Hakon brings a warning.


Chapter 26

No Certainty but Loss


2030


There was a gaping, jagged hole in Kyle's chest.

Not a literal one, no. When he thumped his hand against his breast, the hand didn't get sucked away into the void as it widened and widened and widened inside of him.

The heavy void.

Grief-made.

Kyle carried it around dutifully. Faithfully. Day after day. Night after night. And all the space between.

It was a void he couldn't fill; a void he couldn't bury; a void he had no hope to compartmentalise away.

Not yet, anyway.

Possibly never.

He wasn't convinced he had the right even to try.

Kyle dragged his feet across the floor of their silent home. Way too silent. Ear-ringing silent, save for the laboured workings of his heart and the wall clock's constant tic and toc.

When he finally reached the ladder going up to the loft—but hadn't yet moved to climb—the void turned his legs to stone.

He stopped.

Time passed.

Each tic and toc pulled his thoughts into obscurity and managed to make him forget whatever he'd had in his head. Kyle hoped none of it mattered.

He couldn't afford to lose anything else important. Ever again.

Time passed.

What'd he been doing?

If Chief hadn't come to nose at his hand, Kyle would have likely kept standing still. The dog shoved at him, licked his palm, and whined softly, the noise and gesture telling Kyle that I get it.

Far as dogs could get it.

Kyle let his fingers fall open and idly scratched at Chief's fur.

"Thanks, bud," he mumbled and finally grabbed for the ladder.

He didn't make much progress. The moment he'd set his foot down on the first rung, he stalled. Again. Staring blankly ahead, not looking up, not looking down, not looking at anything at all with his eyes unfocused, he worried he might not make it up there with all the weight in him.

How could he?

It kept swelling.

Deepening.

It filled him up. Grew in his chest, in his stomach, in his head. His soul. And yet, at the same time as it ballooned outwards without an end in sight, it also scooped him out. Left him hollow. Like a rotting drum.

Kyle climbed.

Fi was up top already. She sat cross-legged in a nest of often-mended covers and pillows, her head bowed and her eyes fixed on her folded hands in her lap.

A small, wine-red tank top hung off her bony shoulders.

Her hair was the longest it'd been in a while. She'd be able to make a ponytail soon. A stubby one. He liked that look on her.

Kyle hoisted himself into the loft, but Fi did not look up. She kept staring at her hands; her thin, scarred hands, and the photograph she cupped in them.

He knew which one. Didn't need to look. Didn't want to.

It'd only been a month since they'd taken it.

How?

Lugging the grief-made void over to her, Kyle slid behind her, his motions slow and deliberate. He tucked her flush against his chest.

Heart to heart.

Void to void.

His chin landed on the top of her head.

Their grief locked together, perfectly matched.

Time passed.

Words fell through him.

He couldn't make any of them mean anything past a constant, nonsensical droning in his head and so he didn't dare speak them.

"I can't stay," Fi said eventually, her voice an idea between shallow, slow breaths. In she breathed. Out.

Kyle closed his eyes, focused on how her back and shoulders rose against his chest and how her voice danced off his bones.

"I can't," she repeated, followed by the tell-tale sssk-sssk of her fingers scratching hard against her wrist.

Kyle caught her questing fingers. He entwined them in his until the only option she had left was to hold on. And hold on she did. Tight.

Kyle held on just as much.

Time passed.

He'd had thought after thought and he remembered none. But he did remember her words.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked.

She shrugged.

He shrugged, too. "Okay."


2036


Kyle didn't like the thought of cold veggie stew, especially not on a day as crisp as this one. This here man needed something warm to stuff into his pie hole and he'd be damned if all the post-apocalyptic diplomacy he threw around was going to prevent that.

With that (veggie stew) front and centre on his mind, Kyle gathered up his gear soon as he reasonably could and headed for the Bazaar's gates, ready for a hike.

And all the while he couldn't help it: he felt good.

His motivation was through the roof, his spirits lifted, and every step only made it better.

