It was just before midnight when Kaidan Alenko's omni-tool began chirping, an orange disk flickering rapidly on the back of his hand. He rolled over, groggy, but the haze of sleep was fading fast at the frantic blips of his 'tool. He yawned and scrubbed the back of his free fist across his eyes and glanced out the bay window overlooking the city, sprawling down the long arms of the Citadel. A steady, heavy rain beat a loud cadence against the glass, created from the weather systems installed high above, in the rotating arms of the station. The rainbow glow of the city's lights lit up like tiny beacons in the distance, miniscule pinpricks of orange and white and yellow bleeding in the heavy fog, creating a strange, ethereal radiance.

Kaidan scooted to the edge of the bed, his bare feet finding the cool hardwood floor. He stifled another yawn and lifted his wrist. A few taps on the interface of his omni-tool brought up a vid-screen, casting its golden glow about his small apartment bedroom. Kaidan blinked several times, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness slowly. Commander Bailey's face, scarred and bone-tired, peered at him through the screen. Something about Bailey's expression deeply unsettled Kaidan. An icy thrill of fear sparked through Kaidan like lightning as the Commander spoke.

"Ashley Williams is dead."

Kaidan stood, hours later, in Ashley's apartment across town. The artificial sunrise of the Citadel was just barely beginning, bathing the world in grey light. It was still raining. He was numb – what else could he be – as he stared unblinkingly down at his fellow Spectre's corpse, his jaw taut. Ashley lay, limbs askew, upon the threadbare carpet of her apartment, her spice-brown eyes wide open but unseeing, blank. Lifeless. A trickle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth and onto the carpet. She was wearing cargo shorts and a Spectre tank top, both now splattered with her own blood. Her hand, wrapped in boxing tape, was still clutched tightly around her unfired Carnifex pistol, her arm bent at an odd angle. Blood pooled, thick and almost black, upon the carpet, from two point-blank gunshot wounds to her stomach. Her dark hair clung to her face, sweat still cooling on her skin. She had been dead scarcely longer than two hours. Two and a half, tops.

Killer couldn't have gotten too far, Kaidan thought viciously. His hands closed into tight fists, to cease the trembling.

There were crime scene photographers standing around her body, snapping holos with their omni-tools, as well as documenting the broken window across from her bed, the overturned lamp and shards of glass outside in the mud, the ripped piece of dark fabric, hanging on a jagged section of window. Kaidan watched investigators outside the broken window, safe from the rain beneath a hastily-erected canopy, pick up shards of glass covered in blood and place them in evidence bags.

He couldn't stand look at Ash's broken body any longer. He carefully stepped around it – her – and crossed to the window.

There were footprints in the mud underneath the sill that led away from Ashley's home, disappearing into the bushes that lined her small garden. So this had been the point of exit for the killer. But how had they gotten inside undetected? Ash's house was alarmed, and a trigger would have alerted every C-Sec officer on the Citadel. But they had only been called when someone heard the breaking of a window. None of it fit. Kaidan began to pace slowly around the room, careful to disturb nothing with his booted toes. His eyes roamed the room, familiar and yet totally alien at the same time.

Commander Bailey was giving instructions to the cops that had been called to investigate by the front door. When they were dismissed, a squat little old woman who was wearing a fluffy pink robe over her silk pajamas began speaking to him rapidly, gesticulating. Another tenant of the apartment. A witness, maybe? Bailey's omni-tool flared to life on his wrist, recording her statements. A crowd was beginning to form behind her, the two turians posted on either side pressing them back ineffectively. Bailey's rough shout scattered them in seconds.

It would have taken someone really skilled to surprise Ashley like this. Kaidan had never known a more paranoid woman in his life. Most Spectres he knew slept with a pistol under their pillow. That was common practice. Ashley slept alongside an assault rifle, tucked under her sheets beside her like a lover. She had an aluminum bat under her bed, and he knew from personal experience she kept a loaded shotgun by her bedroom door, just behind the door frame, out of sight. Kaidan wasn't sure of any other weapons stashed in her home, but Ashley was a professionally trained kick-boxer, and could punch harder than anyone back at C-Sec. If it came down to it, she wouldn't need a weapon to escape injury.

She had an alarm system, too. So how could someone have gotten inside without a bullet in their skull?

Kaidan ran a callused hand through his dark hair, his fingernails scratching absently at his implant scar, just behind his left ear. At the back of his mind, buried deep underneath the blind rage and profound sorrow, he was intrigued. It had been awhile since a case stumped him like this. He looked down at Ash again. He stared for a long time, committing everything about her and this scene to memory.

He forced himself to look away only when an investigator brought a white sheet over Ashley's corpse, but a shiver rippled through him regardless. Whoever did this will pay.

Bailey came up behind him, his omni-tool glowing on his wrist. "Well, let's see what we've got so far. Whoever killed Ash definitely knew her, or at least the layout of her home."

"How did they get inside?"

"Front door. No signs of forced entry, so they either picked the lock, or Ash let them in."

Kaidan's eyebrows furrowed into a scowl. "Ash wasn't stupid, Commander. Do you really think she would have let someone, doesn't matter who, into her house at one in the morning?" Implying that Ashley would have made such a rookie mistake was downright insulting.

