There was a faint click and I felt immediately much less stupid. Thoughts came crashing through my head at what felt like lightspeed, and I spent a minute just putting together what had happened here. I realized I was in the back of a big empty truck, and as I pulled off the blindfold and neural dampener and headed outside, realized it was a moving truck. There was another one nearby, with Tem aboard, presumably, and also about a billion tons of barbed wire making a big arena with the two of us inside.

There was nothing else. Flat open sandy rocky nothing. It was like a desert, but wasn't incredibly hot and dry. I wondered where we were.

Lia and AEGIS waved at me from a little open wood shack outside the cage. I noticed the layers of barbed wire were deep enough that I couldn't reach the outside with my powers, and the layers of wire between us made for an excellent electrical ground if I fired off undirected lightning. As to be expected from Lia, I guess.

Nothing to protect them at all from Tem, but she hadn't been part of the plan, I guessed. So why were they releasing her now…?

The two just sat and watched me for a while. I felt like a circus animal, trapped in the ring for their amusement.

"So where's Tem?" I asked.

"She's in the other truck, still dampened," Lia answered. "She's uh...a little dangerous, we thought."

"Hmm." I said. The truck was right there, but I could tell she wasn't in it, couldn't sense her, invisible or not. "So this is a test, to see if I'm currently mind-fucked. You guys are thinking if I am, I'd go to her, take off the dampener and she can hurt you even if my powers can't?"

They looked at each other.

"I can tell she's not in there, by the way, but good try?"

"How do you--never mind. Okay. I lied, it's just you. So tell us what happened," Lia asked.

I explained as detailed as I could, starting with the note, but that wasn't good enough for them, so I went back, glossing over some of the worst of the argument and the best of the day which never was.

"So you do remember calling me then?" Lia said.

"Yeah."

AEGIS looked visibly upset, even hurt, but she was clearly just here to support Lia, and said nothing. I guessed she didn't like the story about me and Saga.

"Everything you say sounds plausible, but…" Lia shifted, and twisted at strands of her hair beneath her hood.

"That's exactly the scary part of a compel?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Unless you are way, way, way smarter than me, and I will only give you credit for one or two of those on a good day, I don't think you can just suss out if I'm compelled, sis."

"Yeah," she agreed numbly. "Listen," she said, with sudden urgency. "Um."

She scratched her head, looking to AEGIS for reassurance, who just sat there with the apparent emotional state of a crushed aluminum can.

"The thing is...and...don't be mad, it was just an accident, and we're working on it."

"Just say it?" I said, getting more nervous with each faltering start.

"We...ran into Saga on our way in."

My heart leapt in my chest. And then nosedived. And then leapt again. Stupid, conflicting feelings.

"We...didn't know why she was leaving you, and we were worried about you still...and…"

"And what?" I asked. I needed her to just finish her thought. This was torture.

"Promise you won't be mad at me?" Lia said, her eyes large and serious.

"Lia, just tell me."

She sighed. "We hit her with a neural dampener, but…" she fussed and fretted with something lower than her shoulders, out of view of the small window into the wood shack. "She uh…"

"Tell me, damn it, Lia!" She flinched at my outburst. I was sweating and my heart was racing, but seeing her jump like that reminded me that she was seriously worried about me too, right now. Which was stupid, I was fine, and Saga was...well...I'd know if she ever finished a thought. "Sorry. Lia, please?"

She nodded at me, her face resolute. "Saga's mind isn't like a normal person's. The dampener didn't...work the same way. She's kind of…"

I was scarcely in control of my breathing as Lia paused again. I felt my throat closing up, and wiped my sweaty palms on my legs again and again. I mentally willed for her to finish her thought, but she seemed to struggle for words as much as I was struggling to hear them.

"Kind of...brain...dead."

"What?"

"Brain-dead," she repeated. AEGIS glanced sideways at her for half a second, but otherwise just looked at me sourly.

I fell backwards, landing on my butt and hands, and caking my sweaty palms with dust and sand.

"I don't think she's actually brain-dead," Lia clarified. "I don't think her powers would let her brain be physically harmed. But…" she looked at AEGIS. "If you wipe the memory core...it's not technically broken. Just...blank…"

I looked at the two of them, uncomprehending. How could this have happened? I'd gone to sleep in Saga's arms last morning...night. I woke up this morning and everything had been a lie. And now she was gone, forever? Just like that?

Not even killing humans or going out with a bang, her own friends, or my friends at least, just trying to help me, and poof, that was it. Someone so strong, but still so fragile that this, of all things undid her?

I felt like my mind and heart had both stopped. I felt pain in my chest and couldn't inhale. I clutched at it, and warm droplets fell on my hand.

Of all the things in my life I thought might leave me, somehow I never considered Saga among them. In my darker moments, I'd had nightmares of Karu being overwhelmed by an Exhuman she just wasn't prepared for, or Lia, being the physically weakest of us, getting dragged into a problem too big for her. I felt like dreams like that were just another part of my subconscious urging me to protect them with everything I had.

