--XXVI--

I flicked backwards, legs over head and hands on the marble floor and back again, several times into a layout flip that spun directly into the restrained attacker's chest, slamming them onto the floor. Wyatt emerged from the end of the hallway, his arrival physically announced by the light of the torch he carried.

"Thanks for the light source," said Sam as she folded her hands together, outward, and in front of me. "Needed one for sure."

I threw a gainer off her hands with my left leg, the right side of my body pulling back for a simple half twist after the calculated arcs of both my legs, and then spun into a double forward rotation before both my shoes connected, hard, directly on top of the masked attacker's upper body.

For a fleeting moment Wyatt and Sam both shielded their faces; the force of the stuck landing radiated in visible shockwaves that pushed the air back, hard. It kept our suspect in place long after I stepped off.

Wyatt winced.

"Hope you didn't make it too bad," he commented.

"No," I said, after nodding my thank-you to Sam, who was looking at me as she pinned our suspect down with one knee. I continued after a sigh. "I barely did anything, really."

"No burning?" said Sam.

"Minimal." I turned the other way and sprinted.

I heard Wyatt laugh raucously.

"That's what you call what you did to me," he called out after me. "And that hurt."

"Feel bad for them after you see Elsie," I said mostly to myself, not caring if they heard me or not. "Elsie, can you hear me?"

Sam's voice resonated, wavering and shrill from behind me, from across the hall and antechamber.

"What?" she said. "Elyza?"

"Elyza Cobb?" Wyatt's voice.

"Stay there with the suspect," I said.

"Chris," said Wyatt. "What the heck is going on?"

I said nothing.

The pen light revealed, on the ground beside Elyza, a tiny orange cartridge with a miniature syringe built into it.

I thought I knew what it was, but I needed to be sure...

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I reached over, put one finger against the tip of the hypodermic needle, and instantly pulled back.

Zapryekavil.

Compassion, not fearlessness or heroism, moved the muscles in my body.

I knelt down, and slowly placed a hand on Elyza's face.

Zapryekavil, or "bloodkill" as I called it, was a product of the Union of Stars. I had seen it only once before. In only one place, at only one time. Nightingale.

That's when I felt it- the same ghastly, abhorrent feeling that I still saw in nightmares and cried awake from.

It was, as I'd overheard from the torturers, intended to wipe memories or manipulate them. If you were a telepath or someone with abilities- not all abilities, just certain ones- or someone with any amount if Vystir in your system, this chemical would not only wipe your mind; it would shut you down, possibly disable your powers for an indefinite amount of time, and above all, hurt.

Within seconds of contact with her skin, she mumbled what sounded like a "thank you," and I felt a fire in my insides, a charring, a smoke that felt like my head and my veins were being filled with poisonous air that wanted to explode- to escape and release itself- but simply couldn't; simply wouldn't be allowed to.

Another thing I learned from Nightingale: If it hurt you a lot, it usually meant that it wasn't going to work on you, wasn't going to make your mind or memories vulnerable to manipulating. Couldn't make you susceptible. I know, because it didn't work on me or on Kaylee; the chemical and its pain killed others, but not us.

That didn't mean I felt no pain. The orange in the dim light- the orange color of the cartridge- was gone and replaced with gray before I knew what I was feeling.

I shut my eyes.

"Sam!" I called out, my voice shaking, its mellow "default" tone a much breathier and much higher pitched sound than it was already- "Stay there. Wyatt, get over here, now!"

Time made no sense at all, as I heard his heavy footsteps. Each one felt like an eternity. An age.

"I'm here, Chris." The voice swirled amongst the images; the brutality and all its magnitude. No longer only an image now- a reality brought all the way back by whoever evil decided the way to live was this. Wyatt's voice, strangely, was the only distraction; it was welcome. But he had to repeat himself. "Chris. I'm here."

"Knock her out," I said, my eyes still shut.

He put a hand on my shoulder.

"Chris-" he started.

"Just knock her out, trust me." I resisted the urge to pull my hand from her skin, disconnect entirely. It was the pain; it also wasn't the pain.

It was the memories.

I didn't want to cry in front of Wyatt, who once gripped me by the arms and shoulders and took my lunch money, eons ago- but it was too late. "Do it, Mr. Shafer."

I heard the strange, sickening sound of one of his netherworldly tentacles emerging and surfacing from his back- one of the sounds I learned to hate- and then a wet, sticky impact that disrupted my painsteal connection.

I opened my eyes, and the very first detail I noticed in the light of Wyatt's torch was the rope wrapped around Elyza's body- the rope used to tie her up. And then I realized why my brain picked up and noticed this particular item.

"Hey. You okay?" Wyatt knelt down, next to me. I think maybe he put an arm around my shoulders, but I didn't notice. "You're all right now. Talk to me."

It wasn't rope-

It was vine. Vine. With thorns. And as far as I knew, there was only one individual who knew Elyza Cobb that had any kind of ability to tie someone up with thorns and make them bleed.

Klein.

It's such a shame

You never told me what you really wanted

Go put the blame on me

Smoke of a fire we'll never see

Saying that you got a soul

Just because you know that you are going to hell

Said I don't want to be near you

Said I don't want to be near you

Said I don't want to be near you