Once I was sure they had gone far enough I slowly backtracked to the room from earlier. My efforts got me even more lost. Finally, the smell of food lured me the rest of the way down a hall. It took far too long and too many wrong turns to locate my target.

"Fields! Wondered where you went, man." Daniel had beat me back. How we missed each other was beyond me. This place felt like a maze. Footsteps echoed at strange angles. Walls were in unexpected places.

"Crumfield." Daniel liked to use my last name, so I used his in retaliation. It was the kind of pettiness only good friends would get over. If we were friends. I had twisted feelings of betrayal and thankfulness all knotted together inside when it came to the Western Sector agent.

"In the flesh," He said.

"What are you doing here, Crummy?" I tried to tell by his voice alone if he noticed my eavesdropping. It didn't seem like it.

"Visiting, can't I do that?" He asked.

It took even longer to figure out where the chairs were. Being a blind fumbling idiot was not good for my self-esteem, especially after hearing that my friends were hiding stuff for my own good. All because, how had Roy put it, I chose to forget.

"Shit, man, here. Vision's busted, right? No worries. A day or two." Daniel got up and slid something under me. A seat. Then shoved the table in my direction. Plates clattered, tableware banged, something was pushed under my nose that smelled perfect.

"Steak in front. Knife, fork, to the left. No sauce. Sorry." Daniel rambled and sounded nervous.

Maybe it was the glare on my face or the sounds of my stomach. I was starving. Huge messy bites were shoved into my mouth at high speeds. There was no time for water or napkins, just eating.

"Hunter, have you asked him?" Roy's feet were large and gave off a heavy clang of noise with each step.

"Letting him eat, trust me, we let the man eat before asking for favors.” Daniel took a deep breath which indicated nervousness. “You know it, I know it."

Roy responded with a grunt.

"Whatever it is, no." I managed to speak with the food being shoveled into my mouth. What Daniel wanted wasn't important right now.

"No? I haven't even asked yet. Why are you doing this to me, Jay? Come on!" I couldn't see him, but Daniel sounded upset. Not angry, just upset. Angry Daniel was normally associated with someone getting beaten senseless then thrown into jail.

"First, tell, or remind me, why I'm hiding from the Order," I said.

Silence was broken up by the loud smacking of my lips chewing through the last of the steak. It had been huge and I still managed to scarf the meal down. My belly rumbled and a barely perceptible arm passed in front of me for the plate. A hand shot out and grabbed at the dainty wrist I shouldn't have noticed.

Roy's presence in the room was obvious even without most of my senses. I could feel him lean in closer, protective, upset.

"Let go!" A familiar and chipper voice exclaimed.

"Jay, she's getting you a fresh plate, trust me, man. It's okay." I grumbled then let the tiny limb go. Moments later a new plate was placed in front of me. My hands wanted to pick up the steak and eat it like a caveman. I managed to use the knife and fork for a second time.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Look. There are things you can't tell me, or won't tell me. I don't know where the line is." I gulped down another bite of food. Without vision, everything about Daniel's responses was a guess. He was probably guarded right now. Maybe an attempted smile that might disarm a lady somewhere.

"I do know that this Order of Merlin-" A group I'd run into a few times now. They believed that nonhumans should all be wiped out. "-”-is the main reason I'm hiding."

"Yeah, sort of," Daniel said.

"That's the problem, I'm getting half answers. I've killed for this, left Kahina again, and all from a gut feeling saying that's the right thing to do." I should sound a lot angrier than I did. Being blind might have been keeping me off balance. Or the lingering sensation of calm that had crept over me upstairs.

"Mmmh. Alright. Maybe, yeah. We can clear parts up. Hold on." Daniel shuffled around and there were beeps of some sort. It sounded like a cell phone. "Yeah, we got time. Roy, can you have someone run down to my car? In the glove box, there's a pink folder. Grab that and bring it up. Make sure they don't touch anything else."

"I'll do it personally, Hunter," Roy said. The funny accent he had made hunter sound like a dirty word.

"Agent, we're all agents now. It's easier."

The security chief, Roy, grunted then stepped out. His feet were distinctive enough that I could track him from sound alone. Now it was just Daniel and me.

"Hunter?" I asked.

Daniel sighed. His head clearly sounded like it slid downward and thunked on the table.

"Fine, but give me something. Tell me Kahina getting married to someone else had a fucking point." This dish should have been smashed. Daniel should have been shoved to one side. That damned older vampire Kahina married could be dead in hours.

