I spent a long time wondering how many people I hurt by keeping folks at arms reach. I always forget the faces after a while. All but one.

The Garage had been stocked up over the short time we had been operating. It wasn’t a lot, but we had medical gel, or medigel, which was probably the best modern advancement the world had seen when it dropped. Topically, all the slices I’d suffered had been mostly sealed. The scars would persist, but that wasn’t a big deal. In its injectable form, it was already speeding up my arms healing process. I’d be down that arm for a few weeks easily, and lethargic too. I’d also have an insanely fast bounce back.

I sat in a gamer chair I had stolen, arm in a sling, with the box on a metal plate with a thick braid of wires feeding into all sorts of hardware. My setup was, frankly, nothing impressive. I was the super computer, everything else was auxiliary. Still, the half dozen desktops, glowing in a cascade of RGB colors illuminated the entire floor whenever I turned it on against the farthest back wall of the main floor of the central warehouse.

It looked like a sci-fi movie, but that was just my flare for the dramatic. Not to say the gear wasn’t powerful compared to, say, whatever Halogen had dug up for Gaz and his Dreamer, but I was hard to impress on this front since I could do it myself.

The point of it all was to serve as an extra brain, just like my tablet was. A very dumb second brain in comparison to the original model, but useful. In this case, the scanner was hard at work decrypting the black box so I could break into it easier. I’d slept exactly six hours, and the damn thing still hadn't finished.

98% in that much time would have been faster than they’d have guessed I could crack it but my patience was waning fast.

99.

I leaned in, watching the process as windows popped up on the 90in curved monitor and flicked away just as fast all across the display.

“Come on,” I said, tapping my foot in anticipation.

The yellow bar turned green.

100%.

“Yes!” I yelled as the top of it popped open and inside a plate pushed up the thumb-drive sized device.

“Open!” Marauder yelled while jogging over. I leaned close, examining the copper colored piece of tech and let the weight of it hit me.

A top dog of the forge was dead. Someone with his fingers in all their pies. His soul, apparently, was right in front of me. Along with any ideas he’d ever had cooked up or had started working on.

Head of Research and Development.

Kento Yamadas life, if halogen wasn’t Bull shitting, was right there.

“Looks like a flash drive,” Shift commented, skidding to a stop a few feet back. “I’m gonna go get Hyo!”

I didn’t have time to respond. She was gone that quick.

Marauder pulled up a chair, staring down at our piece from the dragon’s hoard. “Surprised it didn’t have a tracker.”

“Of course it did. They chipped it. I broke their connection when we got to the car,” I responded offended. “Who do you think I am, some amateur?”

“Maybe a bit,” he commented, pointing at my arm.

“How’s that cracked rib?”

“Not broken!”

I sighed and looked down at the Psypro. We just stared until Hyo came walking down the stairs with Sileena. “Did you?” She asked.

“No,” I replied. “Frankly, I don't know where to start. I don’t even know if I should plug this in, might take over my computers.”

“I figured you would want to interface directly,” she said leaning over my shoulder.”

“And get a FORGE flavored virus?” Sileena asked, standing next to me. I suddenly felt very cramped.

“I could handle a virus. I’m more worried about some kind of tech ghost of Kento haunting my head and trying to take over.”

“Like in that game?” she asked again.

“Yeah. Like that game,” I sighed wishing her amnesia would have included pop culture. “Why do you know that?”

“Somethings kinda just pop into my head through the haze,” she shrugged.

Typical, rehearsed answer we would always get to any question having to do with her memory. Unimportant for now.

“Are you scared?” I was then asked by Gabriel. I leveled him with a glare.

“Your brain isn’t the one on the line if this falls through.”

“He’s scared,” Hyobin said, betraying our most sacred bond and united front against his chaos.

“Alright, gimme some room you fuckin vultures,” I spoke waving my good arm haphazardly to get them to sit back. “Im gonna access and see where it goes from there.”

I rolled out my neck, holding my finger over the devise. Conveniently, there was a silver circle where I’d be able to fit the width and length of my fingertip. I could feel the implicit invitation, and as the seconds droned on, the weight of everyone breathing added to the already heavy amount of pressure.

