AN: Sorry for the loooong lag between chapters. I just moved last week and don't have internet at my new place until Saturday, started class today, and am generally running around like a chicken with its head cut off. There is one more (short) chapter after this one. Let me know what you think!

Chapter Eleven – Fate's Mercy

Taka rapped his fingers rhythmically on the leather briefcase that carried the remainder of his grading and the movie he'd rented for them to cuddle to. It was a good action movie, good for thrills, comedy, and holding during scary parts. Not that she ever needed to be held during scary parts, but she feigned well enough for his benefit. He whistled, hoping she was back from campus by now. It was almost eight-thirty.

The elevator dropped him off on her floor and he knocked on the door smartly. The force of his knuckles on the wood caused the unlatched door to swing open, and he poked his head inside.

"Kaena?" he called quietly, not wanting to wake her if she'd fallen asleep. A cold, hard ball had settled in the pit of his stomach. He looked to the left and saw Vinny lying in a pile of glass that had once been her coffee table.

"Vinny?" Taka rushed over, bewildered. The man seemed to have taken a serious hit to the head. What the heck was he doing here? The knot tightened in his belly, and he shook Vinny and slapped his face lightly. Finally, he transferred a bit of his chi to the man. Taka had to find out what had happened.

The chi transfer did it, and the man opened his eyes like a computer being rebooted. He groggily shook his head and groaned when he tried to push himself up. He bled from various cuts, though none looked particularly deep. Taka offered him a hand and yanked the taller man to his feet, where he wavered dangerously.

"Vinny, what happened? Where's Kaena?"

"Kaena?" he mumbled stupidly, rubbing the back of his head. When he looked, his hand was bloody, and he stared at it, seemingly entranced for a moment. Taka shook him by his shoulders.

"Kaena! Where is my girlfriend? What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I don't . . . remember," he said slowly, looking at Taka. "I was walking down the street, and had this weird feeling overcome me. I don't even know how to describe it. And then I think I called you?"

"You told me you ran into Kaena and that she had to stay late on campus. You said her phone was dead."

"Told her your phone was dead," he echoed. "I talked to you first, though. Why did I call you?"

"Do you feel like somebody stuck your brain in molasses right now?" he asked suspiciously. This was strange. Vinny was not the type to lose track of time like that, and neither was Taka. He had felt weird and fuzzy a few nights ago as well. He focused on the man's chi, and sure enough, there was a residue of something else. It was gone now, but it had been there.

"Yeah. I think I came here, met Kaena outside and . . . I think I came here. Attacked her? Why would I . . . ?" he looked distraught. "Then someone else came and threw me into the table, and I just went blank. Woke up with you over me. It feels like I have one mother of a hangover. I'm all slow and can't remember anything. Was I drunk, or drugged?"

"I don't think so," Taka's frowned deepened. "Do you remember who else came?"

"It was a man. Weird aura, like the odd feeling I got when I was walking earlier. But he didn't let me look at his face. Sounded familiar, though."

"Someone you know?"

"Yes," he frowned and sat down on the couch behind him, clutching his bleeding head. He shook it like a dog with something on its muzzle. "Damn it, why can't I remember?"

"This is important, Vinny. Do you know what time this was?"

"Five-thirty, six?"

"Shit, that was two hours ago at least! This man took her? You're sure she didn't just knock you out and wander off?" he demanded.

"I'm not sure of much, Taka, but I think he took her. God damn, if only I had seen his face. He was shorter than me, a little taller than Kaena. I think his hair was dark, maybe dark eyes. What was he wearing?" he asked himself. "Dockers, and . . . a U of Chicago polo shirt. He had power. It was damn familiar. Someone we know."

Taka felt panic bubbling up from the dark knot in his chest and wanted to scream at the man to think faster, but knew it would do no good. But, Taka considered this information. Only two people whose chi they knew would wear a U of Chicago polo shirt. "Was he wearing glasses?"

"No," he decided after a moment. "Nothing on his face. His eyes were brown, I think."

The man felt rage replace the bubbling panic. He pulled out his cell phone and called Luke. He answered pleasantly after three rings. Taka could hear music in the background. "Where are you?"

"Taka? Michigan Avenue," he replied. "Having a drink with friends. Why?"

"Somebody took Kaena. I think it was Marsden."

"Where are you?" Luke shot back, a sharp edge to his usually warm voice.

"Kaena's apartment. Vinny is here. Where could he have taken her?"

"Her apartment? Some private haunt?" Luke had obviously stepped outside. "Let me think on it. I'll be there in five minutes."

