The Ten—or rather, Nine—armed themselves to overflowing, both weighted and buoyed by the promise of action. Guns and machetes, mostly, though she had never fully understood the fascination. Even during the worst of it, Tansy had chosen peace; she had left the violence to someone else.

Frank handed something to her almost absentmindedly, and she shook her head at the offering.

"I don't need that," she said, her voice firm. He nodded, searching her face until she looked away.

The group moved with purpose through the dimly lit room. The air was thick with tension, each member of the Ten focused on their task at hand. Tansy heard the soft clinks and rustles as her companions readied themselves, their movements precise and purposeful, as if they had done this before.

Chigger reached for a pistol only to have Ray swat his arm with lightning speed.

"What the fuck, Ray?" he whined. "You're not leaving me unarmed? I'll fucking die and you know it."

"Either way, Chig," Ray said, echoing his earlier words. "Either fucking way."

Outside, commands and heavy footfalls.

Upstairs, insistent pounding on the door.

"Go," Ray said quietly. "Quick."

He took one last look around the lounge, then locked eyes with Cyrus, who shook his head and sighed.

"Is this for real?"

Ray nodded.

"I'll be right back." Cyrus bounded up the stairs.

"Cy!" Ray yelled. Behind him, Josephine beckoned everyone through an opening that led down a short flight of stairs to a dimly lit passageway.

Seconds later, Cyrus appeared on the basement stairs and leaped over the railing. "Go," he whispered.

Up on the first floor, the front door to the townhouse gave way.

Ray closed the hidden door behind them. In the plastered corridor, they shuffled silently downward to a small room, a sort of holding space blocked by a large slab of metal.

"Where are we?" Leila whispered.

Cyrus beckoned the last of them into the room as Ray and Frank partially opened the massive metal door blocking their path.

"I got this," Frank said to Ray, who nodded and led the group down a longer, narrower corridor.

When Elio passed, Frank pulled him aside and gestured for him to stay. Carefully, Frank let the group through the metal doorway single file.

When Tansy passed, he briefly squeezed her arm.

When only Chigger remained, Frank put a halting hand on the man's chest. Chig looked up into Frank's eyes, realization dawning. He opened his mouth to speak, but Frank shoved him backward.

"You're done, motherfucker."

Across the street and four doors down, the blast rattled the old bones of an abandoned building as the townhouse the Ten had called home for nearly two decades burst into flame.

When the dust settled, Cyrus was the first to the vacant building's basement windows. He cried out, a poignant, strangled sound that captured the grief and disbelief that gripped the rest of them.

Ray strode over and swung Cy around to face him. "What the fuck did you mean, going back up those stairs?"

"I—"

"You try that shit again, I'll kill you myself."

Cyrus pulled something from his back pocket and handed it to Ray. "I couldn't leave this."

"Oh, you couldn't? You could leave me, though?" Ray said without looking at Cy's hand.

"I... no, Ray. Jesus. Will you—"

"Ray," Elio said, interrupting them. "Your friend is just there."

Ray followed his gaze down the street, where Foster stood steadying herself against the front of an SDO truck.

"Go," Ray whispered. "Go, now. It’s Foster." He turned to Cyrus, who nodded to two others and went upstairs.

Frank turned to follow them.

"Stay," Ray commanded.

"I'm fucking going, Ray."

"The hell you are. You stay right the fuck here. I want you right beside me. Got it?"

When Frank didn't budge, Ray pleaded. "Please. Stay with me. It'll happen, okay?"

Frank walked to the window.

It went down so fast Ray practically squealed with delight. One second, a clearly dazed Foster stood alone, outlined against the blazing rubble. The next, Cyrus grabbed the bullhorn from her hand as the other two took hold of her arms and pulled her back into the building in near silence.

Just like that, the Ten had Foster in hand.

"Wait," Tansy whispered, looking around the room. She inclined her head toward Elio, her brows knitted in confusion. "Where is—" she said, stopping short to keep the man's name out of her mouth.

Elio understood. He reached out and stroked her cheek. "Frank would not have it, my darling."

They huddled in a darkened room with the others while, across the hall, Ray, Cyrus, and Frank had their way with Foster.

"What do you mean?"

"You know my meaning."

She sat straighter. "You—you're kidding, right? We can't just go around—" she lowered her voice again. "You can't just go around killing people!"

"Why not?"

"Well, because... I mean..."

He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

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"Seriously? I shouldn't have to explain this," she said. Sighing, she rested her head against the wall and tried to tune out the low, muffled moans carrying from across the hall.

"So you are not pleased?"

"I didn't say that."

"Mmm."

"Still."

"Still, it is ugly business."

"It is," she whispered.

"Yet somehow less so considering his many atrocities."

Tansy closed her eyes.

Frank stood in the doorway, taking ragged breaths while clenching and unclenching his fists. Tansy took in his bloodied shirt, his dirty, tear-streaked face, his grim expression, and she knew.

"She's dead," Tansy said.

Frank looked at her for a long moment before responding.

"She's alive," he said, his voice full of emotion.

"Foster?"

"No," he said. "Bianca."

"What?"

"I need you," he said to Tansy, gesturing toward the other room.

She stood and followed him, looking back over her shoulder to Elio for reassurance and getting none. Across the hall, the scene was much as Tansy had pictured, including a bloodied and unconscious Sergeant Foster slumped over in the chair they had bound her to. What Tansy hadn't imagined—could not possibly have imagined—was the smell.

"Heal her," Frank commanded.

Tansy looked back and forth between Frank and Ray. "What? Why?"

"Because I'm not fucking done."

His tone knocked the breath from her lungs. "Frank, no."

"I said heal her."