All of us jumped out of our skin as a shrieking sound echoed across the Garage, and I was the last one turned and ready for a fight. Holding the shock pistol I’d holstered on my side, I was embarrassed to see a phone ringing. Jericho was calling, which I figured out as soon as my wits were in order again.

“Santa Mierda!” Gabe growled lowering his own gun and walking to pick up my cell phone. “It’s Jehrico.” I gave him a nod, closing the top of the black box for the moment and getting up to walk over. “Hola mi amigo. Mi astustaste, tio Jay. Uh huh, no es nada. Kendrick isn’t super busy no, but… yeah yeah love you too pops.”

He tossed me the phone, and as soon as I did I connected it directly to my brain to have the conversation without needing to hold it.

“You’ve reached the desk of one badass mother fucker who’s defo at the top of the FORGE hit list at the moment, how can I help you,” I said through my own brain to his receiver.

“Congrats, you crazy fuck. You just made yourself one hell of an enemy. Well, not so much just made as increased how much animosity they have for yah. Hope it was worth it,” he said in a grave tone.

“You didn’t call to be a downer, what’s up Jehricho? Contrary to mi empleada you actually interrupted me cracking into the PsyPro.”

“Believe it or not, I’m calling to legitimately congratulate you on making some waves,” he spoke, still sounding like he was holding something back.

“Thanks.”

“But…”

“But what!?” I said with my mouth as the others stared at me.

“But I also managed to piss them off, and we out did you in the process.” My face flattened.

“You outdid me stealing the brain of Kento Yamada?”

“Absolutely. Millie and Miles led an operation in the Wastes,” he began referring to an area spanning most of the southwest where civilization wasn’t anywhere near as prim and proper. Most of that area of America was used as a hotbed of military testing and experiments both by the FORGE and it’s competitors. It’s, in fact, where the Scrap Pack got it’s beginnings. What used to be the space between Louisana and Arizona had become a smog filled Mad Max sort of chunk of lawlessness and chaos. Naturally, the FORGE operated there heavily to do things off the books, and for all the danger we’d been in on our infiltration it wouldn’t have compared to whatever those three and his Daywalkers faced. “Long story short, we broke out a shitload of test subjects from all over and demolished a detention center there.”

“Damn.”

“Damn is right,” he gloated. “And we managed to fuck up some Scrap Packers and Firewalls gang too.”

“But I have the Head of R&D literally on my desk, so I think I win.”

“They can get another guy to run R&D, shit they probably already did. I’m not gettin down on ya, lil nigga, I’m just saying mine was bigger, as usual.”

“Well, as much as I wanna stay on the line and measure dicks… I got shit to do,” I trailed off.

“Hold up, I actually was asked by a pair of identical twin shaped headaches to invite you four by for a party tonight to celebrate. Be like old times.” That much I had taken the phone off of brain-only and put on speaker when I figured where it was going. Marauder used to fuckin love those post-success parties.

“Yes,” Sileena said.

“Por supuesto que me gustaría ir a fiesta!” Gabe exclaimed, clapping his hands. Prodigy, despite herself, chuckled a little and nodded.

“Alright, I’ll send them along,” I said into the receiver.

“Send them? You not comin?” he asked.

“Yeah, nah. I got prior engagements, my guy,” I told him somberly. “Thing won’t crack itself.”

“Kenny,” a girl’s voice spoke into the receiver, velvet and violent in equal measure.

“Yeah Mills,” I sighed.

“Bring that ass here, or I’ll put it back on the hook.”

“When’s the party you fuckin demons,” I exclaimed after a quiet few seconds of pleading eyes from my teammates.

“I’ll portal you over in a few hours. I’ll call first,” he said, and then the line cut as abruptly as it had rang.

Immediately I was back in my chair. “Don’t wanna get ready, jefe?” he asked, and I almost ignored him.

“Look, a party sounds fun, and I’m gonna go, but you know what my priorities are mi pana,” I said.

Prodigy, sensing this was going somewhere, tapped Sileena.

“Help me put my hair up in those pretty buns you are fond of?” Sileena lit up like an LED and pulled her arm, without so much as a goodbye.

