Ash's hands were trembling as he stood over the black man's unconscious body. His mind was blank with both disbelief and fear. Everything he had tried to avoid a similar future to the one before, had only backfired. Now along with his desperation of finding the missing Emma was the worry that he might not be able to walk out of this room alive to start searching for her.

Realizing that the eyes glaring at him were becoming more and more impatient and unfriendly, Ash willed his mind to focus with great difficulty. He gingerly placed his trembling hands over the wound and tried to summon his healing power. But it just so happened that this skill was totally unreliable in critical situations. Ash could feel the familiar rush of warmth that usually swept through his veins whenever he used his power. But no matter how much he squeezed there didn't seem to be a response. Instead a dull pain was felt close to his heart. Ash had been experiencing these occasional stabbing pains ever since the raid at the hospital... no the discomfort had been plaguing him way before that... He had just been in denial until now since only recently did the pain and discomfort got intense enough for him to gasp each time it came.

Seeing that nothing was happening even after a long time, Rhys couldn't take it anymore. His eyes were bloodshot as he strongly believed that Ash was now stalling for time in order to finish off his brother who was clinging to the last tread of life. 'He was the one who shot him so obviously he wouldn't want to save him' Rhys's thoughts were in disarray. 'But Ash is the only one who can save him at this moment.' This conflict made him frustrated. Seeing the hands on top of the wound finally fall away as if giving up, Rhys lost all his reason. He rushed at the unprepared Ash and gabbed him harshly by the collar. The sudden friction burned the Skin on Ash's neck, leaving a long red line. A hiss of pain left his lips as he looked up with horror swimming in those blue eyes. .

Seeing the sight a slight feeling of guilt filled Rhys's heart. Yet at that Moment the fear of losing his brother was greater than any other emotion and thus he shouted in the boys face. "Why are you stopping". Ash reflexively flinch but there was no response to his questions. This infuriated Rhys further. So much so that he couldn't stop the impulsive punch thrown at the boy. Ash groaned with pain as he clutched his stomach.

"I swear if you cannot save my brother today, you will experience what 'living hell' is like." Rhys gritted his teeth and followed with another underhanded statement to make Ash believe that he meant what he said. "Not only you but even that little girl you are so fond of will be thrown out as Zombie fodder."

Rhys watched as Ash's eyes widened at what he said. At first there was shock and then disbelief as he asked "So Emma was in your hands all along?". Because of his worry about his brother's condition, Rhys had temporally forgotten that the Little Girl whom he had threatened with was currently missing. Following the disbelief, Ash was furious, "She was with you and you had me looking for her for the past several weeks aimlessly? Letting me B-Blame others for what you d-did?" His words were crumbling and his body was shaking with anger as Ash clenched his hands into fists.

Although Rhys knew that he was causing a terrible misunderstanding, he only cared about saving his brother at that moment and thus didn't mind keeping the act up. "So what! Test my patience anymore and she will suffer". He pushed the bewildered Ash towards the unconscious man harshly and walked back towards the chair to monitor the boy.

Ash's thoughts turned complicated. He had been losing sleep and being distressed with worry for the past several weeks looking for Emma. Although he searched everywhere he could that was accessible, he had not found any trace of her but now with Rhys's words, didn't he mean that the little girl had always been with him, under his control, hidden away somewhere. Only...Ash couldn't figure out the purpose of doing so. 'Maybe it was for sear enjoyment in watching others suffer. Or it could be to ensure that he didn't take any actions against those team members Rhys was in charge of during that mission when he was betrayed and abandoned? Or it must be because of his healing power. Rhys must want someway to control him.' Now he knew why his instincts were telling him to keep quiet about his powers in the beginning. Ash felt his heart turn cold and wisps of anger and pain swirled inside his stomach trying to find a way out.

After a moment of silent stupor, Ash straightened himself and refused to look at Rhys. 'Kyle hasn't done anything to him and it was indeed his fault for the man's situation. For Emma he would try again. He had made a promise that he would look after her and ensure her safety and he intended to keep his promises unlike someone else.' But... he needed to ensure that Rhys would keep his word this time.'

