23.

Dan.

Hunter Fallow is a monster. That's how I'd describe my brother. I mean, I always knew that he was dangerous, but Hunter is extremely dangerous. Locked up and thrown into a deep hole, type of dangerous.

He maimed and butchered every soldier he came across. And I mean, every soldier. Island soldiers in their stark white had their lives abruptly stolen by a knife slicing through the air. Hera's younger soldiers got the worst of it. He'd jab his knives into them, slam them against a window, and then separate them. But not completely. A lot of them were still alive by the time he moved onto his next victim.

Kira had to spare a few bullets to put them out of their delirious screeches.

But even monsters had a limit. He was slowing down, he was getting caught by the occasional stray bullet in the thigh or arm. He'd throw his knives and miss by a few inches. Sweat plastered his forehead and ran down his back. But he soldiered on and left a river of corpses in his wake.

I, on the other hand, stayed well clear of him and made sure people got to safety. This wasn't their fight, and they didn't need to get caught by a bullet not meant for them. Even if that meant knocking out a few soldiers that got too close to the back door of a store, meters away from a kid scampering into a mother's arms and disappearing into the doorway.

Hunter was making me sick, the overwhelming stench he left behind him was eye watering. And those smells came with their own memories. But so were the soldiers. They were rounding up specific people, people who had one thing in common: they fired back. The people that shouted Hera's name and threw whatever they could. The people that threw Molotov cocktails. The people who chanted Abigail.

Hell, even a couple bots – who were programmed not to attack people – got in the way of soldiers and halted them for a split second. Hunter needed less than a split second to deal with them.

I dived away from a rain of bullets, slapping my back against a short barrier. I was sitting in a small pool of blood. Not my blood. A cherry cheeked young girl holding a rifle, white fatigues dyed red and blue eyes pale and glassy. Had I been here before?

Kira dived next to me. She was squeezing her right eye shut, blood leaked from its edges, and her rifle had disappeared and she had her black pistols in her fists. "Good?" she shouted over the screams.

I nodded and instinctively ducked as a shower of concrete dust washed over us. A few bombs were still going off, but nowhere near as strong as what they'd been.

"Hey," I called, "have we…?"

She slid the clips out and hammered in her final rounds. "Yeah. We've been here before." She sprung up, took three shots, three bullets split three heads, ricocheted off of a few bots and took out three more soldiers. She ducked back down again. "Used to be called Founder's Street. Hera renamed it after herself."

That rung a distant bell, but too distant to grasp onto anything.

She put one of her guns in my hand. "Watch my six."

I gave the gun back. "I'm not going to shoot anyone."

"Haven't changed a bit, huh?" she muttered.

Maybe the me before the Island would have taken the gun and killed. Maybe instead of knocking out the soldiers I'd have done what Hunter was doing. But I don't want to add onto the nightmares, I don't want to add onto the Mei's lurking at the edge of vision. Selfish? A little. But I wasn't going to let the Unit win this one over.

"I'll still watch your back." I got into a crouch.

I switched on the Unit and we leaped over the barrier.

Straight into a Berserker. Skull if I remember right. That and he wore a skull as a sort of mask over his head. I know, I'm a great detective. But he was on our side, so we dived either side of him and continued in a sprint and into an unsuspecting huddle of soldiers reloading.

Remember a couple of seconds ago when we dived either side of Skull? Well, he didn't take that too well and pulled us back. I say pull, but he grabbed us by our t-shirts and threw us back a few meters. I rolled a couple times and sprung up. Kira slammed into me and we crashed against a cleaning bot trying to mop up blood in front of a store's steps. The wind in my lungs clocked out for the day, my head whacked against the pavement.

Kira rolled off of me and said something, but the ring in my ears flushed her out.

She slapped me. "Get your ass up!"

"Where…what?"

She grabbed my collar and pulled me out of the way before Skull landed a car battery size fist where my head had just been. The concrete spider webbed under the impact.

Ah. So that's why she was shouting.

One thing I learnt about Kira is that she doesn't ask that many questions. Especially right now. She shot Skull, but the bullets just dug into his dark leathery skin. They squealed as they spun and dug, but all he did was pluck them out of his shoulder like they were insects.

Drowning in the river didn't seem too bad right now.

Kira dived out of the way from a backhand. My legs weren't underneath me yet and his palm caught me. It smacked me back and tore away any hope of oxygen getting into my lungs that I'd previously had. A couple more roles backwards, an attempt at a flip to my feet, a short stumble, but I landed it.