Marauder turned the chair around so he could rest his arms on the back of it, facing me and not the PsyPro. “Kenny,” he started, and I leveled another glare at him. “Look, I get it. Better than anyone on the entire planet besides maybe Hyo and Sileena, I get it…”

“Then why are you about to crawl up my ass about wanting to get to work?”

“Because, jefe, you’re human, despite the technobrain shit. You need time to unwind just like anyone else.”

“You think Halogen’s throwing a party right now, Gabriel? Hmm?” he stopped, letting me continue. “You think that we’re in a good spot cause we barely made it out of there in one piece? Nah, we’re just scratching the surface. This particular job was the first one that’s gonna make us real, big time enemies. Every minute we spend not working is time we aren’t catching up.”

“If you don’t take the time to rest you’re gonna be sloppy. You won’t be operating at your best in that case. Means a technoghost could get you,” he joked and I punched his arm. “Ay, chill before you hurt yourself again.”

“Fuck off,” I told him feeling a shock pain in my broken right arm. “It’s not just about the PsyPro it’s everything, dude. I cannot afford to slow down. I’ve got a goal in my sight.”

“Revenge,” he said.

“My dad wouldn’t be resting. He’d be carving a path straight to the top. It’s what he was doing when they killed him, probably.”

My father’s death was the motivator for everything I was doing. He’d raised me as a soldier, preparing me for a war he’d told me he was fighting his whole life on the wrong side of, and switched when I came into the picture.

He’d raised me to be strong. Never quit. All the good stuff. He’d also been overseas on some personal mission while I was off at MIT with Hijack and a few others fostering a skillset that would help me become who I am now. I lost contact with him, but it wasn’t the first time. Having a former secret agent father meant I would, inevitably, go months on my own.

One of those periods of silence… he never came back. That was when I’d gone to where I’d meet Gabe in South America to start my personal vendetta.

Not long after, we landed back stateside, met up with Jehrico, an old friend of my pops, and then… well the rest isn’t important.

“So no, I can’t stop. These people… these monsters are destroying this world, one day at a time. If I’m gonna finish what he started I can’t afford not to work.”

Gabe was quiet, uncharacteristically so for a long time while I stared at the damn thing.

“It’ll eat you whole,” he finally said. A warning, but also a plea.

“In a lot of ways it already has.”

“No, mi pana. It hasn’t. You’ve got life in you still. People who care. You’ve seen the husks consumed by hatred back where I’m from. What it’s done to my people. What it almost did to me before a shit-talking, nerd-ass, fuckin gringo popped up and reminded me more things exist than war and hate. Lemme do the same for him, yeah?”

I sighed. Everything was starting to get to me a bit. The air conditioning, the sound of the computers. Gritting my teeth wasn’t helping either. I looked at him, letting the pretense of togetherness fade.“Feels like every day that fire burns a little hotter. If I’m not moving towards that goal, what the fuck am I doing with my life?” He put a hand on the back of my neck and pulled our heads together.

“Living it. It’s not all on you. We’re making progress. Steps. It’s not all or nothing all the time.” He let go, sensing my calm coming back. “You aren’t a shield cell hermano. But even if you were, you gotta recharge. Celebrate success. Make up with Millie, maybe make out with Millie,” he elbowed me and I grunted.

“Yeah right. Ship’s sailed. I bet when I get there she’s gonna go off like she wanted to.”

“Or maybe the night will end with a lap full of pretty girl and a face full of tatas, try optimism.”

“Alright that's enough.”

“I’m just saying. I don’t even exclusively like women, and a rack like hers is why,” he shrugged.

“Shut the FUCK up,” I yelled to his rancorous lafter.

“There he is. Come on, just a quick breather, one night, a hungover morning, then back to work. Plus, it ain’t like we don’t got shit to work on besides that. I’m gonna be rummaging through his shit for more tech we can use and arm us up tomorrow. Shift’s been complaining about not having enough juice in her stick, and I got a hammer to… Upgrade.”

This time when I punched him, he actually did shut up.

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

Hyobin had let Sileena do her hair and makeup. Where they found make up and hair product when we were getting set up and fuckin HOW without me noticing had always at least somewhat bothered me. Like… how? Why?