This time... Ash decided that he won't come up with any of the numerous excuses like he always did to try and not leave the group. This time... he wanted out! "So you are saying that after I heal Kyle, you will return Emma to me and leave us alone from now on and we won't have anything to do with each other?"

There was a long moment of silence before Ash finally heard the 'Yes' that he was waiting for. For some reason his eyes stung and became moist. Yet he refused to shed tears no matter what. 'Yes this is for the best.'

Ash fought through the pain and forced himself to will out the power from within him. Unlike the last time, this time, Ash felt a cracking and tearing sensation in his body. The pain was so extreme that cold sweat started to form on his forehead. His eyes started to swim with dizziness and his throat felt nauseous. The pain was similar to the time when he was almost devoured alive by zombies. Ash looked at the body underneath his hands and saw that it was slowly starting to knit back the muscles and organs through which the bullet passed as well as pushing out the toxins in his body along with the virus. But the process was really too slow and with each second passed, the pain was intensifying. An agonised scream threatened to come out of his mouth. He quickly shot a sneaky look at the man sitting across from him and clenched his teeth, refusing to show any signs of weakness. The cloths on his back were already drenched through and this hair was wet and stuck to his forehead.

After what felt like forever, The wound was fully closed and Kyles bloodstream was clean. Now all they had to do was wait for the man to wake up by himself. Ash felt like he was on the brink of passing out, but he willed himself to stay awake and stated "I-It's done". Immediately Rhys got to his feet in a hurry and pushed him away to check on his brother's condition. There was a pool of blood around him from forcing out the virus and thus looked a little pale due to the blood loss but other than that, he looked fine. Rhys checked the monitoring devices attacked to the man and although he couldn't really read them, he could see that Kyle was stable. Only then did he sigh in relief.

Suddenly he remembered that he still had to deal with the perpetrator who put his brother in this situation in the first place. Now that the worry of his brother's imminent death had passed, Rhys realised how angry he really was. He hated betrayers the most. His furious accusing eyes fell on Ash and saw him leaning weakly against the wall. His posture was so pitiful that the anger vanished in Rhys for a moment. 'He must be acting to gain sympathy and shake off responsibility.' Rhys gritted his teeth and grabbed the boy by his arms and threw him out of the room towards the waiting crowd. "Luke, Lock him up." After that he ignored everything else and strode back into the room to guard his brother.

Luke followed his instructions and against a few people's objections, took the boy to a room and locked him inside. No one was allowed in until Rhys said so.

Ash was already half delirious when he arrived at the room. He weakly looked around and saw that it was an office of some sort. Yet he was the only one in it. Ash felt a gagging sensation again and couldn't stop the liquid that forced its way out of his throat. He looked at his hands in shock as it was dyed in red. Before he could register his situation another mouthful of blood poured out of his mouth and formed a small pool on the floor. Soon after all the strength left Ash and he collapsed while losing consciousness.

__________

Rhys was frustrated. Its been several days since that day when Kyle was shot, yet his brother was still unconscious. The doctors who checked him just said that it was mostly due to the heavy blood loss and slight trauma of the incident. There was nothing they could do but wait.

Even with Ash personally healing him, he couldn't regenerate lost blood cells, they had to be slowly formed by the body. Along with the lack of equipment and blood bags, they could only leave everything to fate. Ever since that day, rumours had already spread how Ash was a miracle drug of some sort and that he had the ability to cure the virus. Since then people had been clamoring around their residence to let Ash heal them for even the tiniest cuts. Rhys had forcefully suppressed them all and kept the boy completely locked up. Even he hadn't had the time to go and interrogate him. People were calling him a tyrant and heartless yet he didn't care. All Rhys thought was that if his brother didn't make it out of this situation, then the boy was dead. Even the people from the lap were terrorized away by his attitude.

Since Kyle had stabilized, Rhys had calmed down significantly. It gave him time to process what had happened and think up reasons for it. Rhys had been feeling more comfortable recently with Ash so that he had let down his guard a lot. There was some kind of magnetism the boy had that let him believe that Ash was harmless. Even after all the vision be had of the future, Rhys had been swayed away from getting rid of him time and time again.

