Okay so THIS is the penultimate chapter.

A/N: lotta blood and some death in this chapter.

James squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, tears beginning to fall from his eyes. "I-I would never have done it, believe me, but I had no other choice. M-my sister…she had cancer. She needed to g-go to America for t-treatment but none of us c-could afford it. I-I had no choice. I c-couldn't let my sister die. If I had known someone would kill Isaac over it, I-I would never have d-done it…please believe me. Afterwards, it felt like I was t-trading Lily's life for Isaac's, and I-I've hated myself ever since."

"You didn't kill Isaac?" demanded Esther through gritted teeth. James was heavy.

"No," James replied shakily. "I would never kill anybody, not even to keep my own secret. I would never do that to you, Esther. You've been my best friend for four years."

Esther suddenly slipped slightly further down, making James abruptly dip too. "You have to let me go," he said sadly. "Avenge Isaac. If it wasn't for me, Isaac would never have died."

"I'm not letting you go," Esther panted. "I can't lose someone else I care about."

"But I attacked Robin and Stephen!" James cried. "I can't live with myself!"

"Well I can't live with myself if I let you go. You're still my best friend and I care really deeply about you." Esther paused, straining hard. "And I know you didn't mean for Isaac to die. You did the wrong thing for the right reasons. I can't hold it against you."

"But I gave the secrets to Bannister. I can't just-."

"Wait, you gave the secrets to Bannister? Not OWCA?"

James shook his head. "He offered me ten thousand pounds, enough to send Lily to get the treatment she needed."

"So then Bannister gave them to OWCA? Why?"

"To frame Isaac, I guess. If anyone were to find out that I was the one who gave them away, there would be inquiries into where I got the money from. He'd be ruined." He paused and looked down sadly. "As I am now."

"We can work with this!" Esther shouted excitedly, making James look back up at her in surprise. "Don't you see? We can work with this! We can tell the investigating officers that the information was stolen from you! It was on a flash drive, yes?"

"Yes."

"Which you gave to Bannister?"

"Y-yes."

"We can tell them that it was stolen from you! Who's going to refute it?"

"Well, Bannister himself would be a-."

Zero suddenly lost his grip on the pole, making the human chain slide a little further down. He put both hands on Esther's ankle and dug his heels, trying to prevent his friends from falling. "Now would be a good time to do something!" he yelled.

"What's your decision?" Esther asked James. "Do you still want me to let you go or do you want to seize this glimmer of hope?"

James gazed into her eyes, and for a moment Esther was terrified he was going to let go.

"For me," Esther pleaded. "Please."

James met her eyes once again and gave a small nod.

"Help us up!" Esther shouted up to Zero.

Then strong hands took hold of Esther and James. They saw that it was Ferb, Gretchen, Ruth, and even Robin was there. They helped Esther and James back onto the roof. James was knelt on the edge of the roof, head bowed. Esther took his hand and gave a sympathetic smile. "We'll help you," she said. "You've poured six hard years into this organisation. We're not about to let you go now."

James, still crying, smiled and tightly hugged Esther, who smiled and hugged him back. The watching agents believed it was finally over, including Esther and James, until the latter caught sight of the roof door quietly opening, revealing a man with a gun.

"Esther!" yelled James, pushing her to the side.

As soon as Esther fell into Zero's arms, there was the sound of a gun going off. Immediately, James let out an agonising gasp of pain and blood exploded from his chest.

Everybody on the roof either yelled James's name or "NO!"

Ferb was the first to react. He leapt at Bannister but the evil scientist hit him in the stomach with surprising force. Gretchen caught her fiancé as he stumbled backwards. Stephen appeared and scooped up Rosie as Bannister whirled on her. Then Robin attacked but her movements were weak from her injury and Bannister grabbed her in a chokehold. Air running out, she scrambled to pull away but she couldn't and nobody was able to help.

Except Zero.

As his gunshot went off, the evil scientist let go of Robin in shock and pain as the same thing happened to him that had happened to James. Except, unlike Bannister's own aim, Zero's was true. The evil scientist was dead before he hit the floor.

Robin, huddled against the wall, stared at his body through wide, shocked eyes. Stephen knelt beside her with Rosie as she gasped for breath.

Gretchen propped Ferb up as the green-haired man recovered from the stunning blow to his stomach.

Then everyone on the roof heard Esther's cries. "James, stay with me!"

Zero threw himself down on James's other side, trying not to cry at the sight of James's pale face. "Is he okay?" Zero choked.

"I-I don't know," Esther stammered. "Someone call an ambulance, now!"

Gretchen was the fastest to get onto that task.

"James, can you hear me?" Zero asked desperately.

James's chest jerked as he began to go into cardiac arrest.

"We're losing him!" sobbed Esther. "James!"

Zero attempted CPR, getting James's blood on his hands in the process, but it was clear it wasn't doing anything. Nevertheless, he carried on doggedly, unwilling to let his best friend die.

"Come on, James!" snapped Zero, almost crying. "Come on!"

As Zero slowly stopped the chest compressions, both he and Esther began to cry. Esther covered her mouth with her hands as tears flowed down her face.

"Oh, James…" she whispered.

*cries*