A/N: I swear this is still going somewhere. No, really! I've almost got the next chapter done too. I apologize if this chapter is a bit slow. And I apologize if I am too slow at posting things.

So apparently men are wired to be more romantic than women. Men also are more likely to fall in love at first sight. So with that in mind... here we go.

I've definitely lost it, Cole thought as he headed towards the historic section of town. I'm holding hands with an invisible girl, the same one who made me think I was crazy. The weirdest part? I don't even care how strange this is.

"So..." Cole began awkwardly. How was this going to work? He supposed they were just going to try and pretend like everything was normal. Yup, holding hands with an invisible angel is totally normal. Just a normal day right before the bombs start falling... "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why were you out helping the paramedics the other day?" he asked. He heard Shane sigh.

"That was sort of an accident. A coworker of mine, James, he saw me on the street and asked me for help... what was I supposed to do, say no?" she said in his ear.

"Oh," Cole mumbled, glancing down an alley to make sure it was free of Reapers. "He sounds like an ass, sending you to get killed by bandits..."

"I volunteered, Cole," Shane said gently. "Besides, you were there with me, so it all worked out."

Cole decided not to argue with her. He had more pressing questions he wanted to ask now that all their cards were on the table.

"Why do you look different when you're invisible?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I saw you by the fire, you had long hair and a skirt on... but you really have short hair and you're always wearing jeans," Cole elaborated.

"No idea," Shane said thoughtfully. "I can't see myself when I'm like this. And I gave myself a haircut after the explosion. My guess is I look that way when I'm invisible because that's how I looked when I, you know... died."

"You're not dead," Cole said firmly. He couldn't allow himself to think otherwise now that he knew who she really was.

"Okay, okay."

"And... you don't have any family?" Cole asked hesitantly. That was the one topic he'd really wanted to breach. It was the one thing Kessler had said about her that had really struck a chord with him.

"I didn't know this was going to turn into a game of twenty questions," Shane said teasingly. He felt her squeeze his hand lightly.

"Sorry, just forget it."

"It's okay," her voice said in his ear. "Dad had cancer, my brother Luke died overseas, and my mom committed suicide soon after that. It was a bad time."

Cole felt his heart twist painfully in his chest. Now he was really on a sensitive topic. He should have just kept his mouth shut about it...

"Look, I..." he began uncertainly. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, and I mean that.

"You really don't need to say you're sorry or anything," Shane said softly.

"No, I was going to... Look, I was just going to ask... you mean if we get out of here, you don't have anywhere to go?" Cole managed to get out.

"Nope," Shane said easily. "But I have money, and a degree, and unstable, freaky powers... I'll be fine. I'll just go live deep in the forest somewhere where no one will ever find me. Maybe make friends with the squirrels."

"Are you always so sarcastic?"

"Almost always," Shane said cheerfully.

"I was going to say that you could stay with me," Cole said in a rush before his courage failed him. There was a moment of stunned silence from Shane.

"You really still want me around after this is over? Even after I made you think you were crazy?" she said incredulously, but he still heard the hint of hopefulness in her voice.

"Yeah, well, I've gotten used to the crazy side of me," Cole said, unable to stop himself from grinning. "Besides, I promised I'd get us out, and you can't just ditch me after that. Then I really will start talking to myself."

"I bet you would," she said teasingly. "See, the crazy had nothing to do with me after all."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say."

They kept walking, Cole's mind still racing. Conversation was flowing a lot more smoothly now that she didn't have to try and keep up the pretense that she was two separate people. Cole was grateful for that at least.

But still, he had a problem. Now that he'd offered to have Shane live with him once they'd escaped... how was he going to keep his promise to get them out of here? He was powerful, yes, but so was Kessler. And in the end, Cole knew that was who he was up against. The Reapers and the police and the bandits were almost nothing compared to that madman. Because Kessler... that guy was completely insane. He'd never stop hunting them, not until he got what he wanted.

Or until one of them was dead.

Cole shivered, and not because he was cold. Because he knew with absolute certainty that that was how it would end. One of them would have to die.

And I can't die, Cole thought viciously. So that means you're the one who's going to be six feet under, Kessler!

"Hey, look," Shane whispered, interrupting Cole's murderous thoughts. "Do you see that up there...?"

Cole squinted into the setting sun until he could see what she saw... at least a dozen red coated bodies strew across the snowy street about a block ahead of them. When they got closer, Cole was instantly grateful that he hadn't eaten anything recently, because the scene was more gruesome than he'd anticipated.

