Uhm . . . Hi? *hides behind bush to protect herself from onslaught of hate*

I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. REALLY. I MEAN THE SITE SCREWED UP, AND THEN I GOT LAZY, AND THEN SCHOOL STARTED AGAIN AND THE TEACHERS WERE LIKE, "SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW WORK? HA. HA. NO." SO . . . UH . . . SORRY?

*LE JUST REALISED THAT SHE HASN'T POSTED CHAPTER 36 YET*

WHOOPS.

SO WHEN YOU GET THIS, YOU WILL HAVE READ 36 FIRST . . . BUT I WAS TYPING THIS UP FIRST BECAUSE I JUST REMEMBERED I TOOK THAT CHAPTER DOWN. AH WELL. LET US CONTINUE~

READ ON, GOOD SIRS AND LADIES AND WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT TO BEEEE~

"When all man find themselves at the same level,

"It is because one man is dancing with the devil."

Chapter 37: Dancing with the Devil

I can't see Tobias's knuckles, but I have no doubt that they are white on the handles of my wheelchair. I shouldn't be in one. I wish I wasn't in one, but I can't change the fact that my abdominal muscles are still shredded from the spear that went through me. The whole fact that I did have something that had skewered by midsection still feels surreal to me; like I can't believe it.

But Tobias's steady and even footsteps on the floor behind me, underneath the squeaking sound of the wheels on my chair, under the tension under my ribs and the thudding in the back of my head, his footsteps on the medical ward floor remind me that I'm stuck here.

When I had stared at his face, now no longer slumbering, we hadn't said much. I don't say anything and he says nothing back to me; neither of us trust ourselves to speak.

He wheels me into a new ward, one without medical equipment, one with a line of people sitting in chairs outside and office with no plaque on the door. Tobias, obviously having received an invitation, pushes open the door without hesitation.

On the other side, Nico di Angelo sits in a portable chair, with a dark coat spread over his lap and his right arm in a cast, with dark hollows under his eyes and cheekbones. Across from him was Thalia, sitting in a wheelchair like myself, but wheeling herself. Both of them looked like elderly people.

So this is it, I thought, the war for old men.

Nico looks at us through the corner of his eye, not moving his head. He seems to be glaring at me. Thalia doesn't even look at us, she simply remains staring vacantly at the ground. "Well," says Nico—that's what I've noticed about him: he always says 'well' before talking. "The war's at a stalemate. Chase is gone, the Daemon destroyed most of everyone's troops, the Order is in disarray, the Westers have regrouped and our moles reported a surprise attack coming from them, and Gaos has dropped off the map."

"This concerns me how?" I ask, not daring to listen to any more of their elderly garble.

Nico turns his face towards me slightly, so that I can just see both of his hollow, weary eyes staring at me. He scowls. "You're a Deadman."

"I know."

"A Deadman Walking—who, funnily enough, isn't actually walking."

"I don't care. Tell me what you need done, di Angelo."

Nico crosses his arm. I never realised that he wore a black, knitted jumper under his coat. His scarred hands looked gnarled and bruised. He looks so old. "You may not consciously know it, but you received the memories of countless people when being in the Death Realm."

"How is this useful?"

"Well, not only would it be helpful to me, but it means we can gather intel on all the other armies," his eyes darken. "It also means that you'll be a lot harder to kill, and much easier to use as a spy."

Finally, Thalia's eyes snap into focus and bore into me; electric blue and alive.

And frightening.

"She's too noticeable," Thalia said sharply. "She'll never make it as a spy."

Her words are frank and expressionless; as if she were simply regarding animals at an auction.

"Excuse me?" I clench my fists around the armrests. "And how would you know?"

"Enough." Nico's voice is low and loud, like it reverberates through each air particle. "Stop being so childish, both of you. Thalia, your experience is good, but that doesn't mean you can toss away a perfectly good Deadman."

"Yes, it can, Deadmen are disposable. Use her for something else. Oil theft, or something."

"Thalia, be quiet."

It's the first time I've ever heard Nico speak like that, let alone to someone like Thalia. As far as I know, they are the only two people in the Watchers that never argue. I always thought it was because they were so old that they had given up on it.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Nico sighs and rubs his temples. He turns to me. "Once you recover, you're to be assigned to a special squad led by Armena Brandt, a spy legend, to be trained how to slip in an out of enemy society without anyone ever noticing you're there." I begin to open my mouth to ask something, but he holds up a hand, quieting me. "You will also be making your way steadily Westward towards the city of Chicago."

Chicago. The word hangs in the air; foreign. A word that doesn't belong here.

"But—" Tobias's words are cut short by Nico. "There will be no compromise. With Eaton's previous experience of the Westers, you will go past Chicago and head to San Francisco, where you will meet up with one of our agents there, who will get you out of the public eye."

"What's the point of that?" Tobias snaps. I can hear his breath behind me; hear his skin pulling on the metal handles as he clenches his fists.

Why is he so mad? I don't get it.

Nico doesn't bother glaring at him. He looks away and closes his eyes, as if dealing with mere humans tires him too much. "You will be our marker."

"Marker?"

