Margo's twenty-fourth birthday, though it felt like any other day. Because like any other day, her and her mother still felt that distance between them that they worked to trim down inch by inch. Walls were hard to take down one brick at a time, but they knew such a careful process was the best way to keep everything from crashing down.

The car drove itself to the cemetery, neither Margo nor Karen resting a hand on the steering wheel at any point. The two of them carried small bouquets of spark roses, a move both of them hesitated to make with the new reputation garnered by such beautiful creations. But Margo knew, and Psychwatch knew, that the sympathy they invoked could be won back.

The flowers were the stars, Margo thought. Tranquil. Harmless. Watchful of the ones that struggled. She would patiently await the day they would comfort people in death rather than alert them to its arrival.

The memorial built for the people slain by the Multi Man, for the officers who died by his hands or those of his admirers, would eventually receive so many spark roses, its radiance at night rivaled moonlight. And Margo knew Carl went there every day to Holden's grave, to try and convince himself that he'd forgiven himself. That something has forgiven him.

The cemetery gates came into view, and the car's pacing slowed to a careful pace. Margo and Karen smiled at each other for only a moment as the vehicle searched around for a vacant parking spot, eventually resting beneath a tree.

The two women remained motionless in the car, each wanting to speak but hoping not to speak over the other. Karen let her daughter have the first word.

"Mom," said Margo. "I'm sorry. For everything."

Karen glanced over at her. "None of this is your fault, Margo. Absolutely none of it."

"I shouldn't have gone back to Psychwatch."

"But you're not there anymore. Right?"

Margo nodded. "Someone else I know left, too. Nikki Atkinson. You met her at Skinner High, remember?"

Karen nodded. "Yeah, I remember her. She was friends with Holden, right?"

Margo closed her eyes. "Yeah. She was."

Silence fell between them again. Karen took her daughter's hand. "Are you sure you'll be alright seeing him here? We don't need to stay long."

"I'll be fine," Margo said. "The longer we avoid it, the more it'll hurt anyway. We had to come here at some point."

Margo stepped out of the vehicle. Karen followed suit and closed the door behind her. When the car locked, she called for her daughter again.

"Yeah, Mom?" said Margo, and Karen traveled around the car to meet her face to face.

Karen rested her flowers on the roof of the car and lay each hand on Margo's shoulders, pulling her in for a hug. "I'm just glad," she whispered, "that I won't be seeing your name written down here. I'd come every single day to see you, and I'd never forgive myself."

"Mom," said Margo, and she hugged her back.

"Please stay safe, Margo. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. I haven't known what to do in such a long time because all I thought about was...was..."

"You'd never lose me," Margo said. "I'm not going back to Psychwatch. And even if I did, you'd still never lose me. I love you, Mom."

Karen was sniffling, and Margo felt her teardrops pat her shoulders. But they both knew they needed this to happen. Karen whispered, "I love you, too," and held her daughter just a little longer.

A minute later, Margo and Karen explored the cemetery. Clouds blotted the sky, hinting at snow, but patches of blue punched through the gray. Sunlight bathed some of the gravestones, feeding the grass, and Margo studied each name, date, and story each stone had to offer. They were no longer people she failed to save.

Though it was harder to maintain optimistic thoughts upon entering a new area of the cemetery, one marked with Psychwatch's psi logo. In the distance, Carl wore a black trench coat stretching down to his calves, hovering before one particular gravestone.

"There he is," Margo whispered to her mother. "Let's go."

A cobblestone pathway carved through the rows of gravestones, and Margo scanned the horizon, taking note of names and flowers. Most of the spark roses were outside the designated area for fallen Psychwatch officers, she realized. Perhaps Carl would turn them down.

A few rows before reaching the one where Carl stood, Margo found one she knew well. JOSEPH KUSANAGI, it read, his name inscribed beneath a silver psi logo carved into the stone. JULY 16, 2000 - NOVEMBER 11, 2045. A loyal officer, a curious mind, and a good friend.

Rest In Peace, Kusanagi, Margo thought, and she and Karen paused at the edge of the row Carl stood in, readying themselves.

"Go ahead," Karen whispered, patting her daughter's shoulder, and Margo approached Carl with her bouquet of spark roses.

Before she said another word, she looked down at the grave and gasped. Two tears made their way out of her eyes before she wiped them away. Knowing what was coming was not enough. She struggled to read the rest of the gravestone's inscription.

HOLDEN LIONEL SANGER. OCTOBER 16, 2027 - OCTOBER 31, 2045. A great officer, son, nephew, and friend.

"Carl," Margo choked, "I...I'm...sor—"

"Carl can't talk right now," said an alter, glancing over at Margo. Their eyes were soft and sympathetic. It couldn't have been Vince. "He can see you. He's glad you showed up. But he can't talk right now. So on behalf of him, thank you for coming, Margo. You, too, Miss Sandoval."

Another tear made its way out. Margo wiped it away. "Loki?" she said.

"Yeah," he replied with a small smile. "I haven't done much for him, so this was the best I could do. I'm really, really sorry about everything."

