Orion’s eyes took several seconds to adjust to the low light. When they did, he saw the large garage, the other doorway across the space, the guy with the machine gun blocking it, and Max Rivers waiting patiently with a collection of killers.

Orion felt himself go pale and stopped abruptly next to the bike, steadying Michael as he stumbled. Lilly had come to a stop beside him as well, halfway across the garage. Behind them, a police team was pooling in, led by Ryan Silas and Daniel Brooks. They stopped short at the sight of Rivers and his people. Orion cursed.

Rivers, for a part, didn’t flinch, didn’t waver, didn’t even raise an eyebrow. He just stood, surrounded by an air of violent calm. ‘Hounds.’

Orion shivered at the familiar voice. How in the hells had he managed to intercept them right here?

‘Nice of you to show up. I believe that you have something of mine.’

Orion immediately shifted to place himself in front of Michael. Rivers did raise an eyebrow at that. ‘Unfortunate, if expected. Ten?’

Jordan didn’t move. Rivers’ pleasant expression fell as he turned his head. His voice grew a shade colder. ‘Now.’

Jordan got off the bike but made no move to comply.

Rivers sighed.

Jordan scowled. ‘You’re not going to ask how I’m still alive?’

Rivers shrugged. ‘Why wouldn’t you be?’

‘You activated my kill-switch.’

‘Obviously it didn’t work. The same trick Sixty-two used, perhaps?’

Jordan bared his teeth. ‘You fucking ass-hole.’

He took a step forward and drew his gun, not yet aiming but gripping it tightly, ready at his side. ‘You damned, manipulative, greedy bast-’

Rivers smoothly raised a pistol and fired a single round.

Jordan collapsed backward with a hole between his eyes.

Orion didn’t flinch. He hadn’t registered it enough for that. Something in his head didn’t connect.

Jordan is dead.

That sentence meant nothing to him. It wasn’t attached to anything, no emotion, no reality, not even the sight of light brown eyes staring up at nothing. Not the crack of the bullet still reverberating through the garage.

A cry rose from the police group, and suddenly, it was a shootout.

Orion couldn’t bring himself to move until someone jostled him. Poison.

Oh, right. Bullets. Run.

His feet moved, steady and fast. The guy at the other doorway was gone, somehow. Orion didn’t know why, or where, and he didn’t care. They went through, and Orion lost sight of Jordan lying on the ground.

They filed into the next alley.

Poison, then Orion with Michael, then Lilly with Eliah.

On to the next intersection.

Poison, then Orion with Michael, then-

A wet, heavy sound. A cry. Orion turned, and saw Lilly lying sprawled on the concrete, Eliah drawing herself up a step away.

A kid, no older than twenty, stood next to them, grinning. Why “kid”? He wasn’t that much younger than Orion himself. But he looked like it. He looked like a child.

‘Hah!’ The kid shifted his weight from foot to foot, almost doing a little dance. ‘I’m better, I’m faster. You hear?’

He kicked at Lilly as he was getting up and caught him in the stomach. Lilly grunted and collapsed back to the ground.

‘I’m better!’

The kid kicked again, and this time, his foot glanced off and caught Lilly’s jaw.

Lilly’s head snapped back against the concrete and he went still.

‘No!’ It was Orion’s own voice, raw and loud, desperate and immediately cutting off. He didn’t remember shouting, but the cry came out, a horrible, grinding release of emotion.

The kid looked up, all shock and bewildered guilt. ‘I… I didn’t…’

Jordan was dead. Suddenly, Orion realised it. Jordan was dead. Lilly was dead. Everything was going to hell. It was too much. How could everything be right one moment and terribly wrong the next?

Poison picked Eliah up and grabbed Orion’s shoulder.

‘No!’, he screamed again, louder.

‘We have to leave.’

‘He-’

‘I know. But Rivers is coming.’

He was. The confrontation with the police wouldn’t last much longer, and both Rivers’ and Silas’ people were already turning their attention to them, to Michael and Eliah.

Orion didn’t care. He refused to move. This was Lilly!

The icy calm inside him broke and splintered, the last shield against the torment, and a harsh current of emotion tore him away.

Lilly. His friend Lilly. The nervous college kid. Lilly, who was so determined and so straightforward. Lilly, who hadn’t forgiven him yet.

Lilly, who lay unmoving on the ground.

‘He fought for Michael’s freedom. If you stay, it’s lost. We’ll come back, I promise, but we have to go, now.’

