I saw Jack's face, once again.

I never thought I would. Not after what he had done. Not after he robbed everything good away from us and ran.

By his raised brows and startled gaze, he probably never expected seeing me again either.

The room was an obscenely long and narrow rectangle, and the far wall stood opposite the door, distant like the end of a corridor. Bookshelves, mostly empty, lined the walls on either side, leaving a dim aisle down the middle.

I closed the door behind us. Jack shuffled back, away from me.

"How did you find me?" he questioned.

"Why does it matter to you?" I replied.

Fate, that was what it was. I could've found him any time I wanted, with my upgraded radar, the Eye of Odin. But I never chose to. Rather, it was fate that led our paths to cross here, in spite of me.

I stared into his eyes, then at his subtly heaving chest.

"We have unfinished business," I said.

Jack continued to back away, slowly. One of his hands crept underneath his gray cloak. His leather armor glistened in the flickering candlelight that cascaded down from the chandeliers.

"Our business was finished," he told me, his words cold and edged. "We were all being hunted. And I took care of that, and we went our separate ways."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I poured my mana into the railgun. Streams of frigid air and raw arcana swirled into its barrel, and they coalesced into a Frost Missile. The projectile spun, faster and faster, until it emitted a lethal hum.

"Sophia, get a grip," Jack snarled. "You were about to get us all killed. You, me, the two of us, we were the only ones that had a chance at making it out alive. She was beyond our help. But you didn't see that, did you? You didn't care to see that. You couldn't save everyone, so you didn't care to save anyone."

"The words of a traitor," I said.

He brandished his dagger and wound his arm back. A throwing stance. Baring his aggression, out in the open? How uncharacteristically forthright.

"I did all the work!" Jack spat. "I was the one who got my hands dirty! To bail us out, when no one else did!" Pain soaked through his voice as he spoke. "You had it handed to you, Sophia. You were free to live. I really wanted that for you. For us both. But you just had to throw it away, didn't you?! You killed Cirrus. And marched yourself right through their gates! It doesn't matter what happens to me here. You aren't gonna make it out alive. And you've got yourself to blame."

Ah. Jack. Still speaking of "us." As though we were still the same team of bold adventurers, sharing an apartment in a quaint little city. Jack was there when I was looking for a job, and when I clashed with Headmaster Fink. He sat with me and gave me advice, I remembered. We rarely saw him around the house; him and Atlas were the two that didn't end up working at the Combat Institute. Hei and Saber and I felt like our own littler group, since we spent so much time together. But of course, we knew that in the end, everyone was in it together. Against every peril, against the unknowable powers out in the world, all we could rely on was each other.

We had something good, Jack. But the death games and the bounty hunters took it away. And they took you.

My Frost Missile and Jack's dagger flew forth, simultaneously at each other, as synchronized as our attacks had ever been.