Yet Ash proved again and again that it was a mistake to think so. The nagging feeling that had been with him ever since he saw the walls of the refugee camp which was similar to the ones in his visions should have been warning enough. Yet Rhys had decided to push aside his doubt as he knew that Ash held no animosity to anyone in their group. Least of all Kyle. Kyle was always very friendly and kind towards him. He was also one of the people Ash was comfortable around. If he had any malicious thought, it would have been towards yours truly only.

After putting aside the anger and thinking deeply on it, Rhys new that Ash wouldn't harm anyone willingly. If he was that shrewd, Ash would have just left Rhys to die that day in the hospital rather than shielding him with his own body than taking the trouble of exposing his ability by healing him. Yet it was true that it was Ash's bullet that hit Kyle. Now all his hesitation on getting rid of him before has led to Kyle being shot.

Fear was the first thing that overtook him as he saw Kyle fall down into a pool of his own blood. Once he had confirmed that unlike in his vision the bullet had only hit his chest rather than the head, he had felt relieved. After that was anger. He hadn't even given Ash an opportunity to explain as he trusted the vision and blamed Ash for the attempted murder. He had dragged him away to heal his brother without letting him speak.

Rhys had studied the rifle that Ash used and had figured out how it worked. Even though it was a homing rifle, it was in its very early stages. The bullets fired couldn't deviate too far away from the point that was aimed at. Rhys had been observing the boy constantly throughout the fight. The boy had consciously tried hard to fire away from the direction, the team was coming from. Yet the bullet still hit his brother. That could only mean one thing....

He needed finding the boy and confront him about the incident. His anger hadn't subsided completely. Kyle had almost died. He would never let anyone harm his brother. Even if it is someone who saved his life before. Until the boy was found not guilty, he would be treated as the culprit. So if his hypothesis is true then the boy can go free.

On that curtesy of owing his life to the boy, Rhys would hold himself back and make sure not to harm the boy until everything was sorted. Rhys quickly rushed through the entire camp before he found the room on the second floor were the boy was kept. It was heavily guarded by armed men but still an annoying crowd was formed outside. Numerous People had squished into the narrow corridor. The majority of them were injured to varying degrees.

"I said to keep oder. You will get your turn." A shout boomed from the front of the crowd. Rhys recognised the voice instantly. Luke. He observed the situation for a bit and figured out what was going on. Just like him, Luke was also affected by the attack on Kyle. But unlike Rhys who was guarding Kyle's side this whole time, Luke took it into his hand to make the boy miserable. He must have figured out that beating the boy up doesn't do much as he heals quickly, so he turned to profiting out from Ash's ability. People were willing to pay heftily in order to verify that their wounds were not infected and to recover from their heavy wounds. The quicker they were back on their feet the better their situation in the camp would be.

"What is going on here?" Rhys asked his voice a bit chilling. Luke noticed his presence instantly and faltered slightly. Seeing him lost for words, Rhys just stated, "Clear them all out" before pushing the door open to enter the room.

As soon as he entered he could hear the sound of whispered arguments. He observed his surrounding curiously. The room was used as an office. A desk stood to a corner with several files on top. The cupboard next to it had its doors wide open and searched through. At the centre of the room stood a large couch which must be what the owner used to sleep. He couldn't find Ash at first glance instead two other people who weren't supposed to be in here in the first place were standing next to the couch. Isabella and Jule seemed to be too engrossed in their argument that they hadn't noticed Rhys yet. He swept another quick glance of the room and still couldn't find Ash. Then he noticed the door that seemed to connect to the bathroom. It was tightly shut. 'He must be in there.'

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"What are you two doing here?" Rhys asked. The sound brought the two people in heated argument back to reality and they finally noticed his presence. He was a bit annoyed to find so many obstacles in having a chat with the boy.

"Rhys you are finally here" Isabella hiccuped as the sight of him brought back the memories of her husband being shot and tears welled in her eyes.

Rhys ignored her weeping and coldly asked "shouldn't you be at Kyle's side?" He had assumed that the woman was too heart broken to see her husband in such a vulnerable state and that was why she hadn't showed up too often the past few days. Who would have known that she was holed up here. Rhys looked at the gun in her hand and had a feeling he knew why she was in this room. It was confirmed when she started narrating her grievances as she cried pitifully. She had wanted to vent her anger but it looked like Jule had gotten in her way and they have been in a dead lock for the past few days.

