Remi held the handle of the ice box, squeezing it tightly as she tried to work up the nerve to look and see what was inside. Who was inside.

She wished she could bring them all back to life. But alas, they would have nowhere to go. Most likely, they would be recaptured and live out their lives as slaves, and although Remi tried to avoid learning of the horrors that went on in other households, she hadn't been able to help learning some things. Disgusting, degrading, perverse things that made her want to throw up again and again.

If only there was a better world for these corpses to be brought back into—one where they wouldn't have to suffer.

"Need help, master?" Killure purred from behind her, running soothing circles on her wrist.

He wasn't comforting her at all. All he did was make her heart beat a hell of a lot faster and distract her from what she had to do.

"No," she whispered, trying to convince herself.

He pouted, as if this was all some big game to him and he'd just been denied a turn.

"How can you be so casual about this?" she grumbled, and his eyes lit up again.

A sadistic grin appeared on his face. "You forget that I'm a killer, and that I'm used to death and blood and gore. In fact, I revel in it."

Remi shuddered, turning away from him and trying to refocus on the task at hand.

She was somewhat used to gore as well. Actually, more like corpses and body parts and death. But the thought of knowing she was about to look at a person who was dead and most likely would soon be chopped up and sold as meat—and that if things were different, she could bring the body back to life—sickened her. She felt completely helpless, and she hated feeling that way.

Remi could hear Blue and Bliss opening and closing doors behind her.

"But you're not," Killure added as an afterthought, leaning against a refrigerator casually, not caring about the corpses hidden just a few inches from his back.

"Yes, I'm reminded of that all the time," Remi let go of the handle. "But this is just pathetic. It's a door, for goodness sakes."

Killure watched her for a moment through his slitted, cat-like eyes. And then, without warning, he was in front of her. Her eyes hadn't been fast enough to follow the speed of his movements.

He tilted her chin up to look her in the eyes. He always touched her so gently, and despite the fact that the points of his claws were against her neck, they didn't hurt.

"Master," he growled, looking sharply into her eyes. "If you changed—became more accustomed to this, there would be nothing good left in this world."

Remi's eyes widened and her mouth parted slightly in shock as she stared into his deep, royal blue eyes.

Then her lips tilted upwards into a sly grin. Although she wasn't sure where she was gaining this confidence from all of a sudden, Remi winked at him. "So you're saying you don't hate my guts anymore?"

He raised an eyebrow, relaxing his body. "When did I ever hate you, doll?"

Remi let out a huff. "You didn't want to sleep beside me, because you didn't want to be anywhere near me. You called me a liar, and pretty much implied that you wanted to eat me."

His lips parted, and he went to speak but stopped short and bowed his head.

Blue and Bliss stood before them. Bliss grinned widely, while Blue was as expressionless as ever. "We found him. Big help you were."

Relief washed over Remi in powerful waves. She wouldn't have to see anyone whose fate had already been sealed.

Papa Roche always left a stretcher leaning against the metal wall for their frequent visits. Now, the stretcher lay across a metal counter with a large, naked body upon it. The man's hair was matted and greasy, caked with gritty dirt. There was not a single speck of blood on his body, however, which made Remi wonder which poor soul had gotten tasked with cleaning around the eleven stab wounds on his stomach.

Remi trailed her hand across his skin, which was frozen and felt hard, almost like metal. And yet, Remi could feel such potential beneath her fingers. Potential for life.

Once he'd thawed, of course.

This corpse would become Lars Alfonzo once again.

It took the efforts of all three of them to unthaw him evenly across his body at the perfect pace that would allow him to live. They could have done it naturally, in a temperature-controlled room with a timer that regulated how quickly he was unthawing, but that would take too long. Also, carrying a frozen corpse on horseback through the streets of the city back to their home would only increase the rumours people spread about the infamous Goldridges.

So, the three of them worked tirelessly. As Designers, they always had to have something to begin with in order to make more of it. Generating heat from a nearly-frozen body always took hours and exhausted them, but if that was what it took to bring a man back to life, it was worth it to Remi.

Even if it were possible to heat him up all at once, his body would be damaged from the sudden change, and it would be even harder to bring him back to life afterward.

And so, they worked hard to latch onto the tiniest shred of heat and multiply it evenly.

Remi could feel the glowing energy seeping from her body into the corpse like tiny, glowing hands, identifying and increasing the heat. The little hands also told her of his damaged innards, which had been partially sliced into by the blade he was killed with, but Remi didn't focus on those. She couldn't do anything to them while they were frozen solid.

Eventually, the skin began to feel less like metal and more like squishy, cold flesh, and the frozen blood in his frozen veins began to thaw.

Hours later, the corpse was warm—inside and out. As Remi spread out her hands on the corpse's head, attaching her energy onto anything that could become an issue later on and restoring it, she took a brief second to glance back at Killure.

He was sitting casually on the ground, lazily leaning his back against an ice box with his eyes closed.