"Yes," Nico says. "It appears, according to our genius little workers down in the labs, that your killing of the wrong man while working for Screech may have been the cause of this sudden war. Funny, isn't it? Now, the "Mark Oaks" that you received—that name has been controversial throughout history. In a sense, the name has become the shadow man: a name of a man that does and doesn't exist. A business front. However, you killed the owner of the small club you went to; a man that used the name Mark Oaks. However, that was simply your suspicion. You received only an image of a face, no?"

Tobias's hands make creaking sounds on the handlebars. "What about it?"

Deep down, one part of me is screaming that he killed someone innocent—that he was paid to kill someone in the first place, and that he actually did it. But the other part, the part I have grown into like a fool, doesn't care.

And how many have you killed, Beatrice Prior?

"Now," Nico says, "You require no spy training at all. In fact, you have to look slightly suspicious. Anyway, you will be surrounded by hundreds of Watcher moles all within the Wester colonies anyway. They will all be notified that you are coming, and to take you to a Jurosh"—I notice that he says it 'Yoorosh'—"who will ensure that you stay alive."

"But how am I a marker?"

"Because," Nico said, eyes still closed, "when people notice you, there will be uproar in different directions. When people realise that there is a Watcher in the midst—someone who was familiar with the most recent Deadman—and the one who killed a Mark Oaks, now that will cause uproar."

Nico's hand clenched around the arm of his coat. "An uproar that will prove most useful to us."

"What if he dies?" I say before I can stop myself.

Nico looks at me from the corner of his eye. "What if he dies?"

I swallow. Of course that was the answer. In the end, we were all individual expendable units. We weren't people. Despite this, my hands ball into fists. "What are you—?"

"You have three weeks off to attain treatment for your injury," says Nico. "During that time, I will arrange for you to meet Armena. Quite a strange one, but a brilliant one."

Thalia snorts. "She'll never make it through the first day, Nico."

"Enough, Thalia," he snaps. He looks at me, bags under his eyes making his face seem hollow and ghoulish, but his eyes burn with dark fire. "Both of you, command your higher-ups. Dismissed."

If C planned on saying anything about the rather spontaneous robbing of a bank cell, he didn't let on. Annabeth almost complained; to tell him to stop at a motel or something, but she never did. For whatever the reason, she couldn't find the nerve to ask him. Either way, he didn't seem to be desperate to let on. So she continued hobbling along after him, her fatigue making her already-heavy body seem like lead.

She'd given up on keeping track of time. Day or night didn't matter to her anymore. She just found herself clawing at the point in time when they would stop, and she would be allowed to drop and sleep. Until then, she would not allow herself to stop.

Can't stop now. Have to kill him later. Have to keep going.

Her thoughts went in circles. But through it all, even when she could feel the bags under her eyes, she kept herself moving. Somehow, she forced herself to. At one point, she was forced to push her leg forward by pushing a wall of fibres made up from the grass around her into her legs.

She didn't know how C kept such a consistent pace. She had no idea how he never seemed to so much as hesitate in his steps. She had no idea how the coat seemed to remain unnaturally still around his walking legs, or the way his hair drifted as if in an untraceable wind.

Until he stopped.

He'd stopped under a small tree. He always managed to stop under a small tree. This one, he sat down at the base of its trunk and stared out into the Blank. Annabeth caught up to him, and then waited for him to get up.

He didn't.

"Are you stopping for the night or something?" They very well might have been, since it was dusk now. The sky was painted with blues and purples and the faint trace of red. Red at night. A clear day tomorrow.

C nodded, almost too slight for Annabeth to notice: a small, almost bird-like motion of a dropped chin. Annabeth nearly let herself cry she was so exhausted. She let herself fall onto her back, staring up at the sky. She couldn't see the strange, dark-clad Daemon boy called C, she couldn't see the world she had walked through, she could only see the canopy of leaves above her and the sky as it changed to the darker hues of night.

"Please don't tell me we're walking that far tomorrow," she said, the lull of sleep still hovering at the back of her mind. She winced against her heavy eyes. C remained silent. "Urgh," she groaned, "Come on. What's the answer."

Still, there was silence. Feeling her stomach clench from a mix of irritation and fear, she looked up. She looked at C, and watched his tiny shake of his head. No. They would not be walking so far.

"Running."

"FUCKING—"

To say that Tobias Eaton was happy with the decision that Nico had made was like saying that the occurrence of Deadmen was a completely normal thing. In other words, both entirely inaccurate and possibly the understatement of the century; this would be correct if Deadmen were a recent addition. In reality, they weren't.

Tris was silent as he pushed her down the halls. People stared at them. Children stared at them. Tobias never expected there to be so many children there. He would have thought that they would be long dead.

Tris remained silent as she ate her food across the table.

Tobias watched with curious eyes the way her pale hands worked away at the bread before she placed it in her mouth. He noted her nimble fingertips, scarred knuckles, the way the bones in her hands stood out under her skin. Her eyes glared at the table's surface.

Tobias's fingers tapped with nervous energy. His plate was long empty. He saw Tris glance up at its emptiness. She nudged her own plate forward. "The rations here are terrible," she said. "Have some of mine. My stomach is too lacking intact muscles for me to eat much."