She was right. Michael. He had to protect Michael. And Eliah, too.

But he didn’t want to think of the right thing to do, didn’t want his thoughts to move on to the next steps. He wanted to scream. Cry. Shout. Wallow. Grieve.

Later, he told himself. Pushed it all aside. He could come back. He could kill the kid, the damned stupid kid who had taken his friend.

He pushed everything away, all except for the pain, and started down the street after Poison.

The pain could stay.

‘I can’t.’

Eliah continued to look at him, silent.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

‘Why?’

Orion shrugged. ‘I’m not done yet. This is all a gigantic mess, and I have things left to do. I can’t come with you.’

Eliah frowned, trying to understand. Everything seemed sharp and clear to her. And at the same time, everyone else was so complicated. ‘What are you looking for? Redemption?’

Maybe that was what she should be striving for herself. Redemption. Peace. After all, you were supposed to feel sorry for turning people into mush. The notion annoyed her.

Orion laughed. ‘Oh no. I’ve already doomed myself with everything I’ve done. I’m not a good person, Eliah. I don’t deserve redemption. I have done plenty of bad things, because sometimes they have to be done. And I’ve done plenty of bad things that didn’t have to be done, wrong things. I think this is the point where I should do at least one thing that is right. It’s not good, perhaps, but at least I’ll be putting some stuff back into place.’

She nodded slowly, although she only understood half of it. Was that an important distinction? Maybe she didn’t feel bad because killing those people had been bad, but it might not have been wrong?

Namira hadn’t thought about it at all. She had just acted, uncaring about good or bad, about wrong or right. Now that she was gone, Eliah was on her own again, and she felt like she should be human again. It was difficult. Why should she care about morals on such small a scale? It was all means to an end. There were no absolutes.

The indecision, the contradicting emotions, confused Eliah more than her lack of guilt.

Before Namira had left, she had made a deal with Eliah. She would come back if anyone tried to harness one of the Gods again, and Eliah would yield her body for that occasion. Her brain now contained a set of emergency instructions, wired tight, so the connection would be possible without a ritual or equipment. She also had a small box with a clue inside. Supposedly, when she opened the box, something in her mind would unlock the instructions and invite Namira in.

Eliah was determined to figure out some things before then, so that she could have a conversation with the entity that had briefly shared her body.

She remembered the power coursing through her, and found herself missing it. She didn’t want the power, not for the sake of having it, but she had relished the feeling of using, as if she was connected, rooted into the universe. It was there, a breath away from the edge of her reach, and she was just unable to grasp it.

Eliah brought herself back to the present, and the conversation. She kept drifting off, but right now she needed to be attentive. There would be more time to think, later.

‘What about the others?’ She indicated the door to the next room, where Poison was taking care of Michael’s injuries. Eliah’s own had healed when Namira had left her body. She had pulled aside her bloody shirt and the skin of her shoulder had been smooth.

‘What about them?’

‘Will it be the right thing for them, too?’ Did that matter?

Orion shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. Poison won’t think it is, which is why I’m telling you, and only you.’

Eliah pondered for a moment. Then she nodded. Orion loved his friends, and he would do everything to protect them, whether they agreed or not.

‘Do you think I’m doing the right thing?’ There was fear and doubt in his eyes.

‘I don’t know,’ Eliah said truthfully. ‘I think “right” means a different thing for everyone, just as “good” or “bad”. You can only do what feels right to you.’

‘Sounds a little self-centred. I could just be an egoistic prick with that reasoning.’

She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t feel “right” to you, so you don’t do it. You follow your own rules. The universe doesn’t care. There’s nothing but your own feelings that keeps you from doing stuff, and your own fear.’

It was what Eliah had always believed, and now that she was largely unburdened from her own set of morals, she could see it even more clearly.

Orion snorted. ‘That’s depressing. And not very reassuring.’

‘It’s not supposed to be.’

Orion sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Okay. I’ll try not to feel too shitty about all of this. Can you give something to Poison for me?’

He held out a note and Eliah took it.

‘It explains most of what I’m going to do, and why.’

Orion nodded to himself and glanced at her for a long moment, searching for something. ‘What happened back there?’, he asked softly.

Back there. When Namira had taken her body and guided it into a fight. When Eliah had given herself over to the rush of power, of understanding through a mind that was not hers alone any more. And then falling, down and down, spiralling, collapsing into the depth of normalcy. No more energy, except for the small portion that was her own.

