4. Picket fences and flamingoes

Hera.

"So what chemical is it exactly?" I asked.

Saia sighed and pushed away the purple powder on the petri dish. "My guess? Some sort of acidic gastric juice and a bunch of other fun chemicals."

I looked at Draco, he had his arms folded and was lazily staring at the powder. "Does this look like anything the Berserkers would use?"

He shook his head. "Never seen that shit in my life."

I sighed and massaged my temples. "Mei?'

Her voice came through the speaker on my table and said, "Still nothing. And people aren't happy with going on food pills."

"Well unless they want to pop like a freakin' balloon then what else do they want," Saia snorted.

Draco added, "Or pop like Harry."

"I forgot about Harry," Mei muttered.

I snapped my fingers. "Focus. This isn't child's play. If she attacked like this first then she's going to lean towards biological warfare."

"Think those Skin things were her idea?" Draco asked.

I nodded. "Must be. Her family did create the Unit, after all."

That left a heavy air in my office. All of them had nearly drank themselves off a cliff the night Daniel fell from the bridge. Funny that, they only knew him for a short time and yet they all cared so much for him. However, none of us have any family left, so losing each other piles on the pressure and shafts forward the idea that we don't do enough for each other.

Lord knows I understand that feeling the most.

The door swung open. Runt and Cleo walked in, Runt had her hands behind her back and Cleo was snearing at me. I had been right the night I had killed her family, and now she was a ball of hate and hard work, and maybe one day, she'd be the one in my seat. But I'd be long dead by then.

Saia cleared up the dish and began leaving the room. "I'll keep working on this stuff. Who knows, maybe I can use it in my bombs."

"Like your bombs need to get any more dangerous," Draco muttered.

The pair left the room, Saia slightly leaning on him. I had an inkling feeling something was happening between the two of them, something other than the late nights they spent together, but I digress.

"Leaving?" I asked the pair.

Runt nodded and Cleo spat on my desk.

"Are you going to clean that?"

"Clean it yourself," Cleo growled.

I looked at her and she glared back. She had a bandage wrapped around her head and her jaw was bruised. She noticed me staring at turned away.

I looked at Runt and she shrugged – her hands still behind her back.

"What happened?" No answer. "Colonel."

Runt's shoulders slumped and she brought her hands from behind her back. Black rings on either thumb, they pulsed blue when they brushed against the combat knives on her thighs. Black rings? They were specially made, the small carvings running around each of them were too intricate for something she would just find. They wouldn't have bought it because I have surveillance covering the black markets and the stragglers bringing whatever the hell that spread through my streets.

I stood up. "Where did you get those?"

Her hands paused before she started. Someone gave them to me…as a birthday present.

To Cleo I said, "Was this you?"

"No." She folded her arms. "Some guy in the forest gave them to her."

My heart hammered against my rib cage. I felt woozy, the glass of liquor on my desk was untouched and dripping with condensation. I haven't tasted anything in more than five years, but now my mouth was bitter.

And then I felt something I thought I'd never feel again.

The cross around my neck pulsed.

I gripped onto it and steadied myself. I had to be hallucinating. Someone had spiked my-

It pulsed again.

Cleo made a disgusted face. "Why the fuck are you crying?"

I couldn't help but smile at her question. I pushed away the tears running down my cheeks and put my gun back in its holster. I started towards the door. "You two. Go and get the Nomads back to us asap. You might come across Sergeant Ryan and his squad on his way back, brief him on the changing situation."

"Where the hell are you going?" Cleo barked.

I didn't bother answering her. It would fuel her hate even more, but I also needed to find out if someone was playing a cruel trick on me or not. I swung around the pristinely painted red corridors with their gold accents. I brushed past my soldiers, I kept my eyes locked in front of me, they all avoided my eye line, but I could hear the questions as I passed them. 'Is the LC crying?' 'Is she okay?' 'LC, is there a problem?'

All of them fell to the background of the rushing blood in my ears.

