"Luminous," the voice ordered, "walk."

Nuke painfully grimaced, and walked.

He kept himself from looking around, as there was no use for this. There was no one standing near him, and he wouldn't be able to find the owner of the voice, no matter how hard he tried.

Whenever Nuke found himself in this empty cul-de-sac, in the middle of a pedicured but entirely abandoned British suburb, it was impossible to find the woman. The woman who was giving him his orders; she seemed to be invisible. Her smooth, articulate voice came from right beside him, but also from all around him.

She was always just out of reach.

"Luminous, run!"

Looking for her would be a fruitless endeavor, and so, Nuke had stopped trying. All he could do, was to do whatever she said.

He began running.

By this point, he had arrived at the end of the cul-de-sac. No, at the beginning of it. It seemed to be infinite, stuck in a loop. And yet, Nuke could have sworn that he had never been here before.

He kept on running.

"Nuke Evans," said a different voice. This one was smooth and articulate too, but it was darker and clearly male.

Nuke's brows contorted to a puzzled frown. That was weird, he thought. In the cul-de-sac, only the woman ever talked to him. Where had this man's voice suddenly come from?

Nuke didn't question it any further than that and kept on running. He was beginning to get tired, his breath was growing heavier.

Suddenly, there was a new sensation, a tingling, running up and down his arms. Nuke hectically looked down at himself, tried to find the cause of the unusual feeling. But there was nothing and no one there to cause it.

"Nuke Evans."

He tried to stop running, tried to fight off whatever was attacking his arms, but his body wouldn't let him.

"Don't stop, Luminous! Faster, run faster!"

Even though his lungs were burning, and every one of his muscles ached from exhaustion, Nuke ran faster. But the faster he tried to run, the harder it became to move his legs. They felt incredibly heavy, like he was fighting the pull of invisible rubber bands, which held him back by his ankles.

As his panic rose exponentially, Nuke noticed several hiding opportunities that passed him by. There were some bushes, and garden sheds, and empty trash cans, and dark corners in the alleyways between housing rows.

If he could stop running, he could jump into one of those hiding spots. And then, maybe, just for a second, Nuke could be safe.

"There's nowhere to hide, Luminous," the woman told him.

She had a vicious little smile in her voice. She always had that smile in her voice.

Nuke whimpered in despair. Just a moment to catch his breath, that was all he needed. But the fear only continued rising, and the voice only kept egging him on. "Run, Luminous! Run faster, Luminous! Faster, Luminous!"

This wouldn't end, it would never end, it would only get worse and worse and worse and...

"Nuke Evans."

The tingling sensation increased. At this point, the feeling of unusual goosebumps had turned into pins-and-needles.

Nuke tried to slap the sensation off his arms but, just as his legs, it was so very hard to move them. His hands pushed through the air like through deep water; each movement was painfully slow and ineffective.

"Your name is Nuke Evans," the man's voice said.

"Your name is Luminous," the woman's voice competed.

Additionally to his grimace of exhaustion and increasing agony, Nuke frowned in confusion. For some reason, things didn't seem to make any sense, more than they already didn't. The running and the woman's voice felt quite real. But Nuke's brain registered that the tingling on his arms, as well as the man's voice, were much realer.

Nuke knew that he was trapped inside the landscape of suburban England. He knew that the woman was standing right beside him, and also wasn't. He knew that he didn't know how he had gotten here, in the first place. He had something urgent to do, somewhere to rush to, but he couldn't remember what or where; and this was something he also knew.

What Nuke did not know, was why his arms weirdly tingled. Or why the man kept saying his name. Or why the man chose to say the name that Nuke much preferred, over the name the woman chose to say.

The woman with the vindictive smile always chose the name that made it so Nuke couldn't run away; so he couldn't stop running; so he could never seem to find a good spot to hide. She made sure to remind him that he wasn't safe, ever, anywhere...

"Nuke," the man sternly told him. "Wake up."

Wake up...? Was that something he could do, Nuke wondered? Was this why there seemed to be two surreal realities, competing in his mind?

If he could wake up, Nuke gathered, it might mean that he could finally stop running. And then, maybe, he could hide... Or even better; entirely escape this nightmare.

At that particular thought, something in his mind seemed to... click.

Nuke jolted upright in his bed.

He gasped for air and frantically searched his arms for the origin of the weird tingling sensation. Yet, there was nothing scary or crawly on his arms that could have caused it. And as soon as he started looking for it, the tingling abruptly stopped.

