~ 10 ~

The staircase was narrow, not allowing more than one person to head up the stairs at once. I could hear my breath coming out in short pants as I hurried towards the faint light ahead. I had a gun in my hand, the metal of that small piece of destruction feeling cold against my skin. In a few minutes, seconds maybe, I would get to use it for the first time not in practice. I didn't have time to think how that made me feel. My heart was racing.

The team was a few steps behind me. As a leader, I felt the need and responsibility to be in front. If anyone had to fall then it would be only fair to be me. I was the one who led them there. Besides, I was faster. We had undergone the same training, but I had the advantage of a body used with physical training and fit for it, more than theirs. And my equipment was lighter, maybe not respecting all the requirements, still I felt it adapting better to my needs. My job was important. Without me the indigene population would never be subdued and kept under control. They needed me and I was good at what I did. I loved to create a calm and serene environment for my beloved Souls. I firmly believed in my Calling. I had pursued it on several planets and I had never failed. I wasn't intending to do it now.

Top floor. The door heading for the rooftop was cracked and I pushed it open with my foot.

"Don't come out or I'll shoot!"

The voice sent a shiver down my spine. He wasn't kidding. There also was no place for him to go, no way down other than the one we had come from. He was trapped and he knew it. It was a dead end situation.

I signaled for my team to stay back and wait behind the cover of the thick concrete walls. It was an old building. Holding my arms stretched forward and clutching the gun without shaking, I felt the sun's warmth first on my hands, then progressing along my arms up to my shoulders and to my face as I carefully walked out the door and into the open space. I had to narrow my eyes to adjust my vision to the brighter light. It was the middle of the day.

A couple of more steps and I finally saw him twenty meters ahead and moving backward towards the edge. Male, early twenties, dark hair and dark eyes burning like deep haunted pools of black water on that face that seemed to be getting paler by the second. He had a gun too pointed at my chest and, given the determination written on his face, I didn't doubt he wasn't afraid to use it.

"Stop! Drop your weapon!" I yelled the default command.

"Don't come any closer!" he yelled back.

I wasn't going to listen to him, a simple rebellious Host who needed to be taught better. I kept moving closer, very slowly, one step after another, after making sure that no one was following me. This was my fight.

"Give up! It's over. There's no place for you to go."

"Wanna bet?" His eyes glanced somewhere over the edge, but there were still a few meters to make it there.

"Don't do it. We mean you no harm."

"No, you just want to steal my body, you bodysnatchers!"

"Your body will be put to better use," I assured him. "It will be better taken care of," that was not hard to imagine given his state of dishevelment, he looked like he'd been on the run for quite a while, "it will die of old age and, most important, it will never kill," like he wanted to do now.

"Unlike you."

"It's my Calling to ensure a calm colonization, and if that implies killing a few natives to save lots of others, I won't like it but I'll do it," I stated. "And maybe it's true my life will end abruptly at some point, but I survived on four planets so far from the beginning until the end, my time has not come yet."

"No kidding." I heard him arm his gun.

"You won't shoot me."

"Give me one good reason."

"Because you won't shoot her." The calm displayed by my voice surprised even me.

"Vicky is gone."

"Is she?" I gave him an enigmatic smile. Then why I had been dreaming his face each night for the past year since I had taken this Host?

"You're bluffing."

"Am I?" I slowly lowered my gun. If I looked less menacing, he was going to be in less hurry to shoot. My wish was not to hurt him. It was in my nature not to want to do that, and I saw no reason why we couldn't settle this amiably. It was before the time when Humans started to show a definite resistance.

His look turned from disconcerted to horrified.

"No…" he gasped, "you can't do this to her." His fingers were white on the gun he was pointing at my head now.

"I guess you'll never know." I shrugged my shoulders and made another step forward showing no fear.

He took a long look at me. His gaze caressed my features burning hotter than the weak spring sun. Blood rushed to my cheeks coloring my skin. Somehow I knew that look.

A sigh escaped his lips.

"You're right. It's over."

I small smile twisted my lips. See, I kept telling them this could be done without violence, lots of them were reasonable creatures.

"I can't do that to her. But I can stop you from getting me."

No!

"Bye, Vicky." He put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Noooo!

I rushed forward to stop him but it was too late, all I could do was catch him as he fell. We both fell to the ground with me sitting on my knees and cradling is head in my arms. Blood was everywhere. By some miracle the gunshot hadn't completely blown up his head, his face remained the same except for the vacancy in his eyes that had been so full of life only a second ago.

"Ryan…" I whispered, but it wasn't me who'd made the lips moving.

Someone howled inside my head, louder than the actual gunshot, and then there was silence again. All I could hear were the filaments snapping, a strange feeling I hadn't experienced before. For a few brief moments before I figured out I had to replace them, I lost control of my arms and dropped the head hit the concrete with a thud.

It was over.

"Noooooo…"

My own scream woke me and at first I blinked into the darkness not remembering what had happened. My nose was stuffy and I felt wetness on my cheeks so I mechanically wiped them with the back of my hand. Then I remembered.

Human minds had this wonderful self-preservation mechanism that allowed them to just ignore and forget painful memories. After another year of dreaming the same face again and again, only that this time it wasn't warm and loving but frozen and covered in blood. A long year during which nights alternated between horrible repetitive nightmares and self-inflicted insomnia, I had finally learned how to forget, how to shove all the memories related to that traumatic event in a corner of my brain and ignore their existence. Now Matt had stolen that peace from me.

"Are you all right?"

I turned my head and with blurry eyes I saw two faces staring at me from the opening of the hole. I realized that my scream had been real. What could I say? I hid my head in my arms, by then they might have noticed I had freed myself, and I waited for the night to pass. Uncle Jeb had said we'd talk in the morning, I was counting on that. And since I didn't dare to fall back to sleep any longer, I started thinking of a plan that would convince them to trust me.