Tobias stared at the remains of her meal; the dregs of an oatmeal, some sort of cheesy thing and a roll of bread. He picked up the cheesy-sandwich, which Tris seemed to regard with distaste. It was small, and lasted barely a mouthful. Tris didn't meet his eyes. "So . . . killed the wrong guy, did you?"

"I'd prefer not to talk about it."

"Pfft," Tris waved him off. "I've killed plenty more innocents than you, Four."

Hearing his old nickname hit Tobias with such a wave of nostalgia he could almost imagine the mess hall turning into the dimly-lit Dauntless, before all this began, when it was just Tris and her instructor Four, who only cared about getting past their Fear Landscapes and the elusive Jeanine who controlled them all from a distance.

But the nostalgia was just that; nostalgia. Just a feeling. Nothing material to ground it. They were not in Dauntless; they were not so simple; they were in the middle of war after Tris had come back from the dead and Tobias had recently had another soul inside him until Clyde was removed and now he was going to go back to San Francisco where he was meant to attract people to kill him.

He sighed. Found himself grinning at his own senility—that was it. He was senile. Living in the past. "Oh, nothing much, Prior."

Tris's lips quirked in a smile, but then it disappeared. She stared at the table numbly. Broke apart the last roll of bread in her fingertips. "This Armena character sounds pretty interesting."

"Meh," said Tobias, running a hand through his hair. "I don't see why you and I have to go to other ends of the country. Besides, can't Nico just get aid from other countries."

"They're dead," Tris said. Tobias stared at her. Tris stared at the table. "I overheard someone at Gaos once. There aren't any. The war involved all the countries one by one, until they started fighting in their own countries. But in the end, it led to the extinction of just about everyone, or at least, enough to destroy any hopes of aid. Most likely they're all living in farms waiting for the sun to die."

Tobias found himself staring at her in shock. She spoke nonchalantly, blankly, as if nothing concerned her at all. She sat limply back against her wheelchair. "So, the great leader from the battle for Nike ends up doing espionage, huh? Some great leader you turned out to be."

Leader.

Something about what Tris had said clicked—all of what Tris had said clicked. When he had led the army at Nike . . . Nico had made him a leader. So why would he make him a random spy now? Why would he want unrest in the other sides caused by him? Tobias understood well that sure, it was him that had been the one to kill a Mark Oaks but that didn't mean that it had to be himself there in the city. Anyone could fake that. So why would he have to go and do it?

His face must have been looking pensive, because Tris stared at him with darkly curious eyes. Even now, Tobias found himself under the weight of her gaze; she looked like she could see into his mind and toss out all his petty problems. Problems that would easily make her want to laugh. However, he doubted she would take laughing all that seriously.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Although, I suppose there's a change of ideas, then. Maybe there's more orders for me in Francisco or something." He stared down at the table. Tris snorted, the same joking noise someone makes when they're regarding a pitiful little kid trying to be smart. "Don't be an idiot," she told him. "Most likely Nico said that when he was in a desperate time and doesn't intend to stand by it. He needed you to be doing something when he couldn't. And now that the crisis is over, he wants you gone. That or he never thought much of you anyway.

Tobias stared at her scarred knuckles, the scripted scars on her arms, hidden under the black jacket she'd tossed on, still far too large for her. Its shoulders were halfway down her arms and she had to roll the cuffs up so much it looked like her arms were mini ballistae. Maybe they were.

"So then," Tris said, finishing the last of the food on her plate. "Now that we have all the peppy cheery talking out of the way, please do refrain from looking at me like I'm a demon about to start glowing and rip your throat out."

Tobias stared at her. She stared back at him. Her eyes were dark under her brow. He swallowed. He realised that was exactly how he had been looking at her. Yet, despite how hard he tried, he couldn't throw away the image of her from the last battle; in which she had been garbed in blood and grinning like a psycho has she chopped her way through other people. But he would never forget her eyes; wild, freaking blue eyes that glowed with power; a power that had corrupted her. And he wouldn't forget the look she had given him when it fell off her. She had stared at him in for a painfully long second. There was no psycho in her; there was no insanity; there was no lust for death and blood and pain; she simply stared at him in horror at what she had done.

She looked like the tiny Abnegation girl she had been all those months ago—no, not months. Years. Decades. Centuries. They had come too far from the simple life of Chicago to see it as their old home. The Tris before him and Beatrice Prior from Abnegation were two different people.

"Well then," said Tris, breaking the silence. "I suppose that was a tad much to ask. Anyway, once I get through this shit in Chicago I'm looking for Chase." She grinned at her own joke. "That girl has got it coming, I tell you."

They took Clyde away later. They left him in a room. Elektra came to talk to him. Alexis came to yell at him. Other strategists would stare at him with pity when they went past. Of all the people to take away, why was it him?

No one had told him why, so he was left to believe that it was because he was an Eidolon. Most likely why. People didn't like different things, and he would never say that like it made them lesser, because he knew himself that he was exactly the same way. Depressingly.

Elektra came around a second time, this time dressed like everyone else he had ever seen in the Order: pants and a t-shirt under a leather singlet/chest thingy that he had never bothered to know the name of. Her hair was tied back. She looked tired. She sat across from him in his cell on the small chair and regarded him blankly. "I'm sure you already saw on the Monitor—that is, before it went out . . . probably—that Chase is gone."