Why was easy, I guess. Hyo had darker skin for a Korean girl, which I had learned never to actually comment on from the scolding she gave Gabriel over that once. The neon pink lip gloss, eye shadow and light blush actually made the most deadly woman I ever met look… cute. Which, I suppose, made sense. The two weren’t mutually exclusive. She’d dressed up her two space buns with neon, glowing pink chopsticks at Sileena’s beckoning, and it made the look. With just black jean-shorts and a tank-top under a sheer pink cardigan, she did look party ready. And conveniently sufficiently dressed to jump into a fight as well.

Sileena, for her part, hadn’t lost her fashion sense either. It was infuriating to no end that all she knew of her life was her name, but she could accessorize an all white jumpsuit and black coat like a fashionista. I could only guess the earrings, bangles and plain gold necklace had been stolen during our excursions across the state. I didn’t really care, so long as it didn’t become an obstructive habit: most of what I owned was stolen because I refuse to take part in capitalism run rampant.

To that end, Gabe and I both had on black joggers, mine with green aglets on the end of the laces. I had also taken the time to braid back my locks, and gabe had brushed down his short hair to look presentable. Black, longsleeved shirts and matching watches we’d also stolen from our days in Venezuela made the fit.

We were… comparatively bland standing by them, but it worked.

“Okay, just so we are clear, tomorrow it’s right back to work.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yes, dad,” Sileena whined. “But tonight, its all play and no work. I’ve been wanting to go to one of Jehrico’s ragers since you first mentioned it ages ago.”

“Alright, yes just remember to-”

“Drink water?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah and-”

“And make sure you take off your shoes before you fall asleep WE GET IT!” Sileena wailed.

“Okay okay. And one more thing,” I spoke as a bright blue slash in reality a few feet ahead of us opened up.

“Hmm?” Prodigy asked as the diagonal rip opened into a portal and noise assaulted our ears.

“Have some fun,” I said stepping through from the now dark Garage and into the humid, dark night where the party hadn’t waited for us to get underway.

Immediately, a familiar Daywalker named Monte patted my shoulder as we walked forward, and the crowded party absorbed us as we walked in to what looked like a block party in the desert villa. “Welcome back, Kendrick,” he said, handing me a cup full of mixed drink. “Big dog said you got taller…”

I was straining a bit to hear him, but I raised an eyebrow, moving so my arm wasn’t between us. “And?”

“Yeah, you seem bigger somehow. Like you stepped into your big boy shoes finally. It’s a good look.” Monte, who was missing a tooth, let me go and faded into the crowd again. I saw Gabe already throwing back a cup-full with an old friend of his own, and the girls had found a pack of their own.

By the time my head swivled back, Millie had a finger pressed against my chest, pushing me backwards, causing me to stumble a bit. Lucky for me, I found myself against the brick wall of… a house? From where I stood, I couldn’t really tell at a glance, what with the darkness and dizzying array of lights and tech to distract my senses.

“You tried to skip out,” she said, crossing her arms over the breasts Gabe had gotten into my head about earlier to the point I almost blushed. The two long, bright yellow braids drew my eye though, away from the low cut black shirt and black leather pants.

“Fresh dye job?” I asked and she shook her head, causing the yellow to become an even more striking green.

“Magic, as you’d recall I can do,” she teased me with a mean smirk.

“Ah, cool. Anyway, no uh, I was just gonna work. We got the thing,” I said before bringing the cup up to my lips. She snatched it before I could sip, quick but soft, and tilted it back before giving it back to me.

“I heard. Congrats,” she said, placing a hand on my broken arm softly. Those eyes, even surrounded by the piercings, looked soft as she said something under her breath I didn't catch. In the seconds that followed, I felt something warm wash through my arm. It wasn’t fixed, but it didn’t radiate with pain I was poorly ignoring anymore either. Without removing the hand she looked up at me, soft eyes turning sharp once more. “Don’t stress it out for a few days, but it should be ready for whatever shit you’ll be getting up to by then.”

“Oh. Thanks Millie…” I said somewhat unsure what else to say.

