Silence. From Cooper Myrtle's house back to Amity, and then for a while after, there was little more than silence. What was there to say after something like that? Other than the destination to their cab driver, nothing. They couldn't even call emergency services to report what they'd seen, as terrible as it felt to leave and pretend they were never there. In the day and age where payphones were all but nonexistent, it was impossible to place an anonymous tip that couldn't be traced back to them. But if Weiss and Ruby had managed to come across Myrtle's dead body while his murderer was still on the premises, then someone else would surely find him soon enough.

"I'm sorry," Ruby finally said. She sat on her bed with a blanket draped over her shoulders, holding a cup of hot chocolate close to her body. It wasn't particularly cold in the room, but the chilling atmosphere of Myrtle's house had followed them back here.

Weiss, resting on the floor with her back to the wall, her coffee sitting untouched beside her, said nothing.

"It's my fault," Ruby said. "I urged us to go in there. It was Junior's bar all over again."

"That's not true," Weiss said, a firmness in her voice that surprised even herself. "You had a hunch, and your hunch was right. It was . . . it was the right thing to do. There was no way we could have known. We were just unlucky."

Ruby didn't look too reassured. "I couldn't protect you. I promised you I would, but . . ."

Weiss contemplated several different things to say, but the only word that came out of her mouth was, "Why?"

"I don't know. I was just . . . so scared. I couldn't move, I couldn't even think. As soon as I went into that room, all I knew was fear—worse than anything I've ever felt before. It was like when Torchwick ordered his men to shoot you, but a billion times worse."

"His semblance," Weiss said. "The CAB says he can manipulate emotions. He must have instilled such an intense fear in you that you were completely petrified. That's what he does to all his victims."

"But it didn't work on you?"

Weiss shook her head. "It didn't work on Salem, either."

"Salem?"

Weiss recounted her version of the experience, all the way up to the end of Tyrian's first memory. "So he tried to do the same thing to her that he did to you, but it didn't work . . . and that's why he revered her so much. I suppose he was so shocked that it didn't work on me because she was the only other person that's happened with."

"So . . . he doesn't make fear, he amplifies it? He latches onto whatever fear is already there. Because Salem wasn't afraid, his semblance didn't affect her."

"What about me? I was absolutely terrified."

"Hm . . ." Ruby thought for a while on that. "Maybe it's your semblance?"

"What?"

"You can fiddle around with people's minds, so maybe it also keeps other people from being able to do the same to you? Like a mental shield or something."

"That's . . ." Weiss thought about it for a bit, and then she abruptly stood. "Ruby, you're right!"

Ruby looked alarmed by the sudden shift in Weiss's attitude. Weiss was smiling—something she'd been certain up until a moment ago she'd never be capable of again after what they'd been through. "My semblance makes me immune to other mind-influencing semblances. My mother's semblance makes her immune to my semblance!"

Ruby caught on almost immediately. "The inhibitors!"

"Yes! That's something we never considered before because it was impossible for me to use my semblance on her while she's in an inhibiting chamber, as I'd have to be inside it, too." With the small-scale inhibitors that Pyrrha's mysterious benefactor had invented, Weiss could temporarily disable her mother's semblance, which would disable her immunity to Weiss's semblance.

Ruby reached into her pocket and took out one of the small metal discs. Of course she had it on her person.

"I've only got the one, though," she said as she gave it to Weiss. "The other few I brought were in my carry-on bag when the plane went down."

"And why wasn't this one?"

"It was, but I fumbled it, remember? It fell out when I was grabbing my designs to show Dr. Polendina."

Weiss gingerly held the tiny object, staring at it as if it was made of the purest platinum. All this time spent healing strangers, studying her semblance, and recording abstract findings, and none of it mattered now that the solution was suddenly in the palm of her hand.

"What do you want to do?" Ruby asked. "Do you want to go right now?"

Weiss shook her head and pocketed the inhibitor, careful not to prick herself with the spikes. "Tomorrow. They wouldn't let me see her this late. And . . . there's something else I still need to tell you."

Weiss described the second memory to her, including its strange abnormalities. "It didn't seem like a completely fabricated memory. I think it was—I don't know—like a manifestation of his own self-delusions. He literally worshipped Salem, so it's impossible for him to comprehend a world where she's dead."

