“God, that sucks.” Streaking violet-and-blue swimmers covered my left eye. I sat up slowly and leaned forward, cradling my head. The nylon sleeping bag’s crinkling was absurdly loud.

It took a moment to make out Sae in the darkness. Sae nestled in the nook beside the window, where she pointed toward the house across from us. “No matter how bad you’re feeling, I guarantee our friend over there is doing worse.”

I stumbled to my feet and leaned against the opposite side of the window, in time to see Buzzcut hauling an entire door into his over-furnished living room. The living room itself was a wreck, covered in manila batting Shiva had emancipated from several now-desiccated couch cushions.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

The words were muffled but clearly audible from a house over.

“Not gonna lie, when you floated this idea, it felt very lifetime special.” Sae chuckled, watching Buzzcut struggle with what minor crisis to prioritize. Her face grew somber. “But he’s seriously tilted.”

I closed my eyes, trying to gain my bearings. “Everyone loves to self-diagnose as OCD these days. Doesn’t change the fact that the real thing’s no joke.”

“Especially if your next-door neighbors are literally gaslighting you. How’d you know about the OCD?” Sae asked. “It wasn’t in the file.”

“Negative space.”

“Pretend I can’t follow your pseudo-intellectual non-sequiturs.”

I sighed. “His psych workup. He reads like real type A. Extroverted, observant, thoughtful, and judging. Not the kind to get depressed for extended periods. But the meds told a different story. He’s been on Zoloft for the last three years, Paxil and other SSRIs the previous two. Not in I-swallowed-a-bottle-of-aspirin-and-got-admitted-to-the-hospital-for-attention quantities either. Elephant doses.”

“So?” Sae shrugged. “Maybe he was ashamed of it or something.”

“It’s 2024. Everyone’s depressed. Regardless, like you said, I got a sense from the paperwork that he was hiding something. And if he was hiding from the suits, it had to be a weakness or disqualifier. Few distinct possibilities, no way of narrowing them down from a distance. So, I dropped by Region 7 and watched him for a while.”

Sae whistled low. “One in the morning, and he’s bathing those hinges in WD-40.”

“Yeah. Azure made them squeak. No idea how. Buzzcut put the plastic down first?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“How much you want to bet, when he’s done, he’s goes straight for the air freshener?”

Sae rolled her eyes. “That’s a sucker’s bet. First stop’s gonna be a bottle of Febreze.”

We watched in silent interest as Buzzcut stomped across the living room to the kitchen, pulling a spray bottle from the overhead cabinet. He shook it up thoroughly and squeezed the trigger. A barely perceptible stream of aerosol emitted from the nozzle, then sputtered and died.

Buzzcut shook the bottle and pulled again, drawing nothing.

I felt a sense of stoic satisfaction. Sae’s head slowly turned toward me. “You emptied the man’s air freshener?”

“I didn’t.”

“Azure again?”

“Yep.”

“You’re an actual monster.”

“It’s a balance.” I crossed my arms. “Right now, he’s just having a terrible night. Obsessive-compulsives are accustomed to this sort of spiraling. They can handle one thing going wrong, maybe even two, but they’re fully aware that it gets harder and harder to return to a neutral place the farther down the spiral. As long as we’re subtle, he’ll stay focused on putting out the fires rather than wondering why they’re happening.”

“Still…” Sae trailed off, watching Buzzcut move his cat from the couch to the bedroom—surprisingly gentle, considering the turmoil the animal had put him through. “I feel kind of bad.”

I frowned. “You realize this isn’t going to get any easier, right? These aren’t faceless monsters we’re hunting. They’re not always going to look like bad guys. They’re just people.”

“People who have it coming,” Sae said angrily, more to herself than to me. After a moment of silence, she spoke, her eyes still glued to Buzzcut. “Well? We killing him?”

“Talia?” I asked, letting <Broken Legacy> fall to the ground. A cloud of dust emerged and faded as my summon took physical form.