"What the hell's your problem?" I shouted, cut short by a wheeze at the end.

"My problems is the war monger, Hera." He straightened and towered above me, the moon to his back, the flashes of gunfire made the skull's empty eyes dark. "We stand with those who win. Grace has won."

Kira had disappeared. Great.

The Unit: Chance of success against fully grown Berserker: 0%

Oh screw you, you half sentient piece of crap.

But Mei was still by my side. Hands behind her back and humming, but she was by my side. I was fighting for her. If I died, at least we'd have time to talk things over.

He stomped towards me, each step shook the ground. My heart matched each reverberating shudder. I didn't have any knives on me, there weren't any guns around – not like that would have made a difference – and I had my back to a store window with a bot trying to wipe them down. A bot. It wasn't bolted down. If I could…

He swung his fist and I ducked. It crashed through the window like the glass was wet paper. I rolled out of the way of the shards of glass, onto my feet, grabbed the bot, and swung it like a bat. It whacked against this head, and not to anyone's surprise, didn't even faze him. But that wasn't my goal. The bot broke apart into shards, and I jabbed one of those shards into his exposed under arm.

He roared and spun, collecting me with his battering ram of an elbow.

Kira appeared, crashing through a window above Skull with one of the Island issued rifles. Time slowed as she began her fall. Her long hair flew back, her golden eye glittering in the flashing yellows of the Gray's gunfire, and her mouth in a twisted smile. A smile. Another one.

Time sped up when she let loose with the rifle. It showered him with bullets, but that was only to make him flinch and put up his arm again. His injured arm. Perfect. I darted forward and punched the deep gash I'd made. He screamed, but before he could swat me like a fly, Kira's boots slammed against his head and he stumbled back.

She flipped off of him and took one more shot. A shot that went straight into his right eye.

I caught her before she crashed through the window Skull had punched out. She'd have been skewered by the shards still clinging to the window frame.

Skull took a step back, another, and then finally slumped forward. His heaving body stopped moving, a pool of blood flowed out from underneath his face.

"You know," she panted and pulled herself from my hold, "the last time we were here, you saved me."

"So you paid me back?"

She smirked. "You can say that." She checked her rifle and swore. "Empty."

I didn't like stealing from the dead, but they weren't going to shoot me from beyond the grave. I tossed her a clip as we started to move of the chaos. The Unit was amplifying my hearing, but tuning down the rage of gunfire and explosions. Hunter was swearing obscenities so pungent I'd have to scrub his mouth out for if we survived this. Draco's roar was loud enough to hear without the Unit. Saia's flash bangs were also popping off around the city.

Speaking of Saia, we ran into her as soon as we turned the corner. "You guys good?"

Kira nodded. "You?"

"Yeah." Her face gave off another answer, but it wasn't the time to talk about our feelings.

Hunter screamed. Not his usual war cry scream. A scream of pain.

I sprinted towards where the scream was coming from. Kira and Saia shouted at me, but I didn't shout back an answer. Hunter was still screaming, the sort of scream you give when you're on the brink of what your body can handle in terms of pain.

They followed me through the chaos.

I jumped over barriers. Dived away from gunfire. Bounced off of a wall, swung onto a fire escape, sprinted and jumped down into an alley way. The alleyway opened up into a courtyard, and Hunter was in that courtyard. And so was Tohka. She had a gun pressed against his back and was shouting order to the Island soldiers.

A few seconds later Kira and Saia were either side of me.

Kira muttered, "motherf-"

"I knew we shouldn't have trusted her!" Saia snapped. "Should have offed her as soon Stray came back."

There was commotion as a hoard of Island soldiers bodily hauled Draco onto the courtyard. They'd had to use cuffs big enough to wrap around my waste on him. He was still raging, but there was another Berserker almost two times his size stepping on his back and keeping him floored.

"Dan!" Tohka shouted. "I know you can hear me." The gunfire had stopped. "We'll start with the Berserker. If you don't come out after that, Hunter is next."

I took a step forward. I may not trust him. I may not like him all too much. I may think he makes me sick. But he was still my brother. The only family I had left that I hadn't hurt. Kira pulled me back into the alley.

"Dan."

"Five," Tohka shouted.

Saia took a step forward. "I…Draco can't…"

I pulled my hand out of her grip.

"Four."