"So it was a real memory," said Ruby, "but altered? Cinder really worked for Salem, and she betrayed her . . . maybe. This is huge! This is— This is . . . What can we do with this?"

"I'm doubtful that this information brings us any closer to actually finding her, but it's another piece of the puzzle. She must owe her current position of power to the connections she gained under Salem. But that doesn't give us any new leads, as any of Salem's associates we know of are already in prison . . . Tyrian excluded."

"What about the big dude?"

"I saw his face, but that's it. Wherever he is, it's probable that he's as dangerous as Cinder is if Salem trusted him enough to seat him next to herself."

"If that memory was right before the assault, then they were in Vacuo. He might have stuck around, but that's probably a long shot. If were to ask around—"

"—we'd have another Junior's."

Ruby sighed. "Right . . . But Vacuo's crawling with vigilantes! If we could get in touch with some of them, we wouldn't have to go talking to any criminals."

"Vigilantes are criminals," Weiss reminded her.

"Yeah, but the good kind. And even the cops love them over there, so what they do is basically legal."

"Unenforced crimes are still crimes."

"But they're cool crimes."

Weiss rolled her eyes, but couldn't hold back a smile. She was content that Ruby could, even for a moment, forget about what Tyrian had done to her head and return to her usual, bubbly self.

By the next morning, Cooper Myrtle's murder had reached the news . . . as had a few others. Another stabbing victim was an editor of a magazine that had made a name for itself by frequently criticizing large corporations and capitalism in general—the STC had been one of their favorites to abuse. On top of that, there was the STC's former head of quality assurance who had since been hired at another large tech company, a journalist who'd often painted the STC in a positive light, a corporate litigator who'd opposed the STC in a number of legal cases, and an accomplished software engineer that didn't seem to have any connections to the STC. All had suffered the same deaths, and it was likely that there were more still that had yet to be discovered. Proximity in time to Tyrian's escape from Atlas Supermax was driving speculation that this was his handiwork, but the only hard evidence supporting that was Weiss and Ruby's run-in with him, which only they knew about.

Of the newest victims, only the software engineer had met with Whitley at the manor. That made three. It was still too many to be a coincidence, but this meant there was a different common factor linking the people that Tyrian—or whoever he was working for—was targeting. There were several that had some sort of past involvement with the STC, be that either in opposition or support of them. It was impossible to say what each of the victims had done to earn Partridge's ire with the information they had.

"Doesn't it seem kind of sloppy to you?" Ruby asked.

Weiss swallowed her bite of breakfast before saying, "What does?"

"All of it. I mean, there are professional hitmen out there who are really good at making people disappear without a trace."

"That would seem more practical, and I doubt he wouldn't have the funds for it," Weiss said.

"Right. If Partridge just wanted these people dead, I feel like sending a serial killer after them is the worst way to go about it. It draws attention to what he's doing."

"You're not wrong. It's clear that simple retribution isn't his only goal. If he just wanted my father dead, why did he order that other inmate to wait for a signal instead of just having him strike at the first opportunity? It's all part of a more elaborate scheme. There has to be a strategy we're not seeing. Perhaps these murders are meant to divert attention away from something else."

"Like what?"

Weiss sipped her coffee. "I don't know."

The two girls continued to eat their food while bouncing theories back and forth. None of them seemed plausible. The one they were both thinking but neither voiced was that Whitley was behind all of this—that he was either working with Partridge or he was Partridge. He's a skilled hacker, which matched Partridge's methods. People he'd recently met with were turning up dead. The Ace Ops had investigated the family manor where he was supposedly staying. And their father's attacker had described someone who sounded full of himself with a "rich person accent". That could easily apply to Whitley, but it could also apply to eighty percent of the businessmen in this city.

Despite all the evidence piling up against him, Weiss just couldn't convince herself that it was true. She and Winter had often been at odds with Whitley during their childhoods, but the animosity between them could never have grown to an extent such as this. She wanted to believe he'd meant what he'd said about mending their family. There was something else at play here—there had to be.