Breathing heavily from the panic, Nuke glanced around in confusion.

He was inside his bedroom, it seemed. Everything looked just the way he had left it, before going to bed. Except for his sheets and his pyjamas, which were crumpled up and drenched in cold sweat.

His mind slowly caught up with reality. He had gotten himself trapped inside a nightmare, Nuke decided. That made sense to him, as this tended to happen quite frequently. What didn't make sense to him, was why he had woken up. That usually didn't happen, unless someone else made him wake up.

His shock and confusion briefly peaked, but then wavered entirely, as Nuke spotted a dark figure. The figure was tall and slender, and stood in the open doorway to his bedroom. It looked to be a skeleton in a suit.

Right, Nuke finally clued in, that skeleton was Skulduggery Pleasant.

Skulduggery had positioned himself at a safe distance, in the hallway in front of Nuke's room. He had opened the door all the way, and his gloved hand was hovering in the air before him. As soon as Nuke spotted him there, he let his hand lower to his side.

Air magic. This was what, Nuke presumed, Skulduggery had used to make his arms feel tingly.

As the panic in him finally settled, Nuke sharply exhaled with a mixture of relief and exhaustion. He let his head hang, soothingly ran his hands through his hair, and tried to catch his breath.

When Nuke looked up to thank him, Skulduggery had disappeared.

He did this sometimes. Nuke would wake up from a nightmare, because of some weird sensation. Or because he had heard his chosen name, over and over again, which created a contrast to the name he heard inside his dreams. When Nuke consequentially jolted awake in his bed, Skulduggery was standing there. And by the time Nuke had calmed down somewhat, he was gone again.

Although it added to the eerie feeling that remained from his dreams, to have a living skeleton show up in his bedroom in the dead of night, Nuke appreciated this for a plethora of reasons.

For a little while, Nuke stared at the well-lit but empty hallway, and waited for his nerves to settle. Then he got up and changed into a dry set of clothes, pulled on his trainers, and left his room. There was no chance for him to go back to sleep now, that much Nuke had learned to accept.

The house was quiet and mostly dark. The door to Diamond's bedroom was slightly ajar. Slightly ajar was the most Nuke ever saw this door shut, which meant that she was still asleep. He silently thanked Skulduggery once again.

Nuke took extra care to be quiet, as he opened the door to the staircase and walked down to the lower floor. A couple of glances at the empty rooms downstairs told him, Skulduggery was likely in Diamond's bedroom as well.

Nuke was glad to see that he wouldn't need to talk to anyone. The clock in the kitchen was showing some obscure time after four AM. This hopefully meant, the streets would be mostly void of people as well. And this made for the perfect time to go on an early morning run.

Although the suburbia around Diamond's house carried some resemblance to the one in his dream, Nuke wasn't bothered by this. In fact, whenever he thought back at that particular reoccuring nightmare, he was quite sure that it was set in the neighborhood where he had grown up.

Maybe, it had something to do with his parents, Nuke often assumed. It had been almost five years now, since he had last seen them. They texted here or there, they had even talked on the phone once, but it had never gone much further than that. He tried not to waver on those thoughts for too long, however. He would much rather focus on actually running, in the real world, in whichever manner he so pleased.

With loud music blasting from his headphones, Nuke went on a quick-paced jog through the quiet neighborhood. He ran crisscross between houses and avoided the main roads nearby, and thus the areas where other early birds were already beginning to fill the streets.

Nuke liked to pretend that he was on his own, in times like these. Of course he knew full well about the advanced magical tracking and alert system, attached to his running gear. Yet, ignoring the fact that he was never truly unsupervised was an essential step to warding off the paranoid thoughts.

When the casual jog didn't suffice to soothe the stabbing grinding feelings in his gut, Nuke pushed himself to run faster.

This time, it was his own voice egging him on in his head, using the name he had chosen for himself. His legs and arms moved freely, not like they had weights attached to them. And by the time his muscles ached and his breath ran out, Nuke allowed himself to stop running.

Almost buckling over as he walked out the long sprint home, he bridged the final distance towards the entrance of Diamond's townhouse. He took a short break in front of the door and stretched out his legs, before he let himself in with his personal set of keys.

When he walked through the small entrance area this time, some of the lights had been switched on. As he passed by the kitchen, he caught a glimpse of Diamond and Skulduggery.

