Fiona has never been one for the battlefield.

She used to stumble through Left Behind combat drills, taking triple the amount of time it took Shailene to master a skill to even barely get it right. Plus, her hands would always get too sweaty to properly grip onto a firearm and her heart would beat too fast for her to focus properly on a target.

So when they turned 18, Fiona did not insist on sitting in on missions like Shailene so eagerly did. She relished nothing about the logistics preparation, calculating the casualties, devising a weaponry plan that would best ensure success.

It'd been Fiona's mother who insisted that Fiona come along for their plot against "OP-PALINURUS", a government ploy to send a select few elite families into space and onto another habitable planet. "This is when We Are Behind's really going to make history," Madison had said, over their evening cup of tea. Fiona's memory hazes at the edges, maybe from time or maybe from the steamy tea and her sleepy yawns.

Fiona had been given a small role, watching over the weapons and supplies at a far-off drop point while everyone else went off to fight. Between the explosions and sounds of gunfire. Shailene spent nearly the entire time complaining and Fiona had to hold her back many times from just jumping onto the scene herself.

"It isn't fair," Shailene had said.

"This isn't our fight," Fiona had said, shoving against the girl's tiny frame.

"Yes, it is," Shailene snapped back. "You know it is."

Fiona has never been one for the battlefield. And that's why she had to watch as Ragnar emerged, beaten and bloody, as the sole survivor. That's why she could say nothing as Shailene grasped her shoulders, trying to turn Fiona away before she had to see it. That's why every night, Fiona has to see her mother's limp body, slack against Ragnar's shoulders.

Don't forget to breathe, her mother had said, in and out. She closed her eyes.

Fiona wanted to scream. An inside joke from her childhood. When her mother would get into one of her fits, after a particularly heated meeting, she'd look down at her docile daughter and say don't forget to breathe as if Fiona was the one who'd just told an entire room to fuck themselves. Or when Fiona would be immersed in a hot, steamy, romance novel, lying belly down on a couch, Madison would suddenly chime in from her office, delighted to make Fiona's cheek burn with crimson tint. Don't forget to breathe, honey, she'd say with a wink.

Only now, it wasn't a joke. Don't forget to breathe, her mother had said, right before taking her last breath and leaving Fiona an orphan.

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Again, the deathly click signals what's about to happen next. And again, Abin moves ever-so-slightly and a white light bursts from his hands, blinding everyone in the room. This time, Fiona squints through the overwhelming images and sees that he's using the paper scrolls he showed her earlier to wave through the air, pushing all of the bullets back towards the troops.

Except this time, they continue to fire from all directions. Fiona whips out her weapon and starts to fire back, but she can't keep up with the barrage of bullets from what must be nearly 100 Order troops. Their Sheltersuits are nothing like Fiona or Abin's. Wrapped entirely with metal plates and pipes with pressurized air that enhance their physical power, they look more robot than human. Her gaze flicks to Abin, whose scrolls are being consumed by the white light and supply seems to be dwindling by the second.

"Abin," she calls out. "We have to get them out."

He nods. She can see the exhausted determination on his face and the tense veins along his arms that are bulging through his tight civilian Sheltersuit. She can hear Kira comforting the other students through her own tears. She can see the endless drove of clones and all she can hear is stupid, stupid, stupid.

Despite the blinding light, Fiona sprints to Abin and puts a hand on his arm. "I'm going to surrender. Whatever you do, get the children out."

From here, she can see the beads of sweat crowning on his forehead. "You said we're going to fight."

"You are. Take the kids and get them somewhere safe while I distract them. You have a higher chance of surviving this than I do," Fiona pleads, feeling her voice fracture in every syllable.

His index finger moves to the front of her lips, separated by the helmet. Before Fiona can even react, Abin is tearing up the scrolls in his hands. He shoves her back towards the makeshift fort and runs outside, straight into the crowd of bodies, both alive and dead. The light disappears and there is only silence as he lifts his hands in the air. "I surrender."

All guns are still trained on him as the voice says, "And your co-conspirator?"

Abin swivels around, squinting into the darkness as if he doesn't know exactly where Fiona is standing. "Oh, my co-conspirator? She's just..."

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As his voice trails off, he whips back around and flicks the mini-pieces of scrolls at the line of clones immediately surrounding him. All of them drop dead immediately and new troops immediately rush in, shouting and firing bullets. His hands are empty now.

Fiona sprints under the desks and just grabs any limbs she can find. "Go, go, go!" she shouts, pushing their little bodies until every last one is out. She ushers them out of a side entrance, where the guards are now occupied with replacing the forces that Abin took out. Fiona fires as many shots as possible as she flees down the alleyway but she knows that there's no way she can save both him and the children at the same time.

"Fiona!"

Fiona's knocked into the ground as soon as she turns the corner, running smack into none other than Shailene Fischer. She's wearing a fully militarized Sheltersuit and looks like a force to be reckoned with. "I thought you were a school teacher. Why am I hearing about you blowing up buildings in the middle of class?"

