Chapter Seven: Ten Seconds

The night passed slowly. Though he was fuller than he'd been in days, he couldn't rest. Once Besh had woken him up just after midnight to inform him he was screaming, Adam had abstained from further sleep. They were already on edge enough because he'd nearly killed Besh before he realized where he was. Another round of that would give everyone a sleepless night.

So instead he sat on the damp, sagging roof, Blush angled against his shoulder and one arm wrapped around it while he stared out over the village wall. The house under him was clean. Besh hadn't lied about that. There were no bodies, no bloodstains. The walls were almost undamaged. This whole part of the town had gotten off lighter than the rest.

But there were still bodies if he looked. Residents caught in the middle of fleeing butchered in the street, buried under half-collapsed buildings, and run down like animals. Vernell's final hours had been hell for anyone left alive to see them.

How many faunus had died here? How many had prayed for help that would never come? How many had tried to call for that help, only for the destruction he'd caused to get in the way?

Deus's questions, posed all those weeks ago, resurfaced: where were the towns he had protected? The people he had saved?

His gaze fell to the pile of bones in the alley across the street. They were right here.

Not a positive tally. Not even a neutral tally. He was so far in the red that, for a moment, he wondered if there was any point in trying to claw his way out.

Pulling Blush closer against his body, he narrowed his eyes and banished the doubt. He had sworn to help the faunus. This wasn't about balancing the scales. Any help he could offer the ones he had hurt was better than abandoning them altogether out of some childish fear of failure.

He wouldn't run away again.

They followed the road out of the village. Given that Vernell was destroyed, Adam doubted that, for the moment, they were risking a run-in with any other travelers. By his estimate, they were within a week's walk of the city of Vale barring some catastrophe. There were a couple more villages they could encounter if they strayed from the most direct path—the road wound through the forest—but he opted against it. They had enough food and supplies from foraging and exploring Vernell to last, and the risk of recognition if he stayed the night in some inn was too high. Besides, that was giving the humans far too much opportunity to try turning him in.

So, when they left Vernell, they split from the road within half a mile. Annea was the most vocal in her displeasure, complaining about sharp branches and uneven ground. He ignored her. Apparently, her new strategy to avoid thinking about Trace was to turn her frustration onto everything else.

What he would give for the silence of yesterday.

He stepped around a small hole. Annea stepped right onto it. He ignored her grumbling.

He ducked under a low-hanging branch. Annea scraped it across her forehead. He ignored her whining.

"Something just bit me!"

His scowl broke through. "It's winter. There's nothing to bite you except beowolves, and there aren't any. Be quiet."

The ground shook.

"Adam—"

"I know," he snarled, shutting Autumn up. "Asking for silence isn't breaking my word."

"We're all tired," she said instead of retreating. His gaze flicked between her, her sister, and Besh. He was overreacting.

And then the ground shook again. It wasn't in his head, and as he looked back the way they'd come over Besh's head, he saw shadows over the trees, and ice shot through his veins. Time slowed.

Goliaths. Were they in a migratory path? Were the creatures just lingering in the area well after Vernell's destruction? Either way, potentially getting into a fight with the beasts was out of the question. Entire Fang camps had packed up and relocated at the first sign of the ancient Grimm wandering nearby.

Granted, there was a chance that the goliaths would just ignore them. There was also a chance that they wouldn't, and he couldn't take that risk. They needed cover, and the largely leafless trees around them weren't it.

Annea was the first to look where he was looking. She staggered back a step in horror. "What are those? Are those Grimm?"

"Yes. We need to move."

Their fear proved to be an excellent motivator. Quite suddenly, Annea didn't see the need to complain about every little inconvenience that crossed her path.

The ground underfoot sloped up and transitioned from dirt to exposed stone as the trees thinned out. Though the winter forest wouldn't provide good cover, the swath of tumbled boulders ahead would. It was like this part of the hill had been scraped clean and the rocks tossed over it as replacements for the lost greenery. They found places to hide among the rocks, fanning out to their own separate shadows. Adam sank into a crouch, shoulder brushing the gray boulder that stretched up to almost twice his standing height.

