29. Abigail Laurent

Hera.

I sat with Nero. Just the two of us on the brow of a trench, in the split second of silence without the bark of gunfire or shudder of bombs. His long golden hair swept back behind his ears caught the glimmer of sunlight coming through the shroud of smoke coating the sky.

He hadn't said a word to me. He'd just sat next to me and watched over the cratered land in front of us. The Nero I knew would have sung, told me countless stories, or at the very least hummed. But no, he sat stoically with his hands behind him and his face angled towards the sky. So I joined him in the silence. I ignored the dead bodies around us, stuffed into the trench. Stuffed to the point they layered the muddy ground, creating steps towards Nero.

But you could only ignore them for so long. The haunted looks on their faces. Empty eye sockets. Rats weaving through their bodies and pushing against torn and tattered uniform. Men. Women. Children. All of them lay below us, all of them with their faces turned up.

Meredith's lifeless body stared at my back.

Nero smiled and turned towards me. "It is a wonderful day, no?" His lips tugged into a sarcastic smile – the Nero I knew.

"Rather unpleasant," I replied, my nails digging into the harsh gravel underneath us. No, far from gravel. Bullets. Millions, maybe billions, lay underneath us. Golden shells that I had grown accustomed to. Desert eagle 50. Caliber bullets, stained with blood.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why do you say so?"

"Because of the bodies." And the chewing sound of rats. The slow curls of infernos in the distance. Because of the missing cross around my neck.

He crossed his arms. "But my dear Abigail, that does not make sense."

"Why doesn't it make sense, Nero?"

He gently punched my shoulder and flicked a smile onto his face. "This is all of your own doing."

"I know."

"So you cannot be displeased with it, because you are the creator of it."

"I know."

"If you know," he leaned in, his blue eyes pierced into me, "then why did you create such a place?"

"Because of her."

Her – Grace Fallow. She had appeared a distance in front of the trenches brow. Her red dress in a slow billow, black hair flowing over one shoulder, and that disgusting smile of hers like a plague spreading across her face. Her shiny blue eyes flickered, reflecting the chaos behind myself and Nero. A fire had roared into existence, its raging orange flames lashing and tearing, burning down a building.

My home.

A little girl stood next to me. A brown skinned girl, skinny and weak, knobble kneed and sniveling. I tried to touch her shoulder, to turn her away from the burning house, but she slipped through my fingers. Seemingly getting further from me by an inch after every attempt. The girl watched as her house burnt, she heard the cackle of the woman's laugh behind her. She saw the anguished face of siblings pressed against the window – long dead.

I had once despised this little girl. Once wanted to remove any resemblance of her, any morsel of thought attached to her. Her weakness, her longing for companionship, her lacking will power. Going so far to even change my own name. But now I want to hold her. To shield her from the fire. From the bodies and the rats. From the children that died holding onto parents as I slaughtered them.

From the loneliness that was born in her gut the day the first flame bloomed in her home.

Nero shook his head and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "I am afraid to say, but you are wrong."

The burning house disappeared, replaced again with the barren field of craters and bodies.

"How so?" A bitterness had grown in my throat and spread into my mouth – the very first taste I've had in years. It made me sick.

Little Abigail turned round, clutching a red and charred blanket, and said, "The devil created his own hell."

"As have you." Nero stroked her hair and she leaned against him. The pair stared at me, both with frowns, both shaking their heads.

"I…I did not." I took a step back, my boot slid over a bullet and came to a stop next to a little girl. A girl with blonde hair and blue eyes – Cleo's twin. Her name long forgotten. The bitterness in my mouth grew. "That woman was the one who did this to me. I made these decisions because of her."

"You became her," Little Abigail said.

The air in my lungs dissipated and a lump formed in my throat. "I did not. I…made hard decisions because no one else would. I have the Gray in my palm because of that."

"Yet you wake from your sleep every morning with the shadows wrapped around you."

"And alcohol bottles on our bedroom floor." Little Abigail pressed against Nero's leg.

"I will have the entire country in my control soon," I said, forcing the words out of my mouth. "I will be the one to connect us to the people on the moon and beyond. To connect humanity as it once was."

