suspicion that Delible had inherited the mantle, then I would have told you both as much. I saw no point in troubling either of you over a moot issue.”
I felt the portal appear—more accurately, I felt the sudden presence of the metal on the other side of the portal as it appeared—but I paid it no mind as I lit into Heavensword.
“You say you whoa-n’t lie, then you turn uh-row-nduh and do this shit! You cluh-aim to care uh-bout me, but this proo-vsuh you don’t!” I laughed, the sound cold and strained. “Know what? Fun-ee thing is, I buh-lee-vuh you now. You’re ex-act-lee the sort of bitch Mom would fuck!”
Faultline’s hand landed on my shoulder, and I turned to meet the unyielding gaze of her welder’s mask. “We need to get Spitfire medical attention.”
“Yes ma’am.”
She looked to the remainder of the crew. “Gregor, help support Spitfire if necessary. Meteor, help Labyrinth. Mischief, you’re with us. Follow me.”
I took Labyrinth’s hand and followed in Faultline’s wake as she began marching around the side of the crowd towards the portal, where someone was being wheeled through on a stretcher. I glanced over my shoulder and scowled at the sight of Heavensword following us, Delible at her heels as always. I narrowly bit back the urge to continue my tirade. She wasn’t worth it, and I didn’t want to cause a scene and risk being potentially barred from following the rest of the crew through to the medical site.
Two PRT officers were flanking the portal as we approached, and when they caught sight of the size of our group, one spoke up, “Whoa, hold on a sec. Only the injured are being allowed through.”
Faultline didn’t miss a beat and didn’t stop marching forward. “We are all injured.”
“What? Hang on, stop!”
The officers raised their rifles as we neared the portal, and Faultline called out, “Meteor.”
“I said—!”
I yanked the rifles from their hands, and shoved them down to point at their feet, using their steel toed boots to guide me. The officers raised their hands in surrender, and as Faultline and Spitfire stepped through, I saw someone in a brightly colored outfit start our way in the corner of my eye. My worry was short-lived, since they collapsed a moment later as Newter dragged his tail along the cape’s exposed arm as casually walked past, having apparently spotted the potential problem in advance and moved to intercept.
The rest of us passed through without issue, and the first things I noticed were the smell of salt water on the air and the sudden shift from the dark of the city streets to greenery lit by spotlights atop of what looked like hastily erected metal towers. I initially thought was the portal had brought us outside of New York altogether, but a quick scan of the horizon showed the mountainous sword, its single, bestial red eye swiveling unceasingly back and forth. Were we on one of the islands? Governors, Randalls… Whatever that other one near Randalls was, maybe?
More important than where we were was why we were here. The medical operation the PRT had set up looked ridiculously tumultuous, with people moving all over the place. It might have been the case that my untrained eyes couldn’t distill order from the chaos, or it could just as likely have been the result of it all being set up in the middle of an Endbringer fight—not to mention one where said Endbringer seemed to be capable of spawning nightmares anywhere. Fortunately, Faultline seemed to make quick sense of it, as she started forward, signaling for the rest of us to follow.
The only order I could glean was that the fidgety, stationary capes scanning the area and those steadily sweeping back and forth in regular patterns were probably guards for when the next wave hit and the people who were actively scurrying around or taking care of the wounded were the medical personnel and medical capes. Many of the non-parahumans were wearing scrubs, though that wasn’t universal, as a not insubstantial number of them seemed to have been plucked straight out of their day-to-day lives, judging by the sweaters, jackets, and—in the case of one woman—a cocktail dress. The capes on both sides of the fence came in all flavors, with costumes ranging from subdued, practical affairs to the frankly absurd.
Who the fuck wears a white costume with goat horns? I incredulously thought as I stared at one cape whose costume was particularly ludicrous. That has to be a bitch to clean, and it’s practically begging for people to make innuendo.
We finally reached someone in scrubs who was free, and Faultline reached out to tap their shoulder to get their attention. They whirled on a dime, slapping away her fingerless gloved hand, and for a tense moment, I thought we were about to be attacked.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” they babbled. “I didn’t mean— I’m just— D-Do you need something?”
Faultline gestured for Spitfire to step forward as she replied, “Yes, my crew member’s arm is bleeding quite badly after— Is something the matter?”
My attention had begun to shift to searching the nearby capes for any familiar faces, but at those words, it snapped straight back to the person in scrubs. They were trembling, I realized.