Jule on the other hand did not give any explanation for his presence. He couldn't take any sides or justify his actions right now. Rhys could see that Jule was conflicted but like a loyal dog he stubbornly stuck to Ash's side to protect him. That was some devotion he had there. It irritated Rhys to no ends.

"Where is Ash?" Rhys finally asked after getting tired of listening to Isabell rant for several minutes.

"The bastard has locked himself in the toilet. Its been almost an hour and it seems like he is not planing to come out without force." Isabell sneered as she raised her gun ready to rain the door with bullets.

Rhys became more annoyed at her action and grabbed the gun away from her. He knew that she was in a dark place right now. He was also feeling terribly about the whole situation. But accidentally gunning down the boy was not on his agenda. Especially in the off chance that he was actually innocent.

"The both of you should leave right now. I have something to talk with Ash and afterwords we will decide what to do with him." Isabella wanted to argue but when she saw his angry glare, she decided to stay quiet and follow his instructions for now. As soon as she left Rhys's eyes fell on Jule who was still stubbornly standing there and eyeing him like an enemy. "What? You need a special invitation to leave?"

"I would rather stick around to ensure nothing goes out of hand." Jule calmly stated.

"Haha what do you think I will do to the guy for you to go all mother hen on me?" Rhys laughed in anger. Not many people had the guts to keep defying him. Jule being one of them was thus an eyesore.

Jule remained silent for a moment and then said, "I don't believe Ash would do something like that." His voice was very confident as he said so.

Rhys eyed the man curiously for a moment and then decided to play along, "Surprisingly I also don't think he has it in him."

"Then why are you here?" Jule was confused. As soon as he saw Rhys barge in he had assumed that he was tired of waiting and finally wanted to pummel the boy. But it seems he had misunderstood?

"That has nothing to do with you now does it?" Rhys's voice was losing patience again. Jule didn't budge and continued to stare him down. So Rhys had no choice but to answer properly, "I just want to have a chat with him."

Jule looked at him with distrusting eyes. But he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as Rhys seemed much calmer than he had initially expected the man to be. "All right. I will step out. But remember that Ash is right now very fragile, both mind and body. So its best if you don't do anything unnecessary." There was a heavy warning in his voice but Rhys only felt like scoffing. 'How is he fragile? The one person who can come back from the brink of death within minutes can not be called fragile.'

Both of them had different thoughts as Jule finally left the room and decided to stay guard outside with Luke. In case he heard anything scattering or screaming, he would rush in to help out.

As soon as the room cleared out, Rhys made his way to the closed door and tried to push it open. To his surprise, it was actually not locked. The first thing he noticed was the smell of alcohol and diffused in it, the faint smell of blood.

Blood? A thought flittered across his mind and he dashed into the relatively large bathroom, scared. Suddenly Rhys heard a hiccup and his eyes darted towards the sound coming from the corner. He stood rooted in place for a moment by the sight he saw. Unconscious to him, his mouth slightly fell ajar and for a moment he forgot his reason for coming there.

The large window in the bathroom was pushed wide open and Ash was sitting on the window sill with one leg propped up to his chest while the other dangled over the edge to the outside. The soft night breeze from the open window blew in and lifted up his pale brown strands. The light of the crescent moon cast a mesmerising halo over his figure, drenching his already pale skin in silver light. At that moment he gave off the impression of an enchanting fairy who visited the night. Ash had his head placed against the wall, looking out the window and was deep in thought. Whatever he was thinking about seemed painful as his eyebrows furrowed every now and then. A deep sigh left his lips as a pained smile graced his lips. He suddenly swung the half empty alcohol bottle in his hand for another long sip. This action broke the mesmerising vision his previous posture held. Rhys quickly scanned his wrists to make sure they weren't cut and bleeding. Only when he found no cut wounds did Rhys let out the breath that he hadn't even realized he was holding. As if feeling an intense gaze on him, Ash turned his head and looked at the rooted Rhys. After the initial surprise of seeing the man, Several emotions quickly flickered through the lightly red puffy blue eyes. He had been crying.