"Sure, man. This way she's alive. Any other way she'd die as bait to lure you out. A Hunter-Born being after her would have been much different than the bunch of idiots you dealt with." Daniel raised a hand to stave off anything I might say. At least, I think he did, the shuffle sounded like a hand going up. "Keep eating. I'll just talk awhile."

He stood up and paced around. I couldn't stop eating for long. My stomach protested loudly and didn't even feel close to full.

"So Hidden, Hunters, Order of Merlin's motivations, things you don't remember. Though you do know a few pieces. You know your blood can heal, the tracking thing never went away. Some of your strength, speed, and if you tested out Roy's little brats I bet you felt the dances too."

I nodded. Daniel could have been looking anywhere for all I knew, but it seemed like the thing to do.

"And your girl, Kahina, thinks you're dead. Which is good and bad." Daniel continued on.

I was between bites this time and said, "All that's old news."

"I'm prepping, man, you set down rules before this."

"And a safety word."

"Yeah, man!" Daniel slammed down into a chair nearby and leaned in. His excitement was nearly tangible. "You remember it? That'd be much easier."

"No." I sawed off another portion of meat.

"Fuck. Well, that's good too, I guess." He stood up and paced some more. There was a crispness to his shoe steps that Roy simply didn’t have. "Okay, Hunters. That I can share. We're humanity’s response to monsters." He gave the word a comical drawl. "Take a normal human, amp him up, bam, Hunters. Easy peasy."

"All agents?" I felt skeptical about the idea that every single Western Sector agent was literally an ultra-human.

"Nah, just some, man. Me, a few others. Maybe a dozen family trees. Lots of training, you should see me with a knife or gun."

"Shaggy was a good shot," I remembered her planting bullets into wolves and vampires with startling accuracy.

"Yeah, she's one of us, not really fully in the know. Her dad kept her in the dark until we figured out if she'd be receptive to other races."

"She said you handled weird stuff." My head nodded slowly as some pieces came together. Pushing for personal answers might not work, but if Daniel was willing to shed some light then okay.

"My girl’s called you, them, this-” There was a flutter of movement that wasn’t visible. “-weird before. Really it’s just leftovers. Scattered remains of entire races." Daniel was offhanded about it.

"Do all Hunters work with these Hidden?" I tried to sound quiet about it but failed.

"No! Hidden, like you, man, are the heart of this cluster of a situation. Some Hunters are still trying to complete The Purge like they get bonus points for overtime. They'd kill Roy and the others here in a heartbeat if Muni didn't keep this place remembered wrong." His voice was growing heated. Angry. He took a few deep breaths to calm down then he kept right on talking.

I said nothing but lifted my plate a few times in hopes that food might still be on it.

"Anyway, I figure Hidden, like normal people, got good eggs and bad ones. Maybe some extra quirks, but all races have something. At least in my experience." Roy seemed nice enough.

My head nodded and one hand motioned for Daniel to continue.

"Then people like the Order are trying to take everything back and do it again on our terms. They have Hunters too, they're the ones we're hiding you from." Daniel rushed through the explanation, and once again I wondered why he was so nervous about this whole topic.

"That doesn’t make sense," I said.

"Which part? The all of it?" Daniel asked.

"Doing it again on their terms." Time doesn't march backward. It wasn't possible to just do something again on different terms, was it? If it was, could I do everything again and keep Julianne alive, and stay with Kahina?

"Okay. You've played video games before right?"

"Maybe." I didn't own a television. There were little slot machines and stuff at Julianne's. Most bars had something similar. That was as close as I got.

"Well some let you save games, and if you wipe out it's possible to start over. Redo things, fight the boss again, whatever." He must have been waving his hands and waiting for me to act like this conversation made sense.

I nodded to show I was paying attention.

"Now imagine you can do that with the entire world. Restart it from a save point, redo everything. Problem is that it would put the world back to before the Purge." There was silence while Daniel let me absorb that idea. How kind of him.

How would that work? Redoing everything? Was it like time travel, paradox creating, killing your own great grandfather to change the future? Weird. Impossible.

"That's insane." Was my only verbal offering.

"Well, it's happened. Not once or twice, the elves have these stories-" Daniel sounded hesitant about explaining this part.

"Sins of the People?" The words were garbled around my food. There wasn't much left on the plate that I could find so I was trying to savor a few bites.

"Man, did you remember that, or did someone tell you? If you remembered it we're in trouble, sort of."