Remi sighed as she turned back to the corpse in front of her. Although she was glad that the Icix was finally sleeping, she couldn't believe how he could fall asleep in these conditions. He was surrounded by corpses, for goodness sake! Sure, they were hidden behind doors, but they were still there. And most of them had been slaves like him. Surely that bothered him? It would bother Remi, if she were in his shoes—she knew it.

The brain was such a fickle thing. It was extraordinarily complex as the host of thoughts, memories, and nerves. It was also the coordinating centre for many bodily functions. Anything that happens in the rest of the body, the brain either told it to happen or knew about it happening.

There was nothing simple about the brain, and anyone who said otherwise was sorely mistaken.

Luckily for Remi, Lars's brain was not damaged. She still had to keep it from becoming damaged as her cousins worked on his damaged organs, and direct the brain to resume normal nerve and hormonal functions. She healed the pathways, starting from the brain, and working her way down the rest of the body.

And although it seemed like she was doing the easy job, the reality of the situation was starkly different. Healing wounds and restoring damaged body parts or bones was time and energy consuming, but it was not hard. It was what every Designer first began studying, and took years to understand well enough to complete a procedure. However, the brain was something that some Designers many years older than Remi couldn't even understand.

Even they couldn't do what she was doing right now. And yet, there were still so many things that Remi didn't understand about the inner workings of the mind. The only people she knew that seemed to know the brain inside and out were her father and her uncle.

They'd been alive for many years longer than anyone else, and had become extraordinarily skilled. However, with time, their minds had only become more and more perverted and cruel. Not a shred of morality was left inside of them.

Remi wondered if perhaps they started out with being able to feel empathy, and a conscience that kept them from straying away from morality. Had living so many years drained all the good from their hearts? If so, Remi didn't want to live as long as them.

A jolt of pain crippled her hand for a moment, and Remi grit her teeth. She put all of her focus on keeping the sailor's brain in tact so that he wouldn't suffer brain damage, and would be able to have all his bodily functions restored and amplified to perfection.

Beads of sweat began to form on Remi's brow, and her jaw ached from gritting her teeth for so long. Her exhausted body longed to step back and remove her hands from the corpse, severing the connection between them, but she refused to give in to the temptation.

Her hands and arms began to burn, spreading a potent fire to the rest of her body. When Remi's legs began to wobble, Bliss stumbled back and let out a breathy wheeze. Obviously Remi wasn't the only one exhausted.

Blue cordially took a step back as well, which made Remi's shoulders sag in relief. She slowly began disconnecting the little hands she'd latched onto the man's brain, making sure to do so in an order that would not be detrimental.

One at a time. Slowly, surely. Perfectly.

Once she'd completely disengaged herself from the corpse, Remi stumbled backwards, her legs unable to hold the weight of her body any longer.

Strong arms scooped her up, and in a daze, Remi looked up to find Killure staring down at her coolly, appearing bothered by the fact that he had to get up in order to catch her.

He must not have truly been asleep like she'd thought he was.

He grumbled to himself as he carried her, and soon Remi passed out from exhaustion.

———

The screams were what woke Remi. They pierced her ears, clawing their way inside and scraping relentlessly against her eardrums, tearing her apart from the tender inside.

Remi groggily opened her eyes, blinking away the blurry haze that clouded her vision. She glanced around to see that she was sitting on the ground in Bliss's arms.

The mute girl gave her a happy smile. She was trying to say that she was glad Remi was awake.

Remi smiled back, before directing her gaze to the man screaming on the counter top.

No, not man. Lars Alfonzo. A human being who was now alive once again.

Remi felt a hint of pride begin blooming in her stomach. She was so happy to have brought him back.

Killure was effortlessly holding him down so that he wouldn't hurt himself or try to escape, and he looked half asleep.

Blue peered into the man's eyes with a tiny flashlight for a moment, before going on to examine another part of him.

Lars shook his head wildly from side to side. "Y-Y-You're Designers!!" he shrieked.

After another minute or so of screaming jumbled words that didn't make any sense to Remi, the man finally calmed down a little. He'd stopped screaming and had begun thinking a bit more rationally, though his breathing was still rapid and panicked.

Remi stood up and clapped her hands, drawing his attention to her. "Well! First things first. I'm Remi Goldridge, and these are my cousins. We just brought you back to life. Any questions?"

Slowly, Lars glanced down towards his bare stomach. "I'm healed," he murmured in surprise. He glared sharply at Remi. "Wait . . . wh-who hired you to revive me?"

Remi tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips, pretending to think. "Hmm, who was it again? Oh, right, Captain Rismak or something like that."

The nude man's face paled. "My captain paid for this? But it was his . . . first mate who killed me. I'd assumed that it was under the captain's orders, but if that were true, why would he revive me?"

Blue shrugged. "Not our problem. Our only job from this point forward is to deliver you to him, relatively unharmed. Are you going to come willingly, or will we have to force you?"

"No," the sailor shook his head. "You don't have to force me. Captain Rismak always treated me fairly. I'll go back to him."

"Great!" Remi chirped, dazzling the sailor with a brilliant smile that made him blush. "Then follow us."