Taka set his lips in a grim smile as he hung up. If Marsden were indeed responsible for this, the man would pay, and dearly. He set down his phone, and waited for Luke, planning exactly what he would do to Marsden if, when, he found him. It would not be pretty.

Kaena groggily awoke. She remembered being thrown into a car and being hit in the head shortly after she had attempted to break through his mental hold on her. Her struggles hadn't freed her, but they certainly had wasted a lot of her captor's energy. She gathered her wits and peered around. It was dim, but a soft light filtered through tall, stained glass windows. A few candles near—what? An altar?—flickered and danced, shining a soft light on her, but not enough light for her to make out her captor. She lay near the altar, hands bound, but her feet free, for all it mattered since she couldn't readily move any part of her body, let alone her feet. A massive crucifix gleaned behind the altar, and the polished wood benches appeared like silk in the dimness, the soft light reflecting gently off the delicate gold inlays of the Roman style arches. She didn't need the light. She knew now, his aura was too familiar, different, but the same.

"Marsden," she croaked. She strained to make herself audible. Her body felt like ten thousand lead weights had been tied to each limb. She looked down at her own body, mercifully clothed, and audibly sighed relief. "Why?"

Marsden laughed, his dark eyes glittering in the half-light of the candles. His laugh echoed quite loudly off the high ceiling and smooth, marble floors. It was terribly creepy. He prowled toward her and she recoiled automatically, frustrated when her body refused to move. He kicked her onto her back and she was forced to stare up at him, knees still lying flat upon the floor, arms splayed in a bizarre imitation of the crucifix above.

"Do you even have to ask why?" he knelt down and gently caressed her face, turning her head so she had to meet his gaze.

"Clearly, I do," her biting sarcasm was not hampered by her paralysis in the least, and he laughed darkly, slapping her pale cheek.

"Didn't Taka tell you all about the things your father did?" Marsden questioned sincerely, or feigning sincerity, at least. "I did try so hard to compel him."

"I don't see what that has to do with you," she growled and tried to get her hands beneath her. He stepped on her wrist and she gasped in exquisite pain as the delicate bones strained and finally snapped. She released a scream of agony. "So enlighten me!" she panted, tears blurring her eyes from the pain.

Marsden got up and paced, looking uncomfortable with his cruelty suddenly. He turned his back on her pained groaning and stood in front of the altar. She saw his arm move up and down and side to side, making the sign of the cross? He set his hands down on the smooth wood, straightening the green cloth that lay across it indicating, she had learned, the season of the church year. She thought his choice of venue nicely ironic. He was probably going for dramatic, and she had to admit that he had succeeded.

"Let me tell you a story about a boy in Konan," he began softly. "He lived on the border of Konan and Kutou, and put up with the instability and threats of war every day of his life. The tension was almost normal to him, to his family and his community. They lived their lives as they always had, watching for border raiders, but farming, sewing, going about their business. He was pretty content, did no harm to others, due to his parents' good moral teaching. And then one day, war was declared on Konan. The boy's family had never done anything to deserve it, nor had most people in Konan. They were peaceful and tried to serve their gods well, but the war came to them anyway, and it was led by a man named Nakago. Unlike most kings, this ruling warrior rode out with his men, oversaw their destruction of towns, watched them burn to the ground. The army moved along the border, and one day it came to the town where the boy lived. And he was suffered to watch as his family home was lit aflame, as his animals were killed, his neighbors chased down and killed.

"The boy thought he and his parents could get away. His mother had run to the stables to fetch horses, and she had ridden toward him, to catch the boy up in her lap and ride away. But a soldier grabbed her from her mount and dragged her onto his own, and began to ride away laughing. The boy watched his father turn from the oncoming men and follow his mother, and he watched as the man's fellows cut down the man with his blade. And then he went to the soldier with the woman and threw her down on the ground.

"The boy ran to rescue, picking up his fallen father's pitch fork, but he was a small boy and could do nothing against the men. They laughed at him, held him, and he stood there and watched while his mother wept, while she was violated. And he watched as her throat was slit. And then they turned their attention to the boy."

Kaena had grown still and horrified. Please, she thought, don't let one of those soldiers be her father. It would be too much.