Once Ash turned his face towards him, Rhys finally noticed the several wounds that littered over his body. His lips were cut and he was sporting a black right eye. The whole right side of his face looked swollen and there seemed to be further deep dark bruisings around his neck and peaking out from his T-shirt. It looked like some people who were not okey with the situation had come over to show their dissatisfaction with the boy. Although Rhys felt a rage build up in his stomach, he still wondered, 'Why is he so bruised up when his ability could instantly heal them? Or is it that the trauma was much greater than what he saw now and his skill could only heal this much in the past few days? He also looks quiet exhausted and his skin was very unhealthily pale. He was also much thinner than 5 days ago. Has he been starving himself?'

Just as Rhys was observing Ash, Ash was doing the same. After a moment he gave the man a wry smile before placing his other leg down over the sill and moving closer to the edge. 'Maybe I should jump?!' He thought as he looked through his blurry vision at the ground several stories down. Before he could make up his mind, he felt someone move closer to him and quickly snapped his head back warily only to find Rhys there with his hands outstretched, whether to grab him or to push him was unknown.

On that day when he was first thrown into this room, he had almost coughed out his whole stomach. Then he had indeed passed out in his own pool of blood. When his eyes had closed, he had though he would die. And to be honest more than fear, he had been slightly relieved at the thought. But then when he regained his consciousness, Jules had been next to him. He had never seen the guy look so freaked out. Ash was out for a whole day and Jules had found him when he came to check on him. The sight of him collapsed like that must have frightened the man to heaven and back because, he became so fussy that Ash was bewildered. His whole body had been in pain but Jule took care of changing him out of the blood soaked cloths, burning them and cleaning up the floor. Jule wasn't always allowed to be in the room. After all this was a detainment. But every opportunity he got, Jule would rush over with food and drinks. Surprisingly he only asked the first time what the issue with his body was. After Ash refused to answer, he never brought up the question again.

Whenever Jule wasn't around some people who apparently had grieves with him would come over to showcase their power and dominance. Luke was among them so was Isabell. The cuts and bruises on his body thus increased yet they were also being healed. But soon they figured out how to profiteer out of him. Then came the stream of patients. At fist Ash was against doing as they asked of him, but soon it turned to a threat with a gun against his head. He didn't have much choice. As such day after day, he was forced to heal 30-40 people. Some with simple injuries while others more severe. Still this didn't stop them from venting their anger on him whenever they felt like it. And Ash soon noticed that his body had stopped to self heal. He was using up so much power on treating others that there was none left for himself. The situation only got slightly better after Jule figured out what was going on. Yet he was outnumbered and thus wasn't able to do much except to offer his protection from getting beaten up. Today both Ash's mind and body was so exhausted that he threw up another few mouthful of blood in the bathroom. Thus he decided to lock himself in the there to get some urgently needed rest and to drawn his sorrows and sufferings with a bottle of alcohol.

What Ash least expected in this situation was the arrival of Rhys. To be honest he knew that the man would show up sooner or later. But today he just didn't have anymore strength to deal with him. Ash's mind was already getting hazy from the alcohol and his eyes were not focused. He was even seeing twos of everything. Even the man that was standing before him had split into two making him terrified. 'One of them is trouble enough and now you give me two?!! Are you planing to give me no peace of mind?' Ash cursed in his head as he saw both of the Rhys withdraw their outstretched hands.

"Are you planing to push me down from here?" Ash asked while taking another long sip from the burning liquor bottle which he found in the cupboard during his intense search of the room. He had hidden it away as soon as he got the two wardens in the room.

"Would you die even if I did?" Rhys asked with a scoff. "It will be just a waste of effort." That was to some extent true as they were only on the second floor and as Ash had fast recuperating skills, he would start healing as soon as he got the slightest wound. Rhys saw the boy flinch at the harsh words and frowned as he took another long sip of the drink, almost finishing the bottle of heavy liquor.

"I would if its my head that hits the ground first." Ash responded with another hiccup. He blinked several times as he dangerously swayed on the window sill. "Why are there *hiccup* two of you. Did you have a twin all along?" He shook his head to clear his vision but even then there were still two Rhys's standing there staring at him as if he was insane.

Rhys frowned at the words and then grabbed at the bottle in his hand deciding he didn't want to hear anymore nonsense. "No!!!" Ash retorted and held strong onto his precious drink of oblivion.

