AN: Warning. This chapter will be tragic, so you might want to have tissues handy...

The Home of Zeke and Natalie, 1972

Zeke strolled up the walk to his small house, where he could see the warm glow from the kitchen lamp. This indicated that Natalie was there, finishing dinner. Upon entering the room, he could not help but let out a laugh at the sight of four-year-old Emily, who, in an attempt to help out her mother, was trying to squeeze icing out of the tube and onto a small cake meant to celebrate Zack making it into the little league's major-division team. Unfortunately, she was getting more icing onto her arms and the counter then on the cake.

"Well, now. What do we have here? A little monkey or a master cake decorator?" Zeke announced, picking his daughter up and holding her over his head, fully enjoying her fit of giggles.

"Daddy! Stop!"

"Zeke, do put her down," Natalie scolded in good nature. "She'll get excited, and then she'll get hiccups." Zeke, smiling tenderly at his wife, who, even after bearing two children, still looked as beautiful as she did on the day they met, set Emily down onto the kitchen floor.

"All right, Emily. I guess the fun's over. Mommy's orders. Why don't you head upstairs? I think Zack would like some help organizing his baseball cards." Emily happily hurried off upstairs. It was no secret that Emily looked up to her brother Zack, and practically tailed him everywhere. Unlike other brothers, however, Zack never seemed to mind very much, and was always willing to watch Emily, even if it meant taking her along when he hung around with his friends.

Emily journeyed down the hall to her brother's room. When she opened the door, the first thing she noticed was that Zack's bedroom window had been shattered, broken glass all over the floor. At that moment, she heard a muffled shout. Looking over, Emily saw a pair of strange men standing in Zack's bedroom, one with his hand over the struggling Zack's mouth. At the moment, none of the men seemed to notice that a four-year-old girl had walked in.

"Now, listen, kid," the man who was not holding Zack captive stated. "We ain't gonna hurt ya. We just want your old man. Then we'll leave, nice and peaceful like. But if ya give us a hard time…" The man who had spoken held up a gun and waved it in Zack's face. Emily, while she was still too young to fully comprehend the danger, understood a bit about guns. Her parents had always told her that they were very dangerous, and could hurt people very badly.

"Leave my big broder alone!" Emily yelled, grabbing the stuffed bunny Mr. Twiggers, who she had left in Zack's room earlier that day, and used it to hit the man with the gun.

"Well, look who we have here, men!" Another man, who had been hidden in the shadows, picked Emily up by her shirt collar, and held her above the ground, the group of men all laughing at the way she was struggling in midair, trying to get out of the situation. "A boy and a widdle girl. Our man, Zeke, has been busy!"

"Let my children go, Ethan," Zeke and Natalie, no doubt alerted by Emily's shout, had appeared at the door.

"Ah, so there you are, Zeke," Ethan sneered. "I must say, very clever. Who'd have thought that you'd be actually hiding out in the cozy little suburbs, surrounded by soccer moms, and snot-nosed brats, riding their little tricycles up and down the street? Did you seriously think you could escape?"

"I knew you'd find us eventually, old friend," Zeke replied wearily. "I never doubted it."

"And yet, you left. Oh, Zeke, you can't do that. You pledged your services to the ring. You were one of us, Zeke. That will never change, even if you escape the city borders."

"I gave up that life."

"You don't give up service with us. It's what you are, until the day you die."

"I won't go back with you," Zeke insisted. "Kill me if you must. But let my children go. You have no claim on them."

"Oh, see, that's where you're mistaken. We're not here to bring you back, as I'm sure you're well aware. I'm only going to ask once: where is it, Zeke? Where's the formula?"

"I don't have it," Zeke replied.

"Don't patronize me, Goodhall. We know you took it. And we know you wouldn't have just discarded it. That's not the type of thing you leave lying around."

"That is true. But I am telling you truthfully that I don't have the formula. I have not had it for years now."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"With all due respect, Ethan, I'm not the one who breaks into someone else's home and threatens two children who have done nothing wrong. So who would be the more trustworthy of the two of us?"

"Oh, I get it. You've hidden it, haven't you? In that case, just tell us where it is, and we'll forget we ever saw you. That's a reasonable bargain, don't you agree?"