“What’s the matter Kenny?” she asked, my name sounding like a purr even as the music, hard beats and aggressive lyrics, thumped against us both. “Where’s the smart ass?”

“Honestly?” I asked her. She tilted her head, fingers tracing the makeshift cast under the fabric of the sling now. “I’m not really sure if you’re mad or not.”

“I said I was over it,” she said, “Didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but I know you,” I went on. “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, or anything but…”

She smiled, a knowing smile.

“Did you look into this conversation?”

She smiled harder. “No, Kendrick. This is authentically me, in the moment. I don’t really like using clairvoyance for things like this. The present matters a lot more than the future does, in a lot of contexts. I never want to lose sight of what’s going on in front of me chasing the future.”

My heart dropped. “Okay, deserved.”

“It was a hard lesson, but I had a good teacher.”

I almost rolled my eyes. “Goddamn, everyone’s gonna be on my head all night huh?” I asked, going for another sip of my drink, but she took it again, this time just looking at me as she drank.

“You still do that thing where you kind of just look through me like you know something I don’t.”

“The important thing I know, that you still haven’t figured out, is that I told you I processed it. I’m over it.”

“But.”

“But seeing you kind of ripped open that wound again. Shit, Kenny I’ve been shot, stabbed, tased, burned and all kinds of other shit, and half of that was Miles in one of his moods while we were practicing spellcraft together, but that all was different. My first REAL boyfriend abandoned me. You don’t really get to have a free pass back without taking some shit for it.”

Fair.

“But…” she trailed off after finally releasing me from a supremely high amount of uncomfortable eye contact. “We can chat later on, when it’s less noisy. Come find me once you’ve had a few and I’ve had a few and maybe we can catch up a bit?”

“I’d be one deep if you hadn’t taken my drink!” I called after her as she sashayed into the crowd. For someone who was supposed to be relaxing, I definitely did NOT feel like I was. To that end, I found my way to Gabe and the makeshift bar where a cocktail was waiting for me. “My special? Oh you do care,” I told him and he handed me the Last Word.

“Seemed appropriate after what you probably went through,” he admitted. I threw back the cocktail in one long drain, looking at the bartender who frowned at the waste of good mixed alcohol, and smiled amicably.

“Can we do two shots of Mezcal?” I asked him. Gabe turned to look at me with a mean smile.

“Sure, Banhez okay?” he asked. I gave a nod. “Chilled?”

“Fuck no,” Gabe said. “And no lime, we’re gettin hairy tonight.” I laughed, and we fist bumped.

“Make it four!” Sileena said, blurring into place after a Shift between us, Hyobin a few steps behind. Two more shot glasses were poured.

“A toast?” Hyobin asks with one hand on her waist?

“Without me? Damn, nice way to show appreciation,” Jehrico commented, walking over with Miles and a reluctant Millie, who really had intended to find somewhere that didn’t have me present at the party.

“Oh hey. Thanks for the invite Jehrico,” I said as we clasped hands, pulled apart and hit our fists together. “Uh… yeah fuck it might as well join up too. It’s your liquor anyway.”

Seven total shots, and all of us holding them up. “Alright, I got the toast,” I said.

“Nah, you’re gonna say something lame,” Gabe said stepping to the center. “This calls for tradition, amigos! AHEM!” He said and somehow it felt quieter around us.

“Here’s to the Daywalkers!” he called.

“Here’s to you and yours!” we yelled back as he spun around conducting the tune.

“Fuck death for one more night!” he yelled, holding the glass high.

“But mostly FUCK THE FORGE!” we yelled to lots of cheers as we threw the drinks back.

One more.

Two more.

Another three.

I found myself watching Hyo and a man with an arm as thick as her head in an arm wrestle, veins popping out of his forehead as he flexed. She smiled, cheeks aglow, and winked at him as he struggled to move her and inch.

She flexed back, and he fell on the floor. Even with my slightly-blurry vision I clearly made out the look of surprise on his face as she, easily less tipsy than me despite having as much to drink, crossed one leg and leaned forward to collect the money she’d just won. The tears streaming down my face as I laughed at the situation made it all the sweeter for Hyo, who could be a teeny bit prideful from time to time. “Who is next? Maybe two at a time you stand something of a chance?”