"Stop thinking like this," Kira hissed. "I can just shoot her from here and end this."

And then the soldiers would butcher Hunter and Draco straight away.

"Three."

Saia took a shaky step forward. She'd come to the same conclusion as I did. Her fingers fiddled with a flash bang, but the soldiers would open fire as soon as it went off.

"Two."

The Berserker raised his foot above Draco's head.

If we ran away, we'd have a chance to fight another day. But we'd just be hunted down and finished off. Why? Why did she turn her back to me? Did I push her too much?

"One."

"Wait!" I screamed. Hunter alive would mean I'd have done something right, even if that meant Grace would get her hands on me. "Okay, just, put the gun away."

She smiled and stood up, her boot pressed Hunter's pain stricken face against the asphalt. His back was a bloody mess. Five bullet wounds and a few shards of broken glass. He'd survive, but he'd not be on his game for a long while.

"Where are the others?"

I flexed my jaw. "You only need-"

"Where are the others, Daniel?" she barked.

Saia first, and then Kira. Saia's brown eyes were glued on Draco, who gave her a shaky nod.

"Run," Hunter whispered and coughed up blood. "Go Dan! What're you doing?!"

"He's being smart." Tohka pressed her boot further against his head. She jerked her head at us and a few of Hera's soldiers marched forward.

Kira tapped the aviators tucked into her collar before her arms were pulled behind her and strapped together. She disappeared into the sea of white and black. Saia was grabbed bodily, her arms pulled away from her satchel as it was snatched away.

"Touch her like that again and I'll butcher you!" Draco roared. The Berserker slammed his foot against his temple and his body went limp.

"Draco!" she shrieked.

"God," Tohka muttered. "Knock her out and hand me that."

Saia forced what she'd been fiddling with into my back pocket before the soldiers did as they were told. Saia was lifted away into the black and white. Draco was put onto the Berserkers boulder like shoulder and disappeared as well.

I got what she wanted me to do, it was going to be stupid, but it was give us a fighting chance. C'mon, Unit, you better not bullshit me now.

The Unit: plan chance of success: 50% Hunter met my eyes, a small nod, and he returned it. The odds ticked up another ten percent.

"Now," Tohka said, "Get Daniel to Grace."

"Screw you, Tohka."

"Oh please. We were never friends." She looked me over. "Frankly, I found you and your brother disgusting. Playing pretend for two years was the worst shit I'd ever had to do."

"Thinking you were my friend tops my list of worst thing I've done." I gave her a smile. "And trust me, I've done some pretty terrible shit."

"What? You think that hurt my feeling?" She laughed and shifted. "I don't care about you one bit. God. Touching your arm? Giving you puppy eyes? I had to stop myself from throwing up."

"That's really funny Tohka, because Hera told me something about you." I slid my hand into my back pocket, not the flash bang pocket. Not yet. My other pocket that held what Hera had forced into my hand when she left the hospital. "Do you know who she is?" I lifted the picture. It was old and covered in red, but it was clear.

A little Japanese girl smiling and full of life faced her older self.

"I killed your dad two years ago."

Her face went from shocked, to pained, and finally to disgusted. She stepped off of Hunter's head.

Now.

I threw the flash bang. Hunter was up, he swung round and knocked Tohka off of her feet. A half second of acknowledgement and he bolted. He disappeared behind me and into the alley, but not before the split second of silence his words passed by me: "You better come back to me." And he was gone.

The flash went off, but it wasn't just a flash bang, it was an actual bomb. A grenade to be exact. The burst of heat slapped me and I staggered back. Soldiers stumbled and dropped to their knees. Many of them clutching bleeding ears and screaming.

I spun round to follow Hunter, but something hard slammed into the back of my head. My legs disappeared from underneath me and I fell.

Tohka stepped over me and crouched. "Fuck you Dan Fallow."

I gave her a smile. "I'm sorry." I forced the picture into her hand.

Whether it was because my head had smacked against the tarmac, whether it was because my body was beyond exhausted and crashing, whether it was my vision flickering and making me see things, but I could swear on my life that the Gray felt cool. Cold. A single rain drop tapped against my cheek.

Not a raindrop. Tohka's tear. The hard black eyes she'd stared be down with had reverted back to the soft ones I knew. But her mouth was still stuck into a snarl. She spat in my face and stood.

Mei's soft hum was the last thing I heard before Tohka raised her boot above my head.