okkkk so this isn't a fantastic chapter. and i know it's been a LONG time coming. i've been incredibly busy (etc etc) but a conversation with rowanrawr inspired me to try and get this finished. i can't promise weekly updates, but this will be getting finished - i'm not going to abandon it again!

really sorry for the wait and i hope some old readers might come back for the last few chapters of this. hope this chapter is at least a bit enjoyable, and please forgive me for abandoning this fic for so long.


Arra reached him without thinking once to take note of her surroundings or watch for danger. It was only in the moments after she had knelt down beside him that she noticed the thick scent of blood in the air.

He had been so occupied with pressing on for the past couple of nights that he had almost forgotten his existing injuries. The wound the Vampaneze had inflicted wasn't particularly deep, but his head was suddenly throbbing painfully again like it hadn't since they had found Arra. When it became clear he didn't have the presence of mind to do it himself, she slowly unfurled his arm from his side for him and closed the cut.

"What happened?" she whispered, looking him over. He groaned and clutched his head, seemingly irritated by his own weakness, but as she looked him over she couldn't see any further injuries. The scent of blood was still around them, though; she could feel it in the air. Most of it was Vampaneze, and her heart pounded in her ears so loudly that she couldn't figure out whether he had struck them or whether they were still loitering nearby, watching their every move.

"Three or four of them," he replied, pressing his hand to his temple. "Came out of nowhere. I was shocked – bled one of them," he gestured randomly at the ground, and waved his bloodied knife in front of her. "One of them struck my arm, but then they disappeared."

The others, sensing the lack of immediate danger, dropped their speed and trudged up beside the pair. Mika and Arrow dropped to their knees beside Larten, whose head was bowed in thought, but Vancha remained standing, staring out into the dark.

"Maybe they were afraid of you," Arra suggested. "They must have run away."

Larten snorted in response. "They are not afraid of any of us."

"What's happened?" Arrow interjected, unable to keep up with their conversation having only joined in halfway through, but neither of them paid any attention to his request for information.

"Why else would they leave?" Arra pushed. "We lost Klaus already, just before I caught up with you; they must have been intending to attack from all angles. If they wanted Klaus, why wouldn't they want you?"

Mika had figured out the situation well enough by now. Suddenly, he remembered stumbling into that clearing, Vampaneze blood everywhere, Crepsley stumbling clumsily from one corpse to the next, and everything came snapping back into focus.

"What about the clearing?" he said, and Larten's eyes widened. They ought to have considered it before, but it had been a traumatic few weeks. "They could have taken you then – they had injured you enough to take you away with the others. They must have known that you would wish to find your comrades."

"Then why leave me alive?" Larten croaked. All the pieces were coming together, but it still didn't feel like it made any sense. His head was throbbing worse than ever.

"They must have assumed you were dead," Arra guessed, but Mika shook his head.

"They can't have been that reckless. If you wished to capture a few Vampaneze, the last thing you'd do is leave one of them alive and free to tell the tale to the rest of his clan."

In the moment it took for that to sink in, Mika continued.

"They want to be found," he said, though the tone of voice he used made it clear that he was uncertain.

"Why?" Arra croaked. "It doesn't make any sense. Perhaps they have just made a series of mistakes."

"One of them tried to kill me outside the church," Larten remembered, his brow furrowed. "Why do that unless they wanted me dead?"

"Who's to say he would definitely have killed you?" Mika argued. "It was over in a few seconds – I followed you out, and almost as soon as he'd approached you I was on him. He might have only intended to injure you."

"Then why bring a team?" Arrow asked. "He expected backup, remember that look when nobody came?"

Mika shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe they intended to kill the rest of us and leave Larten to struggle on alone again."

There was a brief silence where they all looked up at Vancha, hoping he might have something worthwhile to add. He simply glared up at the moon, fists clenched, deep in thought.

"Think about this," Mika added, looking at Arra. "If they didn't wish to be found, and they figured out that Larten was alive and looking for the two of you, why didn't they just give up on you and Gavner, decide you were more trouble than you were worth, and kill you?"

Larten remembered his fleeting conversation with Gavner, the flash of his injury, the way his friend had said that he didn't know why they were still keeping him alive.

"I don't think they care much about the rest of us," Mika said. "They intend to kill us all, or use us for their experiments if possible, but it certainly isn't their priority. But you're the missing piece of something – they want you to find them, for some reason. They are keeping Gavner alive to tease you, to ensure that you won't give up on your quest."

"I doubt that they intended on your escape," he decided, nodding at Arra, his mind whirring. "But I don't think it has made a great deal of difference. I imagine they intend to capture you again, if the opportunity arises – but now that they know Larten intends to fight on without you as bait, they might just want to kill you instead."

The way Mika spoke about the probability of their deaths was so blunt, so unfeeling, that Larten shuddered involuntarily.

"It still doesn't make any sense," Arra tried to argue, weakly, but before she could continue Larten interrupted her with a groan.

"I think you are right," he conceded, unhappy with the prospect but willing to accept Mika's unfaltering logic. "But what difference does it make anyway? I do not wish to be at the centre of any of their plans, but if anything it is a positive development."