Kyle cast a look around as he wove through the steadily growing activity out in the Bazaar's hold. These peeps had water again. Water meant life. Life was good, etc. And he'd had a hand in this. Hell, he might have even helped avert a thorough steamrolling of the place. Which would rock. Right? The no steamrolling bit.

Yeah. He felt good about it. So fucking good, his filter got all jammed up and didn't immediately throw a fit when it snagged on a familiar face being let in through the gate he headed for.

Hakon.

Cue the record scratch.

Hakon.

Looking very much alive. And very much not tortured.

Roger had only just pulled the gate aside and given Hakon room, when Kyle's steps switched from a leisurely Imma get my hiking stick stroll to a purposeful Imma take that hiking stick and beat the shit outta someone strut.

They were worlds apart in performance. And the strut? He'd perfected it back in his twenties already — and only gotten better at it since. If you asked Kyle, anyway.

Or Hakon, for that matter, who got one look at Kyle marching at him—shoulders tucked forward, head low, fists clenched (Ow.)—and froze on the spot. The guy's eyes widened. His hands came up. Unarmed hands, Kyle's filters lazily pointed out. But Kyle had about the tiniest of fucks to give about this particular detail right then.

Besides, the reaction confirmed what Kyle had suspected all along: how Hakon was a miserable, wet rat.

"Crane," Hakon said. His hands flew up higher. "Listen, your friends—"

Kyle didn't slow. He rolled past Roger—who got out of the way with a quiet "Woah?"—and followed Hakon as said wet rat shuffled quickly backwards, out into the streets.

The Biter-infested streets.

"You have some fucking nerve coming here," Kyle said, his voice flat. "You sold us out."

"I know! I know. Look—" Hakon dodged him, his arms never lowering. "—I won't lie. I admit I told the Church about you—" Another dodge. Then a weave. Kyle kept marching and Hakon kept evading him, all the while probably thinking he was the one leading this dance. He wasn't. Kyle was. "—but if you knew anything about them you might understand how I didn't have a choice."

Hakon's back collided with the Bazaar's outer wall. He grimaced, threw a look left, then right, but didn't try and slither away. Over by the gate, Roger and two of his guard buddies had come to gawk.

Kyle ignored them. Just like he ignored the Biters at his back.

"Keep talking," he said. It wasn't as much an invitation as it was a threat.

"Are you a gambling man, Crane?" Hakon—decidedly not ignoring the Biters—glanced past Kyle's shoulders. "I confess I used to be, but I lost my appetite for it. See, there are no participation trophies in Villedor. Hell, there is barely enough room for second place, let alone third. You either bet on whoever will come out on top, or you lose your life. And I, like any other reasonable man, like my life. So I need you to understand how, if I hadn't told the Church about you, I might as well have been betting on a lame horse. I'd be dead. I do not enjoy being dead."

"The point. Get to it."

"The point is that you do not defy Her Lady Séraphine. You do as you're told." Hakon's right hand hitched lower so he could point a finger over Kyle's shoulder with a wince. Feet dragged across the dirt, drawing nearer.

Kyle scowled.

"And humble me," Hakon continued, his eyes snapping back to Kyle, "who is no more than a cog in a wheel, was recently told to fetch her Ladyship a key. A key. You understand?"

Kyle's good hand clenched tighter.

"Yes, yes you do. Good. Then you also know that I failed. And that isn't a mistake I saw myself making twice."

"You confessing to a murder, hm?" Kyle said, his tone remaining flat and low enough so it wouldn't carry far. He didn't want Roger and his guard buddies to hear, though not like they were in any position to pay much attention. Roger—good man, huh?—had decided to rally them and made himself useful by drawing the Biters away. Which was easy enough. Wave some juicy arms around and they came a-stumbling.

Hakon kept talking. "But after seeing what you did to those Hounds? To a whole group of them? Just the— three— two and a half—" Hakon grunted in frustration. "What I am trying to say is: your arm is fucked and still I watched you total two Hounds in seconds. You're not supposed to be able to do that. No one is."

