26. Watch your back.

Kira.

Saia pounded against the metal. She had been doing that for five hours now. The same amount of punches against the metal door; five hard, a collection of swear words, and another five. This was the Saia I'd been with for years turned to eleven, and she'd been like that for a while now.

I put a hand on her shoulder. "Saia, just stop. They aren't going to open the door no matter how much you threaten their families."

She brushed me off and shot me a glance. "Well at least one of us is doing something."

"Punching a metal door isn't doing anything."

"Sitting on your ass is better, right?"

I sighed. "I don't get why you're so high strung."

She guffawed. "Because, Kira, we are fucked. Hera's probably dead. Hunter disappeared. Stray's been taken by Grace," she spun round, "oh, and in case you forgot, the freakin' person Stray brought along was a spineless little shit that was working for the other side." She punched the door. "I knew we should have blown her apart as soon as we saw her."

I pulled her hands away from the door before she could hit it again. Her knuckles were cut and bleeding now. "Saia."

"What?" she snapped.

"Breath."

She massaged her temples and heaved a frustrated sigh. "I want out."

I felt like I'd been shot point blank. "What?"

"Out. I want it." She crossed the small and grimy room, slumping against the wall and sitting down. "I can't do this anymore."

"What changed so suddenly?"

She shook her head. "A lot."

"So you're going to give up?"

She shook her head again. "No. I wouldn't have what I have if it wasn't for Hera. Hell, I wouldn't be here because of all of you guys." She chuckled. "Even Jin and Stray."

I slid down the wall and sat down next to her. I hated this room. It was disgusting; blood, vomit and everything in between stained the walls. It made me squirm whenever my boot got too close to a mysterious looking puddle. Dan had told me about this place. He'd said it was terrible, I had laughed and called him a coward. But now I get what he was talking about. It's raw and un-kept. Hera had practically voided this place ever since she took over. Now drunks and bums had hunkered down in some of the cells, and even they were thrown out and given somewhere to live by Hera. She wanted to drown everything old and decrepit, everything that wasn't hers.

But she might be dead now, and old places like the Zoo were back.

Saia nudged me. "You tired of this, too?"

I sighed and flexed my hands. "I was two years ago. And then Dan stumbled in like the idiot that he was and changed that. He got on my nerves, but he was fresh. New. Not so worn down." I put my head against the wall and stared at the black ceiling. "And now he's just like the rest of us. So I might want out, too."

"Not yet?"

"Not yet."

"Would be great if you had some sort of secret gun on you."

I laughed. "It would be great if you had some secret bomb on you."

"I gave the one I was working on to that black haired little bitch," she spat. "Draco better be alright."

"He is. He's a freakin' Berserker. Dan's pretty hard to kill, but Draco's harder."

Saia chuckled at that and shook her head. "You know what? I'm going to be an adult and not go for the low hanging fruit."

I rolled my eyes. This is the Saia I know, not the Saia that's been snappy, jumping between subdued and angry. Between energized and exhausted.

We sat in silence, the only sound coming from the sly tap of water dripping from a broken pipe. Saia picked at her green nails, chipped and broken, caked with dirt underneath them from being thrown onto the floor. There were sounds coming from outside, the occasional chatter, scream, and the hiss of an argument. The march of boots was sporadic and broken, sometimes a wave of slamming boots, and then the single march of one person.

A part of me hoped that a pair of those boots would be Hera's. A part of me hoped that the wave would be Hunter coming with the rest of Hera's soldiers. But nothing. Deep down I even hoped Dan would come. I'd been so happy to see him, but it was just like the first time in the hospital after the apartment fire. He was emotional. Unhinged. Lost. I'd wanted to say so much, but it wasn't the time.

I wasn't going to let go of him again. He might not be around right now, but he was still alive as far as I know.

"Ew," she said.

"What?"

"You get all starry eyed whenever you think about him."

"I do not get starry eyed. I want to punch him because of the shit storm he carries with him."

"You're the best bounty hunter I know, but you can't lie for shit." She stood. "But I'll give you that. Remember the Gray before he came round?"

I nodded. "It was so dirty and dark. We were still roughing people up for Hera."

"And now we get paid ten times more than what we shook people down for."

I smiled. Dan had his positives as well.