Two shots later, Gabe and I found ourselves leading a line dance in the middle of the dance floor that we’d learned from the folks surrounding us called the Ballroom Hustle. “Come on jefe, you still dance like you’re reading from a blueprint! It's four steps!” he teased.

“Look, im tipsy okay, and this dance ain’t just four goddamn steps it’s complicated!”

Hell, another two shots, and somehow I was keeping up with Sileena who, despite my best efforts with feeding her everything I could find, could not get drunk. Though we were both starting to feel it, I knew she could sober up in an instant if she started burning through it with her power. Me? I just had to slow down. Hard when she was kicking my ass in a card game so bad I had to imbibe from my alchemical-alcholic brew every other hand, but nevertheless I pulled out a win in the end, and she ended up no worse for wear after downing her own.

I’d had enough to drink that when the BPM slowed down enough that few couples found each other, including Gabriel finding himself in the middle of a couple actually, I found my fingers threading through Millie who smiled that damn smile up at me, toothy and full of lighthearted malice as she turned and pressed her back against me. She guided my free, non-restricted hand to wrap tight around her waist and let the rhythm carry us to sway.

Gabriel had made fun of my dancing, but the friction here, was the right kind. The way we fit together, the curve of her body and the way we just knew what to do… it was something I could, and once upon a time had, gotten completely lost in. There was little defense my mind could bring to bear against the magic she worked with the little shimmies and bumps she subjected me to. She turned in my hand, and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, eyes locking onto mine just long enough to jar me out of my stupor. To remind me that this embrace, no matter how sweet, no matter how easy, wasn’t for me.

And she just laughed and pushed me away, disappearing into the haze and leaving me to my thoughts again.

One bottle of water and a few songs later, and I landed on a bed inside of Jehrico’s safehouse, door closed and locked.

I could feel my heartbeat thumping through my entire chest once we were alone, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Millie’s breath was hot against my lips as she haphazardly landed on top of me.

“Are we doing this?” I ask pulling back a bit .

“Would you rather we not?” she asked, pausing in her position straddling me. I didn’t want to say no. I really didn’t.

“Fuck,” I whisper as deft fingers curl around my neck and apply the lightest pressure. I feel her tongue on my cheek, teasingly light. She knows when I shudder and my one good arm finds its way around to grab the soft but firm skin of her ass that she’s got me.

Her lips and mine collide, tearing a floodgate open. My tongue pries it’s way into her mouth and curls around hers. She reciprocates and I am lost in remembering how possessive her kisses always were. How intensely she could convey what she wanted without needing to talk.

I never learned the language well enough to speak it, but I could answer the call nonetheless. She moans into my lips as I drag my nails across the fabric and the digits find their way to grab the bottom of her shirt. Hers are already successfully navigating the locks that keep my pants buckled. The relief from the restricting fabric is more than welcome. Her hands sliding in to grab at her prize far more so as her teeth nip at my list, and with a twist and pull of her head she locks eyes with me.

I manage to over turn her position, and dive in for the sweet spot in her neck where if I sink my teeth in just right -

“Mmf Kenny,” she whispers, nails piercing the skin of my arm. “If you leave a mark… oh fuck.”

I smile, mean and toothy, pulling away and absolutely leaving a mark. Challenge accepted. She snaps a finger. The dim light goes out, and any semblance of restraint is gone.

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

Millie and I laid there, fingers of my good hand threaded in hers, sweat beaded on our heads, halfway to being fully clothed again but just… laying there. Enjoying being in each others presence. Remembering how the ever changing eye color settled on warm browns. How her full lips were often pulled into taunting smirks and then soon after opened to howl in pleasure.

It all reminded me of hpw more often than not she’d have her lips pressed against mine after a job went well and I was nursing a fresh wound.

She leaned on her arm, I had my head on a pillow.

I felt surprisingly comfortable.

“So,” she said. “What did I miss out on?”

“Broad question,” I commented. “I uh… picked up a couple of strays.”