By the time Ruby finished eating, Weiss's tray was still half full. Weiss hadn't even touched her food in the past several minutes, her hand closed around the inhibitor in her pocket instead of her fork.

"You okay?" Ruby asked.

Weiss gave a half-hearted nod. In truth, her appetite had been killed by anxiety. She was confident this little device was the answer she'd been searching for—she was physically incapable of believing anything else at this point—but there were so many variables she couldn't predict. What if it was too late? What if curing her mother wasn't enough to bring her back to who she was before? Would she wind up like Penny, having no memory of her past life and having to redevelop from a state of mental infancy? If not, would she hate Weiss for how long it'd taken her to reach this point?

"You don't have to do it today, you know," said Ruby. "It might even be better to wait until Partridge is arrested . . . you know, so she's got one less thing to worry about when she's better."

"If I allow myself to postpone this now," Weiss said, "then I'll never stop making excuses to do so."

Those words appeared to have an unexpected impact on Ruby, but Weiss was too distracted to fully notice it.

"Let's go," Weiss said. "I'm doing this now."

She stood, but Ruby remained seated.

"Are you okay?" Weiss asked.

"Weiss, I'm . . ." Ruby bit her lip, then met her eyes and put on a warm smile. "I'm here for you."

Weiss returned it. "I'm excited for you to meet her."

After disposing of their garbage and returning their food trays, the two women started toward the administrative building where they'd find Clover. They couldn't just sneak out again this time, since there were soldiers at the psychiatric hospital who'd catch them. But there was no need, regardless. No one would deny a request like this.

"Hey!" A soldier called out and jogged up to them, causing them to halt. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties. Judging by his badge and uniform, he was a specialist. "What are you two doing?"

"Excuse me?" Weiss said. As far as she was aware, they were doing nothing out of the ordinary.

"I've been waiting for forty minutes," said the specialist. "Are you coming or what?"

"Uh, coming where?" Ruby was confused as Weiss.

"I think you might have mistaken us for someone else," said Weiss.

"Weiss Schnee and Ruby Rose," the specialist said, staring at them as if they were the ones acting strange. "I'm supposed to escort you into the city."

"Since when? We were never told of this."

He looked really concerned now. "You told Sergeant Ebi you wanted to go back into the city. He arranged for me to take you today at eight a.m. He sent someone to tell you last night."

Weiss and Ruby exchanged a look. There was a good reason why nobody was able to find them last night, though they weren't about to divulge that.

"Right," Weiss said. "Sorry. I've had a lot on my mind lately, I must have forgotten."

"Where are we going . . . again?" Ruby said unconvincingly.

The specialist looked relieved. "That's up to you. You've got three hours to spend—well, less than two and a half, now."

"And it's just you escorting us?" said Ruby.

"Yes."

"They sent two with me both times before," said Weiss. "And that was when I went alone."

"And that was before the Atlas Supermax breakout," Ruby added.

"Well, yeah. Obviously, that's made us shorthanded at the moment," said the specialist. "Do you want to go or don't you?"

"Of course I do," Weiss said warily. "I'd like to go confirm something with Sergeant Ebi first, if you don't mind."

"Confirm what?"

"I want to go see my mother again. You have soldiers positioned at the facility, and I want to be sure I won't get turned away for showing up without notice."

"You don't have to worry about that."

"It wouldn't hurt to be safe, though," said Ruby.

"You'd only be wasting your own time." The specialist checked his watch. "You won't be able to do a whole lot at this rate."

"We're okay with that." Weiss took one step to move past him and he suddenly reached for his holster.

"Don't," he warned, confirming their suspicions.

"Who are you?" Ruby demanded.

"Just come with me," the specialist said. "I won't hurt you, we're just going for a drive."

"To where?" said Weiss.

"I won't ask again."

Whoosh. Ruby teleported behind the man, swept his legs out from beneath him, and even managed to take his gun from him all in one fluid move. With suspicious proficiency, she partially disassembled the pistol and tossed its parts in opposite directions.

"Who are you?" Ruby asked again.

Weiss felt a strange enjoyment in watching her best friend pull off this maneuver.

"Please," the specialist pleaded. He sat up and dropped all attempts at intimidation. "Just come with me. My husband and kids went to Vale for the Vytal Festival. This . . . this man has pictures of them from inside their hotel room. I can't protect them there."