“I’m s-sorry, I’m— I’ve never been to an Endbringer attack before, and I’m afraid, okay?”
“… I see,” Faultline said at length, her tone still wary. She cautiously laid her hand on Spitfire’s good arm and silently pushed her back. “Can you direct us—”
One would think that after fighting for my life for more than an hour in this hell and with all the building tension from so long without a wave occurring, I would have been ready for the next wave. But after so long since the previous one—fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, perhaps?—the part of me that had been ready to be attacked at any moment had quietly begun to relax against my better judgment.
I never should have let myself relax while that goddamned sword still split the horizon. Maybe I wouldn’t have been caught on the wrong foot so badly when it happened.
The air around us charged, and people all over unnecessarily barked out to get ready. As if we couldn’t all feel the power humming in the air. The first wave surged past, bursting out of the Endbringer far quicker than previous assaults. Faultline crumpled, and I scrambled to hold up her suddenly limp body by a costume that, by design, wasn’t meant to be grabbed. Wave after wave shot past in rapid succession, leaving my skin tingling with residual energy.
Six goddamn wav—?
My legs buckled underneath me as another wave blew past, causing my vision to briefly blackout. Faultline struck the ground first, having already been halfway there, while I fell backwards and away due to my positioning when I had been trying to support her. I was mercifully left untouched when yet another burst of energy occurred while I crashed hard against the cold dirt and grass, and a flash of red moving in the corner of my eye prompted me to try and brace myself—for all the good it would do.
A seventh wave never came. Instead, the crimson movement resolved into a colossal, devil horned snake that savagely bit down on Faultline’s arm before she could dodge. She howled in agony, the sound cutting straight to my core, and slapped her hand against its neck. The red and blue light of her power crackled over its skin ineffectively, but the knives on my bandolier were already in motion. They jabbed forward into the beast’s eyes, and when it reared back, instinctively releasing its prey with a furious hiss, I sent some plunging into its mouth to puree its insides.
There was no rest for the wicked. Still on the ground as I was, I couldn’t dodge in time as a doppelgänger of Rune lunged at me, unnaturally strong hands grasping at my throat. I was only left gasping for air for a second before the nightmare’s fingers went limp courtesy of Heavensword sprinting into view and slashing a sword through its neck, but the goddamn thing proved just as spiteful as the real deal when it bit down on my ribs as its decapitated head lolled over me.
Heavensword slashed at something else behind me that I couldn’t see, resulting in a clash of metal against metal that irritated me on a primal level because I could feel none of it. To my horror, I saw Spitfire a few yards away spit napalm at Gregor, drawing a pained cry from him as he was set ablaze, but as I tugged myself to my feet to intervene, my attention was abruptly monopolized by a living angel statue charging at me with its fist drawn back. I roughly yanked myself to the side, narrowly dodging a blow that doubtlessly would have crushed my chest, and its torso cracked in half as red and blue light coursed through it from where a risen Faultline had lashed out at it with a kick while drawing her pistol.
“Spitfire? Meteor?” she called out, the barrel of her gun trained on me. “Dammit, everyone fall in on my position!”
Something was wrong. Why was she acting like she couldn’t see me when she was already looking right at me? “Faultline? What’s going—”
I reflexively flinched when she started firing. My power took hold, liquefying the bullets before they could plunge into my torso, and before I could even begin to piece together what the fuck was going on, a furious roar behind me heralded the formation and throwing of a knife past me. Faultline sidestepped and shattered the knife with a precisely timed strike from the back of her hand without releasing her grip on her pistol.
The instant I saw her moving to shoot again, I ripped the gun from her hand before being forced to turn my attention to stopping the flurry of knives Heavensword, who had apparently decided that the appropriate answer to Faultline’s defense against the last throwing knife was to throw a shit ton more in close succession as she stalked forward. I couldn’t affect her knives directly—a lack of control that had already left me uneasy before blades were being thrown at someone I cared about—but fortunately, I already had all the material I needed in place. The gun I had torn from Faultline’s hands dissolved into liquid metal in an instant, the few polymer pieces falling uselessly to the ground as I hastily erected a shield and shoved it into elsewhere before Faultline could do something dumb like break it in half in time to take a dagger to the face.
I knew her mask would probably stand up to it, but I still took exception to the idea of her being nearly stabbed, much less there.
