Six

"Here we go," Robin said as they climbed the final flight of stairs to the top of the apartment building. "Your first fresh case back. You ready for this?"

"More ready than I was for those flights of stairs," August was panting slightly as they got to the twentieth floor. He was certain there was some irony that his first case back after a leg injury involved an apartment on the twentieth floor of a building with broken down elevators.

"You weren't kidding about your fitness levels dropping," Robin observed as they stepped out of the stairway and into the corridor.

The apartment they were after was a few doors down, the police tape across the doorway making it stand out. They couldn't miss it. Together, they made their way towards it.

"You try keeping your cardio workouts up with a dodgy leg!" August defended himself.

They reached the doorway and Robin ducked under the tape first, August following him. August's eyes lingered on the smashed lock as he passed through.

Forced entry, he noted, most likely someone unknown to the victim.

He ventured further into the apartment building, one which was already occupied by a small team of crime scene investigators working away on the scene.

The victim, who looked to be a woman around her early forties, lay near the centre of the living room. She lay in a pool of blood which was no doubt staining the cream rug beneath her. Shame, August thought for the thing looked brand new, retaining its fluffiness. In a stark contrast, a well-worn copy of The Gunslinger lay discarded on the floor a few feet from her. All her other books – and there were a lot of them – were stored neatly, in alphabetical order, August noted, on a huge bookshelf. He could only assume she had been reading the abandoned book when she had heard the door crash open and dropped it in her panic.

"What have we got?" Robin requested a quick briefing from the closest forensic officer to them.

The young woman, who August recalled was named Tink, was busy photographing the body of the victim. She stopped upon hearing Robin's question, setting her camera down and looking up at the two of them.

"Detectives," she greeted them both as she pushed herself up to her feet. "We've got a currently unidentified woman. The landlord is out of town, we haven't been able to get a hold of him, and the neighbors apparently weren't very neighborly. They don't know her name, just referred to her as the 'book lady'. The officers are working on finding some ID to identify her."

"And the cause of death?" Robin prompted, though a glance down at the victim told him what he needed to know. "Gunshot wounds?"

"Yeah. And close range too," Tink commented as she walked over to August.

She placed two hands on his shoulders and guided him a couple of steps back until he was just about stood off the cream rug.

"The murderer was no more than ten feet away," Tink told the two detectives, gesturing to where August was stood as she took up her own position next to the woman on the floor. "Shot five times in the chest," she continued, gesturing to her own chest then pointed at the middle of her forehead, "and one in the head for good measure. Precise shots but, given the close distance, it's not a remarkable feat. Still, someone whose got a bit of experience with a gun."

August narrowed his eyes at the details Tink provided. It all seemed strikingly familiar to the case Jefferson had been telling them about. It would be just his luck for his first case back to require them to work in connection with the other detective.

He glanced at Robin, looking for his thoughts on the similarities, "Does this sound familiar to you? Five in the chest and one in the head?"

"Jefferson's case," Robin confirmed August's thoughts with a short nod, making the same connection himself. "Surely not in the same day though? That's putting a lot of heat on himself."

"Maybe the guy thinks he's too good to get caught? Or wants to get caught?" August theorized. "We need to figure out if this is the same guy. It could just be on hell of a coincidence."

August turned his attention to the first-responding officer who stood by the broken-in door and asked, "Any witnesses?"

"No," the officer answered with a shake of his head, "the neighbors heard the shots but by the time they got here, the apartment was empty."

"Detectives!" One of the other uniformed officers called out, immediately gaining August and Robin's full and undivided attention. He joined them in the front room from the bedroom, holding a small rectangular card in his blue glove-covered hand. "We've got a driver's license. Picture matches our victim."

August took the driver's license from the man the moment the words were out of his mouth. He glanced at the picture first, gaining confirmation for himself that it was the same woman. She was a little bit younger in the picture and her forehead didn't have a bloody hole in the centre of it, but it was definitely the same woman. He scanned across, looking for her name.

He looked up at Robin, a total look of disbelief plastered across his face as he filled in his partner on the latest development, "Emma Swan."