There was a short tug of war but Ash soon lost in strength and tumbled after the bottle, which he still refused to let go, due to the force of inertia and fell against Rhys's chest. Rhys looked at the person who stood against him and frowned with complicated emotions. Those ocean blues that always seemed to pull him right in were staring at him intensively while in such close proximity. 'Think of something else.' He scolded himself and suddenly recalled his purpose for coming here. His awkward expression immediately hardened. Until proven otherwise, Ash was still the culprit to his brother's situation. And he didn't have sympathy to spare for his enemies. "Your innocent look won't work on me. All you know is to deceive others by looking like that and then stabbing them in their backs once they let down their guards." He spat out harshly.

Hearing the words Ash grinned for some reason. His action confused Rhys long enough for Ash to grab back the bottle from his hands. As soon as he had it, he strode out of the bathroom and plopped himself down on the worn out sofa.

"You should get it over with" He stated as he pored the last bit of the liquor into his mouth and tossed the bottle away.

"Get over what?" Rhys asked as he stood before the boy and looked down on him.

"Beat me up of course. Isn't that why you are here?" Ash blinked twice to clear his blurry vision and finally the twos merged into one.

"I am here to ask you some questions." Rhys retorted not liking how the other viewed him in his mind. He only received an emotionless 'Oh' in return. Seeing that Ash had no opinions, Rhys got right to the point. "Why did you shoot at my brother?" He hoped to get an honest answer during Ash's drunken state.

"I didn't" the reply was quick and serious. Ash looked offended at the question. He remembered how Rhys always helped others during missions and otherwise. He always trusted them more than him. Even if he didn't show it in his actions, Ash could always sense when he cast his distrustful eyes on him.

Even that woman who wasn't even a part of his team held more of Rhys's trust. Meanwhile he didn't even ask Ash for his side of the story before accusing him. Even Zuri who first got hostility from him was now treated nicely. 'Why does he treat me so. Why can't he trust me as well.'

"Then why was your bullet found in him?"

"I don't know."

"... you are lying"

"No I am not!!! But it is obvious that someone was planning to take Kyle's life through me." His words were low that Rhys had some trouble deciphering it.

"You think someone is trying to frame you? Who? For what reason?"

"How am I supposed to know all this!" Ash got annoyed by the barrage of questions. "It could be someone who was jealous of Kyle's position, someone he punished, someone he picked a fight with or..." Ash suddenly stopped his rambling as his eyes widened as a thought came to him.

"Or?" Rhys repeated after him to prob the boy for an explanation.

"Related to Mason." Ash responded halfheartedly. Rhys started quickly thinking up possible reasons or people who had a grudge against his brother as he also wondered who Mason was. Even after thinking for a while, the name didn't ring any bells. It wasn't surprising as Kyle had kept Rhys out of the whole lab investigation. He wanted to ask further on it but the boy seemed to be annoyed to talk about it. As such he decided to change the question. There were still some other stuff he needed to ask.

"Why did you fire away from the returning team while you were with the sniper unit?"

The question finally seemed to catch Ash off guard. There was a long silence and no answer. As the silence continued Rhys couldn't take it anymore and asked again "Where you hoping the team would perish without your assistance!"

"No. Of course not!" Ash was annoyed. It was like the whole previous hypothesis he laid before the man was ignored instantly.

Rhys banged his hands on the table heavily and shouted "If not then tell me why you were firing in the opposite direction!"

Ash's metabolism was high as such the alcohol in him was also fading quickly. He looked up and saw the burning eyes staring at him. "There is no particular reason.... I just felt like it." He really wasn't planning to share his memories of a 'past life' with anyone. Just revealing his powers has caused him so much trouble. Then he couldn't even imagine what he would have to go through if this also came to light.

Rhys was furious at the reply. The boy is certainly hiding something. It is just too coincidental that he shot in a completely different direction to his objective. Unless... he knew what was going to happen. As the though reached this point, Rhys's eyes flashed to the guy so quickly that it frightened him. 'It was only possible if there was someone else who knew what would happen in the future.'

He was in such disbelief at his hypothesis that he spoke out the next words that he was thinking aloud, "What are you!"