I entered the lone elevator in my building and it lurched as it began to drop. My breaths fogged up the glass interior, I caught a glimpse of myself in the pristine crystal, tears. Actual tears. Nero had been the last person I had cried for. But if the pulsing cross around my neck was coming from who I thought it was then…then Nero would be the second last person.

I burst into the lobby. Rogues straightened on couches as I passed them, some soldiers drinking coffee stood and saluted. I dismissed their worried looks and broke out into the warm Gray air. It caressed my skin and made my tears cold on my cheeks. I asked the private in the driver's seat of one of my black SUVs to get out and I clambered in.

A beep came through my ear piece as I spun the car round towards the old Rogue territory. "LC. Is everything alright? Have the Gatekeepers attacked?"

I chuckled. "Possibly. But keep alert. You'll be the commanding officer until I come back, Major."

I clicked off the ear piece and tossed it out of the window. I weaved through the traffic, some people swore and apologized as soon as they saw me, other people lurched off of the road. I passed towering office buildings, I passed children playing with bots on the sidewalks, I passed couples strolling through the park.

I came to a screeching halt between two trees. The park that separated the old territory and the Gray was silent. No one had rebuilt all of the buildings that had been torn down or riddled with bullets or grenades. I had been planning on renovating, but there had been too many loose ends to tie off.

I got out of the car and took a deep breath. Just in case this was a sick joke, I brought out my gun. I didn't want to waste the golden bullets of the Lord on someone who didn't deserve it, but if someone was playing a cruel trick on me, they would learn was true wrath and power was. And so would their family, friends, children and their grandchildren.

I snapped off the safety. The large gun was frosty in my fist, it weighed a ton and sung every time I swung it around dark alleys. I crept forward, scanning rooftops and shadows. I stepped over broken glass and ducked underneath fallen lamp posts. I paused and held my breath, my heart filled my head and made it hard to listen out for anything else.

I reached the Manor. Those heathens had destroyed the front of it, it would collapse soon, but it still stood. A monument fighting to stay up right whilst every other modern building around it had collapsed.

The bitter taste in my mouth grew. My stomach dived deeper into itself. My grip tightened on the desert eagle. I walked in, the smell of dust and mold was pungent, the once beautiful white walls and red pillar all perforated by bullets.

I paused.

Someone was here.

A few meters to my right. Silver eyes glowing in the dark, fists clenched around axe handles.

The axes sung as they tore through the air. I ducked underneath one and swatted the other out of the air. The man lunged and drew back his fist, I ducked as one of the axes came back to him, the blade centimeters from my face. I kicked him in the stomach and he folded. I lunged but he did too, he paused inches from me.

The edge of his metal mask touched my lips.

I had my gun jammed into his gut.

He had his hand stretched out behind me and holding onto the axe I had swatted away.

We both took a step back. I kicked out and he did too, our shins clashed in the air. I followed up my sweeping at his legs, he flipped backwards and lunged as soon as he landed. I drew my golden gun and he drew his silver.

Exactly the same. Goliath barrels staring down each other.

He flipped the gun and held the barrel, the handle pointed towards me.

And I couldn't help but smile. I choked up as he stepped forward and took off his mask.

Those three scars on the right side of his face. That bright smile. That dirty blonde hair. Those green eyes behind his silver contacts.

"Hey, Hera," Hunter said.

I hugged him. "God I hate you so much."

He hugged me back. His head rested in the crook of my neck and so did mine in his.

I pulled back and held his face. I couldn't believe it. My heart tried to match my rapid breathing, my eyes were blurring from tears, and my hands shook. He had left so long ago, one day he was here and the next he wasn't. No explanation, until I found out his brother had been sent to Young Haven. I had blamed myself for not going with him, I had prayed and done everything I could to find him, but there's something about Fallows. When they choose to disappear, they'll disappear. And here he was, standing in the lobby where we had last stood together.

He put his forehead against mine and chuckled. "You know, for a second, I thought you were actually going to shoot me."

I smiled. "I thought I was going to, too."

He tilted my head towards his lips. I placed a finger on his and shook my head. "You don't get to disappear for five years and then kiss me."

He laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, guess I don't deserve that."

I pulled away and sat down on a fallen pillar. "That and you poured acid down my throat the last time we did."

He sat down next to me. He flipped the axes in his hands, he never liked staying still, ever since he had been signed up to the army at ten. "Well, you nearly tore my face off."

"The scars make you look better."

He snorted, "I look good enough."

I held up my hand and laughed. "I still have them on. So unless you want to get matching whiskers on the other side of you face then keep it down."

He chuckled and kept flipping the knives.

We sat in silence for a while. Our knees touched and our breathing matched. We both stared out of the gaping hole in my Manor and watched the moon climb the sky. A day like this happened seven years ago. The bombs had stopped dropping for a split second, we'd just received rations after weeks of nibbling on food pills, Nero had begun singing his French songs and we sat on the edge of a building. Our legs dangled off the edge, we were all so beyond death that falling off the building would have been embarrassing dying like that after what we'd been through.

Hunter had gripped onto my hand that day, and I had too. Nero had squeezed himself in between us and began singing his songs. We normally didn't join in, but that moment of peace had been so perfect that we had joined in.

"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" he asked.

"Do you remember the songs he used to sing?"

He chuckled. "How could I forget? He used to sing them from morning to evening."

I laughed. "All those years and he didn't get any better at singing."

He stood up and held out a hand. I didn't take it but I followed him up the carving steps. We walked down the corridors, I remembered the sound of the Rogues running up and down the now barren corridors. We stepped over debris and brushed through spider webs. We came to my office. The glass was shattered and most of the books had been stolen. My chair was gone too. But the chess board was still there.

He took the side with white pieces, and I took the black.

He moved the pawn in front of his bishop forward. "You saw the bombs?"

I moved the pawn in front of my king two places. "A sort of chemical that we're looking at right now."

He moved the pawn in front of his knight forward two places. "She has more soldiers than you."

I moved my queen three places diagonally. It was right next to his pawn, and directly in sight of his. "Check."

He half smiled. "I was just warming up."

"She isn't going to win this."

"She has everything to go at an instant."

"Then why hasn't she attacked."

He crossed his arms. "Because you built the Walls of Jericho. I can't believe you actually did it. Remember when you told Nero about it?"

"He called me an idiot," I laughed without mirth. "And now look at me. I have guns everywhere in the city."

"He'd probably nitpick something."

"He always did."

Another silence.

"I knew Daniel wasn't dead," I muttered.

He raised an eye brow.

"You don't kill Fallows that easily." I sat back. "But what about his memory?"

He shook his head, his shaggy mop of hair swaying. "Nothing. I don't want to tell him anything right now, just in case he can't handle it."

I stood up and he did too. "You need to go. She's going to get suspicious."

He took my hands, and by the sparkle in his eyes, I knew what was coming. "Hera-"

"No, Hunter."

"What about the white picket fence? And the lemonade in the backyard? The sun glowing as we watch them run around?" he pushed. "And the plastic flamingoes at the front of the house?"

I pulled away. "We're about to go to war again. And you can't make promises in war."

He looked hurt. I was about to touch his face but I pulled back. A touch could be a promise the same way a ring can be. I'd learnt that the hard way too many times.

He half smiled. "Guess there's only one option left."

"That is?"

"Become more talented, duh," he said.

I tried to force away the smile, but it was the first battle I'd lost in a while. "Talent doesn't equal marriage."

"Mark my words, Abigail," he muttered, his lips close to mine. "Fallows have a ton of different ways they can be talented."

I pulled back and he winced. "Until then, you'll have to sharpen up."

He chuckled and brushed back his hair. He clipped on the mask and brought out an axe. I understood what he needed. He needed to show that he tried. I reached out with my left arm and he gently pressed the blade into my shoulder. The cold metal bit into my skin and drew blood. He smeared it over both axes and tucked them away.

I grabbed him before he left the office. "Thank you for coming back."

I could tell from the creasing above the mask he was smiling. "Thank you for waiting."