"You watched."

"Yes! Yes, I was there. No, I am not proud of it, but it has been eye-opening. You stood up to them and you managed to live, which is just about enough reason a former gambling man like me needs to relapse. Especially if it might mean betting on someone who is less likely to disembowel me or feed me to their pets."

Kyle's hand landed on his machete. His right brow quirked up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Hakon echoed with a nod. "And that is why I am here to throw my hat in the ring with you and to tell you that Waltz is in Old Villedor."

Kyle, who'd often been mistaken for a man unable to rein in whatever crossed his mind, kept his expression anchored at Reef Pissed. The surprise he'd felt stayed well off it.

"He bought two Hounds and three of the Lady's Hands," Hakon said. "Which is a bit like rolling a tank into a playground fight."

"Oh. So I'm about to forgive you for telling me what I already know? That your buddies are out there trying to take my key?"

"I'm not here to be forgiven," Hakon said and finally threw his hands forward in frustration, rather than submission. "I'm here to warn you that Waltz doesn't give two shits about the key right now. No, he's here for your wife."

Kyle's stomach dropped.

"And he knows where she is. You need to warn her. Right now."


Aiden didn't recognise him at first.

How could he, really? Between the fifteen years that'd passed since, and Aiden's memory being difficult to wrangle, all he truly had to go by was a faded, smudged face hovering in a haze.

He only remembered what he'd done to him. The man himself, his face, his voice, the way he'd moved, Aiden had forgotten.

This meant when Zofia tensed and her eyes snapped to the three figures filing across the thin, swaying bridge, the man ahead of them was no more than a stranger.

Honestly, Aiden didn't even look at him twice. Yes, he walked ahead of his company, which likely meant he was in charge. And, yes, he wandered the rooftops in a long and narrow black coat, complete with wine-red lapels and a pair of straight, black suit pants. Something not a lot of people did, Aiden presumed. But at the end of the day, he was unarmed.

His friends weren't.

Altogether, there were six newcomers. Six threats. There was the man in his long and narrow coat, the two women behind him, and three more men approaching from the roof's other end. Aiden didn't know when the last three had climbed up, but their intent was clear: they were surrounding them.

Two of the men were obviously Hounds; the same sort who'd threatened, attacked, and nearly killed Aiden twice now. Their steps were erratic, their postures hunched — and, honestly, for a second Aiden could have been convinced they weren't men at all, but just a pair of trained Biters at the very ledge of remembering (or forgetting) what it meant to be a person.

The company they kept was the exact opposite. In every possible way.

Yes, they wore masks. Everyone did (aside from the man in his narrow coat who got closer and close and whose face began to fill Aiden's mind with a puzzling fog). But where the Hounds had masks covering their entire face, the remaining three wore a set which only reached down to the tips of their noses.

They were elegant. Almost delicate.

Then there was their armour. It was put together from form-fitted leather and chain, neither of which was anything worth raising an eyebrow over. But the white? The almost spotless white? It flowed from them and clung to them, every piece as unreal as the next. Like the short, white capes backing their shoulders, the strips of cloth swaying at their hips, and the white twine twisting around their arms.

Or the antlers. The very white antlers.

They curved backwards from their masks, came adorned with beads and coins and feathers, and stood in stark contrast to thick, dark mud plastering their hair to their skulls. Besides all of this, Aiden's mind caught on their faces—the lower half of them—and came away with a wobbly question mark.

Something was wrong. Something he couldn't make sense of, especially as he had no time to look too closely. Zofia had shoved her journal back into her pack and had gotten to her feet.

"We're leaving," she said in a whisper.

Aiden didn't argue.

Not at first.

Two against six weren't the sort of odds Aiden liked to try. Not if given a choice.

Then the man—the inconsequential stranger—stepped off the bridge. He'd come close enough for his face to come into focus and even as Aiden rose to his feet, he couldn't help but stare.