"They broke his fingers first, one at a time, and listened to him scream. And then they cut him with their swords until he bled. Finally, they tied a rope around his neck and dragged him after their horses, all the while they laughed. And as the boy's sight grew dim and he faded away into death, he saw a blonde horseman approach and beckon his men forward. The boy knew the man's name already, from his parents' talk of the war. The blonde general, Nakago. And as the boy choked to death, Nakago, your father, stared coldly down at him and cleanly cut his head off. And so, do you see, Kaena, how this has everything to do with you?"

"Why not go straight to the source? I wasn't even a gleam in my father's eye," she croaked, tears sliding down her cheeks.

Marsden slammed his fists down on the altar and paced in front of it angrily. "And can you imagine how it felt when I, a young man, first began to remember these events? I woke up screaming in the night because of my horrible dreams, dreams in which I watched my mother," his breath hitched. "Brutally murdered. And how I watched my father cut down. Imagine my surprise when my father was murdered in a bank robbery! I thought my awful dreams were prophecies sent from God, and I feared for my mother's safety and my own. I struggled for years with the horrible dreams, and then the dreams became not apparitions of the night, but waking visions, memories, solid, not vague like they had once been. I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was becoming possessed by the devil. I couldn't tell my mother, a devout Catholic. Naturally, talk of reincarnation, of past lives, was crazy."

She listened silently. She felt for his pain. She knew what it was like to wake up in a terror, wondering when the demons would return to finish the job they started when you were six. She knew the horrible dreams turned into visions. But she could do nothing for him, and how could she have?

"Then I started to read of reincarnation, learned from the Buddhists that my memories weren't crazy delusions, but memories of my past life, and began to wonder if he, too, had been reincarnated. But it wasn't until several years later that I saw an image of the man beginning his political ascent in Japan, and knew him as Nakago, the general who slew me in my past life. I saw his daughter, a sullen blonde teenager, and began to follow your lives. I clipped newspapers and saved articles and taped news reports, and watched as he ascended from his position in the Diet to a major party leader. And watched his daughter grow into a beautiful little genius."

He paused and looked at her, standing over her. He knelt down over her and gently unbuttoned her shirt. She weakly lifted her arms to defend herself, but he only opened her shirt and looked upon her exposed body, lightly tracing the curve of her breasts down to her belly button. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. Maybe so you'll know this isn't personal. I'm righting an injustice."

"What injustice?" she demanded. "I didn't do anything to you!"

"Nor did I, to your father, but he killed me all the same. He killed thousands in his past life, yet he is reincarnated to this life? He's made a major politician? With a lovely little daughter and a pretty wife? Such a quaint life. And my father was dead again by murder. Where is the justice in that? And so I intend to take that vengeance into my own hands. Why would God have granted me these visions, memories, unless he intended me to do something about them?"

Kaena opened her mouth to let him know how twisted his stupid logic was when his phone began to ring. He looked down at it and started to laugh again. "It's your little boyfriend. Your precious Suzaku seishi. Hello?" he asked as the church bells began to toll. It was nine.

"Where is Kaena?" he demanded.

"She's," he glanced down at her. "Indisposed, at the moment. But I'm sure you'll find her later."

"I'll kill you-"

"I'M IN A CATHEDRAL!" she screamed as loud as she could.

"A cathedral?" she heard him ask.

"Bitch," Marsden threw the phone to the floor and slapped her in the face. "Not that it matters, there are probably a hundred cathedrals in Chicago, and you'll be dead long before they figure out which one we're in."

She laboriously turned her head to stare back at him. He was white with fury, his hands shaking. He jerked her shirt open and brought his lips roughly to her skin. She screamed in reply, struggling as hard as she could, but his weight on her kept her easily pinned.

"What makes you think life is fair?" she rasped.

"The world has to operate according to some rules, doesn't it? God is just, is He not? The Israelites rebelled in the desert, so God made them wander for forty years. The children taunted Elijah and were struck dead. The wages of sin is death. And yet an innocent child witnessed terrible things and died."

"Bad things happen to good people, all the time."

"But to an innocent child?"

"None are innocent. Not even one," she whispered, voice straining from the weight of his body on her diaphragm. His chest was heaving with rage, with pain, with something. Hers was heaving in fear.

"Certainly more innocent than a murderer like your father! And so the only explanation I can think of is that justice is skewed. The evil in the world, the evil of the Israelites' disobedience or abuse of a child, the consequences aren't always directed. They flow to the innocent from the rightfully deserving, like Adam and Eve. That's why all are damned by God, because the sins of the few weigh upon us all. But we can turn those tables! I can turn those tables! God allowed me to see it, to understand it, so that I could enact His justice in the world. His child's life for mine."