It was like a scene from a low budget horror flick. Most of the bodies had been horribly mangled in some way... Many of the corpses were missing limbs. Puddles of blood were everywhere, like somebody had been trying to paint the street red. One of the bodies was hanging out of a window, like it had literally been hurled through the glass... Another was missing both its eyeballs so that the corpse stared with empty sockets.

"What the hell...?" Cole hissed. "Did I...?"

"No," Shane whispered back faintly. "You didn't come down this street at all last night. I was watching you the whole time."

"Then... who did this?" Cole said, glancing over at another body that was missing its lower jaw and most of its teeth. The tongue was hanging out of the mouth like a big pink slug...

"I think I'm going to be sick," Shane said in his ear.

Me too. Anyone got a barf bag?

"You're a... a... a wind spirit! How can you get sick?" he said instead. Little pieces of electricity trailed their way through his fingers, tickling his palms, distracting him from his desire to start dry heaving.

"Fine, I feel like I'm going to be sick," Shane hissed back, but she sounded nauseous too. "So can we go? Please?"

Cole didn't answer. He had a very bad feeling about all this... He took another hesitant step forward, flinching as something crunched under his foot. Against his better judgment, he looked down to see what it was.

He'd stepped on somebody's severed hand. Bloodless fingers curled up around the edges of his boot. Cole practically jumped backwards, his palms breaking out in a cold sweat.

Fuck... Seriously, who did this? This is fucked up, this is really fucked up... Yeah, I killed people but... I didn't rip them limb from limb. I didn't gouge their eyes out, or tear their jaws off, or throw them through windows.

So who could have done it? Cole looked around nervously. Whoever had done it hadn't used a gun... that meant the unknown culprit had to be usually strong. That left really only one person that Cole knew of... Kessler.

Cole frowned. But... why would Kessler want to tear apart the Reapers? The madman hadn't seemed very concerned about them before. In fact, Kessler had flat out said that they were already dying. So why kill them like this?

"Please, Cole," Shane whispered. "Let's just go. I don't like this."

"Hang on, I need to know who did this..." Cole glanced around at the bodies. "And maybe they know."

Cole really had no desire to go around feeling up dead bodies. But... he'd seen into a dead man's head once before. Maybe these guys had seen something before they'd been ripped to shreds. With any luck they'd seen something that would give him a clue as to who or what had done this...

"What are you doing?" Shane hissed fearfully. Cole sighed.

Already regretting my decision, okay?

He reached out and touched the arm of a dead Reaper.

The Reaper's thoughts were a mess, a jumble of incoherent ramblings... Cole almost jerked himself away, but then reminded himself that he needed this information. He let the dead man's thoughts race through his head.

Blood, blood, blood... Had to have MacGrath's blood. He wasn't normal, wasn't like them, he'd survived the blast... MacGrath had the cure. It was in his blood.

Hunting, kill him, kill MacGrath and take his blood, take the cure! Snow everywhere, where was he hiding? Had to find him, had to find him soon...

A body, a body in the ground, no... coming out of the ground... Screams, the faceless man tearing off hands, arms, eyes... so much precious blood, but not MacGrath's blood...

Cole wrenched his hand away from the body, panting heavily.

"Shit," Cole gasped, backing farther away.

"What?" Shane pressed urgently. "What is it?"

"I have no fucking clue, but... we'd better go. Now," Cole said, picking up the pace and rushing past the bodies, practically sprinting towards Shane's apartment.

"Cole," Shane said insistently in his ear. "What did you see?"

Cole bit his tongue in indecision. He didn't want to worry Shane... but what he'd seen in that guy's head... Cole was praying that it wasn't real.

A body made of dirt, clawing its way out of the ground... A faceless body that had then proceeded to destroy everyone around it. After all the ghosts he'd seen, Cole should have figured this would be next... fucking dirt zombies.

"Come on, tell me!"

Look, I'm trying to spare you a week's worth of nightmares, alright? Maybe the military has the right idea, destroying this place... there's nothing left here to save.

Telling her would serve no purpose except to scare her. And there was nothing he could do about it anyway. Besides, if that thing, whatever it was, wanted to kill Reapers, then fine. That would just be less Reapers for them to worry about when they tried to make their escape.

He just had to hope that thing wouldn't find them first.

"Just relax!" Shane's voice insisted. "We'll worry about getting out tomorrow, okay? You need to eat and rest some more. If you faint on the way out, I am not carrying you."

Cole was sitting in Shane's kitchen, feeling air shifting around him. He'd never thought of air as a living thing, but he was going to have to revise his definition of that. Because Shane... she was alive, and she was living in the air around him.

"Yeah, sure," Cole grumbled. "We're going to get blown up in a few days and there's a lunatic after us... but I'll relax. Can you just promise me you'll stay invisible for now?"