And Annea knelt to his left. She seemed to realize where she'd ended up at the same moment he did, her eyes going wide. As the goliaths trod closer, smaller rocks around them trickled down to and across the ground. Deciding to cut her losses, Annea began backing up, angling herself towards a different rock some ten yards back and up a small lip.

The goliaths were within a few hundred yards. No one knew for sure how sensitive Grimm actually were to negativity, and no matter how they tried to hide it, the humans' fear was obvious. Adam himself had the echoes of it washing through him with every heartbeat no matter how he tried to stifle it.

Goliaths avoided human settlements. They were old. Smart. But their little group of survivors wasn't near any intact settlement; the goliaths could stamp them out almost without danger to themselves. Sure, Adam could probably take down or at least heavily injure one or two before he ran out of ammunition or luck, but that wouldn't matter. In the end, he'd still die. He couldn't even outrun them. His stamina would give out long before theirs did. Their best hope—their only hope—was to go unnoticed.

He tried to ignore the unhelpful reminder of how that hope had completely failed them with the torments.

He couldn't ignore Annea's yelp. He whirled in place just in time to see her tumble backwards and disappear over what he had thought was just a slight lip in the rock.

"Nea!" Autumn called. She raced across open ground to where her sister had vanished.

"I'm okay!"

What a shame.

After a glance towards the goliaths—still distant—Adam unslung his bag from his shoulders and joined the humans. The lip was just a lip, but it disguised a plunge almost straight down for twenty feet. At the bottom, using a small outcropping jutting from the wall as support to get to her feet, Annea waved to her sister. Her aura was still flickering, though it soon faded from view.

"She's had aura this entire time?" Adam growled.

"It's very weak," Autumn said. "I'm just thankful it was enough to break her fall."

"I can hear you, you know," Annea called. "Just because I focused on learning the business instead of training my aura doesn't mean I don't have any."

Focused on business. He didn't bother hiding a roll of his eyes. Somehow, he wasn't even surprised.

"Can you get out?" Autumn asked.

"I…think so?" Annea glanced around. The walls were hardly smooth. Adam counted no fewer than four paths out that he would be able to climb. Annea glanced behind her. "It looks like this cave goes underground."

Cave systems weren't as common in Vale as they were in Atlas, but they weren't rare, either. This hole certainly gave the impression of leading to a large system; past Annea, it sloped sharply downwards into pitch darkness that even his faunus vision struggled to see through. He could make out the shadows of branching paths.

"There's something in the walls," Annea continued, leaning closer. She reached out. "It's almost glowing."

"Nea, maybe don't—"

"It's Dust." She let out a disbelieving laugh. "Dust! This is a Dust vein!"

Autumn frowned, glancing around as though she had somehow managed to miss signs of an actual Dust mining operation. "Undiscovered?"

"Obviously. This is great! There are," she counted, giddy, "at least four different types around this shaft alone. Hold on, I think there's more over here." She carefully navigated farther down into the cave, focusing on the faint lines of color he could now pick out lacing the stone. "I was right!"

"Careful," Autumn warned. "We don't know what else is down there."

"Stop worrying, I can handle a little more walking. Besides, are you seeing this?" She glanced up, then seeming to realize just how far she was from the group. "I guess you can't. There is hard light Dust here, Autumn."

Despite her misgivings, the elder heiress perked up. "You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I have eyes." She stepped back and grinned, speaking with no small amount of pride to herself. "I just saved the company."

Adam glanced at Autumn, but Annea had spoken too quietly for the elder heiress to hear. He twisted to look behind them, but by some stroke of luck, the goliaths were slowly veering away from their hiding place. Perhaps Annea's glee at her find had overshadowed any negativity they were producing.