No, he had not seen it. The backup power took too long and the Daemon's appearance took out their own power. He had not seen it, but he had heard it. He still remembered the surreal moment in the room when it was announced: that Case and the Daemon were gone. Completely.

Clyde nodded mutely. He knew. Elektra nodded to herself and sat back. "I didn't see that coming. I saw you freaking out, of course. That and a few other wispy details the future decided to be so kind and permit me, but not really anything else. Fuck, the future is a bitch sometimes."

"So . . . you're a bitch?"

Clyde immediately bit his tongue. Not only was that a shit joke, but it was probably offensive as well. Elektra stared at him for a moment, as if the sound of his voice made him seem like a unique alien or something, but then she grinned and started laughing. He didn't know why. It was a rubbish joke.

"I'm sorry," Elektra said. "I'm so tired I'm laughing at anything remotely funny—maybe not even funny, just something different to grim battle stats and shit. But to answer your question, Clyde: Yes, I am most certainly a bitch. And it is brilliant. However the bitch I work for happens to be worse."

"I didn't realise how your whole future business worked."

"Neither do I, usually. Sometimes I feel like I know everything, and then other times I find myself grasping smoke."

"Right, so we have achieved some interesting facts: that Chase is gone and the future is a bitch. Please carry on."

Elektra ran a hand through her hair even though it was still perfectly tied back. In doing so, she made little finger-sized grooves in her pale hair. She looked worn-out. Her smile dimmed and vanished. "My sister is throwing a tantrum at present; blaming our loss and bad odds on everyone except herself, even me. She's blaming the strategists; she's blaming the fighters; she's blaming Gaos; she's blaming the Watchers—she doesn't care who she blames just she's blaming them. I myself can only reach two possible conclusions: One, that Chase is dead, and secondly that she is exactly what the Daemon was looking for and so she is gone. However the former is what I believe to be more accurate in this regard."

Clyde nodded. "So why come to me?"

"Alexis had you imprisoned for reasons you probably already guessed: that you're an Eidolon and a previous Gaos agent. However no one can deny that you're the most brilliant intellect we have here. Which is why, for my own purposes, I have come to seek your aid."

Clyde stared at her for a moment, her words not quite sinking in. "Wait . . . what? You want my help?"

Elektra sighed like she was talking to a child. "Yes, Clyde, I want your help. I need you to play double agent with Gaos."

Sadly, it was apparent that C hadn't been joking about a day of non-stop running. Annabeth, if she had been in her usual state, which would be sans heavy feeling in all her limbs and just her every cell in general, wouldn't have complained. However, twenty minutes in and her feet were slipping under her. This time, though, C didn't look at her. He kept running at a pace that Annabeth would have called a sprint, but he ran like one of those cartoon characters: arms out behind him, completely slack, leaning forward as his legs worked under him with strides twice the length of Annabeth.

I can't do this.

Once, in the Order, Annabeth had found herself reading a book on psychological trauma. How pressure of circumstances makes people begin to cave in. At first, their fear or stressful energy was what kept them going, but then, once that began to wear off, they started to stumble into despair. The first step was convincing themselves that they couldn't do it: that it was impossible. That would progress to even the simplest things like moving; standing; breathing. But they never had the strength to stop breathing, and so they began to take it out on themselves. In one case she read about the person had ripped their hair out and tried scratching their skin off. They had just about succeeded. After that came suicide, usually, unless they got help.

Who the fuck is gonna help me now? I'm stuck running in the middle of nowhere with the fucking Overlord of all Evil.

Annabeth continued to run as C drifted farther and farther away, his pace never slowing. She figured he must have done a lot of running. Her arms pumped furiously as she forced her legs to keep going, even though she could feel every muscle in her legs shaking with each step; she could feel the ache in the sides of her knees, in her ankles, in her bones, in her head, with the feeling of her teeth shaking in her mouth, about to fall out.

C's silhouette drifted into a speck on the horizon. Annabeth's legs gave out. How long had she been running? It felt like it hadn't been that long, but at the same time it felt like hours. She sat on the grass. Why would he care? She asked herself. He'd probably just keep going.

She decided to stop and indignantly let herself fall on her behind into the long grass. It was nearly taller than she was when she was sitting down here. The ground was dry under her. She lay back and stared at the sky.

That's when she noticed it.

She ached everywhere, but she had no elevated heartbeat. It remained as steady as it would as if she were asleep.

What the hell?

She pressed her palm to her chest and felt nothing but a faint beat. Now that she thought about it, her breathing wasn't that ragged either.

Someone nudged her side.

She jumped, suddenly on her feet. In front of her stood C, as if he had been there the whole time. His lead was slightly on an angle, asking what she was doing with an animalistic gesture instead of words.

"I couldn't keep going," she said. She hoped she looked it, but she could tell she didn't. C' head straightened and he stared at her, eerily silent, even though his eyes were hidden and she could only see his scarred mouth and cheekbone, she knew that he was staring at her with distaste.

