One more chapter, the epilogue, and a short story left!

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If I had hackles they'd rise and if it were in me to snarl I would, but I'm not an animal despite wanting to tear apart the person behind me.

I turn around slowly and come face to face with the woman who got me found out in the first place. Kai. Rancid bitch. Although I should thank her. Being dead has been the most liberating time of my life.

"I had a feeling," she says, sneering. Her eyes rove up and down my body, appraising me. Sizing me up. "That's too bad. I really thought Eric was on our side." Her sneer carves deeper into her face, as if she just smells something foul. "Turns out he's running around with traitors. Guess I'll have to take care of him too."

I can't help but roll my eyes. Kai's taking care of nothing. And I watch her bristle at my lack of regard for her alleged position of power in our little twosome. I keep my arms at my sides, my hands fanned out to show I'm not reaching for anything. Yet.

"Give me the gun," Kai spits.

A little snort escapes my throat and I desperately choke back a laugh. She's trying so hard. I almost want her to at least attempt to win. Almost.

"Not going to happen." The laughter in my voice goes unhidden and I watch Kai's nostrils flare. She's so hilarious when she's angry.

"I'm the one with the finger on the trigger of the gun pointed at your head. I can shoot you before you even think to reach for your rifle." Her face flushes red and I see the stain creeping up her neck. She's getting so angry. And so careless.

My movement's quick and my hand's on her gun before she even finishes her thought while my free hand lashes out and knocks into her wrist, releasing the gun from her grasp and pushing it into mine. For a second I want to unload it and throw the pieces down the stairs. But I think better of that. I flick the safety on and tuck it into my waistband. Not the best place for it, but the only place for now.

"You talk too much," I say, keeping my face neutral. "Way too much."

My fist has a mind of its own as it comes flying out and straight into Kai's face. She stumbles, cupping her now-bleeding nose, but recovers quickly. I hold back my rising animal instincts, but Kai lets hers loose, snarling and lunging at me.

She jumps into my arms and I catch her and topple, landing on the gun strapped to my back. That'll bruise more than the flailing woman on top of me. At first I'm on the defensive, blocking her hits. She hits her mark a couple of times and I can feel a bruise blooming around my right eye, but that's all she gets. I throw an elbow into her temple and she topples backward, stunned.

"You never know when to give up, do you?" I pull myself up off the ground and stomp over to her. She feels like a lumpy lead weight as I pull her up by her collar. Her hands find mine and she digs her nails into my flesh. I don't even flinch. "This has won you nothing, you know that, right?"

"It's won me everything since I exposed you," Kai spits through bloody, gritted teeth. "You're a poison and I'm the antidote. I haven't left Jeanine's side since we all thought you died."

A sinister smile crawls up my face and the whites of my teeth peek through my lips as they crack open. I can imagine what I look like, but I give the bitch credit. She doesn't shove herself back. Although I do see her pupils dilate just a little, her eyes widen just a hint. Whatever she's feeling, what she's truly feeling, she's keeping it on the inside as much as she can.

I lower myself down to her ear, my lips just brushing the skin there, and I whisper, "You ever think Jeanine doesn't like narcs? That she's keeping you close so you don't run your mouth to anyone else?"

Pain, white hot and like lightning shoots through my ear and I cry out before stoppering my voice, choking it all back so not to alert anyone. Although I've pretty much just let the cat out of the bag on that one. I try to pull away, but the pain only intensifies.

Then I hear it, a wet, haggard gasping right in my ear, so close I can feel moisture. She's biting my ear. The bitch is actually trying to bite my ear off!

Blood, wet, sticky, and warm, trickles down the side of my face and I bring my fist down on her head, over and over again, but she doesn't ease up. She tries pulling away, effectively trying to bite my damn ear off, but I move with her. Then my hand finds her throat and squeezes. I hear her choked breath as she tries to gasp for air. I shimmy my hand up and clamp down right at her jaw, like I would a dog that wouldn't drop whatever was in its mouth. Fitting for the bitch.

It takes a couple of seconds, but she finally releases her bite on me and I roll out of her reach. I immediately put my hand up to my ear and wince at the sting of my sweaty flesh on the open wound. I look at my hand as I bring it back down and it's covered in blood. Okay, fine. My animal's coming out now too.

I sneer as I lunge back at her as she's still gasping on the ground, hands rubbing her throat. My fist plows into her face and I close my eyes against the blood that splatters back on me. I don't stop. I don't think. I just keep hitting. I don't realize she's gone limp underneath me until I hit bone and the pain reverberates up my arm. I look down and I see her pulpy face a mess underneath me and she's no longer moving.

I'm gasping, heaving, my heart thundering a mile a minute. My fist is still raised in the air, my hand clenched, and it's an effort to unfurl my fingers and release my grip on myself. I let it go. But I haven't let it go, have I? I just pummeled it into the ground.

I only recognize Kai's face as having been a face because I know one used to be there. Now it's a bloody, soggy mess with no definable features. I sit atop her and watch her chest. I can't tell if she's breathing or not and if she's not my eyes could be playing tricks on me, making me think her chest is moving when. So I find a spot on her neck relatively clear of blood and press my fingers to her pulse. It takes me a couple tries to get the angle right, but eventually I find the right nook.

A flutter, barely there, under my fingers. She is still alive. Sucks for her. I can't be sure that if I just leave her like this that she'll die on her own or if someone will find her and nurse her back to health. A vindictive Kai is one thing. A vengeful one is another. Plus she knows I'm alive, assuming I didn't beat all of her memories back to childhood out of her. No, I'm not taking any chances.

I roll her over onto her side and slide her up into a sitting position, her back resting against me. She doesn't make any noise, not even a groan of pain. I really could just leave her here to die. But that sliver of a chance . . . I can't. It's too risky. For me, for the Factionless. Jeanine trusted her once and all her nagging was proved right. Why wouldn't Jeanine trust her again?

I take her jaw in my hands, her chin cradled in my palm. I leverage myself just right, reaching my hand behind her head just so. And with one quick jerk I hear a pop and I know it's over. I press my fingers to her neck and nothing pushes back. Her body's completely still.

So I get up and slide her over to the stairwell, pull off her jacket, and shove her onto the landing, watching as she crumples into a heap on the cement, her head at an angle that no human's should get into. I go back to the spot where I beat her bloody and wipe away the mess I left behind, the drag marks across the tile floor. Leaving nothing but shine behind. It'll be a while before anyone finds her, especially up this high. No one's using the stairs unless it's an emergency.

I crack the door back open and walk the jacket back down to her. Without warning my stomach cramps and I heave into the jacket in my hands, leaving a piece of myself behind with her. I've trained for years to be the perfect soldier, but never, until now, have I had to kill someone. Well, I guess I didn't have to kill her. I just didn't think not to. My stomach roils again but I hold it back, tossing the soiled jacket on top of Kai's crumpled body.

She ruined everything. She ruined my life even though she really set me free. Her actions led to my death, as far as she was concerned until just a few minutes ago. And she didn't bat an eye doing it. Obviously it was kill or be killed. If she saw me, and I'd left her alive, she's hunt me to the ends of the earth. And despite how much of a useless annoyance she is, was, she picked at that scab until it bled. She was never deterred. She never stopped until she thought I was dead. I'm merely returning the favor, except I know this mission was accomplished.

That's what I keep telling myself as I walk back up the stairs to the tenth floor. I didn't expect to get waylaid like this. Now I can get back on track, with the pop of Kai's neck still ringing in my ears. I shake my head, trying to shove the noise away, and walk toward the end. The end of Jeanine's life or the end of mine. However this works out. One of us is dying today.