She could still feel traces of Namira, after-images left behind where her conscience had brushed against Eliah’s and left a print. Small pockets of emotion and will that flared and dissipated. Her thoughts that drifted off, always away, always towards something bigger, like now.

‘She left,’ Eliah said quietly. ‘She was done, so she left me and took her brother out of Michael. It was a shock. I fell. Then you took me with you, and I remember being in a garage and...’

Tears came to her eyes, and she wiped them away furiously. She had vaporised people, but seeing someone shot in the head rattled her this much?

But that was not the terrifying, horrible truth she tried to push away. It was the image of Lilly, of his head smacking back against the unyielding-

She stopped herself before the image could fully form. She would still see it, though. Always.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be okay. I just need time. I’ll be fine. You can go.’

It was the first time she had felt the need to say it that often, instead of just withdrawing. And she was very grateful when Orion complied with her wish and didn’t try to comfort her, or to say anything else.

Instead, he stood, took a deep breath, and wiped his hands on his pant legs. He cast a rueful look around, then nodded briefly at Eliah, and left.

Daniel stabbed the shovel down. He’d expected the satisfying crunch of steel biting into frosted-stiff dirt, the gratifying weight of solid material on the shovel, of moving things, changing things. Getting somewhere.

Instead, the blade got stuck halfway into the icy ground, half of the load he lifted slid off, and even then, earth would slide back into the hole he was digging every now and then.

It was frustrating work, hard, seemingly endless work without any headway.

He was breathing hard, and only partly from the exertion. At least he had something to do. He glared down at his hands gripping the shovel.

The shot. His own cry. Shouting. Chaos.

His eyes tore away and wandered, putting the bundle just at the edge of his vision, as close as he would let himself get to looking at it. The wrapped-up body of his dead brother. The one he had dragged from the garage, stolen from an active crime scene without telling anyone. He wondered what Ryan would think when he found the corpse missing.

The shot had gone almost all the way through the skull, getting stuck in the occipital bone plate. Daniel had plucked it out and left it in the garage. Somehow, it didn’t feel right to leave it inside Jordan’s head.

He felt his skin shift from pale to red as fury gripped him. Damn him! Damn Jordan and damn all of this! He’d wanted to get his brains blown out? Well, he’d certainly worked hard to get there. No reason it should be Daniel’s job to clean up now, his responsibility to bury a man who had distanced himself years ago.

It takes two to fall out. And he showed up at your place. Shot up, desperate. You were the one person he thought he could rely on.

And what had Daniel done? Gotten him arrested.

Fine brother you are.

The hate was mostly gone now, replaced by hot shame.

Damn you, Jordan. Damn you for leaving me, again.

Frozen grass crunched somewhere close by. Daniel’s head snapped up, both caught off guard and immediately preparing for a fight.

A man in his twenties stood a few paces away. He held a shovel in one hand.

It took Daniel far too long to recognise Orion.

His fault, a part of him bristled, rallying his anger. His plans, his responsibility. And now he has the balls to show up here, when I’m doing a last favour to Jordan.

The anger was seething now, grasping purchase, something to focus on. Daniel drew his gun and aimed. His hand shook with rage and something else, but he was close enough that he wouldn’t miss.

‘The fuck do you want,’ he snarled.

Orion raised his free hand. ‘I’m not here for you,’ he said, voice cold and level. ‘I’m here for Jordan.’

Daniel felt a surge of panic at the though that someone would take the body from him. This was the last thing he could do for his dead brother. Nobody would take that. Daniel had made a lot of mistakes. He would do this one thing right, and he wouldn’t let anyone get in his way.

Daniel looked a bit closer, preparing to fight, and there was something else in Orion’s eyes that made him stop. Pain. The thief had lost someone today, too. A friend. Had they been friends, he and Jordan? Colleagues? Or had Orion schemed and just made use of Jordan for whatever he needed? That would have been an awfully innocent part for his brother to play. Jordan hadn’t been one to let others use him just like that.

Orion ignored the gun and crossed the distance between them. He drove his shovel into the ground, heaving a chunk of dirt aside, and paused. ‘You’re Nine, right?’

Daniel scowled and Orion chuckled at the expression. ‘Jordan told me. Used to talk about you, way back. Said you hated that name. I guess he was right.’