She could almost see him form the answer out of the thoughts that must have been in the back of her mind. Still, he remained deathly silent. She could feel—of all things—guilt rise up in her, even though C hadn't moved. He knew that she wasn't tired, it was just something that was wrong with her, and he seemed to be pissed that she was letting it stop her.

"Fine, I'll keep going," Annabeth sighed. "But tell me what this is—this heavy feeling I've felt since I've been hanging around with you."

C still didn't move. She waited. She watched as his throat struggled to form words, the way his lips hardly moved at all when he tried to speak.

"La-a-ater," he stammered out, voice like a strangling rodent.

He started walking in the direction they had been going. Annabeth didn't move. She tossed up the two options in her mind; going with him and finding out, or staying here away from him and having to deal with not knowing, or even worse having him drag her across the country.

Grudgingly, she began to follow him. The running hurt has much as it had, but this time she was well aware that she was not tired. Theories began to pop up in her mind; was this a psychological blockage? Was this a side-effect of being in the Daemon's company? She didn't know, and it drove her insane.

However, the knowledge that—as cliché as it sounded—it was all in her head made it somehow more bearable, because while it was near impossible to ignore physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion was easy to be pushed away into a box behind a door inside a safe where no one would ever see it, where Annabeth herself would never look.

The day began to darken to night, and she was nearly reaching her limit, but C showed no inclination to slow or stop. Clearly her struggle earlier had put them behind schedule. Either that or C was in a foul mood, which she had previous thought was mandatory when you're basically the embodiment of evil, but after hanging around with the kid obsessed with black coats she had come to see that having no mood or expression at all was what made one evil.

The more time she spent with C, the often the words of the long-dead Greta Hayes came back to her. For the first time, she began to see that the Daemon was not such a simple being; she began to see that maybe, just maybe, it was possible for someone like Greta to pity him.

I don't pity you, she thought to herself. She could still remember the way he had morphed his face into Percy's and mocked her. She would never forgive him for that.

I need to kill him, she reminded herself. If I can kill him, I can get away. If I can kill him, I can go and live out the rest of my miserable life in the Order or the Watchers. Or maybe I'll be lucky and we both end up dead.

But she already knew that she would never be able to kill the Daemon. She had known it when she first went out to fight him. She had always known. The Daemon could not be killed. He was beyond the laws of this world; he existed on another reality. Something as simple as her two knives wouldn't be the reason he died.

I don't care, she reminded herself. She scolded her logic. She didn't care about logic.

We're both gonna die, Daemon, she told herself. You're coming with me.

Armena Brandt is not a patient person; that is the first thing I learn when Tobias pushes me into the room on my wheelchair. In the room are a few other people, all lean and muscular like they have been training for this type of mission their whole lives. At first, I can't tell which one is Armena, but then she steps forward out of the throng of people and stares down at me.

Of all the people at Gaos, she is possibly the most intimidating. Not the way Nico and Thalia are intimidating, because they are brimming with power and age-old smart, but a different kind of intimidation, where she stares down at you and sees every flaw in your actions and acts on it in an instant. The intimidation that she will always be stronger, faster and smarter than you.

This is Armena Brandt.

"Why are you in a wheelchair?" she asks me. Her voice is eerily cold and fluid. Her eyes are dark and her hair is cut short, like Annabeth's—or at least, how I remember it: shaved—and her face could be pretty if the cheekbones were not so severe, nor the mouth always puckered in irritation.

"I'm the Dea—"

"I don't care what you are," Armena snaps. "It's all excuses. If you're in this class with me, you'll training as hard as the rest of them. None of this special shit. D'you think you'll be treated specially out there?" She points out to the side, gesturing to the battleground. Her face is fierce with irritation. I swallow.

"I hate to go and get senile, but back when I was learning to be an agent, any backtalk and your mind was wiped clean. They didn't let you die; they just turned you into vegetables and then programmed you." She stares right at me. "Not that I'm allowed to do that as a punishment. That Di Angelo kid forbade it a while back, but I can still kill you if you annoy me too much." Her face is blank. I know she's serious.

"Usually I wouldn't be so kind as to warn you at first, but there you are. Now, get up. You there, pushing the wheelchair, what's your name?"

"Tobias."

"Put the wheelchair away, Tobias, and come back when you grow some balls."

The whole room snaps to look at him. Most eyes drift downwards. I stand up out of the chair. I want to say something, but my voice dies in my throat. Tobias's eyes are hard and set. He clenches his jaw. "Orders are orders, and I was ordered here by someone higher than you."

"I can file a complaint to those same people that you are severely lacking in the whole 'has the guts to go with brains' area. Now, you can leave, or I can demonstrate what the class will be doing on you right now." Her eyes narrow as she stares at Tobias. "What do you think the best answer is? Stand your ground and be humiliated, or leave and be humiliated. Which will be better in the long run? If you're cut out to be an agent, you'll know which to pick."

For a moment, Tobias stands there hesitantly. Armena's eyes flash. "Today, if you please. You have two seconds before I drag you and your ball-less arse right out the door."

Tobias looks at me. I nod. He has to leave. If he leaves now, he has a chance to come back. He has to escape while he can and not ruin his chances. He turns and pushes the wheelchair out of the door, and I'm left alone in a room with a possible psychopath and a class of ninjas.