Robin's eyes widened at the name, and he commented, "The same as Jefferson's victim."

"This can't be a coincidence. Same technique. Same name. Same guy," August reasoned. "We've got ourselves a one-day pattern killer."


The bathroom in their apartment was small and certainly not intended to occupy two people getting ready for a night out. Nevertheless, Emma and Lily made it work. They had gained a lot of experience with navigating the small space over the last two years and were able to do so without knocking each other whilst applying make-up or using their hair straighteners.

"So where are you going tonight?" Emma asked Lily, being forced to shout over the noise of the hairdryer which Lily was using on her damp hair.

The plan had been for the three of them to hit the clubs and Emma had initially assumed that Lily and Peter's plans remained the same. Except Emma knew Lily's clubbing style clothes and the crop top and shorts she was wearing did not match that style. She could only assume that her date with Neal had changed Lily and Peter's plans as well.

"Oh, we're just going to have a quiet night in," Lily told her casually.

"With you and Peter, there's no such thing as a quiet night in," Emma retorted with a laugh.

The two of them had the same interest in music. Particularly loud music. Loud music which disguised the sound of the door opening and Emma returning home. On two occasions – two occasions too many – Emma had seen far more than she ever wanted to.

"The headphones are at the ready!" Lily responded, holding her Walkman and headset up. "We'll get no complaints from the neighbors this time."

Emma only laughed in response as she squeezed past Lily to get out of the bathroom. Hair and make-up done, she was all ready to leave within the next half hour. She held her red lipstick in her hand, making the decision to take it with her, if only she could find her purse.

Walking through into the living room, Emma scanned briefly for her bag, her search coming up unsuccessful before she called back to Lily, "Do you know what I've done with my purse?"

"It's on the side next to the phone," Lily called back from the bathroom.

"Ah!" Emma exclaimed as her eyes landed on her purse, exactly where Lily said it would be.

She picked it up, placing her lipstick inside as a red flashing light on the answering machine caught her eye.

They had messages.

She pressed the button to play them out.

"Hey sweetie! It's Ingrid!"

Emma had recognized her ex-foster mother's voice before the woman had even said her name. Ingrid was the last foster mother she'd had before she reached eighteen and finally escaped the clutches of the care system. She had spent her final three years in the system placed with Ingrid, the longest time she had ever spent anywhere. The woman had even wanted to go down the route of official adoption but Emma had turned her down. She had managed without a family for the entirety of her life. She didn't believe in the concept of family and she certainly didn't think that, at sixteen years of age, she needed an officially recognized one.

Regardless, Ingrid and her two nieces, Anna and Elsa, whose parents' death had also left them in Ingrid's care, were the closest thing Emma had to family, even if she didn't acknowledge it herself. She would spend her vacation time when off college in Minnesota with Ingrid, catching up and taking some time to relax.

"I was hoping to catch up but it appears I missed you. Give me a call back when you can. It's only a few weeks now until you come to visit so we should probably make arrangements about picking you up from the airport. We can't wait to see you!"

A sharp tone rang out from the answering machine, signalling the end of the message. Emma turned away, expecting that to be the only one and turning her focus to the final pieces of preparation she needed to make. The click of the machine as it prepared to play another message made her stop.

"Hi there, Emma. Neal here, umm…"

Emma heard him suck air in through his teeth over the message.

"I was hoping to speak to you directly but, uh, I guess you're busy. I-"

He stopped, right at the start of a sentence, a low mumbled voice in the background of the message making it clear that he had been interrupted.

"Yes, yes I'll be right there."

Neal clearly responded to the person he was with, a hint of irritation in his tone.

"Sorry Emma… man, this is a mess. Umm, I hate to do this but something's come up with my dad. His friend has suffered a loss and now he needs me to take this important meeting for the company and… look, I'm just not going to be able to make it tonight so I guess this is me asking for a rain check. I know it's last minute but this couldn't be helped and this meeting is really important. I'll make it up to you. Yeah… See you around."

Emma sighed as the sharp tone rang out from the answering machine once again.

Of course.

It was just her luck.