“Stay behind me,” Heavensword ordered, a sword and shield already forming in her hands as she took up a defensive position between Faultline and me.
“Don’t fucking her-tuh her,” I growled, trying to step around only to find my way blocked as she seamlessly moved to keep me covered without even glancing my way. Beyond the barrier, I felt the plethora of metal items Faultline kept in her costume moving away from us instead of around the makeshift wall.
A stag with gleaming white horns and a body either wreathed in or else made of shadows lunged towards us from the side, and Heavensword deftly swept into position to bash aside its charging horns and slash open its subsequently exposed neck. “She tried to kill you!” she replied, blood as inky black as its fur spattering across the grass. “I can’t—I won’t lose you again! I won’t!”
God, it was unfair how much hurt and pain she packed into those words. If even half of it was genuine…
“Sum-thing is wrong,” I pressed, shoving aside my unhelpful thoughts as best as I could. Idle musings right now would doubtlessly get me killed. “She cuh-dunt see me when looking right at me!”
Fuck. Deranged or not, Faultline has a point. We need to regroup.
I lifted into the air, trying to get enough height to find the rest of where the rest of the crew was in this mess. The cape defense at the medical site might have been managing fine until our arrival, but it was clearly ill-prepared for the war zone it had devolved into after seven waves from the Endbringer at once. Too much was happening at once. I couldn’t see them anywhere. The only blond I saw nearby was Delible as her chest was cleaved open by a cross blade strike from—
From Fighter.
Of course. Of fucking course. This goddamn Endbringer, fucking dredging up all these horrors that should’ve been left buried! I desperately fought to hold back the fugue that swelled at the sight of my armor-clad doppelgänger, but I was going to lose. My chest seized as I remember the sight of Gregor burning and my traitorous imagination helpfully supplied images of Spitfire turning those same flames on Labyrinth. Gregor could survive between his fire retardant slime and mild Brute rating, but Labyrinth—
“Juniper!”
I felt the shield blossoming into existence mid-air beside me, and I instinctively turned towards it just in time to see the white winged girl garbed in a Greek tunic before she slammed into Heavensword’s shield, clipping it at just the right angle that her bare legs swung around and smashed into my face. I was close enough to the ground that my fall wasn’t life threatening, but that same proximity meant I had no time to properly catch myself before slamming into the earth.
I screamed in agony as I landed hard at a bad angle, my knee snapping in the wrong direction. I collapsed like a doll with cut strings, my chest heaving as I struggled to breath. I was trapped, my lungs burning as I struggled to pull in air while keeping the briny water out.
“Remember all those times you were afraid I’d command you to stop breathing…?”
My eyes flew open. Octavia stood over me, sword and shield in hand like one of her puppets. I tore all the orbs remaining in my backpack and hip compartments and sent the hurtling at her in a barrage, and she raised the shield to block, more blossoming into existence out of nowhere.
“… breath, bitch!”
I choked as I inhaled against my will, the salty tang washing over my tongue and down my windpipe. Octavia was blocking everything I threw at her. I could feel her shields—I could touch them. Why wouldn’t they move? Why wouldn’t—
“If only you’d stayed loyal.”
My eyes grew heavy as the water filled my lungs, and my head lolled to the side, falling on the fight between Fighter and— Elle?
“You two thought you could get away with betraying me?”
Fighter’s massive swords swung in synchrony, severing Elle’s head from her shoulders. It toppled, falling and tumbling.
Straight into my arms.
“I’ll just replace you.”
“I’m sorry, Elle, I’m sorry!”
Hear. Listen. Ears! Traitors, the lot of them, or so I hear. A joke, but not funny. No. No time for funny. I needed to be me and only me! If I heard, I would listen, and I didn’t want to listen to Eight-via!
Otherwhere.
Elle’s head tried to run away as my not-fingers touched all the metal. No, not run—take! The Eight wanted my Elle, and they would not have her! Layer layer, seal seal. All around my love and I conceal. They tugged still. They wanted their Dungeonmaster, but we would never go back. There was black, and I pushed.
“Cute. You think you can escape me that easily?”
I heard. I tried to shut my ears, but they stayed open. I clung to my Elle, holding her close in the darkness as the Eight tried to steal her from our otherwhere.
“I’ll kill you. I have to.”
They let her go, and I looked long into the darkness.
[Finally!]