“Yeah, Hyobin made Kris take an L in an arm wrestle. I think he fell in love. What’s her story?” she asked, letting my hand go to trace her sharp nailed finger down one of the freshly healed scars on my neck softly.

“She’s… a special case among special cases. Woman turned into a weapon and put on ice to be activated only for upgrades or missions. She was, at one time, the greatest weapon the FORGE had access to. And she’s also… 69 years old technically. She was born the year the Korean Conflict ended and kidnapped in ‘63.”

“Fuck…” she breathed looking concerned. “She looks… not a day over 20. Cryo tech was that good then?”

“I don’t know the FULL story, but the way she tells it, and she doesn’t say a lot, she was preserved on ice via tech and her innate control over Yin and Yang, or whatever. I’d say more, but I don’t know much for sure besides that she has a few bones to pick just like me, and when I first encountered her she would have killed me if she didn’t have a built in kill switch. I barely managed to activate quick enough to shut her down.”

“Oh shit, she nearly killed you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Actually, I always forget everyone doesn’t know this but… she’s why I only have one real eye. She was about to stab all the way through. It was a half second difference between the kill switch on her and the one on me, if you catch my drift.”

“Damn, if only you were slower,” she childed. I laughed despite the face I made at her, and her own was still the cackling cacophony I remembered. Made me melt every time I heard it.

“I will admit, the fake eye was a bit of a surprise when you got back.”

“Why didn’t you ask about it?” I asked genuinely

“Marauder explained the whole thing while you were out cold. What do you mean Yin and Yang thing?”

“Some kind of magical superpowers she leans into to empower herself.” She made a face at me, something akin to disbelief.

“Is this you not understanding magic again?”

“What, no she literally does magic,” I explained.

“I’m just saying you don’t really grasp magic in any practical or esoteric or even menial sense…”

“Millie.”

“I only question because she doesn’t smell like any praticing mage.” Now it as my turn to make a face at her instead of the other way around.

“Magic has a scent?”

“To be so smart, you sure are dumb. We went over this so many times.”

“How often did I have to help you fix your laptop? And how often did I call you dumb for it?”

“Touche. Yes, magic has a smell but it’s not exactly how I mean it. Magic has a… presence to it. Once you’ve began to practice it presents itself to you in ways you can understand, sort of how you explained digi-space.”

“No one calls it that.”

“Whatever, you know what I mean. She doesn’t seem like a practitioner to me.” She let the matter go when I shrugged it off because there was no way I could explain shit having to do with magic, especially a little drunk.

She pushed me onto my back and straddled me, forcing me to look up at her as she reached into her bra for a lighter, and her back pocket for a joint. I am not ashamed to admit my hand’s followed her hand there, and lingered a bit too long. “Still partake?” she asked not seeming to mind all too much.

“I haven’t in a long time, but I will,” I acquiesed as she hit it first, then passed it to me. As I filled my lungs with a familiar strain of marijuana, she blew smoke into the air, and spoke another incantation, swirling it into a dancing silhouette, bouncing to the thump of music outside.

“So, tell me about the redhead,” she asked.

“Oh, sure,” I coughed out. “That one’s easy. She was in a FORGE lab in a cell and I saw her cowering in the corner. I kinda felt bad because the mission was a smash and grab, but we got faulty info. It was completely by chance that we set a bunch of experiments free, but she didn’t run. She just kept glitching around in the cell they had her in. Prodigy, Hyobin’s nickname, managed to catch her mid shift and pulled her into a hug. To this day, I don’t really get why, but that was enough to calm Shift long enough for her to pass out. We couldn’t just leave her so… we didn’t.”

“And now you have a new super powered misfit in your care,” she said after blowing another smoke-person to dance with the first, and a ring around them.

“Yeah basically. I guess Jehrico rubbed off on me a bit,” I admitted. “She doesn’t remember anything about herself. But it’s weird… like there’s a block in her mind preventing her memories from surfacing. She knows how to drive, about pop culture dating back to the mid 2000s so our best guess is she’s around 20-22. Besides that, nothing. Didn’t even have anything in her file within that lab besides experiment notes.” She reached down, and I gave her my hand again, which led to her having to lean forward to give me the joint to drag.