"Really?" Lily stood in the doorway. Her hand was on her hip and she was staring disapprovingly at the answering machine. Clearly, she'd heard the whole message. "It's Saturday night and he's blowing you off for work? Who cares if he's rich! You deserve better than that!"

"It's fine," Emma shrugged it off. "Like I said, I don't need a guy."


"Killian… Killian… leave me."

"No!" Killian snapped back immediately.

That was not an option. There was no world in which he would consider it for even a second. The wind blew hard and fast into his face as he attempted to climb up the steep sandy dune. He was struggling under his older brother's weight, each step harder than the last as he fought to keep Liam propped up too. "We're almost there! We have to be!"

They had been travelling throughout the freezing night. Dawn threatened to break any moment and Killian knew they had to reach their destination before then if they were to stand any chance of surviving. The Hunter Guards would be out in force imminently. Killian was young, but he wasn't naïve; there was no place for naivety in a world ruled by machines. With Liam's injury and their lack of weapons, they stood no chance against the machines.

Killian was exhausted, and most probably dehydrated, unable to remember the last time he had slept properly or had anything to drink but they couldn't afford to stop. They couldn't afford to rest. They had to find the Resistance. They had to make it to them. It was their only chance and they were desperately running out of time.

Liam was trying his best to help. His right foot was taking steps as best as he could, trying to take some of the weight off Killian in the process, but his left leg dragged across the sandy floor, useless except for generating further resistance. Killian's feet were barely lifting off the ground with each step, his own legs heavy from exhaustion. His foot caught on a twig sticking out from the ground and the two brothers fell immediately, landing in a heap on the side of the sand dune.

Killian lay there defeated, dejected of all hope, and breathing heavily. His energy drained, he couldn't gather the strength to force himself back onto his feet. Liam lay beside him, letting out a heavy, resigned sigh as he stared up at the clear sky. It was only a matter of minutes before it would be filled with aerial machines.

"You should have left me back there," Liam persisted. "You should have gone with the others."

"No." Killian didn't entertain the idea for even the briefest of seconds. "You never once abandoned me all those times that you could have. I won't abandon you now."

"You're not abandoning me, Killian," Liam insisted, wincing as he propped himself up with his elbows, the movement aggravating his leg. "You're surviving. Because that's who you are. You are a survivor."

"Because you've been protecting me all these years," Killian argued. Without Liam, he would have been dead a long time ago.

"No. I've been guiding you. I've supported you and motivated you, on occasion, but your actions were always entirely your own. They were always your choices. It was always your strength. It was your determination to survive and to fight," Liam told him. "And what you accomplished tonight was nothing to do with me. You orchestrated the plan. You rallied the support. You motivated everyone to rise up and you led the break-out from that camp."

"And look where's its bloody gotten us! You're injured and we're moments from death," Killian pointed out bitterly.

"Victory requires sacrifice, and it's one I'll gladly make," Liam told him, calm and resigned to his fate, "but it is not your sacrifice to make."

Killian's head snapped to stare at him, not believing what he was hearing, not allowing himself to even consider abandoning Liam, knowing that his brother was about to suggest it again. He opened his mouth, about to argue.

"Use your head, Killian. Ignore everything else and use your head. We both stay here, we both die. You try and take me with you, we both die," Liam's tone was blunt and to the point. They were running out of time but Killian remained stubborn, refusing to accept the reality, refusing to move. "Go! And you will survive. You will get to the Resistance. They need fighters like you. You can make a difference to this world, Killian. I know you can."

Liam reached for the ring on his finger, pulling it off and holding it out for Killian who stared at it, stunned.

"Here," Liam shook the ring in his outstretched hand, "take it."

"I can't." Killian breathed out, shaking his head. "Mum gave that to you. When we get our boathouse, you're going to use it to propose to the love of your life on the candlelit boat deck, like Mum and Dad."

In his denial, Killian recalled part of the extensive daydream they had built up over the years for their future life. Liam chuckled slightly at the childish daydream, their own little way of escaping from the horrors of reality.

"I realise now… that's not my future, but it doesn't mean it can't be yours," Liam wasn't a stranger to facing the harsh reality. He reached his outstretched hand even further towards Killian who continued to refuse to take it from him. "Please. Take it. Get yourself to safety. Fight for that future."

