“Elle!” I cried as I sloshed through the knee high swamp water as quickly as I could, my breaths coming out in frantic huffs. Each breath in was accompanied by a fresh wave of nausea as the putrid, dank atmosphere of the area flowed into my lungs. I was managing to hold back the bile rising in my throat if only just barely, and I knew with certainty that if I weren’t in the midst of trying to save Elle, I would have given in to the sickness.

Up ahead, Elle silently reached out towards me, her face twisted in horrific pain as a pack of skeletons and trolls surrounded her and began tearing at her, prying away her pale skin and hair in long, bloody patches.

“NO!” I screamed, trying to find my bow as I ran and ran, futilely trying to close the gap between us that seemed to grow wider by the second.

“Shut up. Shut up right now, or I swear to god, I’ll command you to stop breathing. Do you want that? Huh?!”

“Stop it!! Leave her alone!!” I roared in defiance only for my foot to catch on a root that laid unseen under the surface of the murky, reed filled waters. I fell forward but managed to land on my knees instead of falling completely into the filth, and my eyes snapped up just in time to see Elle’s head be completely engulfed in the pitch black hand of a Nightwalker and squeezed until blood gushed from the cracks. I started to scream.

“You’re worthless! Useless! Just like your father.”

My scream was abruptly cut off as my throat seized up. I clawed at it, trying in vain to pry away the invisible, intangible vice that had seized my windpipe, and suddenly I was falling down through water. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight it, couldn’t—

I woke to sharp pain all along my side and darkness all around me. An involuntary hiss found its way through my clenched teeth as I rolled over onto my back on the wooden floor, and I sucked sweet, precious air into my lungs as I tried to push past my groggy thoughts and figure out where I was.

“You’re mine, you know that, right?”

I tensed at the familiar voice, and my head snapped up and to the side. The moonlight streaming in through the window just barely illuminated where Elle laid on her bed, her eyes shut and face taut with distress. Octavia was leaning over her, a wide grin tugging at her lips as she looked up at me and winked.

“Here we go,” she said, the words beginning in her usual timbre only to quickly shift into something far darker. “Encounter beg—”

Her words cut off, and I stared as she slumped forward lifelessly over Elle in the bed. Cocked to the side where her head had landed, I could just barely make out in the dim room the surprised ‘o’ of her lips and the rectangular hole in the middle of her forehead as blood began to gush out onto Elle’s sheets. A coin was embedded in the wall behind where she had been looming. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it just as keenly as the coins that had begun to orbit around me. Sleep continued to grip Elle, though her slumber was obviously disturbed by nightmares, leaving her unaware of the corpse sprawled over her.

I shuddered involuntarily as I directed more of my coins to rise into the air and join those that had been looping around me. I directed a batch forward to grip and lift the body off of Elle, and to my dismay, it continued to leak blood on the floor as it hung lifelessly in the air.

“Fuck,” I softly swore, rubbing at my eyes to try and clear my head as I propped myself up on the hardwood floor of our room using my elbow. There were probably better words to describe waking up to… this. But whatever they were, my sleep addled mind couldn’t grasp them and stuck to descriptors that came more readily. “Fuuuck…”

Blood was starting to pool on the ground, and that was going to be an absolute bitch to get out. I checked Elle’s comforter and found it was just as stained, and at a loss for what else to do, I crossed the room and tugged it off of her before throwing it in the corner and dumping the body on it. It’s probably already ruined anyway. Elle had already begun to shiver, and I quickly checked her night clothes for blood before gently jostling her. “Elle… Elle, I need you to wake up.”

She jerked a bit underneath my hand, then her eyelids blearily cracked open. She craned her head to look up at me and languidly blinked as I gave her a strained grimace. “There was… a bit of an accident. C’mon over to my bed.”

She dutifully pushed herself up into a seated position, though her movements were slow and drawn out, not that I had expected anything less. It had been days, and both of us had been sleeping fitfully and never for long. Elle had begun to show minor signs of slipping out of her streak of bad days, but she had yet to manage anything better than very short, basic sentences since the swamp. I carefully led her around what blood littered the floor between our beds and did my best to keep myself blocking her line of sight of the corner where the construct laid in a heap.