"You need to go help Abin," Fiona says, voice hoarse as she jumps back to her feet. She almost cries in relief when she sees familiar faces of the Left Behind forces running past them and straight to the battle scene. Ragnar nods at her while lifting Ryo and Dev onto his shoulders, ushering the children to the center square.

"Who's Abin?"

"Seol Abin, the monk!"

"Wait, his name is actually Seraphin?"

"No, Seol Abin."

"What– never mind, let's go." Shailene grabs Fiona's hand and they run back towards the school. Like that, all of Fiona's anger melts away. Even though she never wants to admit it, this is what they were trained for. Running in tandem, ready to fight any fight they needed to fight. This is what their parents had died for.

With the forces of Left Behind backing them, the tide has totally changed. Fiona exchanges a relieved glance with Abin, who a member of LB ushers out of the scene while the forces of cloned troops fall back. Everywhere around her, there was carnage and violence and the chaos that Fiona had always tried so hard to avoid. Still, she pulled out her gun and began shooting indiscriminately.

Fiona has always wondered how Shailene made killing look so... elegant, if that could ever be the right word. There's a certain grace to all of her movements, as though she's performing a seductive and intricate dance rather than ending the lives of powerful people. There's a serene expression on her face, which some might mistake as heartless boredom but it's not that. It's the serenity of someone who knows exactly what they were born to do and will both live and die for their purpose in life.

With Shailene on the field, the cloned forces no longer stand a chance and the wailing siren calling for backup comes unanswered. The LB forces begin retreating and Shailene throws Fiona a lopsided smile. "I would have paid a lot more attention in second grade if this is what school was like back then."

Fiona surveys the ruin outside her classroom and the wave of masked bodies. Her ears are ringing from the adrenaline or all the gunshots, she's not sure, and smoke arises from all the familiar corners of the alleyway she crosses every morning. "This is all my fault."

Shailene rolls her eyes. "Relax, will you? You were born into a 'terrorist organization'. This was bound to happen no matter what you did."

Fiona simply stares at the empty classroom with the wall now blasted off, knowing that she will never be able to return. Shailene tries to cross over to her but she suddenly stumbles with a bark of sharp pain. "Motherfucker!"

One of the bodies on the ground holds a bloody knife, having just stabbed Shailene in the thigh. "Go ahead and run now," he says, voice weak but full of malice. "That's what you filthy terrorists always do."

Fiona runs over and grabs Shailene, pulling her away from the body with the knife. "You're all much too liberal with this 'terrorist' label," Fiona says calmly, thinking of the girl from this morning. She props Shailene against herself, trying to ignore her labored breathing.

"Commander McNamara will get you eventually."

This stops Shailene. Even while limping in pain, the girl is able to let out a jabbing laugh. "Commander McNamara? Being demoted from lieutenancy surely must be embarrassing. Looks like even your guys have enough brain to realize little Mr. Ryan McNamara's a useless piece of shit."

With Ryan McNamara's respect and legacy in the military, Shailene's comments about him are usually met with indignation. Instead, the man laughs, even through coughing up specks of blood. "She doesn't know!"

Fiona feels Shailene tense under her fingers and she tries to pull her away, feeling an odd sense from the exchange. Shailene doesn't budge. "Shailene, we have to go before backup comes."

"Maybe it's the blood loss but you're starting to make no sense," Shailene says, voice light yet steel-cold at the same time.

In response, the man flies into a violent fit of coughing. Fiona can also see the blood seeping down Shailene's Sheltersuit and she knows that there's no way it isn't burning like hell right now. "The Lieutenant is just as successful and respected as ever," he finally says. "No, there's a new Commander McNamara. Word on the street is that you might know them."

"Shailene." The girl finally stumbles back a bit when Fiona pulls her, a bit more aggressively this time. "They're waiting."

For once, there is no aloof smile or annoyed sneer on Shailene's face. "I don't take the time to get to know any bastard who's sick in the head enough to work with your side."

This sends the troops into another round of laughter and Fiona can't hold her back as Shailene rips out of her grip and calmly aims a bullet right at his temple. Silence. "Much better," Shailene says, and Fiona wonders if the slight tremor she hears is imagined.

Fiona sighs. "Let's get you fixed up."

"One second," Shailene says. She tears something off with her teeth and Fiona hears the recognizable ping of an explosive hitting the ground. It rolls around amongst the various lesson plans and hand-drawn art that Fiona's accrued over the years and sets everything aflame.

"You blew up my school," Fiona says as they watch the flames roar and kiss against every chair, every desk, every floorboard.

"It's an abandoned storage unit," Shailene says as if Fiona's being ridiculous. "No one asked you to get attached."

And with that, they hobble back in silence. Everything in Fiona hurts — her burning lungs, her sore legs, her grieving heart. But every time she glances over, Shailene's face is entirely impassive, her beautiful features wiped blank of any warmth. There is no attachment for anything ruined.

And so, Fiona mourns for her — for the childhood that made Shailene this way, for the Shailene that she used to know, and for 14-year-old girls who burn themselves at the stake. We saw the last embers of daylight die. She wonders if the girl got to see the sun one last time before her final breath. That would have been nice, Fiona thinks.