"Will that atone for all the other children? Or for the evil he did to my mother? Is that just to me, who did nothing?" she demanded. "Your reasoning is faulty. And you forget the most important tenet of your own religion, which is mercy. I have suffered injustice too. The point of faith in a higher power isn't to gain justice, but to gain forgiveness."

"Why should I need forgiveness for what was done to me?" he snarled, hitting her harshly.

"You're right. Certainly, you've never done anything that harmed another person in your entire life. You never made fun of another child on the playground, or told a lie, or even manipulated someone to try to bend to your will," she stated as coolly as her weak body would allow. She managed to shrug one shoulder indifferently. "I suppose my suffering will certainly assuage the guilt you feel."

He froze, and stared at her. "What guilt?" he spat the word like a sour taste.

It all made such perfect sense now. The world was just to Marsden, had to be, to fulfill his mad beliefs, therefore he must have deserved the suffering he gained both in his past life and in this life. He must have done something, some sin, in some life, to bring it on himself. The guilt had eaten at him. And so . . . "In order to convince yourself that it wasn't your sin that brought disaster and retribution upon you, you convinced yourself it was another's' sin that you were atoning for, and the only way to repay it, to make things just again, was to punish the rightful owner of the original sin."

"You're wrong! I have no sin in this!" he screamed and began to beat her chest and face until she could barely see through her swollen lids. She felt a tooth knocked lose and the pain was horrible, but it cleared her mind. It made so much sense. An eye for an eye.

She laughed softly, which only served to further infuriate her. He ruthlessly ripped her pants down her hips and leaned forward to her ear. "I don't care what you think. You're going to pay for your father's sin."

"We all pay for our fathers' sins," she returned, unafraid, and continued to laugh. Her stomach hurt from laughing, and she wasn't sure why, but the amusement bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her, somewhere far beyond the reach of his persuasive power. "Tell me," she cackled. "Tell me, it was you all along, that broke into my apartment and left the goat? And that burned Taka's place to the ground? And my father? You poisoned him too."

"If he'd died, this wouldn't be happening. But that man doesn't know when to die! If he did, he would have died when the Hin were first attacked."

That stopped her laughing. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you know history? Your precious father was Hin, a tribe in Kutou, and his village was raided, and he was collected by the emperor for who knows what reason. He should have died then, with the rest of his village, but he just kept surviving."

"Don't you think maybe there's a reason for that, like maybe he had something to do?"

"He's stubborn, and it just proves that the wrong people pay for others' sins," he jerked her panties down, and she looked up curiously at him. He frowned, disconcerted. "What?"

"Just wondering if you were really planning to rape me. It doesn't seem like you. Coercion maybe, but outright rape just isn't your style," she noticed her voice was coming back into her control. She could wiggle her fingers easily. He was tiring. "I thought you liked me."

"My personal feelings aren't important," he flushed suddenly. "I have a job to do."

"That you don't really want to do. Or you would have just killed me three hours ago, or let Vinny do it while he was under your control."

"It was my justice to give, not his," he frowned. "Shut your mouth! I did falter! I started to like you, I started to love you and your stupid friends, too. But then when my mother and sister died, it reminded me of all the injustices people like me face while people like you walk around somehow immune to it all! People like him! I tried to start that rumor to give you the opportunity to take that failure and go far away, but it didn't work. And so after I saw how Dr. Jamison accidentally went into you like that, I thought it would be a good idea to try it. It was easy, given my gifts of persuasion."

"Taka will hunt you down until you're too tired to run anymore," she pointed out laconically. "You know it's true."

"I don't care what happens to me."

"If you didn't care, you wouldn't be so upset over what already has."

He hit her again, and Kaena smiled through the pain. It cleared her mind, and expended his energy. Bruises would heal, and broken teeth could be replaced, but his energy couldn't be so easily replenished. He was bleeding away his life force in her, and she was an endless well in which he could pour himself. She would never be completely full with his weak, human life force. She could feel the Preserver in her now, biding time. And for the first time in a very long time, the Voice spoke to her, it told her to take comfort and to do exactly what she had been doing: stalling.

Marsden was so agitated he was nearly crying. He began to undo is belt, when there was a sudden crash, and three figures burst inside the cathedral, two taller figures flanking a shorter in the middle. Marsden stood up and stepped away from Kaena.