“After that mission we sort of made a name on quick hits and skirmishes, which you’ve heard about I’m pretty sure,” I said after coughing up a lung. “Trying to separate my name from the Daywalkers is… a work in progress. But I guess for what it’s worth, I’ll never really get rid of it.”

“Do you want to?”

I was quiet, watching the dancing shapes over us.

“No. But I have to.”

She squinted a bit, and I creased my brow. “Do you?”

“Yes, I do. If I don’t,” I began but the words didn’t come.

“I get it,” she said as the shapes blew away and she took a long drag.

I let the quiet hang like a Sword of Damocles

“I never wanted to hurt you,” I choked out, and not because of the smoke. “But when I was here…” She placed her hand on my lower abdomen, making my heart flutter for the memory it invoked. “I felt something calling me from inside.”

She watched me, eyes aglow with magic in the dimly lit guest room, but I was beyond keeping up an appearance. “I saw a future with you and the Daywalkers. Long, happy. A rebel with a cause, but happy to be part of something bigger than that. Hell, maybe I could even be a leader in my own right around here. And you know what else I saw? I saw the future where I did whatever I had to to give the FORGE what they deserve. That future isn’t one where we are all happy…” I said, taking another drag, and she didn’t say anything as I blew the smoke, staring at the ceiling. “I saw… you dying. Or Miles. Or Jehrico or any of them. Dead like my dad, and all because you followed me into the fray. Got wrapped up in my crusade. It scared me because all of you fight to live. Me? I’m fighting to destroy something. That’s what Marauder, Prodigy, Shift and Upgrade are. Destroyers. The apex of us, in a lot of ways. When I go home tomorrow, it’s going to be back to the business of trying to murder a movement corrupting the world, and that’s the kind of goal that poisons you. I can’t let you be swept up in this path I’ve decided to walk.”

“Unless it’s to use my powers,” she spat, and I sighed.

“That’s not the same thing,” I told her.

“Why the fuck isn’t it?”

“Because you can shoot fire from your hands and go home to your family and have something I can’t ever be happy with while the FORGE still lives.”

She glared. “Don’t hide behind them. You said it already. You were afraid of losing us like you lost your dad,” she said stabbing to the heart of it.

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But that’s why I have to be something else. Why I left.”

“You think you spared us by leaving? Protected us?” I went to speak and she kept going, eyes glowing a familiar, angry crimson. “In case you didn’t notice, nigga, I’m at least 10 times more powerful than you, and there’s two of me in the world. We don’t need protection. And you don’t need to pretend you’re anything but a coward.”

We both winced.

But there it was. Out in the open, where we could confront them, our feelings had been laid bare.

“Well… shit, I thought you said you were over it,” I said, wiping a tear from my own face.

“Guess I learned to lie from you too,” she spoke getting off of me and sitting at the edge of the bed.

“Come on,” I said, and she sighed, letting the fury go before the room started to smell like hell fire.

“That was uncalled for, sorry.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it Mills.” I let the silence hang in the room for a little while before I asked, “What now?”

She took a deep breath. “Now we’ve got it off our chests for real, and I don’t know if it feels better or worse. But, somehow I still can’t hate you. I don’t know if I forgive you… but I think I understand why you left us. Left me. I can live with it.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I told her, and it was weaker than I wanted my apology to be.

“But you’d do it again.” I didn’t need to agree. Silence was it’s own response sometimes. “You know, I really am glad you’re okay. I prayed the gods would keep your dumbass safe,” she spoke. “Someone must have been listening.” She returned to my eyes, removing the mask of the enigmatic she had been wearing and let a tear roll down her freckled cheek.

I wiped it away gently, careful of the makeup, and she looked away. She got up, and walked out of the room. I didn’t get up, feeling the high crash into a wall. The real reason she’d asked me here was done, and while I’d just felt my heart torn out of my chest, it at least felt like closure when she turned around, looked at me and gave a smile less sad than it was understanding.

“Want me to retwist your locks in the morning?” she offered. “Your hair is getting ratty.”

“Just a quick touch up?” I asked. “On a time table.” She gave a nod.

“See you then.”