They were casually standing around and looking in his direction. It seemed that they had just been in the middle of a conversation, but had stopped talking the moment the front door had opened.

A part of Nuke wondered if they had been talking about him. The rest of him was too tired to care.

"Good morning, love!" Diamond's voice called after him.

"Morning..." Nuke mumbled.

He trudged up the stairs and went to take the shower he had desperately needed, ever since the moment he had woken up. Afterwards, he felt a bit better.

Nuke got dressed in his work clothes, which really only were magically reinforced versions of his regular clothes. Today, this included a pair of black jeans, a white t-shirt, and a grey jumper. He wasn't much in the mood for something colorful.

By the time Nuke had made it to the kitchen for breakfast, Skulduggery had pulled yet another disappearing act.

Diamond was on her own, gnawing at a piece of toast and reading today's mortal newspaper. As Nuke walked in, she shot him a bright smile. "Perfect timing! I just made the coffee."

"Thanks..." Nuke mumbled and steered directly towards the steaming coffee pot.

"We've got a job in about an hour," she informed him. "They just want someone to watch their house. If you ask me, they sound a bit paranoid...? But it should be easy-going. Or boring, as you call it."

"Uh-huh, sounds good..." Nuke vaguely acknowledged, but he was mostly focused on preparing his cup of coffee.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Diamond watching him. She looked like she was considering saying something else. But then, she stuck the last piece of toast in her mouth, cleared the last sip of coffee from her cup, and energetically stood up.

"Anyway, I still need to get ready. See you in the hallway in thirty."

Nuke occupied his mouth with coffee and wordlessly waved at her. He took his time with eating breakfast in blissful silence. Half an hour later, he met Diamond by the door, and they headed to the Audi.

Diamond pulled out her car keys and questioningly jingled them in the air, "wanna drive?"

"I'm good," Nuke declined.

She got in on the driver's side, and he on the passenger's side. Diamond seemed to have gotten his various hints, because she reached over and turned on the radio. They didn't talk much during their ride to the location.

Nuke used the opportunity to soak up some of Diamond's calming vibes. By the time they got out and steered towards the address they had been given, he almost felt like himself again.

They got out of the car, walked up the driveway, and Diamond pushed the doorbell.

Only seconds later, the door opened, and they were greeted by the stressed face of a clearly distraught woman. She was wearing a bath robe over her silken pyjamas, but also jewelery in the form of a wooden bead necklace. Her brown hair was still messy from the night before, and her grey eyes wearily mustered the strangers on her doorstep.

"Oh, hello, there you are," the woman nervously said, after a second of cluelessly staring at them, "you're on time."

"We do try to be punctual," Diamond smiled. "I'm Diamond Irie, this is my partner Nuke Evans. I believe, you and your husband called us in earlier?"

"Homer, yes, Homer is my husband. I was the one who called you. I would ask you inside, I would, I'm sure this is rude, so very rude, but I just don't know who to trust... Maybe it's best if you'd just... Watch from your car or something..."

"If you'd like us to guard the house that way, there's no need for us to come inside," Diamond reassured her. "You're Patricia, right?"

"Yes, dear me, so rude, yes, I'm Patricia. I'm so sorry."

"Why don't you tell us what's making you so nervous, Patricia? On the phone, you've mentioned something about monsters?"

"Yes, the monsters! My husband won't believe me. I mean, look, he's hiding in the living room in shame, he thinks I've lost it! He thinks, it was all a bad dream! Can you believe that?! The nerve!"

Nuke and Diamond did their best to be inconspicuous as they glanced at each other.

"Why don't you take a deep breath, and then tell us exactly what happened," Diamond slowly suggested.

"Okay. Okay, yeah..."

Patricia made an obvious effort to follow her instructions. Once she had taken more than one calming breath, she picked up a more coherent sentence. All the while, she anxiously fiddled around with the beads of her necklace.

"So, yesterday afternoon. I was cooking in the kitchen..." Patricia vaguely gestured in the direction of the nearest window. "The window faces the street, as you can clearly see..." She nervously chuckled, and then quickly grew serious again. "Anyway, I was washing the salad, and that takes a while, you know how it is..."

"You have to seperate all the salad leafs," Diamond sympathized, "wash them, fit them in the tumbler, tumble them, tumble them again, shred them..."

Patricia was clearly happy that someone was listening to her. "Exactly! And so I was just staring off into the distance and, suddenly, I see a monster! Out on the street, in broad daylight!"