"You're dead," Taka shouted it like a war cry, running toward Marsden with brilliant, crimson fire surrounding him like a corona. She felt Marsden's hold on her weaken suddenly, and Vinny was possessed again. He dove at Taka's feet and pinned him to the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?" Luke's voice floated toward her. He made for Marsden, and suddenly the marble tiles exploded in front of him. Vinny dragged himself to his feet and started throwing hymnals and Bibles.

"That's sacrilege," Kaena pointed out to Marsden, who was obviously controlling the big Italian. "And he's Catholic, too."

"Shut up!" he shouted at her. Again, his grip on her slackened, and Taka was jerked suddenly to his feet. He joined the fray and lifted his arm to hit Luke, who was psychically rebuffing the projectiles, but paused mid-swing. He blinked and struggled to lower his arm. Kaena sat herself up and began to edge out of the fray, lest she catch a stray bolt. She still couldn't walk, but she could scoot like the wind.

"Give it up!" Taka cried, taking agonizingly slow steps toward her captor, like lead blocks were tied to his shoes. His movements were awkwardly exaggerated, and Kaena found herself laughing a little once again.

"Now isn't a time for laughter!" he called at her angrily.

"It's as good a time as any," she replied hysterically, laughing all the harder because of it. There was something coming up within her, from deep within that well. It wasn't exactly amusement that caused her to cackle, but some strange joy. She knew this joy.

Luke frowned and lifted Vinny off his feet, turning him upside down so the change clinked on the floor as it dropped from his pockets. "Pennies for the poor, I guess," Luke muttered. "Vinny, snap out of it!"

"Why aren't you taking over Luke?" she asked casually.

Marsden looked to where she had been lying, and his eyes began to frantically search until they landed on her, leaning against the rail surrounding the pulpit.

"I don't think he can," Luke flashed her a grin. "Either because he's out of energy, or because of my stunningly impenetrable chi."

Taka was slowly gaining speed, though what he would do when he made it to his goal, Kaena had no idea. Luke casually raised Vinny's entire body to one of the shimmering chandeliers above, and left him to hang there. The fixture began to creak and groan from his weight, and he was thoroughly distracted. Marsden looked wildly at the scene and danced aside just in time to avoid Taka's slow right cross. Kaena felt his grip on her tighten, and heard Vinny's expletive filled exclamation. God would not be pleased with the words coming out of that mouth! That thought thrilled her into laughter again. She thought she might be losing her mind.

"You're not," the Voice replied. "It is funny, isn't it?"

"Goodness," Kaena sighed, feeling calmed and comforted, and tickled pink. Vinny continued to curse and swear from the falling lantern. Taka collapsed suddenly at Marsden's feet.

"Not so powerful now?" the man spat. "Don't interfere!" he shouted at Luke.

"Idiot. Sorry, God," Luke replied with a crooked grin, picking up the stack of Bibles and hymnals that Vinny had pelted him with, and raising them high above Marsden's head. With a flourish, he closed his hand and the pile of thirty or so heavy books came tumbling down upon him. The persuasive sorcerer collapsed into a heap, and Taka jumped up, apparently freed. Kaena felt a weight lift off her chest, and moved to stand when suddenly the Presence lurched forward in her.

"May I?" the Voice asked her.

Kaena breathed a sigh of relief and the Presence took over her, body and mind. She felt herself float above, away, somewhere that was not in her body, and she watched from that distance. As she opened herself and allowed that holy power to enter her, to use her hands and her mouth in this world, she realized that perhaps her earlier statement about free will had been unfair. Obedience was a choice, not just the choice to take one path, but the every day choice to remain on that path. There was always an emergency exit from her God's path, but each step she took was an exertion of her free will. And it was her choice to be obedient, and to step aside to let the Presence do what It willed. And she felt the darkness within her, the place she had kept to herself, the place that hated and feared, the place that failed to trust, become filled and alive with a purity that made her weep with joy. She was emptied, and refilled, and cleansed, and she watched that powerful deity, God or goddess or Buddha or Allah, or Vishnu or Krishna, or all of them together, as Its will was carried out.

She saw Marsden struggle to his feet from beneath the pile of holy books, and Taka moved to strike him dead. Kaena's body moved like lightning, and her hand was on Taka's wrist. He turned to her in furious frustration, and froze when he looked into her face, into her eyes that were deeper than any ocean, darker than pitch. He dropped his arm and stepped back to where Luke was helping Vinny to his feet.

