Evantra raised her Liberty EZ Defender and sank round after round unerringly into the moving target as Trevor Foster watched on. Her pistol flashed as she rapidly pulled the trigger, finding her headshots without exception. After gaming with Lucas and setting up their chocolatery, Trevor had asked her to accompany him for a drive, which had inevitably led back to the police firing range.

  “Kid, if you thought I was going to be all impressed with how you’re handling that thing, I’m not. Frankly, I expected better from one of Caliburn’s Ghostslayers. Besides, you’re still jerking the trigger. Bad habit.”

  Evantra could detect an edge to Trevor’s voice. She put the weapon down, flicking the safety on, and turned to him.

  “Trev—”

  “Nope. Not today. Carmen gave me a rule. One day without talking about anything Caliburn-related. I intend to follow it.”

  Evantra’s gaze hovered on the man before eventually relenting with a sigh.

  “Thanks for taking care of them while I’ve been away,” Evantra said softly. She watched as Trevor sheepishly scratched the back of his neck, clearing his throat.

  “She’s a tough cookie. And so is Lucas. He’s a really smart boy.”

  Evantra watched as Trevor stepped up to the table, picking up his own Liberty EZ Defender. The pistols were meant to be Liberty’s bottom of the barrel, entry into their catalogue. Curiously, Trevor’s pistol wasn’t the plastic blue of her own, but a smooth, matte grey. Evantra glimpsed an engraving on its side.

  “What’s that engraving?”

  Trevor turned over his pistol, eyes lingering on the shape. It looked to be in the image of a man with wings spreading outwards at his back.

  “The last time we were here… you remember how we spoke about why I came to Wisptown?”

  Evantra nodded, trying to keep the calm impression of disinterest plastered on her face as the man began, so as to not dissuade him from continuing.

  “Well… one of the people that I helped gave this to me as a gift. We usually have to report them, and turn them in but…”

  Evantra waited for the man to continue. She watched as Trevor slowly drew his gaze away, fixing it on the target in the distance. He let out round after round at his target in a tight grouping.

  “Saved her from a Ghostcult. Busted open one of their rituals, but the Ghoulshits had already killed a bunch of people by the time we arrived.”

  “Was that the raid where you lost your…”

  “No. No, it wasn’t.”

  Evantra watched as the man seemed to grimace, and he paused, as if working up to telling her something.

  “That raid was when we stumbled across Panacea’s operations.”

  Evantra froze at the name of the megacorporation. The same one which dominated the stim and medical devices industries. The corporation which catered to the finest treatments that money could buy.

  “Genetic splicing facility. You get all sorts with the megacorps. They were experimenting on fusing Veilcreature DNA with humans. Of all the corpos around, you can imagine why it would be Panacea.”

  Evantra watched as Trevor’s grip curled around his weapon before he eased it. Instead of unleashing a flurry of rounds into the target in anger, like Evantra expected, he simply placed the weapon on the table.

  “Botched operation. Higher ups somehow got wind of our activity there, and ordered us to stand down. My partner, Rob, ran in anyway. You know, Evantra… in my precinct back in Elsecaller—”

  Trevor withdrew the magazine from his pistol, extracting a bullet.

  “There were standard rounds that we used. You wouldn’t guess what I found buried in the back of Rob’s skull when I found him. It was quite the coincidence.”

  A chill washed over Evantra’s skin as Trevor inserted it into the magazine.

  “I found myself wishing that I had run in with him a second sooner. Wisptown was… my penance. But that doesn’t matter. I know what you’re doing.”

  Evantra remained silent as the man addressed her.

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  “When you’re doggedly throwing yourself at something, half wishing that you could be punished for your wrongs. That isn’t how you account for them.”

  “Then how do you account for them?”

  The words emerged as a whisper, and Evantra glanced down at her trembling arms, her hands tight around her pistol.

  “I’m still figuring that out. I don’t have the magic answer. But I do know that the journey to learning to live with yourself doesn’t start with you throwing yourself into the flames.”

  Evantra’s right hand rose, clenching her left forearm in an effort to subdue the trembling.

  “You know, I’ve been feeling much happier recently, after having met you and your family.”

  Evantra looked up.

  “I also feel this… guilt at feeling so at peace. So, I can understand the temptation. Look,” the man let out a sigh, scratching his neck once more, avoiding her gaze.

  “I don’t really know where I was going with this. I think I just want to tell you that you’ve got someone to talk to if you ever need it, alright? And maybe… try to be kind to yourself. Especially at the times when you think you deserve kindness the least.”

  Evantra let out a long, quiet breath. She looked towards Trevor and nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  The silence returned for a moment before Evantra finally turned back to him.

  “I thought you said you weren’t a fan of preachy people?”

