"Red, she stopped moving! Is she still breathing?"

In the corner of a cell, Red and I stood over a now extremely pale Veronica.

"She's breathing. I don't think we can take more than this."

"Your right. We'll have to leave her here, so if she stops breathing she'll die for sure. We, will not, let that happen. If we make it out of here it's because of her, so there's no making it out of here without her."

"Do you really think we can do this? I mean, we'll have to take them all down."

"We have no choice, we have to do it. We both saw what's outside this place, no telling how long we'll have to travel before we've truly escaped. Can't have them tailing us, they'd eventually capture us no matter how I look at it."

"So everything rides on these?" Red held one of her quickly made vials in her hand, inside it was Veronica's blood. The vials were smaller than the ones Veronica gave out, but only because her blood was a more potent healer than her saliva. When we end up critically injured I doubt we would be able to stop ourselves from consuming all of the vial's contents so I had her make the DIY vials on the smaller side.

We ended up with twenty of them before we had to stop taking her blood. "Red, we'll split them. Ten for you, ten for me."

"No, I don't need that many. I'll only take four."

"I know you're tough but look at what just happened to you. Your taking ten."

"It wasn't an agent that did that to me, besides, it's not for the reason you think. I doubt I'll even be able to stand after using it four more times."

The exhaustion, "Are you feeling it already?"

"Yeah, I don't know how you took this every day."

I had almost forgotten about it. The exhaustion. It isn't like a sore muscle and that's precisely why it is so hard to deal with. Each time I would be healed, it's as if more of my will to fight and drive to live were lost. Dammit, how could I forget about something so important?

My face must have betrayed my thoughts because Red spoke up, "Don't worry, I can still fight. No doubt about that, I'll just have to go out of my way to make sure I don't take too much damage."

"What do you mean?"

"When I'm fighting half my brain is focused on attacking while the other half is maintaining my defense. I can just focus more on my defense and I should be fine. The only downside being I won't be able to exert as much power attacking."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Her safety is more important, I'll just have to work twice as hard. "Ok, you focus on your defense and play it safe. That includes not jumping in to try and save, or help me." I leaned in close to her making sure she understood I was serious. "Even if it looks bad. With these vials I'll be fine, so have some faith in me, okay?"

"Only if I take four."

"Deal. Now make sure Veronica is safe and we'll get started."

Red placed both her hands on the ground at my words, I made sure to get out of her way. The ground around Veronica's sleeping body bent, broke, cracked, and formed a coffin-looking structure around her. Once done Red walked over to the door of the cell, ripping it out of the wall and setting it on top of the coffin. It covered the open top and dug itself firmly into the coffin's walls.

"That's not air-tight is it?"

Red scoffed at me, "No. I couldn't do that even if I wanted to."

With that one move, she had secured Veronica's temporary safety while signaling the start of our massacre.

----------------------------------------

Taking a few steps down the hall I turn to Red who was following right behind me. "We're going to split up. You'll find and save Wayne while I take out the rest."

"The fuck makes you think that splitting up would be a good idea? We're going up against overwhelming numbers, if we divide, they'll conquer. And wouldn't I be better taking on the majority of them?"

"That can work in our favor too, but that isn't the only reason."

"If this is because you think I won't be able to stop myself from trying to save you, your wrong. I know what the vials are capable of, so don't treat me like I'm a fucking child, it pisses me off!"

Ha, "No, it's not that. Trust that I trust you. Who I don't trust is me, and until this is all over, you shouldn't either."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"If you trust who I am now, then even if it doesn't make sense to you, do it. So, do you trust me?"

"...Yes."

Walking away from the imposing beauty that is Red, I shouted."I love you." doing my best to hide my growing emotion at what I was about to do.

***

You. Yeah, you. I know you're there, starving, waiting for your chance to take over. It isn't going to happen, never again. The chains I've put on you won't break, I'll never lose control again.

What I'm about to do. I don't need clarity of mind or precision, but persistence, endurance. With each vial I take, I'll lose more of my rage and determination. I'd like to think I will be able to push through it but I don't have the option to fail. If my rage isn't enough then I'll have to use the only thing stronger, the strongest thing I've ever felt. Do you know how much I hate you because of that! That feeling, that pleasure! IT TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME! I can at least blame that mother fucker for making me kill Ma. But, the one thing I'll never be able to deny, the pleasure I get from killing is stronger than my guilt and my rage. I'm going to use that thing that took everything from me to protect what I have left. So I'll loosen up these chains, just enough to get what I want from you.

Play, while you can.

***

It's about time, "ALRIGHT, YOU MOTHER FUCKERS! IF YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU WHERE SHE IS THEN YOU'LL HAVE TO MAKE ME!"

Not too long after my shouting I could hear the footsteps, they were coming. I tightened my grip on the knives and felt my heart begin to race as a smile corrupted my face.

Every last one of them, I get to watch the light fade from every last one of their eyes!