"It's..." Margo paused to compose herself. "It's not your fault."

"It's not anyone's fault, right? No one with a heart like yours and Carl's, anyway."

"That's what I tell her," Karen said, resting her hand on Margo's shoulder.

Loki faced the gravestone. "Why do people apologize so much for things they can't control?" he asked. "And why do they blame themselves so much?"

Karen shrugged. "I think we all just believe there will be a day we can control everything. But frankly...I don't think that's possible. And that's okay."

"Yeah," Margo said with watery eyes.

"Did you know what happened with that Royce guy?" said Loki. "They didn't put him here with the other officers since he was working with the masked men, but when they entered his house to find out why he did it, man...the place was a mess."

Margo sniffled. "Really?"

"Yeah. The only one there was one of those hologram girls from Specter's. She said her name was Sofia."

Suddenly, Margo understood why Royce didn't believe his own advice. The worst thing you can do is make yourself the most influential person in someone else's life for your own self-benefit. He was alone. He never realized there were things to reinforce his words as truth. And now he was just another victim.

"Wow," Margo said.

"That's heartbreaking to hear," said Karen. "I hope his family's okay."

"Yeah," Loki said. "Hey, I think Carl wants to talk now."

The two Sandovals gasped.

"It was great seeing you again, Margo," said Loki. "And it was nice meeting you, Miss Sandoval."

"Likewise," Karen replied, and she and Margo waited.

Carl's eyes were vacant, and his face went blank. The body blinked slowly, caught in a spell. Margo gripped the flowers tightly, and goosebumps rippled across her skin as the cool wind breathed against her neck.

When Carl returned to his body, the man broke down in tears. He hugged Margo with such a force, she dropped the flowers on the grass around the gravestone. Margo sensed her mother was shocked, and before she could reach over to free her, Margo said, "It's okay! It's okay. Everything's fine. Just breathe, Carl."

"You don't need to be here," Carl sobbed.

"Yes, I did. We did. We needed to make sure you were alright."

"But you, Margo."

"I'm getting better every day. I promise."

The two separated, and Carl wiped away his tears. He saw Karen standing behind her daughter and quickly grew timid. "Hi, Karen," he said.

"Hello, Carl," she said. "How are you? And be honest."

Carl paused to catch his breath. He faced his nephew's grave. "I've lost a lot. Things I can never replace. I lost my family. Not all, but...a lot. My sister wants absolutely nothing to do with me anymore. My brother-in-law, Holden's father, told me never to come see them ever again, and if I do, he'll call the police. And...well, as far as I can tell, Psychwatch is still where I need to be."

The women said nothing, instead reflecting on what he said, wondering how someone can go through so much and still have the strength to keep going and talking.

"But," Carl said, "I still have my dad. And my stepmom, Becky. They're in a whole other state, but I can call them when I need to. I still have Vince and Catty and even Loki. And even though I work for Psychwatch, I can still be an Empath and get the help I need from them. And..."

"You have us," said Margo, managing a smile.

Carl still fought back tears, as did everyone else, but he cleared his throat, managed an exhausted smile of his own, and nodded his head. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do. We do."

The three of them waited in silence again, sometimes rereading Holden's grave, other times watching the clouds in the sky dissipate. Carl helped Margo gather up the flowers she'd dropped and rested them before the gravestone while Carl took Karen's bouquet and joined it with Margo's, angling the roses until the light remained on Holden's name and stayed there.

"I wish I'd done more for you, buddy," said Carl, and he accompanied Margo and Karen back to their vehicles.

* * *

Psychwatch lived on. The Multi Man hadn't killed it. He'd wounded it, revealed to the world that it could be worn down, close to the brink of death, but it came back. By the time they didn't need to study him anymore, they'd buried his ashes as a nameless cadaver in an undisclosed location.

Commissioner Mason made her way to Jack's cell, information feeding her eye through her ThoughtControl piece. She got almost everything she wanted. The leader of an organization that found Psychwatch's Achilles heel? Dead. Another city reaching one hundred percent surveillance? Complete. The masked lackeys incarcerated or dead?

Mostly.

As she went over the new files created for the young man known as Thomas Caulfield, she heard the news blare out of holographic television screens illuminating on all sides. Protests against the SanityScans. People continuing to wear the masks with the red Xs over the eyes. Counter-protesters trying to fight back. Scores of policemen and Psychwatch officers surveying the chaos, some entertained by humanity's cycle of recklessness.

But to Mason? White noise. Hardly a distraction from the information gathered on Thomas Caulfield, the young man once deemed Whitey. Adopted with his twin sister, Alice—found dead in the Multi Man's hideout and known mostly by the alias "Crimson"—by a couple out in Harrisburg. Routinely abused by the couple physically and sexually, with the father repeatedly justifying the molestations as part of his job as a doctor. Until a masked stranger took the kids from their home and left the mutilated corpses of the parents dangling from the ceiling of an abandoned theater with the bodies of three vagrants.