And there's some freaky dirt zombie out there, doing God knows what.

"I will, I will," Shane said soothingly. "But you really need to stop worrying, you sound like an old man."

"Kessler knows too much about you," Cole growled back, breaking a Pop-Tart in half. "He probably knows where you live."

"And that's why I'm going to stay like this, okay? He won't find me. Besides, if he knew where I lived, why isn't he here right now?" Shane said gently.

"I don't know," Cole said, squirming on his chair. He had an uncomfortable feeling that Kessler could find her no matter what state she was existing in, but what other choice did they have but to hide? They couldn't keep moving forever, they had to rest sometime.

Shane had been human for about five minutes in the apartment to shower and change her bloody clothes before Cole had insisted that she stay part of the air. He didn't want to make it too easy for Kessler to find her.

But just as important to him was to make sure that he couldn't hurt her. Because what if he attacked her while she was human? He wouldn't be able to live with that... No, it was better for her to stay like this, a simple voice in his ear, until he found a way to make sure he wouldn't go berserk again.

Because if they were going to live together for a while once they got out of here, he needed to get his shit together. Actually, they both did, but she just had to worry about staying visible around other people. Cole had to worry about losing control and slaughtering even more innocents.

"What's up?" came Shane's voice in his ear. "You've gotten really quiet."

"Got a lot on my mind, I guess."

"Anything interesting?"

"Just thinking that if we make one screw up out there in the real world... the government is going to lock us up and throw away the key," Cole sighed, tearing a paper towel to pieces.

"Hey, there's always my idea... you know, living in the woods... making friends with the squirrels..."

Cole gave a dry laugh.

"Yeah, and how long until we starve to death out there?"

"Well, then we're just going to have to get an apartment and hope for the best," Shane said serenely.

"Hope for the best... right," Cole said sarcastically. "Because we've had nothing but the best happening to us lately..."

"Come on, something will work out," Shane said in his ear. "And I thought I told you to stop worrying?"

Cole sighed, picking at his Pop-Tart. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just make out a tiny girl sitting next to him and making unsuccessful attempts to pick up the trash from all the snacks he'd eaten. Her insubstantial hand just went right through all the wrappers. Watching her might have been funny if it weren't so incredibly sad.

"I still don't understand why you can't just go, leave here while you still can," Cole muttered under his breath. He swiped the wrappers from the table for her, tossing them in the trash.

"And what?" she said tiredly. "Try and cross the ocean like this? Or maybe fall to my death over the bridge? Besides, I thought you were the man with the plan, huh?"

You have way too much faith in me. I am the man with absolutely no plan. If I were the planning type of guy, do you think I would have spent so many years after high school doing nothing but being a delivery boy?

Agitated and frustrated with himself, Cole began pacing the kitchen. What the hell were they going to do? The bridge... that was really the only option left to them. They didn't have the time to construct a boat. Cole would have to clear the way on the bridge for Shane to escape...

Cole bit back a groan. He'd probably die trying, but if they stayed here they'd be dead for sure. And if they somehow survived the bombing, which was a possibility considering their powers, they'd be stuck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Not exactly a great way to spend the rest of their lives...

"You really can't relax, can you?" came Shane's voice.

Cole glanced toward where the voice was coming from. Shane had moved. Now she was perched on the edge of the island, her skinny legs dangling over the side. The clothes hadn't changed... she was still wearing her white tank top and torn pencil skirt. Her silvery hair was floating around her face like the apartment was breezy or something.

She smiled at him, swinging her legs.

"I guess not," he responded after a moment.

His heart was pounding, and he couldn't explain why. He stepped towards her until he was right in front of her, looking into her transparent eyes. Her smile wavered for a moment.

"You can still see me?" she asked softly. She sounded like she could barely believe it, but she desperately wanted to.

"Yeah," Cole said, trying to swallow the unexpected lump in his throat. "I see you."

You're beautiful. I wish I'd been able to see you before now...

She beamed at him, eyes sparkling, but almost just as quickly her smile faded again.

"Cole, if we get out of here... Are you sure that you want me...?" she began uncertainly. Cole, sensing where she was going with this, cut her off without any hesitation.

"Yes, I'm sure. You can stay with me for as long as you need to," Cole said firmly. He reached out one hand, hoping to tuck her long silvery hair behind her ear, and was thrilled when he could actually do so. Sparks danced along his hand as he touched her, but they didn't seem to affect her at all...

If we actually make it out of here... I'll take care of you, you'll see. You're all I've got anymore, and I won't let you down.