A traitorous thought crossed my mind that it could have been the real Octavia, since she had escaped and hadn’t been found yet. It was a very distressing notion, and I tried to remind myself it had almost certainly been a construct. I certainly wouldn’t have mourned the bitch who had fucked with my mind dying, but… well, I really wanted the body in the corner to be a construct.

I shoved those thoughts aside as I helped her lie down and get under my own sheets and comforter. For the time being, I settled for dumping my coins on the floor. “Get some sleep while I… clean up, okay?”

“‘Kay,” she mumbled as she snuggled into the depths of the sheets. She said something else as well, but I couldn’t make sense of the words as she succumbed to weariness and trailed off.

God, she’s beautiful, I thought as I tucked an errant lock of her pale blond hair behind her ear before it could tickle her nose and rouse her again. My hand lingered on her cheek as I continued to stare for a moment, but I eventually pulled away, embarrassed I had dawdled as long as I had. I slipped out of our room in the Flycatcher and carefully closed the door before padding barefoot down the hardwood floor of the hallway to the stairway. Once downstairs, I made my way to the kitchen to find cleaning supplies and flipped on the lights, hissing as the sudden brightness seared my eyes.

“Trouble sleeping again?” I whirled around as I reflexively summoned the knives from the knife block over to me, and whoever had spoken blurted, “Woah, hold up!”

“Don’t fucking move, or I swear you’ll be full of more holes than swiss cheese,” I growled as my eyes struggled to adjust to the new light levels. It took a few moments, but eventually I was able to see it was Seventeen—or Sebastian, or whatever name he went by when he was pretending to be a human. “Oh. It’s you,” I grumbled as I dumped the knives on the kitchen island in a heap. “Could’ve warned me, asshat.”

“And you could’ve gone with something less cliche than ‘full of more holes than swiss cheese,’” he snarked with a raised eyebrow as he slowly lowered his hands from where he had been holding them up in a gesture to stop.

I sent him a brief glare before ignoring him in favor of peeking under the sink and rummaging through the chemical bottles.

“Looking for anything in particular?”

“I’m fine,” I ground out as I grabbed the bleach with the thought, It’ll have to do. I started towards the exit to the foyer where the stairs were only to pause when I realized I needed towels or something as well. Not wanting to interact with the android any more than necessary, much less immediately walk back my denial of his offer, I glanced at the clock built into the stove. 4:04? I thought with a grimace. Fuck. Everyone’s going to be dead asleep.

“What d’you need?”

You don’t have to sound so smug, I thought with a grimace. The towels in the bathroom might have been enough, but the construct’s still bleeding body was also still in the room, and frankly the best thing I could do with that was get it away from Elle’s zone of control, so it could begin to fade away. That meant I might get more blood on the floor in the hallway, and I didn’t fancy everyone waking up to me on my hands and knees cleaning up what looked like a gruesome murder scene. “I need…” I started to say before sighing and taking a metaphorical step backwards and starting at the beginning. Should explain first, I suppose. “Had a nightmare.”

“Need clorox for that?”

“For fuck’s—” I snapped, my tiredness getting the better of me. “No, what I need is for you to shut up for a goddamn minute and let me fucking explain.”

To his credit, Seventeen looked a bit chagrined. “Sorry. I just—sorry.”

He looks so real. I glowered at the floor, so I didn’t have to look at him—to think about what was under his skin. “I woke up from a nightmare, and Elle had made a construct of Octavia in her sleep. I… put a coin through its head. Now there’s blood all over her sheets and the floor, and the body… well, it’ll go away after a bit if I get it away from Elle.”

He waited a moment, and when I didn’t add anything else, he commented, “Sounds like a mess. Can definitely get it cleaned up, but it’s going to be tough not to wake up Elle.”

“I know, I know, I just…” I sagged a bit. The adrenaline from my nightmare and waking to her over Elle was beginning to fade, leaving me feeling all at once just how little sleep I’d had—not just tonight, but for days. “I don’t want her to wake up to that.”

“I get it,” he agreed. He thought for a moment then added, “Eighteen is otherwise occupied right now, but I’ll grab Thirty-Four and get crackin’. Why don’t you get back to bed?”