"Your woman told me." I still didn’t know Ann Myers’ real name. She had always been Shaggy, or that undercover Western Sector woman.

"She tell you anything else?"

"To ask for the theatrical version."

"Hah, she was impressed by it, Jesus, so was I. Everyone is. It's amazing, man, and frightening, and humbling. To imagine that things had happened differently, that humanity was almost wiped out three times. Nuclear warfare, vampires enslaving mankind, all sorts of endings." Daniel paused this time until I made a rolling motion with one my fork.

"Alright, short version, The Sins are a story about the world resetting like six times. Each prior iteration the world starts self-destructing and elves start things over with notes on what to do next time." There was another pause where Daniel gathered his words.

I motioned with my fork multiple times trying to get him to start up again. There was more to this half explained thought.

"Problem is, in order to do it they need someone like you. A Lord-" His words reminded me of being called that by two different elves. "-to sacrifice, you don't get to survive, in exchange everyone gets two thousand or so years of history to do over. And if they start it over it's not just murder or genocide, it's un-writing us all from the beginning. Ab inito."

There was a brief pause while I tried to decipher that madness induced statement. Finally, I said, “Not happening."

Candy had mentioned something like this before. That she wouldn't be responsible for the deaths of everyone. She was terrified by it. Instead of letting me know anything she tried to block me from finding out what I was. Now I knew a bit more of why. Or at least what they thought I could do.

Hell. They thought I was a fucking reset button. Daniel, Candy, The Order of Merlin. Thoughts rampaged through as I compared Daniel’s explanation to everything I had heard. My fork idly scraped against the base of an empty plate.

"I mean, that can't happen." My protests sounded silly.

"No, it's not, elves are fairly established this time, things are working out great. Between actual racial cooperation and long-term integration, a reset is unlikely.” Daniel was being talkative today. It annoyed me more than it should have. Maybe it was our subject matter. “The real problem is the Order of Merlin. They think they can mimic the ritual and try again, wipe out all the nonhumans straight from the get go. Or worse."

I wasn't sure how much I believed Daniel at this point. Rewriting history was a bit far fetched. Implying elves had their fingers on a trigger was strange too. Then saying it required my sacrifice? Was I that unique?

"Or worse?"

"Or worse is bad, man." Daniel responded.

"Or worse," I said dryly.

"Yeah, man. Hence the worse." He could have been joking or going with the flow. The man wasn’t even drunk. How did a blind man pick up sarcasm?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"The whole thing seems stupid," I said. In the distance, I could hear Roy's heavy footsteps coming down the hallway. Boots, he had to be wearing some sort of giant military footwear.

"It is stupid. It's diving into a feeding frenzy without a cage stupid." Daniel was disgusted. "So we've been hunting their members down. The problem they have people from all walks of life. Western Sector members, congressmen, police, anyone who bears a heavy grudge against nonhumans."

"We're killing them?" That implied a conspiracy. Hell. I was part of a grand scheme to eliminate another group of people and couldn’t remember it.

"Yeah. If needed. That fat bastard in the woods? Where you ripped his head off? Senator." Daniel was nonchalant about it.

"Hell." I had killed a senator?

"Someone cares, but we're in the clear, the only people that might know are Order members. They can't exactly advertise their violation of Pack lands either."

"Good." That made me feel happier at least.

"They do hold a grudge, man, and there's a lot of them." The agent shot down my brief elation at getting away undiscovered.

Roy was in the room again. His presence made the room feel smaller despite a beam of sunlight coming in. Maybe the big security staff member had found Daniel’s files.

"Can't be that many." I protested.

"Sure there are." Daniel walked across the room and I tilted my head to follow. He was rustling papers for something. "Here, these are incident reports from your escape from the NightShades. Just the one stretch that last day."

"NightShades?" I was confused again. Today seemed to be a good day for information overload.

"The things in the vampire shadows, you named them, not me. At least, you've told me there are things in them. Possesses them during the day." Daniel and I had talked about this? I blinked as the agent kept right on rambling. "Let's not get into that, man, I've got a few minutes then it's time for me to go."

"Alright." I was done with those NightShades anyway. They had shown up because of Kahina, because of the change. Now that she was done with her transition, and I had chosen to stay away from her, seeing those strange faces in shadows again was unlikely.

"Let’s see. Four separate car pileups, three fire hydrants damaged, two street poles, and about fifteen homicides that are gradually being covered up by Muni. Car crashes, extensive damage, I've seen action flicks with less costly bills.” Daniel shook his papers loudly then said, “Mostly the lawsuits."