"Now then," Armena says, still mad from the scene. "What's your name?"

"Tris."

"Tris who?"

"Tris Prior."

"Huh," Armena says. "Been a while since I've heard that name. Let's hope you aren't as stupid as the last lot of Priors we had here."

She glares at me one final time, and the last thing I see is the flash of the single stud in her ear before I'm on the ground staring up at the ceiling.

"Faster, Deadman," she snaps. "You think you're allowed to stay down on the ground? If I had a knife you would be dead by now."

I roll out of the way as she stamps down, aiming for my head. My stomach pinches and white-hot pain goes through me. I want to curl up and wait for it to end, but out of the corner of my eye I can see the black shape of Armena's silhouette coming down at me.

I swing my legs over my head and touch the ground with my toes, pushing myself up to my feet. I grip my stomach. Armena's eyes flash; she can go much faster. My disability infuriates her. She swings for my weak spot: my stomach.

I freeze up at the thought of going through the pain again, and only manage to dodge slightly; her fist connects to the edge of my right ribcage. I bite down on my tongue to stop myself howling in pain. My knee buckles but I keep it locked. I can't fall. I have to stay standing.

Trembling with pain, I uncross my arms and hold them out in a guarding form. I see the flash of her bare teeth. "Get over yourself, princess," she barks. I raise my wrist to block, and the full force of her blow comes down. I feel it explode through my arm and my shoulder pop out.

Another explosion of pain.

"Block with your elbow; move the momentum instead of taking it."

The next blow comes to the left, and I do as she says. I feel the blow again, but less. My right arm lies limp at my side.

"Enough," Armena says. I nearly fall to my knees in relief. "I don't want to waste my time with you."

"Wait," I choke out. I swallow back the blood and bile in the back of my throat. "I can still . . ."

"You can still what, Prior? Still fight? That wasn't fighting! That was shithouse! Learn to fight and come back."

"No," I say firmly. "I have to learn. Please, come at me again."

The class snickers and Armena glances back at them. "Silence!" she shrieks, and the sound stops immediately.

She circles me, arms loose at her sides, upper body slightly forward, chin angled low so she can regard me with predatory eyes. She looks like a lion; all grace and precise action, and I feel like the wounded deer.

"Why would I do that, Prior?" she asks. "Why?"

A sketchy plan formulates in my mind. "Let me have one more go."

Armena regards me with a new look; curiosity. She must tell I have something in my mind. She can read people like open books. I wonder who trained her.

Then she comes at me. I watch her fist go through the air in slow motion. I turn my body to the right, and raise my left wrist. My back is to her now, the world going in slow motion. Her fist is next to my head. I loop my right arm around her blow and then hit her elbow.

Elbows, like knees, buckle easily. Thrown off by the sudden movement, her elbow hits my dislocated shoulder, snapping it back into place.

I'm ready for the moment she recovers.

I use the momentum of my spin to bring my leg around and kick into the back of her knee to make her fall, but she sees through it. I see the glint of her dark eye staring back at me. She dodges and smacks the floor with her palm, performing an almost flip-like action. I stare in awe. I have never seen anyone do a trick like that.

I realise to late as her leg sails through the air that it was also a move to attack me. I fall right. Fall faster, I think, but the foot is sure to connect with my face. My stomach feels like it's being cut up with millions of tiny, cold scalpels, and my shoulder throbs with warm pain.

However.

Her foot skims by my cheek, and I feel blood flood my mouth as the inside of my cheek tears against my teeth. I feel my jaw get pushed out.

Her foot.

Almost on auto-drive, my left arm loops around her exposed leg and pulls her down with me. She shakes me off before she loses her balance, but there is still a moment of unco-ordination. Get her, I think, but I can't move. She falls back to her feet and stares down at me. "Tris Prior," she says, "That was one of the messiest fights I have ever seen."

"Thank you," I breathe out, struggling to sit up. Armena glares down at me. "Fine," she says. "I will train you. Be as unpredictable as that, and maybe you'll survive a week. Or a day. Or an hour. Depends who you're fighting."

I suppose I'm dazed, because I let out, "Who trained you?"

She barks a short laugh. A laugh not at the funny joke, but at my own stupidity. "A dark, shallow guy with too many green apples that were too far rotten on the inside. Never found out his name. Knew too many agents. I was Agent A . . . there was Agent Bs and Agent Cs . . ." her voice drifts off. Her eyes grow dark. Then she scowls. "Enough of this. Get back to work."

Tobias felt like an idiot.

Not only had she called him ball-less, but she had forced him to choose between two humiliating acts. He hated Armena Brandt immediately. Getting kicked out of the class when he hadn't even said anything.

He was worried about Tris.

What would staying in the same room as that woman do for her? She was already injured; she'd already come back from the dead—how on earth would this help her?

"So," came a voice. "Whatcha doin'?"

Tobias spun around. Leaning against the wall was an older boy with blond hair and bright blue eyes the same electric shade as Thalia's. At his side hung a sword. A sword Tobias would recognise anywhere.

"Jason Grace," Tobias said. He stared.

Jason stared back, even and blank. "How can you be doing me? I only said hello. Unless there's some form of new verbal-communicating sex that has developed while I was away."