My head snapped up in surprise. “What? No, I—”

“Need some more sleep? Why yes, I totally agree.” I fixed him with an unimpressed look, my ire renewed, but before I could ream into him, he pressed on, “Look, even setting aside for the moment how dead on your feet you are right now, you’re human and need to sleep. Thirty-Four and I? We’re not and don’t. From what you’re describing, you’ve got what amounts to a crime scene up there. It seems pretty obvious to me who ought to be cleaning it up, don’t you?”

“Why do you even give a fuck?” I asked. In my head, I had imagined the words coming out heated, but they ended up coming out just plain weary.

“You’re joking, right?” For the first time, he glared at me. “I’m choosing to hope that comment is because we don’t know each other very well and not because I’m an android, and if I’m wrong, then hold your tongue because you do not want to admit that to me.”

I bit my tongue to kill off the words that nearly left my tongue.

Unfortunately, something must have shown on my face. His glare turned downright venomous, and he growled, “Son of a… You do. You really think that.”

“I…”

“I can’t believe this. You realize Sixteen died trying to save you, right? Did that mean nothing to you?!” We had been talking quietly, but by the time he was done, Seventeen was bellowing his words.

You’re wrong. “Shut up!” I snapped, planting my hands on the island as I tried to control my breathing. “You don’t know shit about me!”

He laughed, the sound cold and hard. “I know plenty. Let’s start with how you’re an ungrateful little shit! My sister gave her life to save you, or did you forget that? She’s dead because of you, and you think she was never even alive!”

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

“Why don’t you make me, huh?! Just put one of those knives through my skull, since I’m just a lifeless robot!”

“Both of you, calm down now.”

A stony face Melanie, her robe pulled tight around her, finished storming down the stairs and moved into the kitchen with Masuyo hot on her heels. My cousin flitted straight to my side, and it wasn’t until she had pulled me into a tight hug against her that I realized how wet my cheeks were.

Melanie, meanwhile, stopped halfway between us and gave us each a look. “Now, I want you each to calmly explain why you’re yelling at each other in the middle of the night. Sebastian, begin if you please.”

“I found her looking for cleaning supplies. She said she made a mess of one of Elle’s illusions and needed to clean up. We were talking about who should do it, which obviously I should, since I don’t need to sleep. One thing lead to another, and I got pissed when I realized she doesn’t think I’m alive.” I glanced his way and saw he looking at me. It might have been my imagination, but I swore his expression had softened just a hair. He sighed and ran a hand through his wiry black hair. “I shouldn’t have reacted so badly, but after Sixteen died, I just… Yeah, sorry.”

Stop it.

I vaguely heard Melanie say, “And you, June?” but I couldn’t stop looking at Seventeen. He said something as I stared, his brow knit together. Confusion? Anger?

Did it matter? I wasn’t seeing Seventeen anymore—I was upstairs, watching as the construct leaned over Elle again.

“June?”

It grinned at me just like she had. Stupid, dorky, and entirely too satisfied for the situation.

“J—no!!” People and things around me were moving, talking, but it all seemed so far away.

The construct had looked real. So real. Just like all of Elle’s constructs did. Like Seventeen did. Like… Ariel had before I…

“I’ve got it!”

I watched as Ariel tossed her purse aside and tried to pull off her jacket while dodging the melted bullets I sent hurtling at her. She was fast, really fast, but with everything going on, she missed me using the remains of her gun to hit her from behind. I had aimed to disable her, but then Octavia was on her, furious as she smashed her face into the ground. I reached out to stop her, horrified my friend was doing that at all, much less to Ariel.

“Deep breaths, June.”

“All of you want me to do this.”

Then I did. I watched with a pleased smile as Octavia smashed Ariel’s face into the ground again. And again. And again.

“It’s safe—you’re safe.”

Eventually her face began to break away, piece by piece, revealing what laid underneath. I had told myself it wasn’t her, that it was just a robot. It had never been alive, had never cared about anything, had hopes and dreams.

And as I tried to convince myself of her inhumanity, that she didn’t couldn’t care about anything, she said to us, “We will save you.”

“June,” someone was saying, but they were still so far away. “Can you hear us? What’s wrong?”