The man had features lined with age.

Painfully familiar features, with greying, dark hair and a greying, dark beard; and marred by gnarly black veins, which raced up his neck to frame his face like the grasping branches of a dead tree.

The—still inconsequential—man threw his arms outward. In greeting, maybe. Or mockery.

"There is no need to rush," he said; and promptly lined Aiden's insides with white-hot fire. "I've only come to talk."

Aiden had thought he'd forgotten his voice.

He'd been wrong.

"That's—," Aiden blurted with a startled croak. "That's Waltz!"

"Don't care." Zofia grabbed him by the elbow. "We're—"

The woman stepping off the bridge behind Waltz (Waltz! Waltz!) lifted an arm and put a thin cylinder to her lips. There was a faint thud, which startled Zofia enough for her words to cut off, but before Aiden knew what'd happened, Zofia had turned him around.

"Go!" she snapped. She tore something from her neck, threw it to the ground, and rushed him to the edge of the roof. More specifically the edge leading onto the lower building squatting next to it.

Aiden didn't find the time to protest. She shoved him and he jumped, with a floor and a half worth of air whooshing past his ears before he hit the dirt-caked roof in a rushed roll. He barely had his feet under him when Zofia's fingers tightened around his elbow and directed him sharply right.

They'd only just made it to the next edge when he heard the thumps of feet hitting the roof behind him — a quick look shot over his shoulder, and there they were. All three of Waltz's antlered friends had come down at once.

They landed in a low crouch. Their heads turned his way—in creepy unison, no less—and then he nearly tripped down the damn ledge.

Eyes. Forward. Always.

Zofia leapt down onto the street, where she bounced off a flattened car and took off sprinting for a doorway. Aiden, his mind shrieking about how he was running away from Waltz, that he'd found Waltz, that Waltz was, in fact, real, that Waltz being real and Waltz being alive meant Mia might as well be standing right by his side, bolted after her.

Even if he'd have liked to stop. To turn. To face whatever might come.

Did he?

Dread bit at his heels. His arms itched and burnt and ached.

No. No, he didn't.

Inside the house, Zofia ran past four sleeping Biters—tapping each on her way by—and headed right for a tight flight of stairs. By the time their pursuers came in after them, the Biters had gotten up.

Great thinking. Theoretically.

But the Biters (all four of them) might as well have been made from cardboard with how easily they were thrown to the side.

More Biters waited upstairs. Zofia wove around them. Aiden stagger-danced after her, until she dove sharply right, out a blown-out window that'd long lost its last shard of glass. Hard-pressed to make up his own mind, Aiden mimicked her, which meant leaping off a short ledge, flailing like an idiot mid-air for about two seconds, and crashing right into a balcony railing, winding himself.

Okay.

Mimic not as much; she'd touched down running and had already vanished into the next building.

At least he'd managed not to drop though. Right? That'd been something. He pulled himself up and over, but rather than land gracefully, Aiden thumped onto his shoulder and rolled awkwardly onto his back. Which was about the shittiest position to be in when one of the creepy antler people chasing you landed on the railing you'd just dangled off of.

Aiden, his head on arguably straight, had only a few heartbeats to try and make sense of what he saw. Though in the very moment, those heartbeats felt way too damn long.

She crouched on the railing, her legs splayed out and her hands on her knees. That bit was easy: she was showing off. She couldn't readily attack him like this, but it occurred to Aiden that she may not have had any intention to. The way she leaned forward, close as she could without toppling forward, she might just have been looking; looking out from under an ornate, pale mask streaked with red lines.

Her eyes were pale amber, washed out to a near-white.

And, yes, she still had antlers, which chimed softly as the beads fixed to them swung left and right — but antlers, beads, mudcaked hair, and creepy behaviour he could reason away.

The eyes? Not so much. And the shit she had going on below her mask? No. No chance.

Aiden's brain tripped.