Bailey lifted and dropped one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug, without taking his weary gaze off the accumulated case notes on his omni-tool. He looked drained, the orange-yellow glow casting shadows on his rough features that accentuated his age. "Who's to say? The alarm wasn't triggered, so whoever did this either knew about it, or Ash herself turned it off when she let them in."

Kaidan turned away from Bailey, suddenly furious, his thick eyebrows pinched together in an irritated glare. The old man wasn't going to be much help, now. Bailey was already giving up, his exhaustion and grief getting the better of him. Kaidan knew better than to speak up, though. Crap postings, removal from cases, and paperwork were Bailey's usual punishments for insubordination, and Kaidan was determined to stay on this case. He owed Ash at least this.

Kaidan moved away from the Commander to search the room himself. He reached into the pocket of his leather coat and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. He pulled them onto his hands and moved over to the wall beside Ashley's headboard. Blood from the gunshot wounds was spattered over the mussed sheets of her bed. Her assault rifle was missing. Kaidan's eyes narrowed. Perhaps the killer had taken it as a trophy? There was a small pit in the smooth wall at about waist height; a single bullet's ricochet. He frowned. Ashley had been shot twice. The coroner had confirmed that she had four wounds, two in and two out.

Kaidan reached out to touch the dent. His fingertip slid over the mark, and he leaned down, forehead touching the wall beside it to line up the trajectory. Someone had fired at Ashley from the doorway. The blood splatter and ricochet confirmed it. Kaidan shifted, turning his head in the direction the ricochet pointed, towards where the bullet ended up. He was looking at the broken window. Bullet was long gone by now.

Kaidan looked around, almost frantic, searching for evidence of the second bullet. Frustration gnawed at him. His gaze flicked to the still form of Ashley's corpse beneath the white sheet. Who was going to tell her sisters?

Bailey's heavy sigh dragged Kaidan from his dark thoughts. Bailey lowered his omni-tool. "I'm beat. End of my shift, anyway."

Kaidan didn't speak. He gritted his teeth to keep his temper in check, to keep himself from screaming at his commanding officer. You're an ungrateful son of a bitch, he thought savagely. How many times did Ashley save your ass? How many times did she work herself past the breaking point, for you? But he said nothing, merely gave a terse nod without looking at Bailey, his eyes searching fruitlessly for the other bullet.

"I'll leave two C-Sec officers to guard the place. And be careful. The killer might still be in the building. We checked Ash's apartment, but the whole building will be tough to clear without more officers."

Kaidan finally looked at Bailey, his gaze hard and vicious, but his anger melted away at the sight before him. Bailey's head was bowed, his face turned away, but there was an unmistakable shine on his cheeks. He was crying. Immediately, guilt consumed Kaidan like flames, and he wanted to kick himself. How could he have thought that Bailey would be unaffected by Ash's death? She had been his friend, too. More than once Ashley had put her life on the line for both of them, and now she was dead. It was an injustice. She was a better officer than both of them combined. She deserved better.

Kaidan stepped forward and tentatively put a hand on the older man's shoulder.

"I'll find whoever did this to Ash, Bailey." Kaidan fought hard to keep the tremor from his voice. His jaw clenched tight to keep it steady.

Bailey coughed to hide his sniffle and angrily brushed the tears from his cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt. He straightened, cleared his throat, and looked at Kaidan. His eyes had a hard edge now, his jaw set with determination. He nodded stiffly.

"I know you will, son." Bailey clasped Kaidan's shoulder for a brief moment, and then was gone.

Kaidan was left alone with his thoughts and the corpse of his best friend. The two turians posted at the front door to Ashley's apartment glanced his way and gave him a nod as the investigators packed up their things. A coroner would be along shortly to collect Ash's body and bring it to her family. The thought of her sister's grief when they received the news paralyzed him. It was a long moment before Kaidan could move. He glanced around Ashley's apartment. How long had it been since he'd been here? Three years? Maybe four? His gaze took in the trophies she had lined up on her dresser, from boxing to poetry to accuracy on a gun range. He smiled in spite of himself, but suddenly, grief threatened to devour him whole. He unexpectedly felt as if he barely knew her, and now she was gone.

Now he'd never get a chance to relearn everything about her.

He stared blindly at the wall. It took his grief-stricken brain several moments to register what he was staring at. His heart leapt into his throat as he practically ran over and – yes! He fished out a pair of tweezers and an evidence bag from a kit one of the investigators left. Carefully, he pulled the bullet from the hole with the tweezers, and held it up in front of his face to inspect it. It was a bullet he had never seen before. For one, it was intact, still perfectly shaped and not destroyed, like most bullets that had ripped through a human and hit a wall were.

Kaidan stared at the bullet. He looked back at the wall, perplexed.

He pulled out a pencil from his breast pocket and placed it eraser-first into the hole created from this miracle bullet. The pencil showed him the bullet's path. It was nearly perpendicular to the other bullet's trajectory, pointing towards Ashley's closet door. Kaidan's eyes widened as realization hit him like a freight train.

That's why there had been two bullet wounds. That's why there was two bullets.

There had been two killers.

And now there were two laser dots trembling on his chest.