Arrow, Mika and Arra all glared at him in disbelief, wondering if the stress and the head injury had finally got the better of him.

"They do not wish to kill me unless they have to," he reasoned. "That might make my job a little easier."

Mika loudly slapped a hand over his eyes in despair.

"We should go back," he reasoned, voice shaking with the effort of keeping his composure. "You are a fool if you decide to carry on. We are all out of our depth."

Unaffected by that suggestion, Larten laboriously climbed to his feet, brushed himself down and nodded to Vancha to indicate that it was time for them to carry on. It seemed the higher-ranking General had no patience for their theories and discussions – Vancha no longer needed to understand the Vampanezes' reasoning to understand his duty toward his colleagues, and it was clear from the hard look in his eyes that nothing would have swayed him.

"It is probably some sort of trap," Mika continued. He motioned at Arra as she shifted and prepared to stand. "They will capture you again straight away. You'd do better to flit to the Mountain and tell the others, and then to stay there, probably for a few months until it's definitely safe."

Arra shrugged apologetically. It was as if all their years together had instilled some of his way of thinking into her, and really she knew that he was proposing the only sensible course of action, but she wanted to be brave more than she wanted to be reasonable.

Already aware that his logic was going to fall on deaf ears, Mika sighed heavily. If he had been the sort to care more for his own life, he might have decided then and there that he would be the one to go back to the Mountain, and left the rest of the foolish group behind to face their fate. Unfortunately, Mika supposed he was secretly as torn as Arra was. He wanted her to go somewhere safe, and he felt the same way about Arrow – this was almost certainly going to be the death of all of them, and his brother had more to give to the world than just this pointless battle against a pod of probably mad Vampaneze. Vancha was worthy of being a Prince one night. Even Larten, who he didn't care much for, was worth more than this. In truth, though, even though nobody would tell tales of their bravery and nobody would remember them as heroes, even though this was not the way they all deserved to go, Mika knew that at this stage, another couple of miles from the base, only a coward would have turned back. He just wished, for once, that Arrow and Arra might have been those kinds of cowards.

Once they were all assembled, Arra walked to the front of the pack and addressed them all.

"We should flit," she suggested. "There's less of a chance of us being dispatched before we get there that way. It's probably only a couple of minutes away if we do so – I'll lead us, because I know the way."

It seemed for a moment that nobody was going to argue with her, or say anything at all. Vancha was already lining himself up to attempt to flit – nobody truly knew whether he or Arra were going to be capable of doing so following their transfusion – but before Arra turned her back, Larten spoke. There was no possibility in these silent surroundings of him talking to her privately, but he stepped up close to her anyway and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"If you lead us, they might kill you first."

Arra shrugged. "I think Mika's right," she said softly. "They are going to kill me anyway, one way or another."

That feeling was back again. It was only now, watching her prepare to face what was almost certain death, that the anger he'd felt towards her was finally disappearing. Whatever she might have done wrong, she was willing to do the noble thing now and face the probably dire consequences. It felt like the moment she'd told him of her intention to lead the Vampaneze away all over again – she seemed calm, collected, but he was clenching his jaw and clutching her wrist, realizing suddenly that he didn't want this.

Larten struggled to find the proper words, but when she tried to break his grip and turn away again, he tugged her back.

"You should go," he said, still whispering even though he could feel the eyes of the others on them. Distantly, he heard Mika's bark of laughter, but the two of them were too focused on their whispered conversation to hear much else.

It was such a change of heart from the way he had felt earlier that had the situation not been so dire Arra might have laughed too. Instead, she stared back at him in disbelief.

"There is no point to this," he said, and he was speaking quickly, panicking at the thought that he was just about to lose her forever, wondering what he'd been thinking. He stared at her seriously. "You will die if you come with us, and the fight is probably pointless. I want you to leave."

Arra shook her head and smiled.

"You know I won't go."

Before he could argue with her, she curled a hand around his neck and brought his head down to rest against hers.

I love you, she said in his mind, so clearly it might have been out loud. I couldn't leave you to do it on your own.

There was no use in arguing with her; however much Larten wanted to order her away, scream at her until she listened, he knew she would never accept his request.

I'm sorry, he said, and he really was, sorry for every moment wasted in the hours since he'd gotten her back. How could he have really known, like he did now, that those had been the countdown to the end? I love you.

She leaned up to press a gentle kiss to his lips, never breaking their connection.

I know. It's time to go.

Before he really knew what had happened, her mind was gone again and he no longer had a hold on her arm. He breathed out, trying to reconcile the thought of doing the right thing by trying to help Gavner and doing the wrong thing by allowing Arra to die at the same time. It was too late to weigh it all up now, and though he desperately wanted to stop this and rethink it all, before he could think about it anymore she was running and Vancha was following, the others were setting off, and that was it – his legs were moving of their own accord.

I promised we would, Gavner, remember?, he thought, eliminating thoughts of Arra for now and hoping his best friend could hear him. See you soon.


(please review xoxo)