She stood in front of Marsden, naked as the day she was born, but felt no shame, no embarrassment. She had never been as naked in body as she was before her Creator in mind, in soul. She took his hands, and he stared at her with pain and hate and anguish. His eyes stared into hers, and Kaena saw into his soul, saw the hurt in his soul, and the hate, and all the pain. She saw his father beat him for not memorizing his Bible versus well enough, for not getting that grade. She saw how he had wished his father would die, and how he had blamed himself when he had. How confused and scared he had been by the dreams. And she saw how he had hated her, then loved her, then hated her again. And oddly, Kaena found she could do nothing but forgive him, because that's what was flowing through the vessel of her body.

He fell to his knees, prostrating himself before her, and she picked him up again and dried his tears.

"You have greatly betrayed my teaching," she said quietly, yet her voice thundered through the cathedral, through their bones. Vinny gasped and fell to his knees.

"Are you God?" he whispered.

"I am the one who Creates, Preserves, and Destroys in righteous fire. I am the one who taught you justice, and I am the one who failed to teach you mercy. You missed my most important lesson and tried to hurt my most prized servant, who is the hope of you and your world."

"Why? Why . . . is there not justice?"

"Vengeance is mine, for the sake of justice. And I choose mercy over justice, always. For who could stand against me if I dealt only in payment for debt? The debt is so great," the Voice, doubled strangely over Kaena's soft alto, said sadly. "Your debt is great."

"For my sin. Is that why I was punished?"

"Your debt is great for your unforgiveness. But forgiveness is hard work, when memory is strong. So I will bless you with forgetfulness," the deity whispered, and kissed his forehead. Immediately, the man slumped forward, and the Preserver caught his body easily and gently laid his body before the altar.

Kaena felt herself begin to ascend back into her body, but there was a pause, and she felt her body turn toward Taka, Luke, and Vinny. She smiled gently. "You who serve her, serve me. Your time to protect my blessed vessel draws near. You must remember what I have taught you, or you will fail."

Taka dropped to one knee to hide his head against it, and Luke simply stared in wonder, and Kaena felt a rush like the ocean and wind and mountains all contained together spiraling back down some deep crevice, and she dropped to her knees, sliding to the floor, drained and spent.

Taka rushed toward her and pulled her into his lap. "Kaena," Taka shook her gently. "Are you all right?"

"Mmmjust a little numb," she mumbled into his shirt. Luke was poking Marsden warily with his foot, and Vinny was still staring blindly at the crucifix behind the altar, shocked by what he had seen. She could see and hear well enough, but her body was warm and blissfully relaxed.

Luke jumped back suddenly as Marsden sat up. He looked around at the bizarre scene. "Where am I? Who . . . Who am I?"

"Er," Luke said. "Your name is Marsden."

"That's a stupid name," he frowned. "I don't remember . . . anything."

"He's forgotten everything?" Taka asked.

Kaena nodded. "Ignorant, now, of all he's done."

"What a terrible punishment."

"What punishment?" she questioned, curiously. There was, strangely, nothing in her that hated him. She supposed the Preserver's power lingered yet. "That was a blessing of mercy for one so pained. Now he has a second chance to use that power for something useful. Help him."

Taka, shaky himself, managed to pluck her up. It took three tries, but he got Vinny to gather up her clothes and anything that could identify them. Luke led the very confused Marsden out of the cathedral and into the warm, breezy night.

"What should I do with him?"

"Drop him at a hospital," Taka said bitterly. "They'll take care of it."

Kaena snuggled against Taka's warm chest as he carried her to Vinny's car. She was laid gently in the back seat, her head resting in Taka's lap. Vinny climbed into the front seat, still shocked and pale. Luke poked his head in through the window. "I'm going to take a cab to the hospital with this one," he looked at his TA—former TA, Kaena gathered—with chagrin. Maybe she would be promoted? She laughed softly to herself.

"Why do you keep laughing?" Taka asked gently.

Kaena thought long and hard about it. There was something nearly inexplicably funny about Marsden's particular brand of foolishness, and she found it hard to verbalize it. She looked up at him through swollen eyelids. "He was desperate for justice, like he thought it was the solution to everything bad. I'm reminded of an incident as a child wherein I managed to spill paint all over my father's brand new white leather couch. Even then, as an eight year old child, I had the sense to beg not for justice, but for mercy. Who would want the former when the latter is so sparing? He put his misdirected faith in the wrong virtue, but received forgiveness all the same. I just find it . . . ironic."

"Yeah," Taka said thoughtfully. "I guess it is ironic."

Kaena's bruised eyelids felt like boulders, and finally, Taka's fingers running gently through her hair, with the warm air caressing her bruised skin, she fell into a deep, much needed sleep.