"So killing all of these people was worth a goal of glory?" Nero gestured at the bodies around us, now standing, now staring without eyes. "The children? The mothers and fathers?"

"We're like Grace." Little Abigail's brown eyes as dark as the corpses' around us.

I am not like Grace. I refuse it. That woman is the reason I have nothing and no one left from my childhood. She is the reason I do what I must. A sharp burst of pain shot through my chest. So sudden that I clutched my t-shirt – the cross was back. It was hot, white hot. It burnt my hand touching it.

Nero shook his head, a heavy disappointment sat in his eyes. "You cannot even bare your own sins to God himself."

"What did you make us?" Her eyes pierced me.

"No." I gripped onto the pendant and bit down the cry of pain rising in my throat. "Nobody was there to help me. Nobody lent a hand when I became orphaned. Nobody gave me a chance. I made myself who I am today." I fought in the war, I endured and conquered, stepping over the men who spat on me and looked down on me.

"Did that justify killing the nuns in the orphanage?" Nero raised his eyes towards me, now pale and shallow – black like the corpses'. "Years after the war?"

I choked on the lump in my throat. The nuns stared at me from behind Nero and Little Abigail. Hands folded in front of them, all with holes in between their eyes. They all frowned and shook their heads, black veils swaying, the dried trickle of blood on their faces grew. A sensation so unfamiliar, so foreign, so forgotten, touched my eyes. They were hot. I gingerly touched underneath them – tears. They streamed down my cheeks and carved paths through the soot on my face.

Nero walked towards me, each step a drum's beat in my ears. He wrapped his arms around me, his rough jaw pressed into my cheek. "You are the consequences of your actions."

Little Abigail wrapped her small arms around my midsection, pressing her face against it. "We didn't have to kill all these people."

"There is no one to blame for your mis-grievances but yourself." Nero pulled away and smiled. The corpses were gone, Little Abigail was gone. It was just us on the brow of the trench again. Even the bullets were gone. The blue was back in his eyes. "Who are you?"

The answer was sour in my mouth. Swirling and stabbing in the pit of my gut. "A monster." Just like Grace Fallow.

He shook his head. "Abigail. Not Hera. Do you understand now?"

The rough unease in my throat bubbled. "I understand now." The tears were still hot against my skin, blurring my vision, accompanied by shuddering breaths in my chest.

But I was talking to myself now. He was gone, his lingering warmth of the hug tingled the back of my neck. I know now. I understand. I needed to stop hiding behind false walls of confidence and bravado. I was incorrect – I was not alone. Hunter stood by me through everything, but he had seen the glimmer of resentment before me, yet he had continued because of me.

A weed blooming at the bottom of an apple tree.

I had made many a mistake. Grievous mistakes that no amount of repentance would cover. No amount of good deeds or history altering goals would change that. My own arrogance had clouded my vision and blurred my own morals. A hypocrite was what I am – I lectured Cleo's twin about morality. About pulling the trigger for the first time. Yet, I turned to Cleo and killed her sister in front of her. I had promised a long time ago to never kill a child, yet I now stand on enough to create mounds.

The bitterness grew, and so did the harsh chill down my back.

I understand, Nero. I am the consequences of my actions. I am not Grace's creation, I am my own. A chess piece whittled down to its bare stump, worn down from its own overuse. I shook my head and a smile pulled at the edge of my lips, it seems I have lost a game of chess to myself. Compromised by my own ruling and justifications.

There is still a goal to be reached. One more death. One more scar and haunting dream to be made. Grace Fallow was not to be reasoned with, she was beyond that, she was to be dealt with. And Hunter would be by my side, however, I had to give him an answer he deserved.

The severe stab of white light made me wince. I pried my eyes open, taking in the sight above me. Brilliant white light shown down on me, I turned away from its glaring stare. The hospital room was bleak, silent and lifeless barring the beep of my heart monitor.

I touched my thigh, where her heel had torn into muscle and touched bone. Metal now, a matte black appendage joined to the top of my thigh. My arm the same, the metal stretching to my spine and my collar bone. If these are the prices I must pay, then so be it.