He heaved another bit of dirt. Daniel slowly lowered the gun. Maybe Orion was just here to pay his respects. Or maybe Daniel was being stupid for lowering his guard. He thought for a moment, then finally tucked his weapon away and joined Orion in digging.

‘Why are you here?’, he asked after a few minutes of nothing but silence, soft panting, and shifting dirt.

Orion sighed and leaned on his shovel. Daniel thought he was favouring his left side.

‘You’re a Number. Like it or not. Whether you go by it or not, you’re Nine. Same way, Jordan was Ten. And as far as I remember there are certain traditions among Numbers. As much as we fight and kill each other and compare dick sizes and lurk around in the corners. We don’t meet up for drinks, or have Thanksgiving Dinners together, or other normal bullshit like that.

‘If one of us dies, though, they get a proper burial. Family, if there is any, and close friends.’ He shrugged and resumed his work. ‘I figure you’re family, and I’m the closest thing to a friend he had.’

Daniel stared, caught off guard. He knew about the tradition, of course. Had participated often enough, with the kind of work him and the others had done. A group would get together and take a day, dedicate it to the deceased. Take turns digging the grave, slowly, meticulously. There would be stories shared and feelings expressed. It was an opportunity to grieve openly, reminisce, make peace. The kind Numbers tended not to get very often.

The tradition had come up in the early days of the project, when the first of them had died. Two. Daniel hadn’t known him all that well, but he remembered One and Five asking Max Rivers for a day off to mourn. Rivers had granted it, and when Twelve kicked the bucket a few months later, Daniel had joined in on the burial. Ever since then, Rivers had seemed content to leave them their comfort. He had enough people to spare.

Orion had been right on all this, and it nagged at Daniel. That, and the fact that Orion had said “we” when referring to the Numbers. Not “they”.

‘So, what’s your name, then?’, he asked carefully.

Orion had started in on the grave again, and grinned without looking up. ‘You caught that, huh. I’m Sixty-two.’

Daniel frowned. ‘High number for someone as old as you.’

‘There was an influx when I got it, lots of new kids. Funny, I’m closer to Jordan in age than you, but you managed to get consecutive numbers.’

He remembered that, actually. The rush of kids had come in not long after he had graduated into Rivers’ further service. To think that he had known Orion before all this. But there had been so many people. When Daniel had first joined, things had been very different. They had all known each other. They had all still been alive.

‘It was the beginning of the program,’ he recounted quietly. ‘Not many people yet. The program wasn’t established, so only a few kids trickled in each year. Still in the probationary stages. How did you figure Jordan and I were family?’

Orion’s grin broadened. ‘You got the same scowl.’ He laughed at Daniel’s expression. ‘Yeah, that one. I’m kidding, of course. It was pretty common knowledge you were siblings, and you share enough similarities between you that it was obvious anyway.’

Something seemed to occur to him, and he paused his digging to catch his breath and look straight at Daniel, considering. ‘You weren’t always a Number.’

Daniel picked up his shovel, avoiding the thief’s gaze. By now, Rivers only took in recruits below the age of two, the ones that could best be moulded to his ideas. In the beginning, he hadn’t had the luxury to be picky.

Orion chuckled. ‘That’s why it was so easy for you to get out. You had an identity beyond the program. Now, everything about me is made up, but you’re not. You’re legit.’ There was a kind of awe in his eyes, a sort of longing. ‘So what, you decided to join Rivers and your brother tagged along?’

Daniel kept his gaze down, teeth gritted. Orion shook his head at the ensuing silence and continued to dig.

An hour or so of silent work later, when the sun had already sunk below the horizon and basked the sky in fiery orange, they were done. For a minute, they simply stood in the falling darkness, breathing, sweating, regarding the hole they had cut into the ground.

‘Our mother was a drug dealer,’ Daniel said finally. ‘She moved us around a lot. A bit after Jordan was born, she told me to take him and go for a walk, so she could rest. When I got back, she was dead.’

He was surprised at how easy it was to say. He’d never told this story to anyone, not even Jordan. Maybe now, years too late, he could. He looked over at the bundle, directly this time, permitting it to become his focus. It was strangely bearable.

‘A couple of guys she’d cheated with low quality stuff decided to get even. I don’t know whether she knew they were coming for her and tried to protect us. Maybe she was just tired of looking after us.’

He took a deep, slow breath. ‘She hadn’t even given you a name yet. I took you to Rivers, and we got the next two spots in the program. I got a new name, and you got your first one. A two-digit number.’