But Saga...she was always above and beside all of that. She would outlive the mountain. If Cosette had made good to throw her in a volcano, she would outlive that too. If she was chained up and cast into the bottom of the ocean, one day, she'd simply walk out of it, once the water had rusted the locks away.

But brain-dead, or whatever Lia had described...something which could kill her without killing her. I'd never seen it coming.

The pain was unimaginable. If learning Karu and I couldn't be together was like a dull blade in my heart, and failing to save Mage, whom I didn't even really like was like having my stomach fall through me...hearing that I'd never feel Saga's voice again, or her small tinkling laughter, or see that cocky smile...it was like a spear had impaled half of my entire body. I didn't know there could be this much physical pain from hearing words.

I wanted it gone. I wanted the whole world gone. I fell forward and banged my small, useless fists against the unfeeling, fucked-up planet I lived on. I punched it. I slammed my hands against it, feeling pain course through them, feeling like my forearms would shatter. A hundred swords, a thousand swords, willed into being from the torn pieces of my heart joined me in my fruitless, pointless, painful attack on this stupid world

"Where is she?" I asked, my voice breaking.

"She's not far but…"

"Let me see her," I said, looking at them. I couldn't see that far, just indistinct brown against the sand. I rubbed the tears from my eyes, and saw them confer briefly. AEGIS nodded, and Lia spoke.

"Let me send you a feed," she said, and tapped on her wrist. I got a message on my holo, that I opened.

It was Saga. There wasn't much else to say. She looked almost peaceful, laying there, breathing evenly and slowly, on a dark stone background. What struck me most was her eyes. They were not the eyes of a living person, just glossy, unfocused, blank. Her mouth was slightly parted, and a stray strand of hair fluttered over the lips that I had just been kissing.

It was a mistake, seeing it. I deleted the link almost as soon as I pulled it up and tried to banish the image, banish everything from my mind. If only...if only I had been better, she wouldn't have left, if only I hadn't run to them for help, they wouldn't have run into her. I cracked my hand into the ground and realized it was bent funny. I held my arm up and my wrist hung limply. I couldn't even feel it. My brain didn't have the bandwidth to experience all the pain I was in right now.

The two looked at me horrified, guilty, exchanging looks like, had they gone too far? Should they stop me? Was I completely insane?

Maybe I was.

I grabbed at my chest again as my heart pounded for what felt like the first time in minutes, and felt something crumple in my breast pocket. Fumbling with my left hand, I opened the pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, folded in half, and sealed shut with a strip of adhesive tape.

My eyes lit up, and Lia's mouth fell open.

"Athan, what is that?" she asked. "Is that the second letter you mentioned?"

I didn't answer. I fumbled with the letter. The adhesive was way too strong, it was meant to be used as a gag or restraint, and didn't want to tear.

"AEGIS, GO!" Lia shouted, and AEGIS bolted from the booth. Or...she ran sideways out of the booth and disappeared. Some kind of trick, apparently. They weren't right there, they were remote. Didn't even trust me through twenty feet of barbed wire. "Athan, do not open that letter, I'm telling you."

"Fuck you," I said, struggling one-handed with the tear-stained paper now. "Fuck you and fuck this world."

"Athan, this is going to sound really wrong, but Saga's fine, okay? Listen to me--"

I didn't want to hear anything else she said. Her words had done nothing but tear my heart to pieces. I needed this, I needed to forget. With any luck, Saga had messed up this compel, and when I opened it, I'd be as brain-dead as she was.

I tore at the strip with my teeth and felt it give a little. It was meant to tear, that's how you got it off the roll, but it was also meant to be resilient...and to be operated with two hands. I cursed myself for wasting my stupid body on fighting the damn planet.

Lia was still talking, but I didn't care. I needed this. She would tell me it was unhealthy or unwise, or something, but she didn't know what I was feeling. She couldn't begin to imagine the highs and lows I'd felt over this one single fucked-up day. I'd tried to hold onto the pain of losing people, and Saga had taken away that pain. And now I'd lost her.

I felt the note give a little more and realized I was tearing the paper. That was no good, I had to open it properly or the compel wouldn't work. I gingerly readjusted my grip and started working on the other end of the adhesive instead, when I heard something.

Karu? It sounded like an engine, almost. But it wasn't hers. There's no way it would be, anyway. Not interested, I got a good clean tear into the other side, severing it halfway. Where the two met, there was just a sliver of tape left holding it. I worked my broken hand into the folded letter to hold it down and hooked my finger around the last bit.

I said a mental goodbye to those dull eyes. She hadn't deserved this end. She might have been a horrible person, but she was just a product of this horrible world.