I slowly sat up, my head aching with the effort. I needed to assess the situation first, and then efficiently deal with the only Fallow I bare a trembling hate for. But first, my necklace. I clutched the hospital gown, it wasn't around my neck; I glanced at the bedside table, empty.

The door hazed and Hunter stepped through. He paused at the door, staring at me with those green eyes of his. His mouth limp and hanging open, slowly growing into a wide smile. He laughed and sprung towards me, tentatively wrapping his arms around me. The overwhelming smell of iron stung my nose, but who was I to complain about the smell of blood.

I laughed, my throat raw and painful with the effort. "Hello Hunter."

He pulled away and held my face in his hands. He looked me over, his eyes jumpy and static. "I…how are you…wow." He laughed. "Fuck!"

"Language." I put my hand over his, warm and rough, just as it always was.

"My bad." He chuckled and bit his lip. Trying and failing to push down the growing smile. "I'm so happy you're up."

"How much did I miss?" He handed me a glass of water, I cupped my hands around it and slowly drank, taking in ever drop.

"Well," he scratched the back of his head, shaking his mop of hair, "I don't want to-"

"Hunter," I put the glass down, clenched and unclenched my metal fist, and looked at him, "Please, tell me. Do we still have the Gray?" The words were bitter on my lips as soon as they came out.

He sighed and sat at the edge of my bed. "We do. The people of the Gray are fighting for you. Just came from there actually, a supply run." He shook his head and smiled, it waned and his eyes grew darker. "Dan's gone – Grace has him. Tohka betrayed us. I don't know where Kira, Saia, and Draco are."

I nodded and ran my hand over the satin sheets. "I see." Impossible, the people of the Gray were fighting for me?

"Nearly forgot." He suddenly stood, straightened his black t-shirt, and snapped to attention. "Ma'am."

"Hunter, what are you doing?"

"I humbly request to be discharged."

The lump grew again. Was this another consequence? Was Hunter finally beyond his tolerance point?

He continued, "I misled several units. I endangered our men. Once you were incapacitated I should have taken charge, however, I let my emotions get the better of me." He gave me a lopsided smile. "I am not fit to be second in command, so I humbly request to be discharged."

"So you're…out?" I straightened in the bed and slowly swung my legs over the side. "I see. Well, I understand." I cleared my throat – a halfhearted attempt to dislodge the pang of guilt.

"But," he held a hand out to help me stand, the metal leg could, but my normal leg was weak, "I request of one final mission. It'll be a long mission, a little hard at times, but it would be a mission not even the great General Fallow himself was able to complete."

He helped me into a t-shirt, neatly pressed and folded on a chair. The sickly feeling still plagued me, I was weak, now where at my best. Slow with joints still aching. But the people of the Gray were fighting for me. There were still people depending on me. I had one more problem to deal with, but this problem was not going to be Hera's problem. This problem is a problem Abigail shall deal with.

"Go on." I slowly stepped into a pair of trousers and clipped on my gun belt.

"I know that this isn't the time though." He fiddled with his rings. "So I'll ask after we deal with-"

"The answer is yes, Hunter."

He blinked. "Excuse me?"

"The answer to your mission." I slid Nero's guns into their holsters, heavy and awkward, no longer comfortable in my hands. "An indefinite yes."

"So…you'll actually…"

"I'll actually marry you." I could not help but smile, matching his own. "But for now, just the rings."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure. Of course." He slid a ring of gold out of his pocket. "And an actual ceremony after we deal with Grace?"

I slid my finger through the ring and smiled up at him. "Yes. Personally, I don't think I can deal with this mission. I tend to be a handful at times."

He smiled as I slid his onto his finger. "As am I." He chuckled and stared at the silver around his finger. "I proved Dad wrong. I did it." He shook his head and blinked away tears. "Dan's going to take the piss out of me, but he'd be happy as well."

"But," I drawled the word. "We must try and locate Kira and make contact with her." Unless her eye had been taken away from her, then it would be easy. At the very least, tracking her down would be. Cautiously, but it would be the only lead we have.

His smile didn't waver as he took my hand. "Right. Kira first, and then we get my brother back."

I am now a Fallow. Ironic, wouldn't you say, Nero?