Two weeks later, Brick padded through the Raider HQ, enjoying the early morning solitude. He and Mordecai were the only people in the HQ. Everyone else had left early for a predawn march and firearms training in the wasteland, which Brick had opted out of with a sleepy snuggle into his bunk and a raised middle finger. He'd only gotten up when Mordecai slouched upstairs, swearing and kicking things, complaining that Roland had asked him to come over and take a look at a buggy shield.

Tol' him to just buy a new one, but he's such a stubborn tacano...the scrawny, bad tempered sniper had grumbled, and Brick had lumbered downstairs to start coffee. He poured a cup now—for Mordecai, because he didn't drink the stuff himself—and left out the cream and sugar, the way he remembered his friend liking it. He carried the steaming, bitter brew upstairs. He heard Mordecai's muttered cursing before he saw him.

Buttery sunlight fell through the open balcony archway and illuminated the Raider war room: the cluttered central table, the safe that took up the entire back wall, and the bunks against the adjacent walls, including the rumpled nest that Brick had dragged himself out of. Mordecai hunched over the large table, and Brick's heart swelled at the sight of him. He was sloppy in his sweatpants and tanktop, bare footed, dreads gathered in a loose ponytail at the base of his neck. Bloodwing perched nearby. She regarded Brick with one suspicious eye when he entered the room.

Brick strolled up behind Mordecai, looking over the parts strewn across the table- the shell of the shield, screws, flat bits, twisty bits, tiny cylinders. It was all junk to him, but Mordecai pored over it raptly, so engaged in in his work that he didn't react when Brick bent over to set the mug on the table.

Instead of straightening up, Brick turned to nuzzle Mordecai's neck and breathe a doggish huff into his ear. Like a person might do to a pestering dog, Mordecai swatted him away, not lifting his eyes from his work.

"Thanks," he grunted. "You didn't have to."

"I figured it'd be nice, since you came in so early."

Mordecai shrugged. "Didn't sleep."

"How come?"

"Same shit as usual. Nightmares."

"You know, if you ever need a warm body in your bed, I can sleep over."

"Aren't you keeping Rocko warm these days?"

Brick grunted noncommittally and laid his hands on Mordecai's shoulders, fingers sliding under the straps of his shirt to massage the naked brown skin underneath.

"Would you knock it off?" Mordecai snapped.

Brick pulled his hands away. "Fine, damn. It's just, everyone left for that training thing."

"So?"

"I thought we could...you know."

"You thought wrong," Mordecai said. His eyes remained fixed on his work, but Brick noticed that he was just screwing and unscrewing the same piece.

"Come on, Mordy. Why're you bein like this? We did it when I got back."

"That...I was drunk."

"You're drunk now," Brick said. "You're always drunk."

"Get the hell out of here, Brick. You cant come sniffing around me every time your boyfriend is away."

"It ain't like that..." Brick said, frowning. The conversation had gone south so quickly, he couldn't catch up. "I wanna be with you."

"Well, I don't want to be with you. I just want to be left alone. You know how to do that, right? How to leave?"

"That's not fair. I didn't mean to go."

But Mordecai ignored him, still turning the screwdriver over and over, working on that same screw. Brick's eyes settled on the untouched coffee, at the last wisps of steam wafting from the mug as it cooled.

"Mordy," he said.

"What?"

"I love you."

Mordecai froze. The screwdriver finally stopped twisting through his fingers. An unspeakably long stretch of seconds passed in silence.

"Go away, Brick. I'm busy."

"Fine," Brick said. A strange feeling settled through him, something like the injection he'd gotten after Mordecai shot him all those years ago- a kind of slow spreading numbness.

"And take this," Mordecai added, gesturing toward the mug. "I don't drink coffee anymore." Brick could hear the unspoken addition the that statement. You would know, if you'd been here.