"What did the monster look like?"

"Well... It looked quite alike... a person, to be honest with you. But it couldn't have been a person! They didn't have a face!"

Nuke listened up at this particular detail. "What exactly do you mean by that; they had no face?"

"Well, it used to have a face, I'm quite sure of that! Only it was burned away, like... Like someone had set their head on fire. But from the inside out! Their eyes and their mouths, even their ears, they all were gaping, burnt holes!"

Nuke relaxed as his suspicions were erased, but he soon stiffened again as her description settled in with him. "So, they were a person with their face burnt away, but they were still walking around?"

"Yes, it was terrifying! It wasn't walking like a dead man either, not like a zombie or anything. More like... Like a robot. Like it was being steered by... By a puppet master!"

Diamond and Nuke were both visibly creeped out by this.

"I called my husband, Homer, I called Homer, and he came and looked out the window. But I don't think he saw that it was a monster, he thought it was just an injured person. So he ran outside and tried to help. But the monster, it attacked him!"

"It attacked him, how?" Diamond wanted to know.

"With its claws! It had these giant claws, they looked like fingernails, but they were way too long and hard and sharp!"

"But your husband got away?"

"Yes, and I hid in the closet. And then, the next thing I know? It's the middle of the night! And I'm peacefully asleep in my bed! I wake up, look around, realize what's happened, but no one would listen to me!"

"What did you do before all that?" Nuke asked her.

Suddenly stalled in the speed of her talking, Patricia looked a little stunned at that question, "sorry? I was washing the salad, as I said..."

"And before that?"

"Before that...? Before that, I had washed the other vegetables for the salad... And before that, I had cleaned up the fridge, I hadn't done that in weeks... And before that... I tidied the bedroom...?"

"Do you remember walking into the kitchen?"

Both women looked somewhat confused at Nuke's odd line of questions, but Patricia continued to comply. "Umm... Yes, of course."

"When you saw the monster, did it suddenly appear, or did you suddenly spot it in the distance?"

"I saw it come around the corner."

"When you were done with the salad, what were you about to do next?"

"We were going to eat the salad, and then I was planning to call my aunt Cecile...?"

Nuke agreeably pouted at that information and looked at Diamond. "None of that sounds like a dream to me."

Diamond approvingly nodded. "I'd agree." She thoughtfully mustered Patricia. "So if all of that really happened... What I don't quite understand is... How did your husband get away?"

"Well, as I said, he got away and I hid..."

"Exactly," Diamond nodded. "After your husband escaped from the monster, you hid away, and then you woke up at night, yes?"

"Yes...?"

"What I'm wondering is... What was your husband doing in the meantime?"

Patricia confusedly blinked. "I... I'm not sure, that part is a bit hazy, I..."

"Did he get injured? Did you care to his wounds? What was his state of mind, when you woke him up later?"

Patricia seemed to be stuck in a perpetual loop of confused stuttering. "I'm... not sure, I... I don't quite recall..."

"Patricia...?" Diamond slowly asked her. "Where is Homer?"

Patricia's eyes widened in shock. "He's... He's in the living room!"

"Would you please check the living room for me? Could you go and see if Homer is still there?"

She looked somewhat baffled, but turned around and disappeared in the house for a moment.

Nuke confusedly frowned at Diamond and mouthed, 'what on Earth...?'

Diamond shrugged cluelessly in response.

When Patricia reappeared in the doorframe, her nervous paranoia and flustered state of confusion had transformed, into a clear state of horror and panic.

"He's gone! My husband is gone!"

"Hello, my dear," Skulduggery's voice warmly greeted her through the Audi's speaker system.

"Hey, love," Diamond said, with a mixture of seriousness at the situation and cheerfulness at hearing his voice. "Are you two out and about at the moment?"

"Yes, we are," he replied, as a sense of boredom and irritation crept into his tone. "We're at yet another crime scene, talking to everyone about absolutely nothing."

"Well, we've just passed on a case to the sanctuary, and they'll be sending a file your way that might cheer you up. It should be on your desk within the hour."

"Looks like we just stumbled over one of your abduction cases," Nuke meaningfully added from the passenger's seat beside her, "and it also looks like, this time around, the witness actually remembers something useful."

Suddenly, Skulduggery sounded wide awake. "Hold on for one second," he said. His voice faded to a murmur, but Diamond could still hear it converse with Valkyrie's voice, "Diamond and Nuke might have just found us a viable witness."