"I no longer make bargains with merchants of death." Ethan frowned as Zeke glared at him in defiance. "I do not have the formula. And, for the sake of my children, you will not learn its whereabouts from me. I won't let my children be the offspring of a man who sold his soul to the devil."

"Oh, now that was very moving, Zeke," Ethan taunted. "It almost moved me to tears." And then it happened. Ethan moved his gun to the right and pulled the trigger, hitting Natalie in the forehead. Zeke cried out in protest, dropping to his wife's still form, knowing even then that it was too late.

"Ow!" The man who had been restraining Zack cried out as the boy bit into his hand. Once Zack was free, he went for Emily, holding her protectively and staring as his father knelt at his mother's body, the tears coursing down his cheeks.

"You made your choice, Zeke." Ethan taunted. "But now, you're condemned your children to the life of orphans. Oh, but don't worry, I'm not so heartless as to not put them out of their misery." Zeke tore his eyes away from the paling face of his beloved wife, to see Ethan turn the gun on Zack and Emily. At the last possible second, the grieving widower threw himself between Ethan and the children, resulting in the bullet embedding itself into his broken heart.

"Fool," Ethan snarled, kicking Zeke's body roughly with his boot. "You think that would keep me from those brats?" However, Zack took advantage of Ethan's distraction, and hurled the alarm clock from his bedside table at Ethan's hand, knocking the gun from his hand.

"Emily, run!" Zack cried out to his sister. Emily, however, was rooted to the spot, staring in fear at her parents' bodies, both of which were now lying in pools of fresh blood. "Emily!" Zack started to move toward her to snap her out of it, but a third gunshot rang out and a bullet flew by, nicking Zack's shoulder. Ethan had retrieved his gun and was now aiming it at the children once again. Instinct taking over, Zack darted out of the room and into his parent's old bedroom down the hall. In the top drawer, a place that Emily was too small to reach, Zeke had kept a gun of his own. He had made Zack promise that he would never touch it, unless it was a matter of defense. Zack dove for the drawer, pulling out the gun just as Ethan appeared in the door.

The next minute was a blur for Zack. One moment, he saw Ethan raising the gun that had killed his parents. The next, a loud gunshot rang through the room. Seconds later, a scarlet stain began to blossom on Ethan's shirt, above his heart. Ethan only had a moment to look at his wound before he dropped to the floor.

Back in Zack's bedroom, the remaining two men heard the shot.

"Sounds like Ethan took care of one whelp."

"Yeah. Hope he doesn't mind that we didn't wait for him to deal with the girl. Me, I'm rather partial to seeing slow death." The men laughed as one of them pushed the still paralyzed Emily against the wall, his hands enclosed around her neck. At that moment, a new shot rang out. The man who was currently strangling little Emily looked over in time to see his associate slump down to the floor in death. Zack stood in the doorway, his father's gun still smoking from the barrel. The preteen boy was shaking, but there was a hard, maddened glint in his eyes.

"Let. Go," Zack hissed. "Let…go… of my…sister."

"Whoa, okay, kid! Just take it easy!"

"You… scumbag…Mom… Dad….You…." Zack suddenly let out an anguished holler, before shooting the third man dead. Seconds after the dead man dropped to the ground, a whimper came from Emily's throat. Instantly, the hate and rage in Zack's face vanished, and it immediately hit him what he had just did. He'd killed. Those men were alive one moment, and now they weren't. Zack dropped the gun with shaking hands and began to weep for five minutes, the reality of the situation hitting him hard. He'd just murdered three men. His mother and father were both dead. He and Emily were alone. Orphaned.

Hours went by like seconds. Zack sat by the window inside a moving bus, Emily by his side. As the scenery flew past, he tried to erase from his memory the horrors that he had seen that night. He had taken Emily out of the house the moment he had regained composure, and had journeyed to the bus station five blocks away. Zack glanced down at the address he had taken from his mother's personal phone book. It was Nana Chang's address, his mother's old friend, the woman who used to baby-sit for him long ago. He didn't know how the old woman would react to seeing the two children of an old friend show up on her doorstep unannounced. But there was no other option for them to take now.

Zack's thoughts were interrupted by a small whimper next to him. Emily had apparently finally gotten over her shock, and was now scrunched up in her seat, her knees pulled up to her chest. There were tears and sobs pouring from the small girl. Biting his lower lip, Zack pulled his sister close in a comforting, brotherly hug.