Orion didn’t interrupt him. He didn’t laugh or sneer at Daniel’s show of emotion. He didn’t even say anything about the tears streaming freely down his cheeks.

Daniel worried for a moment that he had said too much, given out too much personal information. But that was part of the tradition, too, wasn’t it? No haggles, no fights or snide comments or laughter. No using information. No tricks. Just respect. Cease-fire. Safety to show emotion. A rarity.

He wondered if the tradition had been then only thing keeping them all sane.

They lifted Jordan’s body and lowered him into the grave. It was a difficult, painstaking task, but they managed it without either of them slipping down into the hole. Daniel supposed it was a rather sad testimony to how many friends they had each buried over the years.

Orion stretched his back with a groan. He glanced towards the remnants of sunlight and sighed. ‘All right. Back to it.’ He picked up his shovel and started refilling the grave.

Neither of them had said any words over the open grave, and neither of them spoke while they started closing it. Daniel didn’t prod. He burned to hear a story from Orion. It seemed like a necessity, an almost mandatory exchange of tales. But he couldn’t demand here, couldn’t expect. The stories had to be shared freely, or their purpose would dissipate.

It took all of five minutes, when Daniel was starting to get twitchy. He thought he saw a small grin on Orion’s lips at that.

‘Jordan really loved you.’

Daniel looked up. He hadn’t expected that. ‘Huh?’

‘He turned to doing drugs to forget the job early on. Fourteen is awfully young to start killing, especially if you keep it up.’

‘Great. And I left him alone with it.’ Daniel’s guilt turned into a cloud of loathing for himself and his actions. He had been angry at his kid brother and left him to fend for himself in a world of bloodshed and violence and death.

‘Hey!’, Orion chided. ‘My turn. No interrupting. It gets better.’

Daniel raised a hand in defence, but shut up.

‘So. He was shooting up, and every year around, oh, I don’t know, the third of May to the day, he’d stop and get clean for two weeks. Every year, like clockwork.’

Daniel stared at him.

‘It’s not exactly a story, I don’t have many of those, and even fewer nice ones. But I thought-’

‘Third of May,’ Daniel whispered. ‘My birthday.’

Jordan had remembered. He’d cared enough to sober up for two weeks. He’d come to Daniel’s apartment when he’d had no other place to go, and trusted him with his injuries. Maybe Daniel hadn’t done everything wrong. But then…

‘Why did he do it?’ He was crying again, sobbing. ‘Why did he just take that bullet?’

He could still see Jordan walking towards Rivers, teeth bared, not even trying to raise his gun. He was an experienced fighter, he should have seen the shot coming. He hadn’t dodged, hadn’t fired back, nothing.

‘He was dying,’ Orion said, very softly. ‘Rivers added a number of implants to the roster for his higher ranks. Jordan removed the one that would have killed him instantly, but another dozen or so went off. Explosives, poison, that kind of thing. He probably wouldn’t have survived the day, even if he had gotten to a hospital in time. I’m surprised he lasted that long.’

Daniel threw down his shovel. If the bullet hadn’t gotten Jordan, the implants would have done the job. If the implants hadn’t finished him off, his nerve damage would have. Jordan had been dead three ways by the end of it. ‘How did this get so fucked up?’

Orion shrugged. ‘Max Rivers is a colossal dick-bag?’

Daniel bit back the anger. It retreated quickly to make way for a deep, wary sadness. Nothing he could do about it. His brother was dead. There was no way to turn back time and save Jordan, to ever get him back. He was gone.

‘He died on his own terms, at least. Insulting someone.’ Orion grinned.

Somehow, that made it better. Daniel picked up the shovel again. ‘He’s not always been a jerk, you know. Those drugs Rivers’ people take to calm down, they’re not just sedatives and Speed. There’s some kind of neurochemistry shit going on that alters the way you think, though it’s pretty broad range. Some people can’t take it at all. Some people change. Jordan’s been using the stuff for years, and it definitely changed him.’

‘Sounds almost like downloading a personality into your brain,’ Orion said, voice far too casual.

‘You think it’s connected to the Michael Runner mess?’ It sounded like Rivers to try and compete on that kind of level.

Orion shrugged with a small smile and started digging again. A few minutes later, he suddenly stopped. ‘So. About the stories. Ever seen a fridge blow up?’