“I’m a murderer.” Admitting it aloud, putting words to the pervasive knowing in me, left me simultaneously relieved and repulsed by myself. I had felt something like that only once before on the day I had finally admitted to myself I was a girl, that I had been wasting my life trying to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. Similar… but not the same. This revulsion was deeper, darker—more certain of how ugly I was inside.

“What? No you’re not—!”

“I helped kill Ariel. I killed her, and I liked it! I’m a murd—!”

My head snapped to the side and pain blossomed in my cheek. My eyelids fluttered for a moment as the fog I hadn’t felt settling over my thoughts retreated in the wake of the shock, leaving behind the kitchen in sharp, startling clarity. Knives and other silverware were strewn about together with the pots and pans. The microwave had been ripped from where it hung above the oven and tossed to the floor with its glass viewing hole shattered, and the oven looked to be disturbed, sitting somewhat cockeyed and half pulled out of its cutout in the counter. The fridge doors were flung wide, and most of the items that had been in the doors were strewn on the floor like the microwave. Masuyo, Melanie, and Seventeen were peeking out from either side of the wide, open passage from the foyer into the kitchen, having apparently taken cover from the carnage in the kitchen. What caught my eye more than any of that, however, was my mirror image standing in front of me with a contorted, livid expression and her hand still raised from slapping me.

Aisha…?

“You fucking idiot.”

“Aisha, don’t—” Melanie started to interject.

“Uh uh, nope,” my friend cut her off right back, slashing her hand through the air in Melanie’s direction. “You tried your way, and she nearly gutted all of you and herself by fucking accident. I’m handling this now.”

What? I thought in surprise. I lifted my hands and looked down, and sure enough, I had a multitude of cuts lining me, weeping blood. Now that I was aware of their existence, I began to feel some of the pain leaking through the numbness still gripping my thoughts, but even then it was still strangely dull and disproportionate to how bad I knew the wounds were. My sleep attire was ruined from the gashes and stains, but I likewise just couldn’t bring myself to care as I stared at the dark red lines littering my skin.

Aisha pointedly jabbed me in the chest with her finger, drawing my attention back up to her. Her ire clearly had not diminished in the slightest, and it was strange yet oddly appropriate to see… ‘me’ so angry at me. “You.” She jabbed me again. “Are.” Again. “A fucking.” Again. “Idiot!”

As I continued to stare at her, she growled, “You were mastered you goddamn moron!” I opened my mouth to say that didn’t matter, and she slapped her hand over it. “No, uh uh, pity party is over. It’s big girl real talk time now. You were mastered. Hell, you weren’t just mastered, you were Mastered with a capital ‘M.’ Boss filled us in all the sordid little details, so let’s review, shall we? That cuntsicle straight up jacked you, Elle, and Zoo dude in the middle of a goddamn crowd, who she also mastered because stop with just three motherfucking people, and she almost got away with it scot-free. Ariel tried to jump ‘em, and shit went sideways. It happens. I thought you’da been acquainted with that having lived a few weeks in the Bay, much less having lived your entire life in New York Motherfucking City. Example right off the top’a my head: The night I showed you my powers, or do you not remember that shit?”

“I don’—!” I tried to say around her hand, my words muffled.

“Rhe-fucking-torical question. I. Am. Not. Finished. Now, as I was saying. Shit went sideways. Ain’t your fucking fault it happened, and it sure as shit ain’t your fault you were forced to participate. That’s how Masters work. They get in your head and twist shit ‘til you don’t know your brother from a ganger! ‘But oh, Aisha!’ you say, ‘you don’t know what it’s like!’ Well joke’s on you, ‘cause I know all about that mindfuckery firsthand.”

No… Not you too?

Shadows engulfed her as her body twisted back into herself. “See, wannabe Empire goons ‘n’ capes, they gotta go through initiation. Kill somebody whose skin ain’t pearly white ‘n’ pure. Once upon a time, yours truly and her bro went out to get some nice lunch. He’d just gotten a job, and we wanted to celebrate. Good, innocent shit. Then on our way there, not even five minutes away from his apartment, bam! Two on two. Maybe that sounds fair? Problem is, one’s a vet cape in fucking body armor who knows goddamn kung fu ‘cause he sucked that shit outta some blackbelt who probs don’t even know how to throw a punch now. And let’s not forget the fuckface Master who could make you see and hear whatever he wanted just by touching you.