"It's okay, Emily," he whispered. "You're safe now. I'm here for you. No matter what, I'll always be here to protect you. That's a promise."

Present Day

"I remember that night vividly. Shortly after midnight, it had begun to rain. I don't know exactly what woke me up, but right before I went back to sleep, I heard a faint knocking on the outside door. And there, standing out in the pouring rain, was Zack, little Emily half-asleep in his arms, both of them soaked to the bone, with Zack telling me that Zeke and Natalie...telling me they were…" Nana trailed off for a moment, wiping fresh tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry. But I knew Zeke and Natalie very well, and you'd be hard pressed to find a pair of finer people." It was a while before the six Bohemian friends found the ability to speak again.

"I...I know it doesn't matter," Mark spoke up. "But… what did Max do when he found out? Did you try to contact him?" Emily suddenly let out a furious growl.

"Nana sent Dad's parents the letter informing them the next day," she replied bitterly. "Came back a week later- unopened."

"Which is why I realized that Emily and Zack couldn't be placed under their grandparents' custody," Nana added. "If they wouldn't even show up for their own son's funeral, they surely wouldn't be about to raise their two grandchildren. So I volunteered to look after them.

"So that's why…" Collins looked over at Emily. "Your hemophobia. Is that when you…"

"Yes, I believe it is," Nana replied, answering for Emily. "Both Emily and Zack suffered some major psychological damage from that awful night. Emily, as you're well aware, now suffers from hemophobia. Zack, on the other hand, developed hoplophobia: the fear of guns and firearms. Even after he became a cop, he refused, pointblank, to carry a gun. But Emily's hemophobia wasn't the only condition she developed. For the longest time, she'd have these moments in which she'd suddenly zone out, and become almost catatonic. Not that I'm surprised, mind you. No one should have to see the things Emily saw, but at the age of four? It's a vastly impressionable age. Thankfully, those catatonic moments, which we now refer to as Emily's episodes, happened infrequently, and never lasted more then five minutes. So it was something we learned to deal with."

"Does she still have those episodes?" Maureen asked. "Because we've certainly never…."

"No, they stopped appearing a while ago, but we're not up to that part, yet," Emily stated. "I… I think I can take it from here, Nana."

"Are you sure?" Nana asked hesitantly. "After all, you're coming up to…"

"I know. But, if I don't try to tell this part myself, I might never fully recover from it. If you've got something poisonous inside you, you gotta bleed it out yourself. No one else can do it for you. Does that make sense?"

"Of course," Nana nodded sympathetically. "Can I do anything in the meantime?"

"Yeah. Call Officer Kurtz. 'Cause once I'm done, I'm going to start finding a way to get Penny back from the Rat Fangs." Once Nana stepped out of the room, Emily picked up the story. "Okay. So, Zack and me; we were orphans now, and living under Nana's care. Zack had always been the best brother anyone could have, but now, he took it into overdrive. He refused to let anyone hurt or threaten me. Because all we had was each other. Zack eventually met up with Officer Kurtz, when he and I were seventeen and ten, respectively. A few days after we met Uncle Kevin, Zack announced that, no matter what it took, he'd complete the police training and become a full-fledged cop. Since I'm not a mind reader, I'll never know exactly what made Zack reach his decision, although he told me it was because he'd made a promise to me, the only family he had, that he'd keep me safe. I guess he figured the best way to do that was to make sure the city was as safe as he could make it for me. And the best way to make sure of that was to become a cop." Emily suddenly stopped and placed her face in her hands. When Mark started to move forward to encourage her to go on, Emily held up a hand to stop him. "How could we have known," Emily whispered, looking back up. "How could we know that Zack's decision in ensuring a safe upbringing for me could ultimately lead to me loosing my brother as well?"

AN: It's coming- the truth behind Zack's death. Will it be a surprise, or do you already have assumptions forming?
Hope you didn't mind that Zack doesn't swear when he avenges his parents' deaths. Realistically, I didn't think an eleven-year-old boy would have known many swear words, you know? I might be wrong, though. I was pretty sheltered growing up.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Next one will be up as soon as I can get a chance to write it. (Schoolwork's a pain.) Until next time..