All at once, the numbness cleared, replaced by a white hot star of anger. Brick swept the mug off the table. It clunked on the ground and spilled a wash of cooling coffee across the floor. Mordecai whirled around to look at Brick, but he was already gone, stormed out the door and stomping down the stairs.

He stopped and waited briefly at the bottom of the steps for Mordecai to call down after him, but he didn't.

So Brick crossed the room and plunged out of the headquarters, pausing long enough to snag his energy shield off the counter and clip it onto his belt. Once outside, he didn't know where to go. He'd been staying in the HQ for the past couple weeks and had no apartment to go home to. His feet carried him across the town square, toward the front gates, and he decided to see if he knew the guard on duty. Maybe he could goad whoever it was into taking potshots at distant bullymongs. They might even drag a few of the creatures into a brawl, a good blood and guts skirmish. The thought nearly brought a smile to his face.

Before he made it across the square, though, a commotion came from the direction of Scooter's garage. People were shouting. One voice rose above the others, one that Brick recognized but couldn't place.

"Please, you've got to believe me! You got it wrong! I never-"

"Shut up," snapped Lilith's voice. "We know everything."

The group of Raiders rounded the corner. Brick saw Roland, Lilith and Rocko among them, and a few other young recruits, forcing a cuffed prisoner along with them. Roland held one of the man's arms and Lilith held the other. Suddenly, Brick knew where he'd heard that voice. It was Shep, a man who'd helped them take out the bandit lord Sledge a few years back.

He begged, turning first to Lilith and then to Roland, but neither commander would return his gaze. "Whoever told you that was lying! Trying to save their own skin. I swear! God, please don't kill me, I'm not..."

"What's goin on?" Brick asked.

"Oh, shit," Lilith muttered.

"It's nothing. Take over at the guard post, alright? Bool's out there, and he needs a break," Roland said, trying to push past.

Brick scoffed. "Don't look like nothin. Why you dragging Shep in like a prisoner?"

"They got the wrong guy!" Shep howled. "I didn't do nothing, I didn't-"

"Shuddup. I wasn't askin you," Brick said.

Lilith stopped to look at Roland with a question on her face. Whatever answer she found made her give a curt nod, then turn back to Brick. "He was hiding out in a shack in the valley. We stumbled on him during the march."

"So? What'd he do?"

She hesitated, but not for long. "Brick...Shep's the one who sold us out to Hyperion. He told them where to find New Haven."

Brick looked from her to the prisoner, feeling slow, real slow. The numbness crept back, too. It locked his limbs and making his fingers tingle: a queasy, electric crackle, like static across his skin.

"You...you?" he asked Shep, taking one achingly sluggish step toward the cowering prisoner. Roland tried to get between them, but Brick barely registered it. He pushed the Raider commander aside.

"No," Shep insisted. "I was framed!"

Brick ignored his pleas. He grabbed Shep by the hair and wrenched him forward. His animal coiled through him—not controlling his body, not yet—but watching, weighing.

"Lilith wouldn't lie," Brick snarled.

"Brick, stop," Lilith said, touching his arm. He could barely feel her fingers through the electricity that gripped him. "We're going to question him. We will hurt him, don't worry. But not here."

Brick released his grip on Shep's hair. The prisoner stumbled back, where he was caught by Roland.

A coy intuition came over Brick. A voice whispered to him, not his own or his animal's, but seemingly a third voice, so foreign that it might have come from the jagged jaws of a deep sea fish. This new voice was clever, and Brick let it speak.

"Sounds good, Lil. Sounds real good. What you think, Shep? Wanna be tortured? Electrodes on your boys, glass under your nails...What's that other thing called? The thing with the hammer? Hobbling? Where they take a board and put it between your ankles, and then-" Brick mimed swinging a hammer, but he swung hard, more like a golf club. Shep flinched. "Or you can 'fess up now. You won't walk away, but, let's be honest, you knew that wasn't an option. Tell me everything, and I'll kill you here. Nice an' easy," Brick said, palms spread.