“I remember their powers all too well, since I became them after wannabe tricked me into shanking my bro a few times with the knife I got to defend myself. He died, bleeding out in dirty ass alley ‘cause of me, and I got powers as consolation prize. Oh, and let’s not forget suddenly knowing exactly how to lynch someone and what it feels like to jack off to it. Fucking great, right? And now every time I use my powers—every single goddamn time—I gotta remember the only reason I have ‘em is because I killed Brian.”

I couldn’t have dragged my eyes away from Aisha’s if I had tried. “Please tell me this is a joke. Aisha, please tell me this is a sick joke.”

“Told you already, it’s time for real talk,” she steadily, quietly replied. “Now look, I ain’t trying to make light of what you went through. Shit was twisted, and nobody should have to deal with that. Nobody. But that ain’t no excuse for losin’ your shit on somebody who ain’t the one that did it to you and damn near killin’ ‘em while you break their shit.”

I was shaking, finally beginning to properly feel the pain, yet strangely… I felt a bit better. The numbness in my body and the fog over my thoughts had seeped away and left behind ice in my veins and a cold, cutting clarity. “Sorry.”

“Accepted, but it ain’t just me you should be saying that to.”

My head jerked a bit in a nod. All the icy cold clarity in the world couldn’t keep at bay the weariness from the late hour and the emotional drain from my breakdown, not to mention my fading adrenaline and blood loss. I looked past her and noticed that at some point during her story Gregor and Newter had woken up as well, leaving most of the house quietly watching from the foyer. I moved to step towards them and immediately lost my footing, but Aisha caught me before I could fall. I was shivering uncontrollably now, and I couldn’t get my legs to cooperate, but thankfully Masuyo, Melanie, and Sev—Sebastian moved forward to join us while Gregor and Newter hung back and watched.

Masuyo swept me up into yet another hug, apparently uncaring that I was bleeding all over, but it was Sebastian I looked to as I muttered, “Sorry I fucked up the kitchen and… y’know.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. After a moment, his mouth snapped shut, and he ran his hand through his hair before finally saying, “You’re full of trouble, you know that?”

Well you’re not wrong. “Yeah.”

“Go to bed kid. We’ll…. figure this out.”

Masuyo tugged me towards the stairs, and I let her. The stairs were awful to climb up, since my legs felt like lead, but she hooked my arm over her shoulder and gave me enough lift support to manage. For a brief second, I wondered where she’d learned to do that, then I remembered she had been a nurse at Bay General for a while. Before long, we were slipping back into mine and Elle’s room, and to my dismay, Elle was sitting upright on my bed with her knees pulled into her chest. Fireflies hung in the air, illuminating the room enough to see the… corpse was gone. So was the blood, though the hardwood floor appeared to be stained where the puddle had been, and the comforter I had tossed in the corner somehow still looked grody.

Goddammit. Shouldn’t be surprised I woke her up too. “Hey, Elle,” I croaked, my throat feeling tight. “Sorry for… all’a this.”

Masuyo moved me towards Elle’s bed, and my eyes unconsciously gravitated up to the coin still stuck in the wall over it as she gingerly set me down on Elle’s bed. “Sit tight and don’t move. I’m going to grab my kit, so I can treat all these. You’ll be lucky if half of this doesn’t end up infected.” Before I could muster up a reply, she was gone.

I turned my attention back to the other side of the room. Elle was gripping her legs tightly, and her eyes were open, staring off towards what might have been the kitchen. I felt something metal grow into existence on the bed and settle against my hip, and I looked down and found a small, strangely shaped flask nestled against me. I blinked, uncomprehending for several moments as I tried to piece together what it was. It wasn’t all metal—just its stopper, which looked to made of pure gold. The rest looked to be glass, and through the transparent shell I could see a clear liquid of some kind that sloshed around as I poked at it. Just before I resolved myself to ask Elle what she’d spun into existence, I felt and saw more metal appear on the bed. A sword and shield together with a lonely dagger and a bow, quiver, and horn. The strange assortment of items brought the association together for me.