"Who?" Weiss asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I got a call, and then a message with too much information for it to be an empty threat. All I know is that I'm supposed to take you to Schnee Tower."

"Schnee Tower?" Weiss repeated, taken aback.

"Please," he said again. "I don't know what he'll do to them."

"What did he sound like?" Ruby asked.

"Uh, I don't know. Young, I guess. Not a child, I mean, but didn't sound like my age. And he had a sort of formality to the way he talked."

"Alright." Weiss felt a sinking feeling in her chest. "Alright, we'll go with you."

Ruby looked at her and nodded. Weiss saw a determination in her eyes, conveying the guilt she felt for not being able to protect her from Tyrian and her strive to do better this time.

It didn't matter whether the man was lying. Extortion was perfectly in line with what they knew of Partridge so far, and it wasn't Weiss or Ruby's place to gamble on innocent lives. It was easier to believe this man's family did exist and they really were in danger, as nothing about this situation would change if they weren't.

After the dissolution of the STC, Schnee Tower had become a highly sought-after asset. It was a tall, flashy building with over seventy floors located in the middle of Remnant's capital. Whichever corporation managed to scoop it up would have immediately obtained a large step up in the race to take the STC's place at the top of the economy. Unfortunately for them, they hadn't accounted for the fact that it had been Weiss's father who'd overseen its construction. The building was very overdesigned, cut any and every corner that didn't affect its aesthetic and grandeur, and was exceedingly expensive to maintain compared to other skyscrapers of similar size in Vale. Overall, it was incredibly inefficient to actually utilize, and only companies like the STC could afford to take that sacrifice.

Most potential buyers had been driven off after getting a thorough analysis of the vacated tower, but a few maintained their interest. Three in turn had purchased it and attempted to set up operations inside, but eventually sold it off at a loss. Whoever owned it now had left the building untouched for the past several months. Weiss suspected they were either planning renovations to make it a more viable headquarters or demolishing it to build a new one in its place—the latter would likely be cheaper. The question now was, if Partridge was having them brought here, was he the one who currently owns it?

"Inside," said their coerced abductor.

Weiss and Ruby exited the vehicle and stepped up to the front entrance of the building. Once bustling with hundreds of underpaid and overworked employees, now it only contained whatever unimaginable horrors Partridge had in store for them.

A few people passed them on the sidewalk and paid them no mind, ignorant of the stakes forced upon the two girls. Weiss looked behind her to see the soldier still in the driver's seat. He gave a motion of his head, so she and Ruby went in alone. The door was unlocked. All they had to do was stay long enough for Partridge to know this soldier had performed his task obediently, and then they could escape.

The uncertainty as to where they should go didn't last, as a ding! and the sound of elevator doors opening drew their attention as they stepped into the lobby. They approached it and reluctantly entered. The doors began to slide shut automatically before they could even consider which floor to go to, and a woman's voice said, "Going down." Ruby quickly grabbed Weiss's wrist and teleported them back outside of the elevator right before it finished closing.

"What are you doing?" Weiss hissed, the back of her mind appreciating that she was starting to get used to the discomfort of teleporting, as awful as it still was.

"There's only one sublevel, right?" said Ruby. "So we're taking the stairs. I'm not letting him trap us in that thing."

"I somehow doubt he'd bring us all the way here just to kill us in an elevator of all things."

"I mean, I do too, but no risks, right?"

Weiss, though peeved by Ruby surprising her with her semblance yet again, appreciated the caution. "Right. No risks."

They descended the staircase slowly with growing anxiety. The basement was dedicated solely to maintenance, and it showed. It was cold, dark, messy, and colorless. Jacques hadn't cared for the comfort of his employees when the money was better spent making the rest of the tower even more gauche.

"You're late," someone spoke over the intercom. The speaker quality was just as poor as everything else down here, but the voice was unmistakable. "Hello, sister."

"So it really is you." Weiss felt numb, still unable to believe it. It was like she was listening to someone else speak from her own mouth.

"Deduced it on your own, have you? I underestimated you."

"Where are you?" Ruby was looking around. "Too afraid to face us in person?"

