Night had fallen on Perdido beach, Lana's new home, or rather, her new prison. At least the Cliff top provided some sort of privacy from the prying kids. Of course, that didn't stop Sam and his people from coming to visit her. Lana would have been okay with it if it was for healing, but today Quinn had come to talk. Lana didn't want to talk, about anything, especially her feelings, which seemed to be Quinn's goal in coming to see her. That all went to hell when Lana pulled a gun on him. He left after that. And since then no one had come and visited Lana, unless someone was hurt.

Lana was sure she was losing her mind; the Gaiphage, the darkness. It was in her head, eating away at her sanity like it was food. She didn't know how long she was going to be able to take it. She had already been the puppet of the Gaiphage once, and that had horrific results. She had shot Edilio. An innocent, good person who did no one harm, and she shot him. That, along with the Gaiphage, also ate away at her. She hadn't seen Edilio since then.

It was only seven o'clock but the sky had already darkened the stars already on display for all to see. Lana was laying on her bed, feeling the guilt of what she did today wash over her. Poor Quinn, he only wanted to help. But he had to know, Lana was beyond help now. She had lost it for a second and was this close to pulling the trigger; she wanted to pull the trigger. And that, Lana was sure, was the scariest part of it all. Some people had tried to talk to her today, wanted her to come to town, someone was hurt, but Lana couldn't bring herself to do it. It was awful, but she was too preoccupied with wallowing in her own puddle of self misery to be bothered with anyone else. Lana was brought out of her dark thoughts by a violent knocking—no, banging, on the hotel room door. Lana chose to ignore it at first but after five minutes of the consistent disruption, Lana gave up and unlocked the door, keeping the chain on so she could peek out and see who it was.

Edilio Escobar was standing right in front of her, and he didn't look happy. Lana opened her mouth to say something, already unlatching the chain in effort to invite him in, but Edilio pushed past her and strode into the hotel room. Lana bit her lip; this wasn't good.

"So," Edilio began conversationally, but Lana could see the tension in the tight set of his shoulders, "a kid got a baseball bat to the legs today, by Zil, typically, and the kid must have broken something: he was in a lot of pain."

His mouth went wiry and his eyes were smoldering with suppressed anger, "so we called on the only healer in town. Funny thing? She didn't come. It was a pretty simple injury: fractured bones, nothing big, but yet she didn't show. You want to know something, Lana?" Edilio questioned with a bit of a savage smile that was starting to make her muscles tense. Lana didn't want to hear anymore but Edilio plowed on anyway.

"We thought: okay, just a broken leg, we'll get it set tomorrow so maybe then the Healer might show up. So we sent to kid to rest and wait. Turns out this kid, Kieran, was a developing mutant, a target for the human crew. They broke into his house about two hours ago and beat the kid to death; Kieran couldn't walk, so he couldn't get away. I had to bury him ten minutes ago. He was twelve years old."

Lana thought she was going to be sick. Patrick was watching the two of them from his perch on the bed. Edilio was breathing heavily, hands curled into fists. If she wasn't mistaken, she could see tears brewing in his eyes. He waited. After a moment, Lana managed to splutter out a miserable apology: "I'm so sorry, Edilio. I didn't mean for this to happen."

Edilio snorted in contempt and took a seat next to Patrick, "yeah? Well it did, Lana, which is why I'm here." His eyes met hers; Lana felt her stomach give a little flutter, a familiar feeling whenever Edilio looked at her.

"I saw Quinn today, ran out of here like hell was chasing him. What did you do?"

Lana felt hurt. Why was she suddenly the bad guy?

"Nothing," Lana crossed her arms across her chest, feeling the need to defend herself, "nothing happened."

"Other than you pulling a gun on him," Edilio added, narrowing his eyes.

"If you knew why did you ask?" Lana mumbled, flushing a dark red.

"I wanted to see if you would deny it."

Lana felt anger build inside of her; why was Edilio doing this? This wasn't fair.

"What do you want from me?" Lana snapped, causing Edilio to jump a little. "I can only be so many places at once, I can't heal everyone."

"What were you doing today?"

Damn.

"I can't take this anymore." Lana muttered, walking over to the dresser, trailing her fingers along the contours of it. "I've got to get out of this place."

"And go where, Lana? Back to the desert? Back to Gaiphage?"

Lana stared at him with wide eyes, "I'd never do that."

"You can't run away from everything." Edilio said, "we all have jobs to do, that's how this place is going to have to work. You can't just shirk responsibilities."

"I didn't ask for this, Edilio." Lana screamed, her volume upsetting Patrick and urging him to abandon the bed and go scouring for a place for cover.

"Newsflash; no one did," Edilio snarled, leaping off the bed and stepping close enough to send Lana reeling into the dresser.

"Yeah; you're a healer, you have a lot of pressure. I get that, everyone gets that. If you took a look around and got your head out of your ass maybe you could see people are trying to reach out to you. Only you're too stubborn and self centered to realize it."

Lana was shaking in shock and fury: Edilio never talked to her like this. In fact, she couldn't remember him talking like this to anyone, not even Sam. She must have really upset him.

"Look," Lana insisted between gritted teeth, "I'm sorry you had to bury the kid, alright?"

Edilio's mouth dropped open,

"You think… me burying…you think that's the reason I came over here?"

"Well, all you do is bitch about it. I assumed."

"Oh my God, you have to be kidding me."

Lana narrowed her eyes; pissed off enough as it was. A headache was building right behind her eyes, making her agitated.

"Get the hell out, Edilio." she shouted, skirting around him and swinging the door open; an invitation to leave.

"Make me,"

Lana couldn't believe he was being so stubborn. The gun was lying on top of the dresser; right where she left it. Quickly she grabbed it and pointed it straight at Edilio.

"Fine: is this forceful enough for you?" she whispered, finger trembling over the trigger.

For a moment Edilio was frozen in shock. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked her dead in the eye,

"Shoot me,"

"What?" Lana was thrown.

"You heard me, shoot me."

"Edilio…"

Edilio had moved so he was barley a foot away. His hand shot out and curled around hers, forcing the point of the gun against his chest, his heart.

"Come on, Lana, shoot me. Just pull the trigger, you've done it before. I'm sure it'll be easy."

This was insanely cruel. Lana begged Edilio with her eyes to stop tormenting her. For a few tense moments they just looked at each other; Lana didn't have a clue what he was thinking. All she could see in his eyes was rage, and something else she couldn't identify.

Finally Lana dropped the gun; the sound of metal against hardwood was the only noise in the room. To Lana, it sounded like the only noise in the world. For a few seconds Edilio was still holding her hand, then he let go like her touch burned him.

Lana stood rooted to the spot. Edilio backed off,

"Man up and do you're fucking job."

And with that Edilio stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Lana sunk to the ground. Patrick crept out from his hiding spot and sniffed the air cautiously before meekly coming to Lana's side. Lana put her arm around her dog and buried her face into the scruff of his neck. For the first time in what felt like a long time, Lana Arwen Lazar wept: she let the tears fall from her eyes and onto Patrick's fur and she let violent sobs rack her body. She messed up; not just with Quinn: she let that kid die because she was too pathetic to go out and help. And most of all; she failed Edilio, not once, but twice. After sniffing back more tears, Lana stood up. The time for crying had past; she had to do what Edilio said; man up and do her job. She walked out the hotel room with her held high and headed into town. She was hoping: hoping that she would win back not only the kids she had let down, but the boy who had stolen her heart. Who brought her back down from the pedestal that others had built for her. Lana took a deep breath. That's all you could do in the FAYZ, really: hope and pray it all doesn't go to shit.