Bulging blood vessels webbed out underneath bark-brown skin. He'd missed them from a distance since hers weren't the oily black as the ones the Hounds (and Waltz) carried. Hers were almost golden.

No one was supposed to have golden blood.

Or a split chin, for that matter. Split anything.

Her lips—painted in a bloody red—curved into a wicked grin. They were split in half at the bottom; as if someone had taken a knife to them. And then they'd swapped to an axe and split her chin, too, only to later sew it back together with a thick, dark cord (or wire), leaving behind a knotted scar. The cord remained looped through her skin, grotesquely winding from side to side, dark and stiff.

Her eyes snapped up.

The wicked grin vanished.

As anyone's grin would if they had a hatchet swung at their throat.

Zofia lunged forward in near-perfect silence, the swish of the blade cutting air the only sound she made. She missed. The woman recoiled with a jerk so quick, Aiden had trouble processing it — and then she leapt backwards, laughing, and landed on the roof opposite of them.

Again, Aiden failed to process what he'd seen.

People didn't leap like that.

"Get up," he heard Zofia snap. He did and they piled through the balcony door, slamming it shut just as the remaining two hopped onto the railing.

Zofia didn't wait around. She pivoted, staggered once, with her shoulder crushing against flaking plaster, and then she kept running.


They didn't get far.


Most doors in the building were boarded up, leaving a straight line through to the other side. A precaution, Aiden's whirring mind supplied, some way to clear a path in case you had to get through and keep the count of Biters low. But for them, that meant they only had one way out and that one way overlooked a roof that'd seen better days and could hardly see worse. Too much dirt had gathered on it, and as the years had passed, seeds had grown into seedlings and seedlings into saplings and then entire bowed willow trees. Their roots had cracked the roof. Wind, rain, and the weight of the trees had taken care of the rest.

Now, the roof had a hole in it; a scenic hole, surrounded by a crop of leaning willows. Shrubs and tall grasses covered the ground and when Zofia and Aiden landed on the roof, birds scattered all around them, shrieking.

Zofia—who until had always run on ahead of him—slowed. Though not carefully and with intent to find her bearings, but with a stagger, like she'd gotten drunk all of a sudden. He almost ran past her before he caught on.

The thing she ripped out of her neck, Aiden thought. She'd been poisoned?

Sacrificing his momentum, Aiden ducked low and stuck his head under her arm, even if he knew damn well there was no way he could outrun whoever these people were with her hanging off him like that.

Didn't matter how light she was (when she wasn't actively working on pinning him to the floor).

But he'd try.

He owed it to her.

Zofia disagreed. "No," she snapped and shoved at him. It almost tripped them both. "He's not here for you, he'll leave you alone. Just— go. Go find Crane."

"What?" It made no sense. "No. I can't leave you."

Her knees gave out.

Aiden grunted and hoisted her up, when three antlered shapes moved in around him, stalking through the shrubs and grass.

This wasn't good. No. This was going to shit. How'd cooking on a fucking rooftop turned into this so damn quick?

How'd—

"That's right, you know," said Waltz. "Run along, boy. This doesn't concern you."

His voice could have just as well been a sledgehammer coming down on Aiden's chest. Weighty and final. But even with Aiden's lungs crushed and a pitched whistle forming in his ears, Aiden turned to face him. It wasn't like he had much of a choice.

That'd been taken from him.

Long ago.

Waltz stood perfectly straight in his long, narrow coat. Everything on him was well put together, from the tips of fine shoes to how he had a handkerchief folded in a pocket on his breast. He didn't belong here. Didn't fit here.

And he showed no indication of being winded from chasing them, or from being hurried at all. No. He might as well have just gone for a leisurely stroll and bumped into them on the ruined roof by accident.

His three antlered friends stalked closer. They carried sickles at their hips. But Waltz was unarmed.

The Hounds were nowhere to be seen.

Four against one?

No.

Four against two.