I frowned and tried to count in my head. There had been a lot more deaths than that. A lot more. The car wrecks should be blamed on Daniel's fiancé and a certain bitch I loved to hate.

"Those are just the ones still outstanding. Your official count? Nine murdered wolves. Can't wipe them completely, Pack bindings screw that idea up. Even more deaths of partial vampires, each one falls under Tribunal laws, and they don't really care if burnouts die. They're too busy replacing their third seat anyway."

I had forgotten about that. Somehow the night Kahina had completed her transformation one of the three Tribunal members had failed to wake up. Very likely the two incidents were related. Daniel shuffled through papers again.

"Here's the real problem, man. Humans, over a dozen straight humans died in the middle of the city. Each one with family, some with witnesses, and if we don't find them all those people will carry grudges, resent nonhumans, and maybe lash out." He said.

"So? Retaliation isn’t new." I said. There were plenty of people that hated nonhumans or were afraid. Even more wanted to join their ranks and applied every which way they could.

"Each one is a potential Order member. Each additional Order member, each one seeking a way to stop the 'monsters' from ruling the world." Daniel didn’t say ‘you monsters’. He seemed to include himself in our ranks or hadn’t put much thought into it. Maybe it was because the surfer accented male wasn’t entirely human either.

"That's pessimistic." I frowned.

"That's reality. I've got people at their meetings, at their compounds. Compounds, man, they train there on reservations that human governments won't even try to touch. Gun rights in action.” The papers rattled again as Daniel shuffled them around. “All in the name of avenging their unfairly murdered friends and family.”

It was sad to hear, but the way Daniel phrased it this almost felt justified. I had damaged a number of things. Hurt a number of people. All in the name of letting one vampire complete her transformation successfully. If one day, one reckless drive, had hurt that many people, how bad was an entire continent of racial friction? I could nearly see a trail of damage caused by me alone that stretched far into the past. Hell.

"Anyway, I'm holding forth here and it's not the answer to your question. I'm helping you hide so that the Order doesn't stumble across you and sacrifice you to alter history. Having Hunters on their side is bad. Every time you use your abilities, like a few nights ago, anyone of us in range can feel it like a beacon."

"You can?" My heart thumped.

"Yeah, man. That's why you had to forget who you were, and those abilities. Using them is second nature to you, and being near Rhodes-" Daniel used Kahina's last name, he preferred everyone's last name. "-kept forcing you to use them."

That set me back. The Order would easily attack Kahina, just to force me to act. Triggering my abilities and being hunted would lead to eventual death.

"Simple tracking is fine, but the strength, speed, controlling, all of it's tied to your true nature, and that nature sets off big fucking alarm bells. That's how they started finding you in the first place." He rambled on.

I blinked and raised an eyebrow. What the hell was he talking about now? The confusion on my face must have been obvious despite blindness.

"That night you returned home, got into a fight with Kahina Rhodes’ bodyguards, you used your abilities.” Now the agent was rambling about events that happened months ago. “It was weak but still there. That's how I knew you were back."

"And three days ago?" I put aside the fact that he considered my ability to take down two partial vampires a weak reaction. Hunter senses must have been weird, but I tracked people through a crazy spirit world with threads of connection.

"Lit up the entire bay.” Daniel probably waved his arms in the sky. “Most Order members in this area were ousted thanks to you, but it's only a matter of time before they flood back in, and one of their Hunters starts poking around."

"I'm dead, though." I protested weakly. The calming effect had mostly faded, but being stuffed full of food made it easier to listen.

"You were dead. Until last night." The agent might have been shrugging. He could have been frowning or angry, but there wasn’t much in his tone aside from a faint hint of ‘dude’.

"So what do I do?" Being blind was destroying my ability to keep track of things. The plate held no interest without food. There were no footsteps in the distance. Even Roy, who was still here, remained silent as we spoke.

"Keep low. Let me and other Sector members find out who their Hunters are at least. If we can keep them away, or in jail, or dead if needed, then you can come back out."

"I agreed to that?" I asked.

"It was your idea. You found Muni and made it possible." Daniel said.

"Past me sounds stupid." My mouth turned downward. Hell. All this was apparently my own damn fault. A deep pit in my stomach told me that everything spoken here had truth to it, but it was like feeling gravity's pull. It existed but the details were beyond me.

Daniel snorted. Roy said nothing. He was practically a statue in the room.