"I think it's time you came back up," Autumn said, having also looked back at the ancient Grimm. "It's far too dangerous to stay split up out here."

"Oh look," Annea muttered, crouching by another vein, "she doesn't want me to keep looking at the thing I found."

"We can always come back to this place later, okay? With a crew and appraiser and some real equipment."

"You know what would motivate them to actually come out here more than the word of two heiresses who fail to produce the Dust they promised?" Annea swept a hand towards the shadows. "An actual estimate of how rich this deposit is."

"Nea—"

"It's literally five minutes. Can't you trust me enough for that?"

Autumn bit her lip. Adam hid a derisive sneer. Even in a situation as dire as this one, with ancient Grimm at their backs and one of them separated in a cave with entirely unknown depths, all the humans could see was money.

Annea edged just a little farther down. All she cared to see was the line of blue Dust right in front of her eyes. All Adam cared to see were the glimmers of red in the depths of the cave that were decidedly not Dust. Autumn couldn't see them—they were too faint. He opened his mouth, but the guard beat him to it.

"Miss Autumn, we need to get Miss Annea out."

"What?"

"There are Grimm down there with her."

Autumn's eyes went wide. She leaned over the edge. "Nea!"

"I told you—"

"There are Grimm! Get out of there!"

Annea froze, then glanced left. Already somewhat adjusted to the dimmer light on the cave floor, she could see the glowing eyes far more easily than her sister. With a shriek, she stumbled back and scrambled for the most prominently pockmarked wall.

For a moment, Adam thought the shadows themselves were moving, stretching out into broad daylight against all reason. Then they began to split apart, and he realized the truth: they weren't shadows. They were tens upon tens of spindly, centipede-like Grimm. Some burrowed through the ground before surfacing, every one of them trying to get ahead of their brethren on their way to the prize.

Annea was only a couple feet up the wall. The largest of the centinels could bite off her head without having more than half its body off the ground.

A gunshot from a yard away made his ears ring. Besh re-sighted and fired again. The fastest—and coincidentally youngest and least armored—centinels began disappearing one by one.

Ah, right. He was supposed to be protecting her, not enjoying the show. Reluctantly, he unsheathed Wilt, shifted Blush into rifle form, and began eliminating the Grimm nearest to Annea's feet.

Next to him, Autumn was all but vibrating, her every muscle taut like a bowstring. She was about to do something rash.

"Besh, don't follow me," she said.

Did Adam try to stop her when she threw herself over the edge? No, but he considered it, and that was a sufficient excuse. It wasn't breaking his word not to kill them if he watched them kill themselves.

Autumn hurtled through the air. She slammed her fists together, coating her arms in bright blue aura. She fell like a comet and punched down, her fist making first contact and utterly obliterating the centinel under her. The ground cracked and broke up for another twenty feet in every direction.

The dark fog of dying Grimm rose up like a haze as she yanked her fist out of the ground and staggered back, aura flickering. Her attack had also thrown Annea off the wall, but it wasn't as though she'd lost any real progress.

"Autumn? What are you—"

Without a word, Autumn picked her sister up, bag and all, like she weighed nothing. Her face was white from the strain of holding onto her semblance after using so much aura for her entrance, but determination seemed to be giving her the strength she needed.

The centinels were regrouping, crawling over their dissipating brethren, but Autumn had bought herself enough time. Before Annea could truly understand what her sister was planning, Autumn set her feet, brought Annea back, and then hurled her straight up with a desperate shout to Besh. The guard scrambled to catch her before she could fall back down, his abandoned pistol skittering across the rock behind him. Annea slammed into the side of the hole with a groan, holding onto Besh's outstretched arm with a white-knuckled grip.

Slowly, so slowly, Besh pulled her up.

Autumn, panting, the light on her arms barely brighter than the shadows around her, dropped her duffel and staggered to the wall. She stopped there, head hanging. Her semblance gave out.