Roland shook his head. "No, you won't..." he started, but Lilith caught his gaze. He closed his mouth.

Shep had been writhing, twisting, more frantic than ever, but as Brick's words sunk in, slow realization dawned across his face. The features that had been twisted by fear began to relax, like a sheet being smoothed.

"I did it," he said, almost dreamily. "I wanted the creds, so I answered all the man's questions. He betrayed me. Didn't get paid, not a single cred."

"You son of a bitch," Lilith hissed.

"I hate this planet. I never should have come. If I'd known Dahl was going to pull out...and about the long days..." Shep said, head drooped. Exhaustion eased the fear out of his voice.

Brick's fists worked at his side, bunching and unbunching. He considered the weight of his rings in the creases of his fingers, his old one-two. Roland hauled Shep up off his knees and began to drag him toward the Raider Headquarters. The prisoner's head snapped up. Terror flooded back into his wide eyes.

"Wait! You said you'd kill me!" he cried to Brick.

Brick shrugged. "I donno. I kinda wanna see the hobbling thing."

"But..but..." Shep's eyes darted over him before settling noticeably on his necklace. Brick reached up and clutched the paws and key, but Shep's gaze wasn't directed there. It was the other necklace he focused on, the one Rocko had strung for him: metal loops, and, in the center, the Hyperion security clip.

Hope lit Shep's face. "Look! He's a traitor, too! That's a Hyperion access key around his neck."

The mention of that key broke something in Brick. His trance, maybe, or his hold on his animal. He lunged forward. Shep flinched back against Roland, but not for long. The furious brute caught him by the collar and dragged him out of Roland's grasp. His animal sprang up; Brick could feel the feverish knot of it in his throat.

It plied him with its ancient promise—release from pain, from culpability, from his own monstrous need—and Brick surrendered to it gratefully.

"Brick! Amigo, please-" Wide, witch-fire green eyes, barely glimpsed through his animal's red coils. "Mi pata de perro!"

Something struck him in the back—a hard, painless impact that made Brick whoof and lose his breath—and spanged off his energy shield. He spun around. His animal slid away, back into the curved recesses of his mind. It left Brick exposed.

Roland stood a few yards away, his Patton revolver raised and trembling in his hands. Brick's fingers trembled, too. His thumbs felt slick and strange, and he held up his hands to look at them. His palms were spackled with gore, his thumbs glistened with a milky goop. The sight of them turned his stomach. A memory surfaced: hazy, but tactile. His thumbs pressed into soft, screaming flesh. Into eye sockets.

He whirled back to look at Mordecai, but his eyes were fine. Brick had seen them moments before, screamingly bright and beautiful, and relief surged through his body.

A nearby splash of red caught his attention. It was Shep, sprawled on the ground, clearly dead, mouth gaped open so Brick could see all the way to his back teeth. His eyes were gone, replaced by black pits. A halo of blood encircled his head.

Brick remembered the rest. He had crouched to bash the traitor's head into the ground, over and over and over, until Shep's scalp mashed into the pavement with an unpleasant yielding sensation instead of a satisfying crack, and someone had touched his shoulder, and called his name...trying to holler him home.

"Hey, amigo. You alright?"

"I..." Brick swallowed. He could feel the slickness of the ruined eyeballs under his thumbnails, like the glass he'd promised Shep, and his stomach pitched and rolled.

"Fuck," Roland said. The swear was surprising from his lips. "Ah, shit. Brick, why'd you have to do that?"

Brick turned around, looking over the other Raiders. A crowd of people had gathered at a safe distance around the square, and they flinched away from his gaze. Brick knew how he looked. That monster - that hateful, snarl lipped, sunken eyed gargoyle - sometimes startled him from mirrors.

His eyes settled on Roland. "You shot me," Brick said.

"I had to. You can't murder a man in cold blood, with no trial."