"That future is for both of us," Killian stated.

All the talk of their dreams for the future filled him with new-found determination and he was hit by a rush of adrenaline. He refused to abandon Liam and he certainly wasn't going to lie there and let the machines kill them off without a fight.

"We're both getting to safety," Killian told him. "We do this together, as we have always done."

Killian pushed himself to his feet then reached down, using all his strength to pull Liam up with him. Liam didn't argue, knowing better than to try and talk his younger brother out of something when he had that determined look on his face. It was like talking to a brick wall and he didn't have the energy for that. Instead, he used the little amount of energy he did have to try and help Killian as much as he could.

Killian powered through the remaining steps up to the top of the sand dune, his thoughts of the future they had planned keeping him distracted. It was a welcome distraction which took his mind off his aching muscles from the weight that he was taking. The small descent down the other side looked easier and the Resistance had to be nearby.

They had to be close. He believed.

They could make it.

The whirr of engines above them destroyed his belief in an instant. He stopped in his tracks, filling with dread as he looked up to find a Hunter Guard in the sky above them. In the breaking dawn light, a spotlight shone down on them from the aerial machine, highlighting their position. Squinting against the bright light, Killian saw the machine's plasma gun turn on them.

As the inevitable shot rang out, Liam pulled away from Killian's grip and darted forward, positioning himself in front of his younger brother. The blast hit him square in the chest, the impact sending him careering backwards into Killian. Together, the two catapulted down the sand dune and landed in a tangled heap at the bottom. Killian grunted, pinned under his brother's weight; Liam had landed right on his chest. Killian's own eyes went wide when he craned his neck round to find that Liam's eyes were closed and his brother unresponsive.

"Liam!" Killian yelled, trying to wake his brother. He would have shaken him if he could, but his arms were ensnared under Liam. He was stuck. Trapped. A sitting duck for the machines.

The Hunter Guard adapted its position, finding a location in the sky above Killian where it had a good shot at the teenager pinned under his brother. Killian could do nothing but stare up at the barrel of its gun defiantly.

Bang!

Killian woke with a start, jerking upright in the driver's seat at the sudden banging which had drawn him from his sleep. His heart was beating fast, threatening to jump out of his chest, and his breathing heavy.

The sound came from the car window and Killian immediately rounded on it, his gun raised instinctively, eyes wide and wild. He was met by the sight of a young boy, no older than ten years of age, peering into the window inquisitively. The boy's eyes went equally wide at the sight of the gun, instantly stumbling backwards away from the car. Killian hastily lowered his gun at the realisation that the boy posed no threat to him.

"See! I told you he wasn't dead! You owe me ten dollars!"

Killian's head jerked to the new voice. A young girl, around the same age, stood a few feet away down the sidewalk. She stood triumphant in her victory, completely oblivious to the gun that Killian had pulled.

"Let's go," the boy mumbled as he hurried past her, eager to get as far away as possible. He did not dare look back.

Killian groaned as he hit his head back against the headrest, running his hand over his tired eyes. It had been a long time since Liam's death had haunted him in his sleep. There had been a time when it had been a nightly occurrence until the General had talked to him about survivor's guilt and the ways in which she had learned to cope with all those who had died fighting for her. It had slowly improved from that point on, but he hadn't even realised he'd stopped dreaming of that terrible moment until he had experienced it again.

It was Liam's ring.

Parting with it, even though he had no choice, had left him feeling guilt and resurfaced old wounds. It made him feel like he had abandoned Liam all over again, the same way he had once abandoned his brother's lifeless body in the sand.

The Resistance had arrived and blown the Hunter Guard out of the sky just in time to save him, but too late for Liam. With more machines approaching to investigate the source of the explosion, Killian had been pulled from his brother and to safety. As the Resistance helicopter flew off, Killian's last glimpse of his brother was his lifeless body face down in the sand. He'd passed out from pure exhaustion moments later.