Mason needed more to the story. But Whitey wasn't there that day. He came and went for Empathy Tests and Euphor meds before returning home to his foster family. She needed the closest thing to him.

The one that killed his sister.

"Andrade," said Mason, "open up."

"Yes, Commissioner," Andrade replied, her voice depleted of enthusiastic loyalty. She'd believed herself no more than a drone to Psychwatch, just as Mason wanted.

The panels in the wall slid apart, and there sat Jack before half a dozen holographic screens, each one barking the same news Mason had overheard moments ago. A slight grin stretched across Jack's face as he gazed off into the screens. They'd finally taken them to the world he wanted, and he could stay there as long as he'd liked, especially with what he'd managed to sneak into his cell.

"Holloway!" she exclaimed, and he glanced over at her.

"Yes, Commissioner?" he said.

"I'd like to discuss something important with you. Regarding the patient, Thomas Caulfield."

Jack raised his brow, yet his smirk remained.

"The albino boy whose sister you shot," she said.

"Oh," he said. "Is he still mad about that?"

Mason stood between Jack and the television screens. The thing Jack had snuck in tempted him from its hiding place in his right pocket.

"Reminds me of when you first put me in here," he said, forcing himself to chuckle. "I didn't want you to cure me, but I was cured, alright."

"I hate to say it, but you're correct, Holloway. You've made progress."

Jack raised his brow again. "No shit?"

"Well, you haven't made any progress towards recovery. But you've certainly helped Psychwatch progress by providing an excellent model for how things shouldn't go. You've sabotaged PACERs, threatened bystanders. You've threatened Margo Sandoval with sexual violence and made numerous attempts to prevent her rescue. Finally, just to reiterate, you have also killed the seventeen-year-old Alice Caulfield. We now have one less resource because of you."

Jack nodded slowly. "I'm sure you can find another fucked-up pair of twins somewhere else. Don't worry."

"Well, Holloway, you're lucky you won't have to be around when we eventually find any. Because you're free."

Now, Jack was listening. "I'm free?" he repeated.

"That's right. You're the freest man in the world."

Fuck.

Mason's Fatemaker was fast, but Jack was a little faster. He blocked the gun just as it had trained on his ear, but the two of them shook in their attempts to push each other away. Jack kept her back as much as he could, but he let her get too close too many times. With the gun past his ear, Mason pulled the trigger and took the left side of his face.

He shrieked at Mason, the pain increasing with his stretching mouth and tightening jaw now that his cheek, left eye socket, and ear were splattered against the wall behind him. But that scream turned into howling laughter as his hand reached for the little thing he'd sneaked in, his grand equalizer.

From his pocket, Jack unveiled his LaserShank, Mason's eyes widening as it beamed to life. First, it drove into the crease in her elbow, releasing the Fatemaker from her grasp. Then he yanked it out and slashed straight through her throat. If her eyes grew any wider, they would've popped out of their sockets completely.

He kicked her toward the TV screens, watching her choke on the blood rushing into her throat. He watched it exit her mouth as if she were created solely to pump it out like oil, painting the floor beneath them an ever-darkening red. She dropped to her knees, reaching out for her gun with an arm that could've been yanked off like a doll.

Jack could've kicked the gun away. He could've lobbed her head off with his LaserShank, taken out each eye, and made use of the empty sockets. But instead he stood back and laughed a hearty, agonized laugh. Each laugh hurt more than the shot, and he felt the teeth on the left side of his face crumble off, felt his left eye wiggling around in its socket, ready to release. But he watched, more entertained than anything a screaming, terrified girl with no way to escape ever could.

Mason got her Fatemaker back. The blood on her hands made it difficult to switch the gun to Subjugate Mode, but she got it. The whole thing was covered in faint red streaks, but she aimed it at Jack, directly at his chest. It had to be higher than that, she told herself, but the blood departing from her body made too many suggestions.

The head! The stomach! The arm! The genitals! Miss him completely! Miss him partially!

The world was almost dark in her eyes. The gun could've fallen away. Her finger dangled around the trigger as if it were a harness coming between her and a fatal landing at the bottom of a cliff.

Jack raised his hands, smiled through the searing pain piercing throughout his disfigured face. He welcomed an attempt on his life. He was free! The freest man in the world!

"See you in Hell," he said, "Commissio—"

BAM!

A single blast from Subjugate Mode took everything above his lower jaw—his nose, his brain, his beautiful dead eyes—and sprayed it all across the wall of his cell. His semi-headless body crashed to the floor with a loud bang, like an empty suit of armor. Mason failed again, giving her own puppet the swifter departure.

The room was growing darker. Oxygen was now a myth in her world. Everything, so heavy. Mason rested her head on the floor, eyes still very wide. Her hand reached for the wound on her neck but couldn't find the right place to pressurize. It was far too large a wound. She could've sworn she felt her own spine with her fingers.

"Commissioner?" Andrade asked fifteen seconds later through her ThoughtControl piece, but the word was lost on deaf ears. The commissioner was gone, lost to her own creation.

Perhaps Psychwatch could change for the better after all. Perhaps stars would return to the sky more often.