The antlered man closed in first. He made to grab Zofia as she swayed on her feet, but when his fingers were about to snatch her shoulder, the sway made way for a quick snap forward. She slipped under his grab, pushed the arm away, and swung her hatchet at his gut.

Aiden had no way of telling what happened next; he had his own problem. One of the women rushed him, her sickle still attached to her hip. He had no way of telling if she'd been the one from the balcony or not, but he didn't much care anyway. Neither did he care much how she came at him unarmed. He drew his weapon, slid back, got ready to swing — did the actual swinging — and missed.

By about four blocks.

She punched him.

Up until now, Aiden hadn't known what a sledgehammer to his chest would actually feel like. Comparing Waltz's voice dropping on him like one had been based on no more than his fictional understanding of hammer, meet ribcage.

The woman's fist educated him.

Pain webbed out from the point of impact. His vision exploded in a burst of white light. Then, for a second, all he knew was black and a distinct, falling sensation when he momentarily forgot he had legs.

Aiden hit the dirt.

His eyelids fluttered uselessly, revealing nothing but blurred shapes. One was Zofia stumbling over her own feet as she backed away from the antlered man — and from Waltz.

"I had rather hoped we wouldn't need to meet like this," Waltz said. He raised a hand, the gesture placating, friendly, and his antlered man stood down. "But I'm sure you understand I have to take precautions, especially after what you and Crane did to my men. Which was grizzly business, don't you agree?"

Step by step Waltz closed in on her, every inch forward unhurried.

She swayed.

He reached her.

Her legs gave out.

Before she could fall, Waltz grabbed her arm; a grab Aiden felt settle around his own biceps as much as hers.

Waltz's hand had always been cold. Cold and hard and unyielding. Or so Aiden remembered it, at any rate.

Much as he remembered being dragged away from Mia.

Dragged towards a door looming at the end of a too-long hall.

Remembered fear. Remembered pain. And remembered defiance.

A fire burnt what was left of Aiden's insides to cinders — right as a foot came for his head. He rolled away. It crushed the dirt, not him, and Aiden was on his feet. How he'd gotten up was a bit beyond him.

He shot forward. At Waltz. No one got in the way. No one even tried. He had a straight, unhindered shot forward.

Aiden took it.

Waltz turned to him. At some point, he'd let go of Zofia. And then, at some point after that, he had Aiden by his throat. The moments in-between were torn from Aiden's mind, left to blurred snatches he couldn't bring into focus.

He only knew how he'd been charging at Waltz one second, only to end up with Walt'z cold, hard fingers tightening around his throat. Aiden's feet kicked uselessly. They dangled above the ground. Aiden, his mind scattered, might have been screaming. He couldn't tell. All he knew was he scratched at Walt'z arms; saw the world move around them, step by step; saw Zofia lying in the grass, one of the antlered women kneeling by her side.

Saw Waltz—for a heartbeat—glance at Aiden's arms, his brows rising in a brief show of emotion before cold air nipped at Aiden's back.

"You should have listened to her, boy," Waltz said. He let go.

There wasn't a roof under Aiden's feet anymore, and the last he saw before he cracked into the ground below were willow trees leaning after him, backed by a bright blue sky.

A dizzying forever later—at the cusps of darkness taking him—he heard Zofia's radio come on. Heard Crane's voice. Heard birds sing. His heart thunder.

Then, nothing.


She'd given him amazing directions.

She always did.

And she always fucking would.

Because Fi not answering her radio didn't mean shit. She might not have heard. She might have been in a fucking basement somewhere, looting arts and crafts crap. Might have this and might have that, and, Oh my God, Kyle could barely breathe.

She's okay, he thought. She's okay. She's okay.

He looped the shitty excuse for denial in his head all the way until he reached the tent. A pot bubbled on a small fire. Three apples sat in the dirt, her knife next to them.

No Fi.

No Aiden.

Kyle's teeth creaked. So did the bridge behind him as Hakon caught up, each step coming with a light groan of wood.