"What're you talkin about? We kill folks all the time!" But Brick knew it was different, this time. Those other people had been armed aggressors, not shackled prisoners, and the Raiders had killed them in self defense.

"This is why I told you to go to the guard tower. I was going to tell you later, give it time to sink in. If you followed my orders..."

Rocko strolled up beside Brick and looked over the corpse. Brick searched the younger man's eyes for the horror he expected, but as hard as he tried, he found nothing besides disinterest and something like amusement.

"Are you listening to me?" Roland asked. His sanctimonious tone made Brick's lip curl.

"Not really. Nothin' we can do about it now," he grunted.

"I can do one thing."

"Yeah? You gonna try to bring him back? I'll kill him again, maybe a little slower this time," Brick snorted.

"I can kick you out," Roland said.

The star of anger that had been born during the conversation with Mordecai (which seemed like hours ago, though it had only been minutes) pulsed and throbbed. His nails bit into his palm. "You exilin' me?"

"No. You can live in Sanctuary, just not as a Raider."

"Oh! Okay! Thanks, Dad. Glad I'm still fit to live with civilized people. You sure you don't wanna just kill me? That's what you tired to do to Frank. Rocko and Bool used to be bandits, you know. Why don't you kill them, too?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Roland said. "Just calm down, and-"

"Fuck this. I'm not gonna live here with your smug ass anymore. I'll go," Brick snarled. He'd never belonged in Sanctuary, anyway. He was a bandit, he and Rocko both.

"Brick." It was Mordecai, standing close, close enough to see Brick shivering. In a lower voice, he added, "Don't do this, mi pata de perro."

The endearment, rarely uttered and now said twice in as many minutes, sent a painful twang all through Brick's body, head to heart to groin, and for a desperate moment he nearly lost his resolve. But he could feel Roland's eyes boring into him, could feel the heat of his scorn.

"No. I gotta go," he said, brushing away Mordecai's fingers when he tried to touch his blood spattered wrist.

"Bastard," Mordecai hissed as he withdrew. "You're a selfish, stubborn bastard, you know that? A goddamned idiot."

Unlike baboso, which meant the same thing, the 'idiot' that escaped Mordecai's lips had no affection in it. It stung like a hurled stone. He looked back at his friend, eyes wide.

"I'm not going to apologize. You're acting like a dick," Mordecai said.

"You don't need to apologize. I get it."

"Oh, come on. You know I didn't mean-"

But Brick was already walking away, through the loose huddle Raiders and onlookers, looking steadfastly forward. Rocko caught his arm as he passed and followed him toward Scooter's garage.

"Where do you think you're gonna go, huh?" Roland called from behind him. "This is the last free city!"

"This ain't no free city. A bandit lives where he wants."

Those seemed like good parting words, so when Roland's voice called out again, perplexed, Bandit? Brick ignored him and kept walking.

After they rounded the corner, Rocko sighed. "Good riddance. I thought you'd never want to go, but I couldn't take it anymore."

"Yeah?"

"To be honest, I was going to leave soon, with or without you."

"You sure you wanna stick with me? You saw what I did to that guy."

"Of course. Babe, I used to live in a bandit clan. This kind of thing happened every day. But if it worked the way it did in my clan, and you disobeyed an order from the top, Roland wouldn't stopped with that first bullet. He'd have killed you."

"Huh," Brick mused. "Would you start sleeping with him, then?"

Rocko fell silent, stiffened in the crook of Brick's arm.

"Lighten up. I was jokin," Brick said, flashing a grin.

Rocko returned the grin, but weakly. "Yeah. No, I get it."

They reached the garage, climbed into their truck, and sped out through Sanctuary's gates with no explanation to Bool. They rode in the same Bandit Technical they'd driven in two weeks earlier, before everything had fallen apart. But that wasn't right. Things had begun to fall apart the moment Kindle slipped off that railing. It had just taken Brick awhile to realize it.