The ring, which he found in his pocket hours later when in awoke in the Resistance medical ward, was the only thing he had of his brother's. He had no idea when Liam had slipped it into his pocket but he was forever grateful for it. After his first conversation with General Swan, Liam's ring had become a reminder of what he was fighting for; the future that Liam's sacrifice gave him a shot at.

Not only had he given up Liam's ring, but he had given up that future. All for a girl who had lived and died before he had been born. He had strayed from the path Liam had sacrificed himself for and, for that, he couldn't ignore the pangs of guilt.

But that future was nothing more than a childish dream. One they had created to get themselves through the nights and had often called upon to motivate the other when all hope felt lost. Yet it was also one that, deep down, they had both known they were unlikely to ever get, even from the moment they had begun compiling it as young children.

For Killian, it was the moment in which he learned the function of the final weapon that he discovered what his future really was. He had known immediately what he needed to do. Emma Swan was his future.

Emma!

Killian bolted upright in his seat again, jerking his head out of the window. His car was parked up outside her apartment building, a position he had taken up to maintain his surveillance over her. He had fallen asleep. He had no idea how long he'd been dead to the world for, but the Huntsman only needed a few seconds to get to her.

His eyes went straight to the window that he knew was hers, he had seen her in it that morning. His hand clutched his gun, knuckles white from his tight grasp, ready to jump into action as he frantically pleaded to see movement in her window.

He let out an instant sigh of relief the second he saw her move past, pulling on a red jacket. The only way he could ensure he honored Liam's sacrifice was to protect Emma and guarantee that the future of humanity could one day access the future that they had once dreamed of. The future which both had sacrificed.

"You got away with that one, Jones," he muttered, cursing himself for taking his eye off the ball, as his grip around the gun on his lap loosened.


Emma pulled on her favored red jacket, shrugging it over her shoulders.

"I can call Peter and see if he's still up for hitting the clubs," Lily offered.

Her friend was stood watching her with a look of sympathy despite Emma's continuous insistence that she was absolutely fine about the whole thing. She couldn't exactly blame the guy for having to work, especially given the fact that the circumstances involved someone's death.

Emma shook her head, aware that she had already messed their plans around once. Besides, she hadn't exactly been jumping with excitement at their initial plans for Saturday night. It had been Lily's idea in the first place, forcing Emma to agree with her plans as she continued her not-so-subtle mission to get her a boyfriend. After the day she'd had, Emma wasn't in the mood for any of that.

"No, it's fine," Emma insisted, picking her keys up off the side table, next to the phone.

She already had rearranged plans in her head for the night, anyway. The latest Indiana Jones movie had recently been released, after all. It seemed like a good enough time to go see it.

"I'm going to the movies," Emma relayed her plans on to Lily. "You have fun."

"See ya," Lily waved after her as Emma stepped out of the door of their apartment.

Emma got to the bottom floor of the apartment building in no time, stepping out the doors and happening upon Peter as he approached the building. She sighed the moment her eyes fell on the man. If only she had left just a bit sooner, she could have avoided him completely.

The man was a pain. His irritatingly childish grin plastered across his face the moment he spotted her.

"Hey Emma," he greeted her, glancing her over, "looking lovely tonight. Enjoy your date."

There was absolutely no chance she was filling him in on her last-minute plans for the evening. She could already hear his snarky comments in her head. Instead, she opted to simply give him a brief nod of acknowledgement as she walked past him and then continued onto her car.

Her yellow Volkswagen Beetle was nothing special to look at, but it was everything to her. It was the first, and only, car she had ever owned. One of the few constants she ever had in her life, she found it hard to imagine herself ever parting with it. It may have been fifteen years old, and gone through several different owners during that time, but it still ran smoothly. The paintwork needed a little work in places, especially where she had caught a lamppost the other week, but she had plans to sort that with her next paycheck.

Emma climbed into the car, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb, her mind set on getting to the movie theatre in time for the evening showing.

In the newer black Ford behind the yellow bug, Killian waited until Emma had pulled away before he turned the key in the ignition. The headlights flashed on as the engine roared into life and he set off, tailing Emma, fully alert after his powernap. He knew he couldn't risk taking his eyes off her again.

It was only a matter of time before the Huntsman made its move on her.