She's okay, he repeated and turned on the spot. No packs. No weapons (except her knife). No blood. She's okay. Jesus. Please. No, don't do this to me.

"Fi!" Kyle bellowed.

Shrieks were all he got for an answer. Speedsters, Virals, whatever the fuck you want to call them, roused for brunch. But Kyle did not give a fuck.

"Fi!"

"Crane," Hakon said, "maybe you should keep it down—"

Kyle rounded on him. "You shut, the fuck, up!"

A singular Speedster clambered onto the roof. It was old, thin, all its clothes long gone and its skin a ragged mess bulging with weeping tumors. But its teeth were still sharp. It must have been sleeping right down below; which meant whatever had happened here had been quiet and quick.

Kyle swung his machete before he'd properly registered drawing it.

The Speedster's head went flying. The rest of it kept charging, unaware of how it had lost its head. Kyle stepped aside. It thumped to the ground.

"C'mon, baby, where are you—" He turned again, a messy, jerky 360, with his eyes on the ground and his filter snatching up everything and anything it could. Like that tiny dart. An honest to God blow dart.

It had blood on its tip.

Kyle ignored the pop in his chest; the sensation of an old void threatening to tear open. Instead, he closed his eyes, took a deep and steadying (and dizzying) breath, and lifted the radio to his lips again.

"Fi?" he said. "Fi, baby, come in."

Even as he begged, Kyle listened. Really listened. Properly. Focused.

He wasn't as good at this as her. As Fi. Who he'd find. Any second now. Fi and her elf eyes and elf ears, picking up the drop of a needle while a rave popped off around her and seeing shit he needed binoculars for.

Nah, he wasn't anywhere near as good at this as her, but with a little applied effort, Kyle managed anyway. He picked up his own voice over the backdrop of Villedor dying around him, of Hakon trying to control his breathing, and of more Speedsters coming their way.

It wasn't far.

Kyle headed for her name echoing back at him.


The void cracked open. Wide. Heavy.


He found her pack.

It'd been scattered on the ground. Underneath a weeping willow.

Kyle couldn't bear looking at it. Kept seeing someone dig through it. Violating her space. No one had the fucking right to touch her things.

Touch her.

The mossy dirt and grass under them showed signs of a fight. Footprints overlapped. Imprints of bodies dented the ground. Two.

Kyle's head spun.

"Fi!" he called again and this time his voice scratched up his throat like it'd come wreathed in barbed fire. Tears stung his eyes.

"God, please… no. No. No. No. No. This is not fucking happening."

A gaping, jagged hole opened in Kyle's chest.

Not a literal one, no. When he'd thump his hand against his breast, the hand wouldn't get sucked away into the void as it widened and widened and widened inside of him.

The heavy void.

Grief-made.

This one, Kyle would not carry around dutifully. Nor faithfully. He'd draw fire from its depths. Day after day. Night after night. And all the space between. He'd grind the world to dust if that was what it took.

He'd burn it down.

He'd lose himself.

But he wouldn't. Ever. Lose. Her.


The End

Roll Credits.


For now, anyway. With this, Season One of Monsters, We. is completed*.

And endings are hard and generally writing is hard and, hey, if you've followed Crane, Fi, and Aiden in this particular adventure up to this point, I would love nothing more than to know what you think :3 Though, regardless, I just hope you enjoyed your time with them.

And now I go and finish Aphelion's first book, take a little break from my two marathons, write some small Crane-centric stuff, and then come back from Season Two.

See you then.

SPECIAL THANKS

I want to thank a few folks in particular!

Toast, for always having my back with this fic and being such a wonderful rubber duck who endured my ranting whenever I needed it. Your support means the world to me.
pandanivanson, for being so enthusiastic and cheering me on! And still being Tumblr buddies, gee, it's been years :3
johnny, because THANK YOU for your support
and AZE for getting all over my Crane fics in general and being a wonderful person.

Plus, all my readers, really, you rock.

*Translation: we reached the end of the prologue :insert wheezing Taff here:.