As though only now realizing just how dangerous the situation was, Annea began shouting her sister's name. She even threw rocks that did nothing besides irritate the Grimm below. The guard recovered his weapon and shot with far more desperation than before.

Her back to the wall, Autumn faced the skittering hoard with a mask of blank resolve. It wasn't fooling anyone. She was terrified.

A rock the size of his arm that he had thought was stable abruptly tumbled down the opposite edge of the hole, braining one of the centinels. The ground was shaking again; what had been diminishing vibrations were now growing. He spared a glance over one shoulder. The goliaths had turned around.

Three more shots left Blush before its magazine clicked empty. He let the spent cartridge drop and reloaded on reflex, but as rational thought kicked in, he let his finger come off Blush's trigger.

He wouldn't lie to himself: Autumn had done something noble by saving her sister. He didn't particularly despise her as an individual separate from the company she represented, either (and that idea of separation, he reflected, was becoming a recurring train of thought). She was trying her best despite being completely out of her depth. There was something to be said for taking action instead of standing aside and watching.

Perhaps if he spent most of his very limited Dust ammunition to thin the horde, she might have enough of a break to attempt climbing out. Perhaps if he jumped down with her, he could defend her from the hungry tide long enough for her to escape. Perhaps if he truly desired to rescue her, he could get all of them out before the goliaths caught them. Perhaps if he were a better man, if he were human, if he were a true believer in the naïve whisper in his heart that said Autumn didn't deserve this fate, then he would try harder to save her.

But he wasn't. Instead, he opted for the only mercy left that he could offer.

In a way, this would be a kindness. Unlike Trace, her death would be swift. Almost painless. Far better than succumbing to infection or being eaten alive.

Blush's aim shifted.

Annea noticed. The color drained from her face. "You can't be—put that down!"

His gaze flicked to her. "She's not getting out."

"Just wait!" She tossed aside the rock she'd just picked up and, after a wild glance around, scrambled over to the bag she'd dropped after Besh pulled her out. She ripped open the zipper. "Ten seconds, that's all I need. The rope, right? Just a way out, I have it, okay? I grabbed it, I remember, it's right here, I know it's here!"

This wasn't breaking his word; this was a mercy. More than a human like her deserved.

"Please, just—just wait a second, wait!" As Annea tore through her bag, Autumn hit another Grimm back, but there were four more already on her. Her straining aura flickered into view with the next bite she weathered. "It's in here, I know it, I packed it, just give me—"

His first shot shattered what was left of her aura. His second punched through her skull, and Autumn Mariner's body dropped into the horde of Grimm below. Her blue uniform disappeared in the writhing sea of black that retreated back into the depths with it like a prize.

The echoes of the gunshots seemed to persist for far longer than their surroundings should have allowed.

He lowered Blush. The last of the smoke from the barrel dissipated.

On her knees, arms still elbow-deep in her bag, Annea stared at where her sister had vanished with empty eyes. Her mouth was open, an unfinished plea left dead on her lips.

Besh was equally frozen, pistol raised to offer useless support.

"Autumn?" Annea whispered. She slowly pulled her arms from the bag. "Autumn?" On all fours, she lurched towards the edge. "Autumn!"

She was going to throw herself over. Before she could, Besh holstered his weapon and grabbed her by the shoulders, yanking her back.

"Let me go!" she screamed. "Let go of me! She's down there, she's—"

"Miss Annea, please!" Besh said over her yelling. He was struggling to keep her still as she thrashed in his arms.

"That's my sister down there!"

"Miss Annea!"

"Autumn! Autumn, if you can hear—"

His third shot hit Annea's temple, shattering her pitiful aura and knocking her out cold. Besh staggered under the sudden weight, looking at Adam with a confused mix of rage and fear in his eyes.

Blush extended back into a sheath. Adam slid Wilt home. He clipped it to his waist, then bent down to get his bag and Annea's as well. Autumn's, stuck in the cave, was lost to them. "We need to go. The goliaths are coming."