Tobias stared. Somehow, that line did not fit with the image he had formed of Jason Grace in his mind based on their previous experience. Jason's mouth quirked at the corners but didn't smile properly. He walked up and gruffly threw and arm over Tobias's shoulder.

"Don't look now, but those friends of your friend Uriah made from Chicago are watching you." Jason's voice was a hoarse whisper in his ear. Tobias resisted the urge to glance back over his shoulder. Jason's arm tightened to prevent him from doing so. "I mean, oral sex I could understand—maybe it is a new strand of oral sex?" his voice lifted and carried in a loud, boisterous way. Tobias wondered how he was so good at it.

Not to mention so immature at it.

"But if that's the case," Jason said, leaning onto him. His voice dropped to a rapid whisper. "Two up ahead, inside the chutes. Don't look." Then he resumed is façade again, easily, as if he had just paused. "Then why isn't it such a big thing? Because there's no way in hell my kid cousin of mine would let such a blatant form of sex exist in here. Did you know he banned intercourse within this complex?"

So many things I really don't need to know.

"What the hell?" Tobias exclaimed, half-acting, half-surprised. "That's just—"

"Stupid, I know, right?" Jason's hand patted his shoulder. "But apparently he can't have things like that. Messy, he said. Well, I think he said it. I was a tad loopy when confined to that sword. Gah. It's like being in an awake coma. In other words; it's like you really needa scratch your arse but you're in a sensory deprivation tank and you can't find your arms. Oh wait—you haven't been in one of those. My bad. Um . . . it's like being suspended above a chasm . . . no . . . that won't work for you . . . okay let's say you have a really itchy arse but you can't scratch it."

". . . Sounds . . . interesting . . ."

"Interesting? Well, I suppose you could say that. Has my sister spoken to you lately? Gah, she must be in menopause or something, man, because she's crabby as a bitch."

"Yes, I was ordered into go into Armena's class for preparation for an espi—"

Jason's hand punched him in the shoulder. The recently-healed wound sprung open. Jason grabbed his mouth and held it shut. "Don't say anything," he hissed. He steered him down into a door off the main corridor. The fake careless demeanour Jason had before evaporated. His breath was ragged at Tobias's ear.

When they were safely away from the corridor, Jason released Tobias. Tobias clutched at his shoulder. "Never talk about Armena's class in public," Jason hissed. "As soon as people hear her name, they know something's happening. You can't let them know. Anarchy will break lose. Didn't Nico say it was top-secret?"

Tobias racked through his memory in a panic. "No . . . I don't think he . . ."

"Fucking senile old git," Jason snapped. "He trusts too much—he relies too much. Didn't he learn anything?" Jason was whispering furiously to himself now. He ran a hand through his hair. "Listen, don't say her name, don't talk about your mission, don't—"

"She called me a ball-less idiot and told me to get the fuck out."

"I don't care," Jason said, waving an irritated hand. "Listen to me—don't—tell—anyone. You got me? I don't care if she called you ball-less she does it to everyone who isn't much of a psychopath or at least a high-functioning sociopath."

Tobias stared at him. Jason stared back at him. For a moment, he seemed suspended in reality, in the fiery depths of Jason's eyes. The two stared at each other, Jason glaring, Tobias staring in confusion. Then Jason's glare shattered as he raised an eyebrow and said, "Wait—she said you had no balls?"

Almost immediately, Jason glanced down.

"She meant it like I had no spine!" Tobias snapped, pushing Jason's shoulder. "Don't just stare at me like that. That is beyond creepy."

"So . . . the feeling every girl gets when someone stares at their chest?"

". . . has anyone ever told you that for a ninety-plus –year-old, you are incredibly juvenile?"

"Yes, many of them have. However most of them aren't exactly living today, but yeah. Many times."

Tobias rubbed his face. Of course one of the most powerful people in the place had to be like that. Just typical. He shouldn't have expected anything less.

"Oh, and by the way," came a voice from down the hall. "The term you were looking for at the start of the conversation is actually eye-fucking."

The sky danced above him, dizzyingly high. The faint twinkle of stars were so far away from him, the tops of the yellow grass of the blank at the edge of his vision, blowing and bending slightly in a breeze he couldn't feel.

He couldn't feel anything; nothing other than the cold deep in his stomach, where the bullet had sawed through him. Yes, he could feel that.

He wondered if they would miss him. He wondered if he meant anything at all. He was just an Eidolon, wasn't he? How could he die? Very simply: he couldn't.

But his process of death and whittling himself out of this body was slow and almost impossibly without help. He would just lie there in the body as it slowly decayed. It only made it seem even stranger: when he had been put into a dead body, why couldn't he just keep moving?

Because he'd brought the body's functions and systems back to life; that was why.

Maybe if someone found me now I could still make it . . . he stared up at the wispy sky. No one was going to come. He knew it. Why would they? He was considered a traitor of the Order. It was clean and simple if they just shot him, wasn't it?

He sighed. He wanted to be angry, but he was smart enough to know that if he were in their position he would have done exactly the same thing.

