Fatih laughed. “Hey, fuckheads! Is there a problem? Something I can help you with?” He raised his service weapon at one of the houses. “You’d better not be packing or I’ll put your insides all over those nice wall hangings!”

Zoe raised her own weapon, stepping slightly away from Fatih, picking a different target. “You’d better get back in the house,” she called. “Or…” she choked, quietly. The old woman stared back defiantly at her. She didn’t fear death. But… Zoe dropped her aim, pointing at the child peeking out from behind the doorway, and took a step forward. “I’ll paint you with the kid’s blood, I swear!”

The old woman shoved her child aside and stood in front of the doorway, her arms held out wide.

“We are on official business!” Fatih called out. “You all need to get back inside your homes, right now, or things are going to get ugly!”

Everyone quickly ducked back inside.

“That didn’t go very well,” Zoe said as they went to the half-ruined house to retrieve Stepan.

“It went fine,” Fatih said. “Just you wait.” He motioned for Zoe to enter the building. “Why don’t you get good Mr. Zelenko there?”

Zoe nodded and stepped inside.

Stepan sat with his eyes closed, hands held still behind his back. When Zoe entered, he stirred, looked up at her, and tried to stand. He fell to the side, of course, when his feet remembered that they were tied together. Zoe walked over to Stepan, bent down, and helped him up to his feet. “Come on,” she said. “You’re being traded off. Count yourself lucky.”

“Where are my daughters and my son?” he asked as Zoe led him to the door.

“I don’t know,” Zoe replied as she cut through the ropes around Stepan’s ankles with her dagger. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be here anymore.”

“You mean you’re going to find them?” Stepan asked, his voice at the edge of blubbering. “Please, if you bring them back safe, I’ll… I’ll do anything.”

Zoe growled, “They’re not coming back safe. You’d better hope that I don’t find your kids, because if I ever do, I’m going to make them wish they never messed with me.” At that, Stepan paled. He seemed to become heavier in Zoe’s grip, then, and impatiently she dragged him along until they were out in the sun again.

Fatih greeted Zoe at the door. “Hey, come on!” he said, almost shouting. “Let’s get this disgusting excuse for a man to that stupid exchange.” They made their way across the field. “What do you think, Zoe?” he called out as they passed by the bloodstained rock. Fatih kicked it again, and the smell – never having left Zoe’s nostrils – grew stronger. “Should we take him to the exchange like the Captain said, or should we have a little… ‘accident’ right here?” Fatih stopped in front of the rock.

Stepan jerked inside of Zoe’s grip. “You can’t be serious! I’ve done nothing –“

“Shut up, Stepan,” Zoe hissed. “You want to get out of this? Play the game.” Then she shouted: “We can’t just disobey orders like that, Fatih. The Captain will have our hides.”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” Fatih walked a few steps, took the butt of his service weapon and tapped it against the clay wall of a house. “Sure, he’d be upset, but… he’d get over it. He always gets over these things! And what’s a little bending the rules when all these people are going to have to be killed eventually anyway?”

“Fatih, shut up!” Zoe’s mouth was still dry. Her heart skipped a beat and her skin grew cold. “Don’t talk like that!”

“Well, it’s true. Why shouldn’t I?” Fatih turned toward Zoe, grinning, and gave a wink. They continued to walk, and Zoe found herself fixating on Fatih’s smiling face. He looked genuinely at peace as they made their way toward the house with Parshir’s corpse, outside which Cigdem and Luca stood watching each other warily. She looked over toward the two of them. Kalai approached from across the village, dragging one of the scouts along with him the way Zoe dragged Stepan. Zoe’s head was still a little fuzzy and she couldn’t tell who it was. Idly, she wondered where Arshay was now, if he was managing, taking things better now than before. Her gaze snapped back to Fatih’s face. Something moved, over his shoulder. She struggled to bring it into focus.

Then.

She considered, for a moment, not telling Fatih what she saw, the movement back there. She wondered if Fatih would notice, if he would be angry at Zoe, if she would get hurt. Or if she would be killed. The echoes of pain from the past days ran through her head.

Her eyes met the old woman’s for a second, and the woman steeled herself, her mouth a thin line. Zoe blinked first, her mouth open. Fatih spoke but didn’t turn: “Hey, Zoe, you alright there?” She blinked again, and looked back at Fatih. Half a second lasted minutes as her breath refused to leave her lungs, the air clinging to her insides. The air felt wrong – a fistful of razors shoved down into her stomach. The hand that held onto Stepan’s wrists shook.

She blinked again.

Zoe raised her weapon and shouldered it, trying to steady her arm, to take aim quickly. “Fatih! Look out!”

Fatih turned and twisted just in time to avoid the first bolt passing straight through the back of his head. Instead it grazed him, ripping away strands of hair and covering his eye with blood. Fatih dropped his center of gravity and laid one hand against the ground, shouting something incomprehensible at the moment Zoe fired. The old woman got off a second bolt before she fell, and then a third bolt before she died. The second came within an inch of striking Zoe, and the third, Fatih batted away as he rose up to his feet, batting it down with his weapon.