“From the glimpse we shared into his mind, it’s clear he’s hiding something from his betters,” Talia said thoughtfully. “I’m just not sure if that’s enough to matter. Anything useful gleaned from questioning him could just as likely be gathered once we gain admittance. Capturing our prey puts us at further risk. If it were discovered, or if he escaped, it would compromise you on multiple levels. And as fond as you are of such difficult undertakings…” Talia eyed me. “I cannot help but wonder if, in this case, the simplest solution is best.”

“Maybe.”

Talia had made several good points. Sunny didn’t strike me as the type to fuck around. If he got the slightest inkling I’d betrayed him, it’d be catastrophic.

But I wasn’t sure she was right, downplaying Buzzcut’s usefulness. He’d been with them since the beginning. He’d have insights into how they worked, how they thought. I still hadn’t decided if the stunt I’d pulled to clear my name had been an overextension. It was necessary in the moment, but the repercussions had yet to be seen. Plenty of people had been there, overheard the conflict between Myrddin and Sae.

After some time, Sae whispered. “He’s giving up.”

Sure enough, Buzzcut was stomping up the living room stairs to the loft, headed toward his bedroom.

“Azure?” I reached out to my summon.

“This is too much fun,” Azure giggled.

“Any issues?”

“No. Still blissfully unaware. And so thoroughly, delightfully angry.”

“Good. I need to sleep. You’ll keep him conscious?”

“Not… exactly.” Azure’s giggles grew into a guffaw that sounded decidedly evil.

“Azure.”

“What?!” He sounded affronted. Like he expected me to curtail whatever he was planning.

“I’m not just gonna fuck off and sleep after you get all maniacal like that. Spill.”

“Boo. And here I was, trying to surprise you. Here’s the play-by-play. I’m going to let him sleep. Shallowly. Every time he approaches a REM cycle, I’ll shove the psychic equivalent of a sliver into his mind. Make sure he stays semi-conscious. And in the meantime, I’ll pump him full of anxiety and slowly introduce mental images of minor incidents around the house that didn’t actually happen. The stove he left on. The fridge he cracked.”

I blinked. My intention was as simple as keeping Buzzcut sleep-deprived and unsettled, giving us an edge in the impending confrontation. But if Azure wanted to go the extra mile?

“Just don’t tip our hand,” I relented.

“Roger! Um….”

“What?”

Azure spoke carefully. “Just hypothetically, it wouldn’t be difficult for me to do… something… with the cat.”

“Jesus—No. Leave the fucking cat alone.”

“Fine.”

Our part here was more or less done, though I needed to stay within a certain distance to ensure Azure could siphon mana from me and keep Buzzcut on pins and needles.

“C’mon, let’s call it.” I gestured to Sae. “Big day tomorrow.”

Sae looked out the window one final time, then unrolled her blue sleeping bag, placing it a few feet away, parallel to mine. She opened the zipper and settled in. “This is heavy.”

“We can trade bags,” I joked.

“You know what I mean.”

I did.

“It’s not too late to back out.”

“Fuckin—the next time you say that to me, Helpline, I’m gonna punch you in the face.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Good,” Sae snapped. After a few moments, she spoke in a much quieter tone. “I understood what I was getting into. In theory.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not stupid. I knew we were going to get blood on her hands, but. It just sucks. When we first got here, you almost had to tie me down. But after watching him from a distance? Seeing him at home, acting normal? It feels heavier somehow.”

I said nothing.

“Nothing’s changed. Jinny and Nick, everything that happened to me, it was all their fault. Their fucking fault. And I want them to pay for it,” Sae said, the pain in her voice raw.

Again, a response didn’t come. It felt like she was struggling against herself, and I was nothing more than a spectator.

Instead of saying something, I reached out from the sleeping bag and took her hand. Sae jumped, then with a hesitance I could almost feel, tightened her hand around mine. Her chitin fingers were icy to the touch.

The tendrils of sleep pulled at me.

“You never said,” Sae’s voice floated through the haze.

“Hm?”

“Our aim. Catch? Or kill?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” I murmured, “There’s someone I need to talk to first.”

I’d been circling this for some time. Searching for any avenue that would allow me to avoid it. Confronting the man who’d opened his home to me. The father of my once best friend, a constant in my life until he threw my mother overboard to drown. And as far as I knew, the tenuous leader of the suits.

Aaron.