A sharp scream came from outside, cutting Saia off. The scream turned into a screech, a bark of a threat, and then the shallow bark of a rifle. Hunter was here. Perfect. The sound of raging gunfire grew, and the screams grew as well. And then a split second pause before an ear shattering explosion.

The single green bulb hanging limp from the ceiling swung and flickered. Another blast threw us to our feet, concrete powder rained down and choked us. The light flickered off and we were thrown into darkness. The explosions were random, some small pops, others shuddered the entire building. And they were getting closer.

The explosions came to an abrupt halt, enough of a pause for the floating dust to lay still on us and the floor. The gunfire had stopped, and now there was just the occasional shout, quickly cut off by a single bark of a pistol.

"Get back!" a voice shouted at the door.

We did as the voice asked and scrambled backwards, just in time for the door to be blown off of its hinges. The door and the wall it was connected to more like. A cloud of dust collapsed and rolled into the room, choking us even more. Breathing was like swallowing sand. My left eye stung, but my right eye could see through the haze of chaos and rubble.

It was Tohka.

Draco right behind her, now clambering through the hole in the wall and throwing rubble aside. "You guys alright?" He coughed and gagged, digging his nose into the crook of his arm as he helped us through the rubble.

"What the hell's going on?" More gunfire to my right, and we dived back into the cell.

"Why the hell is she here?" Saia shouted.

"How about we get to the explanations after we get the heck out of here," Tohka shouted. She unslung a rifle from her shoulder and tossed it towards me. "This is where my plan ends. Have anywhere we can go?"

"Preferably outside the Gray," Draco grumbled, picking up a chunk of the wall and hurling it down the dark corridor. The gunfire abruptly stopped.

I do, I don't want to go there, but feelings and emotions aren't valid right now. "Yeah. Take lead and show us out of here, the rest of the way is mine." And I could shoot her in the back if she tried anything.

Then again, she wouldn't have blown this place to hell without a good reason.

She nodded, handed Saia her bag of bombs, and put up her own rifle. She led us down the corridor, down the opposite way Draco had crushed the soldier shooting at us a minute earlier. She'd blown apart every door down the hall. Craters littered the floor, the ceiling was charred, and smoke and dust mixed, burning my throat.

We both slapped our backs to the wall as gunfire shot out from the dark. Saia dug into her bag and threw a small square into the dark. A harsh explosion of light and the gunfire stopped. Tohka continued forward, she scanned the left, I scanned the right. Saia in the middle and Draco taking up the rear.

A bullet pinged off the wall next to my head. I dropped to the ground and rolled, sliding into a cell. I slid my rifle out from underneath me, pressed my cheek against it, and shot at the wall opposite me. The bullet hit it at an angle and rocketed into the dark. The blob of a heat signature dropped to the floor.

There weren't any more heat signatures, but then again, my eye hadn't gone through any maintenance checks for a few months now. I hadn't seen the man from before that Saia took out, so I couldn't rely on it completely.

Up onto my knees and creep out of the cell, Tohka again in front of me. Whenever we came across a stray soldier, lying with their legs trapped underneath a piece of a blown apart wall, she didn't hesitate to shoot them. Mercy or disgust, I couldn't tell. Her face didn't give away anything. That's why I stayed behind her, even without my eye I was still a little faster than her and a little more accurate. But she didn't once complain, she kept soldiering on with that same stony face.

"We're out," she muttered.

Indeed we were, and the sticky warmth from the Zoo spread into the atmosphere. The mottled grass in front of us was littered with bodies. A crater bigger than any other we'd seen was near its center. The black glass domes staring down at the grass had been blown apart as well. She'd been thorough. And those soldiers weren't playing pretend. Pieces of them were either missing or lying next to them.

A boy younger than me was missing a chunk of his chest.

But there was still gunfire. Not from the Zoo, but from the Gray. Roars and cries, followed by gunfire and small explosions. A single chant rose above all of it, though. Hera's name. Grace hadn't one yet, and that sparked something in Saia's brown eyes.

"I'll jam a grenade down your throat if you try anything," Saia growled at Tohka.

Tohka put up her hands. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Great. Let's go throw a few more bombs at the Island soldiers, and then steal a car." We started forward, Saia in the lead this time with Draco by her side. "You said you had a place, right?"

"Yeah. A guy called Ray." Just a little longer Dan, and then I'd be there. Just hang on. You'd kept your promise to me, and I'll keep mine.

I'm coming.