I've finished writing my novel! Completely irrelevant to this I know, but I thought I'd tell you anyway. I think you'll be pleased to know that nobody dies in this chapter. Doesn't mean it won't happen in the future though...

At first Holly didn't want to believe it. It all felt so surreal that the events were melting into one big continuum. Holly had looked up to Commander Vinyaya ever since she joined the LEP as a training officer. She had been the elf to show her that it was possible to be a successful female inside the Lower Elements Police, and Holly had never forgotten the inspiring words Raine had said to her when she graduated. She was going to remember them forever now, as she remembered Julius Root's famous rants and her mother's eternal wisdom. All the people that she had held close to her that were no longer present in the world.
"It's not fair" She cried to nobody inparticular, but there was soon a set of footsteps echoing near her.
"I know it isn't Holly" Artemis said, quietly as he dared. She forced herself to turn her head to look at him, but she wished she hadn't. Artemis was good at hiding his emotions, but right now Holly couldn't think of a better word for the expression on his face than utterly haunted. He was ghostly white, his skin gleaming in a film of sweat. He'd taken off his helmet , so every part of his face seemed magnified compared to the rest of his body. He hadn't known Raine anywhere near as well as Holly had, but he almost seemed to be taking it worse than she was, and that hit her straight in the heart. She couldn't help it, the floodgates opened as she let out a desperate cry. Artemis ran over to her, picking her up and holding her tightly as she sobbed into his suit.
"Why does this have to happen to us?" She managed to say between breaths. "Why do all the people I care about have to die?"
"It's not your fault Holly. Don't blame yourself for this, there's nothing you could have done."
She stopped herself. There it was, in Artemis' voice. He blamed himself for this.
"Artemis" She said, stopping the tears to look at him with a fierce determination. "Don't you dare blame yourself for this either. The only person that needs to be blamed is Flower Kevoor, and that is why we are going to stop her."
Artemis looked down to Vinyaya's lifeless body. "I got her killed. I knew it was a setup and yet I still walked her into a trap."
Holly slapped him. This was not helping things. "Don't do this Arty, not now."
"I had a plan" He continued. "And then, in a moment, that plan was no longer viable. I failed."
They were interrupted suddenly as a laser beam burst through the blast door sealing them in. At least someone was trying to get them out.
"Artemis, Raine is dead, and nothing you or I can do will bring her back. But what we can do is avenge her, by bringing down Flower Kevoor." She kissed him, feeling the tears welling up once again. "We make sure that nobody else in Haven has to suffer because of her."
Artemis looked at her, and for the first time since Raine Vinyaya's death, he smiled. Not his usual cocky, sarcastic, know it all smile, but one of understanding. OK, maybe there was a bit of his usual smile in there, along with that glint in his eye when he'd had a brainwave.
"Good" He finally replied. "Because I have another plan. And this time, I'm not going to let her stop it."

It took another 20 minutes for the LEP team to laser their way through the blast door. The door was supposed to stop explosives so it's not surprising that it took a while to burn through. Holly and Artemis had covered Raine over with a sheet they'd found in a storage cupboard; Everyone had seen what happened through Kevoor's transmission, they didn't need to see it in person. Eventually, however, they did manage to break their way through. And the guy leading the charge was none other than Foaly, the Centaur bursting in as agitated as ever. Holly didn't blame him. As soon as the techs and medics had finished their job, Foaly took them outside and back into the same Helijet that had brought them to the Refinery. The journey back into Haven seemed a lot longer than the journey they had taken earlier that day, and it was far quieter too. Foaly let them have their space without making any of his usual wisecracks, and Holly spent the entire journey curled up by Artemis' side.
"Where are we going?" Holly eventually said, when she realised they weren't going back to her house.
"Back to Police Plaza." Foaly replied.
"Please don't let us run into Trouble" Holly asked. She's not sure she could deal with him at the moment.
"Don't worry, we've managed to make Trouble busy, so he won't be in your way. I'm going to lock us in the ops booth so we'll have total privacy."
"Good" Holly said, just as she felt them begin to descend. Soon they had touched down and Foaly was rushing them through the station and into his Operations booth, which was just about the most secure room inside Haven. As soon as Foaly had made them comfortable, he began asking questions.
"Would either of you like something to drink?" OK, so that wasn't exactly the question Holly had expected him to say.
"Coffee" Holly replied. Artemis just asked for water.
Foaly came back in 5 minutes with their respective drinks. Then he began asking the real questions.
"What did she mean Artemis? When she said that you chose who died. It's been bugging me ever since she said it."
Holly almost thought Artemis may not answer it, but he did. "She knew exactly what I would do given the situation. She knows me too well it would seem. There was one dart- I could either stand there and take it myself, or I could save somebody else by diving on them. And she knew that, if I was going to save someone, it would be Holly."
"That makes sense" He nodded slowly. "We're dealing with somebody very, very dangerous. This is not going to be easy."
"But she needs to be stopped. We need to stop her." Holly said. There was a collective agreement in the room that Holly was right. "The only problem is, she hasn't given us a next target."
"She's annoyed with us" Artemis said. "Everything was going perfectly for her until she realised that Foaly had managed to unscramble her signal masking, so now she isn't giving us the satisfaction of knowing where she'll strike next."
A sudden thought struck Holly. "What happened to her? When she ended transmission you were knocking down her door."
"Yes" Foaly said apprehensively. "Artemis' silver box worked just like he said it would, and we traced her broadcast location."
"I can sense a 'but' coming Foaly" Holly said, and Foaly shifted uncomfortably.
"We traced her location back to your house." The words hit Holly like a brick. And for someone just 3ft tall, a brick is something quite substantial to be hit with.
"There was quite the firefight" The Centaur continued. "We managed to injure her but, after killing 3 LEP SWAT team members, she managed to escape. We followed her as much as we could but we lost her in a set of tunnels we think she had already constructed."
"I take it that I can't go home then?"
"In a word... No, you can't."
"That's 3 words" Artemis muttered and Holly laughed for the first time since she'd been there.
"OK mud boy" Foaly said, "You've made your point. But Holly is right, we still need to stop Kevoor."
"We do"
"And I'm betting that you have a plan to do exactly that."
"Of course. She seems to know a lot about me and the way I do things, mainly from her endless research. I had just one night to try and tap into her mind, which is difficult enough. But now I've seen how she works firsthand. But that still isn't much experience. The only way to defeat her is to know her well enough to be able to predict her, like she did with me. And there's only one person who knows her better than she knows herself."
"You can't be serious" Holly said, feeling her head begin to spin.
"I am. We're going to visit the one person who taught her everything she knows- Opal Koboi."
The words bounced around Holly's head until she couldn't take it anymore. She felt her knees go weak and, before she could register it, she was already on the floor.

I told you Opal Koboi was making an appearance (Well, if you read the preview attached to 'Dark'). Soon we will meet the evil genius herself. What a wild ride this is.