Berlin took a single, hesitant step forward, her gun raised as she approached a figure slumped against a wall in a dark alley on the edge of town. Her boots crunched against the gravel like a herd of elephants in the silence of the night, but the figure didn't move from the shadows.
She fought against her frayed nerves to keep her gun steady in her hands. Berlin had been wandering the streets for hours, alone, lost in her thoughts. Her stomach had been twisted into knots ever since she watched Amanda fall to the ground with a knife to her gut.
Nothing made sense anymore. But that wasn't particularly new. Nothing had made sense to her since the E-Rep fell apart. And now a doctor, a lawkeeper, and a deputy went into space with a criminal, and only the criminal returned. Only his family refrained from whispering behind his back that he was the least deserving of survival - the person they would gladly trade for any one of the others. His wife hugged him upon his return with tears of relief glimmering in her eyes as his son greeted him with a conflicted nod. It was a commendable moment for a man Berlin hated. And then he launched into a self-aggrandizing tirade.
As Berlin listened to Datak's pompous speech, she could hardly resist grabbing him by the collar and demanding he get to the point, but she couldn't do that. He may have been a complete ass, but it was genuinely heroic to board that ship in an effort to save the town, so she pinned her badge to her chest and quietly wandered into the streets.
People weren't ignorant to reality. No matter what Datak said, it was hard to be optimistic when the town had lost its favorite lawkeeper, its notorious goddess of the badlands, and its most talented doctor on the same night the mayor was left clinging to life by a thread, unable to reassure them that everything would be fine.
Berlin needed to convince the people of Defiance that they were still protected, and she needed to convince herself that she wasn't weak for not even volunteering to go into space with the others.
The memory of Amanda calling her a coward still haunted her thoughts. It pushed her to retroactively act as a pragmatic hero in her own right. Someone had to stay on Earth, forgoing the glory of an adventure. Someone had to protect the people.
Someone had to protect this person slumped in the streets, if only from themselves.
"Hello?" Berlin called, afraid of getting too close without knowing what she was dealing with. Adreno users often appeared harmless, but were prone to attack without warning. "Lawkeeper," she called. Berlin still couldn't see who she looking at, didn't know if they were a danger or if they needed her help. "Are you ok?" Her voice shook, the silence turning an ordinary encounter into something terrifying.
The figure turned in the darkness, and with a wave of relief, Berlin realized she was facing Irisa. "Oh, it's just you," Berlin said through a breath. She wasn't trying to be snarky, but old habits are hard to break. Seeing Irisa's face had lifted a weight off her shoulder - one less death to report. "What are you doing out here?" she asked as she holstered her gun. "I was starting to… People are starting to get worried you died up there."
"I didn't die," Irisa stated, her voice unnaturally devoid of emotion.
"I see that." Berlin looked around for a sign anyone else was with her, but the wave of relief she felt at seeing Irisa's face quickly gave way to a sense of dread. "Where's Nolan?" she asked, already knowing the answer. "And Doc?" she added as an afterthought.
"They're not here," Irisa said. "They're gone."
Berlin's stomach dropped. "Gone where?"
Irisa looked up, her eyes red and puffy. "Is Amanda still awake?"
"No." Berlin knelt in front of Irisa, needing to be on eye level with her. "She's sleeping." It wasn't the right time to tell Irisa that Amanda had nearly bled to death on the streets, and Samir wasn't sure if she would survive.
Irisa nodded. "Good… I'm not… I'm not ready to tell her yet."
Berlin rested an unsteady hand on Irisa's knee and gently said, "I'll tell her for you if… if you want me to… if you tell me what happened to them, then I can tell everyone else." Berlin could see Irisa was in no shape to answer a million questions about her father, no shape to face Datak Tarr's sleazy power play.
"I should do it," Irisa said. "I'm the one who convinced Nolan to change the plan. I'm the reason he's not coming back."
"Not coming back?" Berlin asked as delicately as she could, trying to keep hope from rising in her voice. "He's still alive?"
Irisa nodded slowly. "He was last I saw him."
"That's good." Berlin nodded her head rapidly. "I mean, not good, but not… the worst possible... scenario."
"I'm never going to see him again." Irisa met Berlin's gaze with a chilling intensity for a fraction of a second before turning her gaze to her hands. "I need to talk to Amanda. She's the mayor. She needs to know everything."
"Datak's already been talking. His story might even be true, but I couldn't stand to listen."
"Shtako."
"Yeah, but Samir gave Amanda some pretty good drugs. She's out cold. You'll get to talk to her first. I'll make sure of it."
"Thank you," Irisa said, relief visible on her face as she shivered in the cold. "It's good news, right?"
"Yeah," Berlin said, feeling numb with empathy as she tried to reassure Irisa. "Good news."
"We won." Irisa shivered again.
"You shouldn't stay out here all night," Berlin said, growing rapidly worried about Irisa. "It's not safe."
"I can't face the town right now." She looked into Berlin's eyes, silently pleading with Berlin to understand. "I can't."
"They'll keep their distance if I tell them to. They'll respect you."
"Their idea of respect is writing trashy novels about me."
"Fine, you're right. People are assholes." A sliver of a smile crossed Berlin's face as she sat beside Irisa on the cold gravel street. "But just think of the cover art, think of Doc Yewll in a space bikini. A sparkly silver space bikini. With sequins."
Irisa turned away, a smile creeping onto her face. "I don't want to think about that."
"Then we write the novel ourselves," Berlin said to keep Irisa distracted. "We'll beat them to the punch, put you in a perfectly respectable outfit."
After a moment of silence in which Berlin began to worry Irisa was going to push her away, she said, "No space bikinis."
"Deal." Berlin smiled, the knot in her stomach finally loosening. "No space bikinis."
"Good." Irisa looked into Berlin's eyes, her gaze growing serious. "Why are you being nice to me?"
"Because I know how much it hurts to lose your family."
"You still don't have to stay with me."
"I know." Berlin looked straight ahead, a different type of nervousness coursing through her veins as she reached for Irisa's hand. "I want to."