Her own hand came up to touch his... Cole hadn't even realized that he was still standing there, holding his hand to the side of her ghostly cheek. If this were a first date, Cole would have gone in for a kiss from there... but she wasn't human. What if he went in for a kiss and his face went right through hers? What would he say if that happened?

Oh, I thought there was something on your face and I was just trying to get it off. With my mouth.

Her wings flickered behind her back. She suddenly smirked at him as he just stood there, staring at her. Cole wouldn't have been surprised if she'd told him he was drooling.

"So..." she said, trailing her transparent fingers over the tattoos on his forearm. They were such familiar sights on his body that Cole barely noticed them. A sensation like static electricity tickled his skin as she touched the snake and staff imprinted on his forearm. It had seemed like a good idea for a tattoo to his eighteen year old self...

"You like medicine?" she finished. "This is actually the right symbol for the medical profession: the staff with just one snake."

"Yeah, well," Cole began, watching her fingers as they gently probed his arm. He almost felt like he could feel something more... "I used to be good at emergency first aid, in case I hurt myself doing urban exploration. Guess I don't exactly need it anymore."

Shane laughed, tilting her head into his hand since Cole had absolutely refused to move it. Cole thought he could feel the softness of her hair... either that or he was imagining things.

"Yeah... I guess you don't, Sparky," she teased him. Her hair didn't want to stay put behind her ear, it had simply drifted off again, floating around her face.

"Funny," Cole said, rolling his eyes. "Very original."

"Oh, you don't like it?" she said brightly, sticking her tongue out at him. Cole chuckled.

"You know what I'd really like?" he said, glancing down at himself. "A clean shirt."

"Oh, I have something," she said brightly. She floated up off the counter and vanished in a shimmer of silver. The bedroom door swung open, slamming into the wall.

"Oops," he heard her say.

"Hate to break it to you, but your clothes probably aren't going to fit me," Cole said, following her into the bedroom.

Fifteen minutes later, Cole had firmly refused Shane's offer of her brother's old shirt. Shane, obviously exasperated with him, told him to just throw his bloody shirt in the washer. He did so, and then made his way to the couch, hoping to get a few more hours of sleep in a comfortable place when his invisible friend interrupted him.

"What are you doing?" she asked sharply.

"Going to pretend to sleep for a while," Cole said tiredly. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Why are you sleeping on the couch? You're too big. Just sleep in my bed, okay?"

Why Miss Hunter, you're trying to seduce me.

"Um..." Cole mumbled, trying to get a glimpse of Shane, wondering if she was messing with him. "Are you sure...?"

But in his head he'd already said yes. He secretly loved sleeping in a girl's bed, their sheets always smelled nice. He was silently thanking God that he'd showered recently.

"Yes, I'm sure. It's not like I'm using it," she said simply. "Just sleep for a few hours, and then we'll work on getting out. Oh, and can you grab my social security card and birth certificate from my desk? I'm going to need those if I ever want to get another driver's license or debit card ever again."

"Alright," Cole responded in a would be nonchalant tone of voice, but he ruined it by tripping over his own feet as he got up.

A few minutes later, he was lying in Shane's bed. It was just as comfortable as the first time he'd slept in it. He lay flat on his back, breathing in her sweet smell and letting that one simple thing calm his frazzled nerves.

"So we're taking the bridge?" came Shane's voice.

"Yeah," Cole sighed. "I'll clear the way for you if you can just stay part of the air... and I'll hopefully meet you on the other side."

"I'll help you, don't worry," she said soothingly. "I can tell you what's coming."

"Alright," Cole said slowly. "Just... please don't get yourself hurt trying to help me."

"I'll be fine," she insisted.

Cole ran a hand over his scruffy cheek, feeling the scar down the right side of his face.

"How can you be so sure everything's going to be fine?" he said, a little more harshly than he meant to.

Cole looked back up at the ceiling, and he could just make out the form of a sleeping angel floating over him. She was curled up on her side again, her long hair hanging in her face. Shane lifted her head up off her arms, staring him down with those big blue eyes.

"Cole, I've been here by myself in this city for over a year," she said simply. "I have no family, and right now I might as well be a ghost to everyone but you. Really, things can only get better from here."

"Yeah, you've got me, what could possibly go wrong?" Cole said sarcastically.

"Yeah..." Shane said softly, putting her head back down on her arms. "I've got you."

She wasn't phased by his moody, sarcastic comments. She still had hope that somehow... something would work out. Cole wished he had the confidence that she did... but as negative as he was being, he knew damn well that he couldn't just give up. He promised her that he'd get her out of this place.

Yeah... you've got me, alright. I made you a promise, and I'm going to give everything I've got to keep it. That lunatic is going to try and stop us, and I swear that'll be the last thing he ever does.