"Look, I've got to head out, will you consider the other request?" The agent said.

"Keeping me busy?" I asked.

Daniel didn't even notice my usage of his own words. Or if my friend, or Agent, Hunter, whatever he was, did notice then he chose not to comment. Maybe he had made a face of some sort. Maybe he was secretly really angry but managed to keep his voice clear. Until my vision returned it was impossible to tell for sure.

"Tracking's fine. We've gotten a few vague reports of a possible Hidden living to the west of here, near the coast. I wanted to send you out to try and find them." He said.

"Why?" I asked while trying not to shake my head back and forth.

"You may not remember, but gathering the Hidden was one of your personal goals.” He said and my mind flashed to some of the others' commentary. That ticklish angry girl from upstairs implied I should have been bringing people back. Daniel kept talking. “Besides, it'll get you out of the area. I'm not sure if anyone noticed besides me, but you did light up the entire sky for miles. At least to my kind. If you do run into trouble, if, then using your abilities elsewhere will lure them away."

"From Kahina," I stated calmly.

"Yeah," Daniel responded.

"She got married." My words turned rapidly annoyed despite the cathartic release of spewing fire all over Bottom Pit. Kahina had gotten married to another man. That made her important, but also almost not my concern.

Maybe that was it. My mind quickly raced through a few other ideas. Was the reason I felt so calm simply tied to unleashing all that pent up anger in the form of literal flames? If I paused to think about it, there was a core to me that normally felt hot, but right now that center was mostly drained. Cooled off compared to the normal ball of repressed anger.

"So?” Daniel’s words took a moment to catch up. “If not for her, then you've got a ton of other people here who are your family, even if you don't remember them right."

"That's true," Roy said. "You brought us together."

I said nothing.

"Crap. Alright, man, I've got to get scarce. Boss expects me for an evaluation or something." Daniel said. "Roy can explain about the person I was hoping you'd track, if you want. Maybe get some rest first, man." He barely spared me an awkward shoulder pat before crisp footsteps exited the room.

The silence stretched on. Roy said nothing. I kept thinking, trying to figure out if Daniel was playing an angle again. Or if he was truly concerned about my welfare. Tried to figure out how much of what had been said to believe. Daniel wasn't human, or he was some sort of superhuman response to monsters.

Not once had he said why he was working with me, why he was working with The Hidden. To make amends? To gather them for ease of tracking? His kind, if there was a kind, had likely done huge amounts of work during The Purge.

Unless his sole goal was to keep me out of the Order's hands. Wouldn't it be easier just to kill me and call it good? If I was already dead it'd be impossible for anyone, human or elf, to sacrifice me. My searching must play into why Daniel kept me alive. Or maybe we really were friends. I'd started questioning that set of memories. I'd questioned everything lately.

"Can I get a ride home?" Three days away from my little apartment was too much. Being without my other senses was finally starting to worry me. Feelings of calm that had smothered me were fading.

"If you want," Roy said slowly.

"Yeah."

"Will you come back? Father would like to talk to you." He asked.

"Maybe." I wasn't sure how I felt about this place. It was familiar, the fighting had been glorious and perplexing at the same time. For just a moment I heard the thump of drums as Roy crossed the room.

"Return soon then. He can wait a few days. Come on. One of the women will drop you off." Roy led me off. Found someone to give me a ride, then stayed next to me until I was shuffled into a truck.

"When you're ready, or in need, return here," Roy spoke to me before closing the door. It sounded like he was worried but trying hard to keep a respectful tone.

"Family right?" I asked, feeling oddly mixed about the idea of having a family.

"Distant cousins in a way, but always family."

"Huh," I remarked.

"We'll be there when you need us." Roy's somber words were the last thing I heard before the door slammed shut. The person driving obeyed stop lights. Hardly pressed the brake and turned gently into every curve. Beyond that, I had no clue who was driving. They never uttered a word.

That was fine. I was sick of talking. Living as a shadow of myself came with a number of problems. Needing friends to explain my own life was ridiculous. And my center, the figure that mattered most in my life, was gone. I couldn't even feel Kahina anymore.

Eyesight remained absent. Not that the driver helped any, my only cue was a tap on the shoulder and a gentle shove out of the car. I could hear familiar voices in the distance, shouting at each other over some game. My drive had put me near the bar. Thomas, Julianne's brother, was inside railing loudly against a referee's call. Excited and happy.

I stumbled across the parking lot, past the security gate, and into my battered home.