It was dark in my apartment. The damn light blinded me when I first walked in, so I smashed the overhead bulb. Then I stumbled to my bedroom and smashed that one.

I was looking for something. Something. I didn't know what it was, and I was almost certain it wasn't here. What was I even doing here? I ripped the bedclothes off my mattress but it wasn't there. I opened a few dresser drawers and rummaged around with brown-stained fingers. It wasn't there.

I heard the front door open, and I jumped.

Nik.

I froze, staring numbly down into the drawer, listening to his footsteps getting closer. In a minute he was standing in the doorway of my room. He tried the lights uselessly, then looked over at me. It wasn't so dark that I couldn't see his face – every haunted detail. I knew the moment I saw it that he had been to Robin's. Of course he would go there. And he would have seen.

His eyes traced me, then the open drawer. "What are you looking for?" he whispered.

I swallowed dryly, and stammered, "Cal."

He moved toward me, ninja-fast, but I was Auphe, and I was faster. In a moment I was in the corner of the room, backed up, my hands pressed flat against the wall. "Don't come closer," I warned in a low voice.

"Little brother," he said. "Come here."

I was quaking, but forced out a bitter, guttural – "So you can kill me?"

Those gray eyes had never held so much rage. I watched numbly as he reached behind his shoulders, and ripped his katana out of the sheath on his back. Then he threw it to the ground. Next he went for the knives that were hidden in places all over his coat, and all the other weapons he kept carefully concealed. They all clattered to the floor, and he stood weaponless before me and yelled – "COME HERE!"

Now he was just a pale blur smeared across the darkness, because I was crying. I could hear the voices again, saying it was over. This was the last time. The bloodlust, the screaming need for death, was thrumming through my body and crushing everything, everything, and I was helpless, choking, "Niko, I'm sorry –" Suddenly he was close, seizing my hand, my face, and saying, "Hold on, please, I beg you to hold on –"

He didn't understand.

I ripped myself away from him, tried to run, but I couldn't outrun what was chasing me. I fell on my face on the floor. And it caught me. Caliban caught me and grabbed me by the throat and killed me, and that was that.

I stood up and faced Niko.

He stared back at me, human, so weak, and whispered the name "Cal".

But I did not know that name.

I wanted blood, and I would have it.

Like I said, Niko was fast – but I was faster.