"My time is too valuable," said Whitley's voice. "You expect me to step foot in that blasted monument to Jacque's ego? Never again. A successful businessman delegates."

"Why?" Weiss said. "Father, Winter, me. You hate us that much that you'd actually try to kill us? Your family?"

"Don't make me laugh. If I just wanted you all dead, you'd be dead. It's always been about much more than that."

"Um, Weiss?" said Ruby.

Weiss didn't hear her. "Then what is it?"

"Do you have ears?" said Whitley. "I've said my time is valuable. I didn't bring you here to unveil all my secrets to a dead woman."

"Then why am I here?"

"Weiss!" Ruby succeeded in catching her attention this time. She was standing in the corner, having pulled the tarp off of a pile of explosives.

"To be buried beneath that eyesore," Whitley answered.

Whoosh. Ruby appeared next to Weiss and immediately teleported them both back to the stairs.

"Wait!" Weiss took a single step back into the room and called out to Whitley, to whatever remained of the brother she thought she knew. "I found a cure for Mother! I finally found it. I can heal her!"

There was a pregnant pause, and then Whitley's response: "I don't care."

"Come on!" Ruby had to start dragging Weiss back toward the stairs for her to break out of her stunned state.

Together, they climbed as quickly as they could and reached the ground level with surprising ease, expecting the explosion to go off at any moment. But it never came.

They burst through the front doors and found that the single military vehicle they'd arrived in was now joined by several others as well as a black SUV. Soldiers stood in front of them with their guns drawn facing the entrance. If the man who'd brought them here was still present, Weiss couldn't see him.

"Hands up, on the ground! Now! Both of you!" One of them shouted as soon as they exited.

Weiss and Ruby froze, too shocked to obey the instructions. The Ace Operatives and Clover were there looking stoic except for Marrow, who wore a grim expression and didn't look directly at them.

"Weiss Schnee, Ruby rose," Clover said heavily. "You are hereby under arrest for the assault and coercion of military personnel, as well as suspicions of aiding and conspiring with Whitley Schnee to orchestrate the mass breakout at Atlas Supermax and the subsequent killing spree carried out by Tyrian Callows. You are also suspected of assisting in the murders of two military pilots and the sabotage of a federal aircraft."

"What?" was all Weiss could think to say.

"Please, you don't understand!" Ruby pleaded. "The whole building's about to come down, we have to go!"

"What is this nonsense?" Caroline Cordovin, dwarfed by the people surrounding her, used her voice to call attention to herself where her stature failed to do so. She looked very pleased with herself, as unwelcome as she was by Clover and everyone else.

Marrow stepped forward and sniffed the air. "No, she's right. I smell nitroglycerin. There's dynamite inside, a lot of it."

Clover instantly took his words at face value and began barking orders. "Evacuate the area! Block off all roads in a three-block radius! Call for backup! Get a bomb squad, EMTs, and firemen here immediately! I want pedestrians off the streets—inside and underground . . ."

Weiss zoned out the rest of his words as everyone kicked into action. Marrow and Elm came forward to cuff Weiss and Ruby and escort them towards a vehicle.

"I warned you to stay out of this," Marrow said in a low voice.

"We're innocent," said Weiss. "We had nothing to do with any of this!"

"I believe you."

"Why?"

"Call it a hunch, call it me being naive. It doesn't change anything."

That was when the bombs went off. Boom! Boom! Boom! Three deep, reverberating explosions shook the world in quick succession. All the windows on the first several floors shattered at once, raining shards of glass onto the streets. The building visibly shifted on its foundations, tilting toward one corner and enveloping its surroundings in a thin cloud of dust.

Weiss barely even registered being shoved into the back of the vehicle as she stared up at the tower, transfixed. If there weren't so many lives at risk—if its destruction hadn't been the weapon in her own attempted murder—she might have even celebrated seeing it come down.

But it didn't come down. Leaning at a dangerous angle, its joints creaking, it came to a rest and remained still. Marrow and Elm entered the front seats and kicked the engine into ignition. As they drove off and rounded a corner, the building disappeared from view, still standing.

A/N: Credit to my beta readers: I Write Big and Bardothren. They're great writers who are a huge help with making this story as good as it can be.