“I said everybody back inside!” Fatih shouted, and Zoe saw movement at the edges of several houses. She removed her left hand from her weapon and turned to see Stepan running across the field, towards Cigdem and Luca. Cigdem and Luca were standing side-to-side – not at each other’s throats, but surveying the situation. The scout, too, was running for cover, his hands tied behind his back the same as Stepan’s.

Fatih marched up to one of the nearby houses. As he passed out from the space in front of Zoe, Zoe saw the child from earlier bent over the old woman’s body, wracked with sobs. She stepped away slowly.

A crossbow bolt stuck in her armor. The impact of it sent her staggering, and she turned toward the source. It was a young man wearing a long coat. He stood at window of his house, the hands that held his crossbow shaking so wildly that Zoe could tell even from where she stood, despite how her vision wavered. He was crying. She swallowed the blood in her mouth and took aim.

Before her finger tightened on the trigger, Fatih stepped into her view, dashing, his weight low to the ground. The way he moved reminded Zoe of a cheetah on the chase – sudden, graceful despite the cumbersome weight of his gear. He reached into the window with his service weapon, fully shifted to its spear form, and ran the point through the man’s throat. He gurgled and attempted to cry out, to say something, but there was no voice left in him. Fatih pulled his weapon free, and turned, the blood showering over him, wetting his hair. Zoe met his eyes and took a step back. He was smiling, serene.

In the distance – and it seemed very distant indeed – Zoe thought she could hear Cigdem calling out: “Calm down! Stop! Fatih! What happened?”

Zoe turned. Cigdem stood, one hand grasping Luca’s wrist. She was yelling something, too, but not at Cigdem. He let go, and the two of them started towards the chaos, waving their arms. Stepan passed by Luca, who waved him away and pointed toward the edge of the village. He ran past her.

Cigdem and Luca approached Zoe, who stood, scanning the village. “What are you doing?” Luca shouted, her hands in fists. “Put the weapon down!” Cigdem stepped out in front of Zoe and pushed the barrel of her gun down toward the ground.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Fatih!”

Fatih didn’t turn, but he called out: “What?” He held his knife to the throat of a woman who’d failed to disarm him, her feet dangling above the ground. “They attacked us!”

“Stop! You’ve made your point.” Cigdem strode into the middle of the group. “All of you, get back in your homes.” The woman at the end of Fatih’s knife struggled against her captor, failing to speak. Cigdem looked around again. “Excuse me!” he shouted. “Did I not say to go inside?”

“Let her go,” Luca said, and the wind began to pick up. Fatih made a noise of frustration and fear, deep in his throat. He turned. Met Luca’s eyes, across the gap. His thick, greasy hair blew in the wind, obscuring his face. Zoe couldn’t see the blood, but neither could she forget it.

Fatih slowly lowered the woman to the ground, and when her feet touched solid earth, she tore from his grip, and started to run.

Fatih flashed Zoe a grin.

He plunged the knife into her back, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her into the dark house.

The wind raged as Luca dashed across the open space, toward Fatih.

Cigdem raised his weapon, shouting for Luca to stop.

Zoe, somehow, heard the click of a crossbow and turned to see Kalai. He was shouting as he raised his weapon. “You always do this!” he said. He fired.

Zoe screamed when the bolt struck her arm, ripped through a corner of flesh, but her aim stayed truer than his. The chamber emptied and did not refill. Kalai grasped at his chest, stepped forward, and shuddered. “You can’t hide what you are!” he said hoarsely, before falling to the ground.

Luca screamed, and Zoe felt her feet leave the ground as the wind grew stronger still. She fell into the dirt, bracing herself with the barrel of her weapon. Over the wind, she heard Luca shouting: “To the old library! Hide!” while Stepan screamed: “Luca, stand down!” There was the stampede of footfalls, another gunshot somewhere. Fatih screaming rage. Somewhere, the sound of a knife plunging. Zoe held tight to the barrel of her gun. Through the wind, she looked up. The force of it had brought her close to Kalai. He still breathed, and with each breath out, Luca could see the mist – the very edge of death itself. It resisted the pull of the air around. It drifted to Luca. She breathed in as Kalai breathed out.

Luca Buday touched the side of his head with her fingertips, and his heartbeat sped. He glanced to the side. “Don’t you understand?” Luca asked. Kalai understood. He just didn’t want to. But Luca didn’t stop. “Parshir as the weak link. I had to make a sacrifice. So I saved you. You understand, don’t you? I had to save you. You matter too much.”

“I’ll get the prisoner,” Kalai said, not looking Luca in the eyes. “I’m sorry… about everything.”

He was sitting with Luca, and Marga, and Parshir, and Eksha, and Kamila, all gathered round the table laughing.

He was plucking at the strings of his guitar, trying to really get into the rhythm of it, immerse himself in the sound.

He was staring into the distance, someone’s hand in his.

He was holding tight and trying not to forget.

He was sleeping soundly.

He stood up –

And dispersed.

After a few minutes of holding fast to the earth, desperately fighting not to be torn away and fly into the void, the wind faded. Zoe stood.