The engine roaring grew louder and then with a pain I recognized but didn't feel, I flew sideways, watching the horizon sail with me, until I crashed into a wall of barbed wire, where I hung like a puppet from the barbs. Painfully, slowly, tearing my own skin in the process, I turned my head and saw AEGIS standing there. She was breathing fast and even, rings of light strobing under her skin in those divots on her joints, thrumming and winding down now that she was at rest, like there was a jet engine in each of her shoulders, knees, elbows, and hips.

The air shimmered around her from heat, and she bent down to pick up the letter I'd dropped. I reached towards her with my broken hand, useless, ten feet away, while the rest of me was hung on the wires. She gave the note a contemptuous glare, and then pressed it to her shoulder, where it smoked and then burned into embers after a few seconds.

In my mind, I fell again, as my body fell off the barbs. I fell through darkness, into light, and was Saga once more, as she made final preparations to leave me yesterday.

[Hey, Athan,] I said with a smile. [I don't know when you're getting this message...might be minutes...might be years, I guess. But...if you're seeing this...I guess you destroyed my note, and decided to keep my memories around after all.]

I wiped away a single tear threatening to stain the two notes in my hands.

[I don't know why you chose to do that. You've always been a little funny about wanting to keep trauma inside your head instead of out where other people can feel it. Whatever the reason I just...I just wanted to say thank you. I love you, Athan. Thank you for not forgetting me.]

And then I was back.

I couldn't take it. I just...froze...and shattered. Time seemed to pass without me. I could see and hear everything going on around me, but it was like I was dreaming. AEGIS picked me up, her arms still hot to the touch, she said words, to me, to Lia, I didn't know. She asked me questions I didn't know. She carried me back into the moving van and spoke on comms for a while and then we were moving somewhere.

It wasn't long before we arrived somewhere and again AEGIS carried me. I saw doors and windows pass by and then a bed under me. I was on my side, facing the room, while AEGIS and Lia talked. Lia left for a while and then came back with a large clear glass bottle she drank out of. They started to argue.

I still didn't know. My brain felt like it was trying to process things and couldn't. I just laid there, seeing everything, taking in nothing. I felt far away. Lia walked up to me with something in her hand, and the bottle in the other, and rolled up my sleeve, pressing the first object onto my arm.

I felt like the world moved back into focus almost immediately. I looked down at the stim patch she'd slapped on me.

"Athan. Listen to me carefully," she said, and took a drink. "Can you hear me?"

I nodded numbly.

"Saga is fine. I lied about the whole thing. I'm sorry."

I shook my head. Saga had said goodbye. Saga had left me. There was a hole in me where Saga had once been. I couldn't fix it. I had lost my only option to ignore it.

"Listen, Athan. Please. Listen." She was speaking slowly and stressing every word. I could see tears and panic threatening to break through her eyes as she forced herself to remain calm for me. "I made it up to make sure you weren't compelled. It was a horrible, cruel thing I had to do. I am sorry, I am so, so, so sorry."

"You have to be lying," I said. My brain was beginning to start moving again, I felt like I'd missed the firing pistol and found out I'd shown up to the race without legs, but it was moving. Every step was agony. I'd been through too much, too many highs, too many lows, and now...she was telling me it was all nothing?

"I'm not lying, here--" she tapped around on her holo and showed me the image of Saga again, and I felt my breath stop in my chest. While I watched, she slid her fingers over the holo, and moved the camera around. Saga was lying on the floor of AEGIS' old prison, the terminal still right there, out of sight. She panned the camera down, through the floor, and through Saga's body, and I could see the inside of her 3D model.

"It's just a render I had AEGIS make. We never ran into Saga. I'm so sorry Athan."

"She's…" my brain struggled for the word. "Alive?"

"Yes."

I had hoped to feel relief, but I still just felt nothing. I rolled onto my back, and looked at the ceiling. I wanted to think, but couldn't. I wanted to stop feeling, but couldn't. I wanted to just...wake up and have it be tomorrow, a very familiar sensation after Karu left me.

"I'm sorry," Lia reiterated, and took another deep drink. This time, AEGIS grabbed the bottle and pried it from her fingers. Lia didn't fight back.

"I need…" I didn't know how to articulate any of this. It wasn't even me talking at this point, it was only the stims. "...I don't know."

"Do you want to be alone?" Lia asked, hesitantly.

"Yes. I think."

"Do you want me to take the stims off?"

"Yes."

She peeled the patch from my skin, but the damage was done. I was still feeling my heart and brain race unnaturally. The two stood there uncomfortably for a while. Eventually Lia muttered something like 'come on' and left. AEGIS turned to go.

"I told her this was a bad idea," she said. "I never wanted to do any of this."

I didn't respond.

"It might have been better for you to forget Saga anyway."

The mention of her name made my heart jump, but that was it.

"I'm sorry."

She turned and left too, turning off the lights and closing the door, and I was alone, staring at the ceiling like it had all the answers, like if I scrutinized it honestly enough, it could tell me why, for no reason at all, I was born to suffer in this world.