Valkyrie's excited response came through loud and clear, even before Skulduggery turned on the speakerphone on his end. "Really?!" she exclaimed and quickly added for the ones listening; "hi, guys!"

"Hi, Valkyrie," they replied in a choir.

"What did your witness see?" Skulduggery asked them.

"She watched her husband, the abducted victim, being attacked by a monster," Diamond said.

"A monster?!" they both surprisedly echoed, then Skulduggery asked, "which type of monster?"

She cluelessly shrugged at the dashboard of the Audi and glanced at Nuke.

"Not one that I've ever heard of before," Nuke replied, "but definitely something humanoid."

"She doesn't remember the abduction or what happened afterwards, but she does remember the monster in vivid detail," Diamond elaborated, "based on how she described it to us, it might be controlled by some external force."

"Like, via remote control?" Valkyrie asked.

"Maybe something of that nature, but that's all speculation. It also sounded like it could possibly be... Un-dead."

The pause that followed seemed somewhat daunting, before Skulduggery asked, "are you in Ireland right now?"

She sighed as her positivity at the situation faded away as well. "No, we're still in England, close to home."

In response, two sharp sighs came from the other end of the line.

"Skulduggery," Diamond wearily asked, "this is spreading, isn't it...?"

After a short tense silence, he unfortunately confirmed, "yes, we've been receiving more and more similar reports from other sanctuaries, including France and the USA."

Diamond's eyes widened with more worry, as she and Nuke uneasily looked at each other. "The States, too?" she asked, "so, this goes beyond Europe?"

"Seems like it..." Valkyrie confirmed and sounded similarly bummed out by this.

She sighed, "and you have no idea who could be behind this? Are you one hundred percent sure that this has nothing to do with Bax Hench?"

"Well, we can never be sure about that," Skulduggery annoyedly clarified. "Of course he could always be involved somehow. But no, it seems unlikely that Bax Hench is behind this. One of our informants told us that this might be a different branch of magic altogether. It seems like these attacks are managed from abroad somewhere."

"So, this is an ongoing international conflict, and we don't even know who is starting it?"

The manner in which Skulduggery and Valkyrie sighed next, suggested that they somehow blamed themselves for this.

"That about sums it up, yes," Skulduggery grimly said. "There are many vastly different magical cultures, spread across the various Cradles of Magic. Trying to figure out which one we're dealing with, without any real information to go off of, is like trying to find a needle in an exceedingly eccentric haystack."

"Do you have a theory?" Diamond hopefully asked.

"At the moment, unfortunately, I have several theories. And no matter how hard I try, they refuse to sort themselves out in order of likelihood."

Nuke and Diamond followed their example of simultaneously sighing in dismay.

"We'll take a look at the file and question your witness," Valkyrie promised, "if anything comes from that, you'll be the first to know."

"Thanks," Diamond said, "see you back here then."

"See you later," they replied, and the call was ended.

For a little while, they sat there in the quiet car and thought about the state of things. Eventually, Diamond forced a smile upon her face.

"So?" she cheerfully asked Nuke beside her, "what shall we do with the rest of the day?"

Nuke shrugged. "It's the first Friday of the month, so... Training, I guess."

Diamond's attempt at cheerfulness immediately failed, at this reminder. She worriedly mustered him from the side. "Are you sure you want to do that today?"

He raised a brow at her, "why wouldn't I?"

"Well, because..." She hesitated.

"Because I had a nightmare this morning?" Nuke unimpressively guessed. "I get those all the time, we don't need to make a big deal out of it."

Diamond had tons more things to say in respects to this, but she decided to say none of them. Instead, she started up the Audi's engine and drove them home.

"Luminous," Diamond said, "blow something up."

Nuke flinched, and his face contorted to a grimace of pain and dread. Diamond felt her own face wanting to contort along with his, but she tried to remain calm and focus on the task at hand.

They were sitting cross-legged, across from each other, on the hardwood floor of Diamond's living room. Behind Diamond, directly in Nuke's line of sight, the glassen door to the backyard stood wide open. Months ago, they would have done this outside. These days, Diamond trusted him not to destroy the house.

In order to follow Diamond's command, Nuke's hands instinctively moved upwards. Yet, his body tensed up to the fingertips, as he forced them down and pressed them onto his knees. By the manner in which his eyes screwed shut, she could tell that he was using every bit of his focus to pause and think.

"What did I tell you to do?" Diamond cued him.