" . . . H . . . ey. . . hey . . . Hey, Clyde! Wake up!" Someone was shaking him. He couldn't see who. He couldn't move. Their voice sounded vaguely familiar. He stared at the sky. It had long descended into the hues of violent orange and violent. Dusk. He had wanted to see dusk like this for a while . . . when had he started to want to see dusk . . . ?

Ah, yes, he remembered. When he was in Gaos, and they were programming him, they gave him the memories of someone called West. He couldn't remember the rest of the name. But it was a memory that was always in his head, a memory he wished was his.

The grass stretched down the hill to where West couldn't see it. It rippled under the breeze like the fur of a cat under its master's stroking hand. The sun sat on the horizon, lazy and fat with age, globules of its light spilling over like a hug potbelly, until he would disappear completely. West stared at it. Never before had he thought the world was so beautiful. He hadn't seen much of the world before. They said another war was coming; another bout of sheer destruction. West remembered the Chicago Plan. He hoped they were still alive in there.

West stared ahead. He wondered if ghosts lived in between the grass. He wouldn't be surprised. No one really understood how the system of death worked here anymore; as if life and death were merely a computer program.

Either way, he would not return to battle. He was done defending. During his time he had seen some seriously fucked-up shit: shit like the Daemon.

The strange thing was . . . he couldn't remember much else other than that demonic monster. He could remember faces all around him; however now they appeared blurred with age. He remembered the Daemon perfectly, however: the black shape against the sky, a sky exactly like the one he was looking at now.

He remembered one girl going up to fight him; she had auburn hair under her helm, and wore silvery plates of armour. He remembered her as well. He remembered the two, the brief exchange of blows, and then the cold.

A cold that seeped into his bones; deep into his soul. The world lost all colour for him, he saw skeletons all around him. The grass was a grey blur on the ground, people were silvery and dim, all except for the Daemon and the girl. The Daemon looked like a black hole; even in the darkness, he remained darker than black, and the girl, whose light shone silver and white, until it dimmed further and further until it was no longer there.

Even now, as West stared up at the gold and white sky, the red sun slipping under its weight. He remembered only that night, and the way everything had looked. It seemed . . . different. He could no longer see the world so simply anymore. Every time he closed his eyes, he could still see the silver in everything. He hadn't asked anyone, or maybe he had, because after that, his memory is fuzzy. All he could remember after that was being in the Watcher's mess hall, eating tasteless food.

All food tasted like nothing to him now.

He remembered his mandatory medical examination, where they had discovered a bleeding in the sensory part of his brain, a haemorrhage. It had ruined most of his senses such as taste and touch. However his sight remained infuriatingly perfect.

Other than its dips into darkness.

He stared out onto the field around him. He wondered if, one day, someone would remember him at all; wonder if he was ever worth anything at all.

He figured he probably wouldn't.

"CLYDE!" someone was shaking him. His head throbbed. He could see the shaky outlines of a face before his vision. Their face appeared shocked, but their eyes betrayed them. They weren't wide, they seemed resigned to their fate—his fate. His imminent death.

"Elektra . . ." he groaned. "I was sleeping . . . lemme alone . . ."

Something slapped him across the face icy cold. His hand flew up to it. Elektra glared down at him. "Ow," he said. "That hurt."

"Get over yourself, princess," Elektra said, holding out a hand. "Your bullet hole's healed. You aren't dying just yet. You forget, this war isn't over yet."

"C'mon, Daemon," Annabeth snapped. "You promised me answers. Am I going to get any?"

They'd finally stopped for the day. Annabeth wished she would let her legs buckle under, but she remained standing. She had to look remotely solid to ask this of him. C's hidden expression regarded her with mutual interest. She wasn't expecting him to say or do anything, but to her surprise, he held out a gloved hand. He gave a tiny nod of his chin, gesturing towards it.

Annabeth swallowed. This was it.

She grabbed his hand before she could chicken out and suddenly the world was gone.

OOOooOOooOOooOOoooooooooOOOOH TBC CHAPTER 38~~~~

And may the trolling begind~ YAAAAAY~

Okay so I shall go back and post 36 first, and then I'll post this afterwards. *nods sagely*

Oh, and may I say again, *ahemahem* I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. YEAR 9 IS SO WEIRD. I WANNA GO BACK TO YEAR 8. THAT WAS EASY, MAN!

Wow . . . that conversation with Jason got so random . . . somehow, all the jokes my friend tends to make somehow got incorporated into Jason . . . this is weird. And where is Piper? *evil grin* SHE'S-A COMIN'

Heh. The C bit.

THE C BIT.

JUS'

JUST PREPARE FOR SOME MORE FEELS, PEOPLE. I HAVE BEEN PLANNING THIS SCENE SINCE LIKE . . . I DON'T EVEN KNOW LIKE TWO YEARS AGO.

PEACE OUT!,

Owl.

P.S. I just re-checked my story and remembered Cat posted that last chapter for me . . .

WOW. I AM SUCH A FAIL. WELL, NOW YOU'VE READ THIS ONE AND 38 SHOULD BE TURNED OVER SOON SINCE I HAVE BEEN DYING TO WRITE IT FOR AGES. SO THEN, I SHALL LEAVE YOU TO IT AND POSSIBLY POST IT BY NEXT WEEK. OR MAYBE SOONER IF WE'RE LUCKY~