“Thanks for the thought, Elle,” I said with a small smile as I ran my fingers along the smooth exterior of the cordial. It was a sweet thought, even though her power couldn’t really make a healing elixir. Before long Masuyo returned with her kit, and when she looked at the array of items on the bed then to me in confusion, I explained, “They’re from the first book we read together. Long story.”

“Oh, well, I’ll just… move them aside then?” She didn’t wait for an answer, already having begun cautiously pushing them further down the comforter, and before long she was settled beside me. She helped me tug off what remained of my shirt and bra and pushed up the hem of my shorts, then she started patching me up. Almost all of the bleeding had already stopped, so she started on the cuts that hadn’t yet clotted.

“Hey, um…”

Masuyo’s gaze flicked up to me briefly before she returned her attention to what she was doing. “Yeah?”

The words were there, poised on my tongue, but I couldn’t manage to voice them. Instead, I muttered, “Never mind.”

She paused and turned her full attention to me. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

No. “I know,” I lied. “Was just a random thought, and it’s already gone. Too tired.”

“If you’re sure,” she allowed as she resumed applying whatever the hell liquid was that foamed on wounds and made them sting like hell. “When I’m done here, we’ll have to get you some clean sheets to sleep on.”

“Sure,” I distractedly replied, my thoughts still caught on what I had almost asked her. What makes something… alive? What did it really mean to be conscious? Ariel had never seemed ‘fake,’ nor had Sebastian… and neither had Elle’s constructs. The first night I had woken to a construct in our room I had learned just how real they could be. And just as easily as Elle had breathed life into that wolf, she had dispersed it back into nothingness when Melanie told her to reign in her power. If Ariel and Sebastian were alive… had real feelings… What did that say about Elle’s constructs?

I desperately hoped she was simply moving her creations to and from the world she created. Only one of us should have to be a murderer.

“Okay, you’re all set for now,” Masuyo said some time later, drawing my out of my gloomy musings. “I’m going to ask Sebastian where some clean sheets are. Be right back.”

She started to leave again with her kit in hand, and I was brought up short by the sight of wounds on her too. “Wait,” I said, and she paused halfway out the door. “You’re hurt.”

A sad smile crossed her face. “Was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

“‘Cause I did it, right?” A tight feeling of wretchedness wound itself up in my gut at the thought. “I’m… I’m really sorry.”

“Hey now,” she soothed, making her way back in and pulling me into another damnable hug. “Don’t even worry about it. Compared to you, I was barely hit at all.”

It wasn’t fair how good that hug made me feel. I was a merc, willing to hurt and save people alike for money, and I was a murderer despite what Aisha said. It was… better that it had been forced on me, but I still knew what it felt like to enjoy watching someone die. It wasn’t fair for me to also enjoy being comforted by her. Had I made the wrong decision, accepting her worming her way into my life like this?

“Hey,” she said, dragging me out of my thoughts. “I can practically hear you thinking in there. Stop it. You need sleep, okay?”

Dark thoughts or no, I still failed to stifle a yawn at the thought of sleep. Even killers got sleepy.

“I’ll go see about those sheets.” She pulled back. I blinked, then she was gone.

Now that we were alone, Elle extracted one of her hands from where she had been gripping her legs and reached out towards me. “Come here,” I could practically hear her say.

I had no doubt that Elle had seen what happened downstairs. She wouldn’t have heard it, but her power let her feel everything in her range—everything she could twist and mold. She had watched me butcher myself… and she still reached out?

“Not sick of me yet, huh?”

She reached out with her other hand as well.

I don’t deserve this at all, I thought as I pulled the coins on the floor over to me and used them to drift across the floor. Don’t deserve you.

I would have said as much… but then, I already had after the swamp. And she had hugged me anyway.

Damnable hugs. I think I have a problem.

My eyes had begun to droop, and Elle scooted back a bit before twisting to lay down on her side. I laid down too and slid next to her, so my back was to her chest. It crossed my mind that though we had slept together before, this was the first time we had since I had asked her out. It should have felt important, noteworthy. Instead, I was just tired and sore.

She wrapped an arm around me to tug me closer and sleepily whispered, “Night.” The word tickled my ear.

“Sweet dreams,” I whispered back as I faded away.