Nuke sharply inhaled through his nose. Impossibly, he seemed to tense up even more, as he forced out the words. "You told me to... blow something up."

"Did I tell you what to blow up?" she asked.

"No..." Nuke replied and, as this wasn't nearly their first round of this exercise, he beat her next question to the punch; "you didn't say what... or when... or how..."

"So, what would be the safest way for you to follow the order?"

Nuke's nails dug deep into his legs, as his hands were hell-bent on jerking upwards and triggering a detonation. His arms were shaking and his breath was growing flatter from the rising panic.

He visibly gathered all of his remaining strength and spluttered, "I could... go to the backyard and... blow up a patch of grass..."

Diamond approvingly nodded. "Go ahead, then."

Immediately, Nuke scrambled to his feet. As fast as he could, he ran out of the living room, through the open door, and into the backyard.

Diamond didn't turn to watch the detonation. She merely waited for the loud BANG to drive a wedge through the suburban quiet. Then, she slowly got up and followed Nuke outside. Along the way, she picked up his water bottle from the ground.

Nuke was on his hands and knees, breathing heavily, next to a deep smoking crater in the lawn. These craters had become a common occurrence during most forms of Nuke's training, and at this point she had a gardener on speed-dial to fix up the various holes over and over.

Diamond crouched down by his side and rested a soothing hand on his sweaty back. "That was a good one."

"Was it...?" Nuke panted, "I can never tell..."

"Yeah, maybe even the best round so far!" Diamond assured him and held out his water bottle.

Once he spotted the bottle, Nuke grunted in appreciation and eagerly pulled it from her grip. He gulped down a bunch of ice cold water, then he used the rest to drench his face and hair and neck. Afterwards, he seemed to slowly be catching his breath.

All the while, Diamond worriedly watched. It took her a moment to make a decision. Finally, she sighed in dismay before speaking the suggestion aloud. "Nuke... Don't you think it might be a good idea to... take a break?"

"Obviously," he retorted, although his voice sounded too tired to truly sell his snark.

"No, I mean..." Diamond hesitated and announced her clarification with another sigh. "Maybe, we could use a break from all of this, period?"

Nuke's head whipped around to her. He quickly sat up and suddenly didn't look so tired anymore. "What? We're just starting to get somewhere!"

She encouragingly smiled, "but that's the best reason to put a lid on it for a while, isn't it? You're stronger than ever! We'll still do all the other stuff, only..."

"Only, what? We've already cut the sessions down to once a month! I'm not remotely ready for it!"

She apologetically shrugged, "and I don't think you ever will be ready, Nuke."

He paused, and then bitterly scoffed. "So, you don't want to put a lid on it; you want to stop altogether!"

Diamond allowed for her cheerful facade to slip further. "Yes," she honestly admitted, "I do."

"Why?!" Nuke abstrusely protested, "what, because it cuts down on my magical powers? I've blown up an entire government building, I don't think me having less power is necessarily a downside!"

She gifted him a sad smile in response. "I hate to remind you, but you're going to have more than enough opportunities for that, as is. Don't you want to enjoy the times where you don't have to worry about it yet?"

"Enjoy them?!" Nuke scoffed angrily, "there's only one person that knows my true name, who conveniently happens to be my partner, and I already feel like a prisoner in my own body. You think I don't worry about it now?!"

"I know, love, we all do. But it's not just the circumference of your craters that's being minimized... It's all of you."

Although his next question was nearly as confrontational as the previous ones, this particular comment made Nuke falter for a moment. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Diamond felt her smile fade away altogether. "A sorcerer and their magic are inseparably intertwined. Affecting the makeup of your magic means affecting you. At first, giving you a better sense of security and control made things better, yes. But nowadays..." She sharply exhaled. "Every month, your nightmares get worse. Every time we do this, you change a little, and... and I hate it!"

He wearily mustered her. "I change, how?"

Diamond helplessly shrugged and conjured up another sad smile. "You fade."

Nuke didn't have anything to say to that.

"Maybe, I haven't made myself exactly clear," she both admitted and asserted, "I am the one who needs a break from this. If you want to keep practicing, I wouldn't blame you, but you'll have to find someone else, because I..." She sorrowfully shook her head at him. "I can't do this to you anymore."

When Nuke didn't argue, she got to her feet, but not before placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.

"I'm sorry, love," Diamond sincerely said. Then she left him to be alone with his thoughts, next to his bomb crater.