  Trevor visibly shuddered.

  “Spending all this time around you must be rubbing off on me. Never doing that again, so I hope you were listening.”

  They chuckled before Evantra abruptly stopped. Trevor looked at her with a degree of apprehension.

  “Anyway, life lessons aside… I came here for another reason…”

  Trevor frowned before he slowly backed away, seeming to sense something in the ominous undertone of Evantra’s voice. His instincts, screaming at him too late.

  “Uh… you know, I think I’m getting a call—”

  “How was your date? What exactly do you like about our dear Miss Alvarez? If you’re so intent on not talking about anything to do with Caliburn, this is the one burning topic that we are going to have a nice, loooong chat about.”

  Evantra dragged Trevor out of the range.

  ***

  They sat in one of the inner cafes in Wisptown. They were seated by the window, and sitting in front of Trevor was a sizable strawberry parfait.

  “Go on. Try it.”

  Staring at her with reluctance, Trevor dug into the dessert, pausing to frown as he took a bite of it.

  “This is—”

  “Surprisingly good? That was my reaction too. This is her favourite dessert place, take care to remember it for the pop quiz.”

  Trevor paled.

  “P-pop quiz?”

  Evantra took great joy in watching Trevor squirm in his seat before eventually letting out a sigh.

  “What I like about her… Carmen is… honest. If she doesn’t like something, she doesn’t beat around the bush to tell me. But it’s always said with kindness, she isn’t needlessly cruel—”

  “I cover that base, mmhm, mmhm,” Evantra nodded along, as Trevor slowly inserted his spoon into the dessert to take another bite.

  “She’s… really strong. Like a lot of you folks out here. I know she’ll have my back when it comes down to it. And… you can tell from the way she’s raised Lucas, just how much she cares about him. I know she’ll go to the ends of the earth for the people she cares about.”

  Evantra paused before nodding.

  “That’s the kind of person she is. Now tell me what you don’t like about her.”

  Trevor froze, spoon still hovering over the parfait.

  Evantra watched the man blanch as she calmly graced him with the very best of her serene smiles. He started looking for potential exit routes immediately.

  But the trap was sprung, and there was no escape for him.

  “I’m no dating expert, Officer. But my friend Millie… well, she wasn’t an expert either, but I learned a great many things from her.”

  Trevor frowned, failing to follow along.

  Poor guy.

  “One of the things that I learned was that it isn’t necessarily the things that you like about the person that are important. Well, of course they are. But it’s equally important to consider whether you can accept the things that you aren’t a fan of. So.”

  Evantra interlinked her fingers as Trevor’s spoon slipped from his fingers. She watched him patiently until the man shook his head.

  “Alright, alright. She’s… strong-minded—”

  “Stubborn.”

  “She… can get angry a little easil—”

  “Has an awful temper.”

  “And… she talks about you way more than she should.”

  “That isn’t a flaw.”

  Trevor let out a gruff laugh as he dug into the parfait.

  “So, can you accept that about her?”

  Trevor nodded.

  “Easily. I like people who can stand behind what they believe in. She also… listens. Doesn’t she?”

  Evantra nodded.

  “She told me about what Uriel said to you, her warning, coming out of the Veilsurge. Many people would have dismissed it, but she wasn’t one of them. All of her ‘flaws’ seem to be products of her greatest strengths.”

  Evantra smiled, and Trevor looked at her as one would a hungry mountain lion that they had just spotted in the brush.

  “You pass. Now, when’s your second date?”

  “T-tomorrow.”

  “And where are you taking her?”

  Trevor looked down at his parfait and back towards Evantra.

  She nodded in satisfaction.

  Then she frowned as she watched Trevor reach underneath the table. She heard the crinkle of a plastic bag as he withdrew something from within. Trevor placed the item on the table in front of her.

  The man cleared his throat as he pushed it towards her.

  “Well… congrats on your safe return. You got me the rose last time, I thought it was about time I got you something too, kid.”

  Evantra slowly undid the plastic bag, withdrawing the game case that had been placed inside.

  Forces Against Darkness.

  She watched as Trevor gave her a brief nod before returning his attention to his strawberry parfait. Evantra carefully trained her eyes on his features, but there was nothing that suggested that he had meant it as something more than a gift.

  “Thanks, old man.”

  She placed the game back in the plastic bag, slowly putting it at her side. She watched as Trevor grimaced, looking back at her.

  “Hey kid… you know how you asked me about Carmen's… “flaws”… are you going to have this conversation with her as well? Have you already? E-eva?”

  Evantra just grinned at him as she rose from her seat, jogging back to her car and leaving him to finish his parfait.

  The happiness of the moment had faded, and Evantra checked the time.

  Noelle’s off her shift.

  It’s time we spoke about Caliburn.