"I won't. Not if you're just—"

Frank took a step closer, still clenching his fists. She looked to Ray for help, but he just stared at the wall.

"What?" she whispered, turning back to Frank. "Are you going to threaten me?"

"No," he said, "I'm going to ask you one more time."

"You're not asking me."

"Heal her."

She shook her head. "I won't."

"You won't?"

"No."

He nodded. "Right. Get out."

"Frank—"

"Get out, Tansy." His voice was calm, but his hands gave him away.

"This isn't you, Frank," she whispered. "Ray, please...."

"How the fuck would you know?" Frank said.

"What?"

"Just go,” Frank said, holding a hand toward the door.

She shook her head again. "Come with me, Frank. Let's—"

Ray put a hand on her shoulder. "You better do as he says, child."

She shrugged off Ray’s hand and took a step back. "I'm not a fucking child. And you," she said, pointing a trembling finger at Ray, "told me there's only one Frank."

"That's right, honey. It's the one you see."

"I—"

Frank opened the door for her to leave. Instead, she did the only thing she could think to do. She slumped to the floor and scooted herself into a corner, refusing to budge.

"I see you, Frank Chaplin," she said. "And whatever you're gonna do, you'll have to do it in front of me, because I'm not leaving."

Frank rolled his head and stared at the ceiling. "Please get the fuck out."

"I won't," she whispered. She wrapped her arms around her legs and laced her fingers together to keep herself from shaking as all six feet of broad, strong, wild Frank loomed over her.

"Should we go in there?"

Elio closed his eyes briefly before answering, which Leila didn't find reassuring. She stood peering through a papered-over window as firefighters struggled to gain control.

"These things must happen."

"Must they, though?"

"Yes."

"I'm worried about Frank."

"As am I."

"He's gonna crack."

"Perhaps."

"Well, shouldn't we do something?"

"It is not ours to do."

She turned to face him. "What? What doest that even mean? Seriously, you say stuff like that and it sounds all wise and everything but, yeah. I think you're full of it."

"That is why I love you so much, my dearest Leila."

"You... wh—what?" she stammered.

"Yes, it is true."

"But... I mean... Oh, okay. You're messing with me, right?"

"I would never."

"But... I'm only seventeen."

"Yes."

"And you're, what? How old are you?"

"It does not matter."

"I mean, it matters some."

"Love has no age."

"Yeah," she said, more flustered by the minute. "Okay, but we do. We have ages, right? I mean—"

Elio stood and let his hands fall to his sides. He looked so open. So... unarmed. So vulnerable. And so, so very pretty.

"Leila?"

"Yes?" she whispered, looking up at him with a face full of innocence.

He reached out and tilted her chin toward him.

"Oh," she said. "You..."

"I love you," he said. He leaned in close as she closed her eyes, then closer as he whispered in her ear. "Like a sister, my dearest Leila. Naturally."

He stood and patted her head.

Her jaw dropped.

"You love me as well, I know," he said, smiling. "There is no need to speak it. I feel it here," he said, placing his hand over his heart.

"Wow. Just wow. All of that just to change the subject? You're not even fucking funny."

"Ah! Your aim is true!" he said, feigning an arrow to the heart and staggering backward. "Once again, you wound me."

They didn't dare go outside in case of drones. So Cyrus cracked the kitchen windows while they gathered around Foster's body down in the kitchen, which was as close as they dared get to the backyard vegetation.

"I don't know if it will work," Tansy said to the room.

This time, Frank kneeled beside her. "No great loss if you can't."

"It is," she said. "It always is."

She pressed her hands to the cool tile floor and closed her eyes. This time, when she passed out, Frank was there to catch her.

Foster regained consciousness suddenly and with full force. "I've told you everything I know."

Ray nodded. Frank stood against the kitchen door, arms folded.

"So what do you want?"

Frank nodded toward Tansy. "Ask her."

Tansy stepped forward and reached out. Foster flinched. "I won't hurt you," Tansy said. She unbuttoned Foster's uniform midway and gently pulled one side down to expose the woman's shoulder.

Tansy stepped back as Foster hung her head in shame.

"All this fucking time," Frank said. "How could you do it, huh?"

"I follow orders," Foster said, her voice suddenly smaller in the confines of four solid walls and the truth.

"Do they know?" Tansy said.

Foster seemed to consider something, then shook her head.

Tansy kneeled and put her hands on Foster's knees. "Come with us."

"Whoa," Ray said. Frank walked over, but Tansy put a hand up.

"We're leaving," she said. "Not because we want to. Because we don't have a choice. But you have a choice. You can stay here and keep following orders. Or," she said, standing, "you can come with us."

"Why the hell would I do that?"

Tansy whispered something to Frank. He nodded and left the room.

"Because," Tansy said, "you're one of us, and that means something. Do you even know what you're capable of? No," she said, "I didn't think so. How do you think you were healed? No idea, right? Let me show you something, okay? Then you can make up your mind and we'll leave you to it."

Tansy stepped aside and pointed to an empty corner. "Sergeant Foster, meet Leila."

Foster's eyes lit up as Leila materialized. "How...."

"That's her ability. You have abilities, too. We all do. We can help you cultivate yours. But only if you come with us."

Foster looked around the room, visibly apprehensive.

"We need you," Tansy said. Frank gave Tansy a ‘what the fuck’ look, but she continued. "We need your strength. We need fighters, because we're in for a fight. You know all about that, don't you? Right."

Foster laughed. "You think you'll get out of this alive?"

"Yes," Elio said, stepping into view.

Foster did a double take. "You... you're—"

"I am," he said, smiling.

"Why you?" she said.

He shrugged. "Why not?"