When the merciful light of the suns arrived in the morning, Jerry wasted no time getting in contact with Mr. Moon and relaying the horrors of the previous night to Braxton. Jerry was reduced to such a frantic, panicking, and profusely sweating mess, Braxton failed to get a single, coherent word in. Jerry rambled at such a loud volume and alarming pace over Braxton’s questions, nothing could console him until he shut down and wept without restraint. Braxton sat down with Jerry on the floor of their kitchen, holding his trembling body until the crying jag broke.

  Mr. Moon arrived at the household, joined by four Exorcist Division operators and two individuals from the Triple I Division’s Hostage Retrieval Subdivision. The worked together to secure the perimeter of the house while Mr. Moon took Jerry and Braxton upstairs to their bedroom.

  Jerry felt like Mr. Moon was curiously compassionate, but he guessed the man still possessed some shards of empathy left for his underlings when they suffered traumatic events. Over the next hour or so, Jerry explained what happened, giving a detailed description of last night’s events and its main perpetrator—Marella “The Murderess” Saudins. In addition to the odd showing of compassion, Mr. Moon began to display another emotion he scarcely utilized towards the end of Jerry’s testimony—fear. Mr. Moon’s hackles were up. His eyes became pinpoints of nervous focus. Even his ever loose and languid posture became rigid with apprehension.

  Mr. Moon asked Jerry to follow him away from Braxton, which Jerry did with great hesitation. The two stood in the living room, far away from the prying eyes and ears of Braxton and the operators securing the house outside.

  “Mr. Genovesi,” he said. “What I am about to tell you cannot leave this living room under most circumstances. Can I put an inordinate amount of trust in you not to tell you what I am about to tell you?”

  Jerry sniffled. “What do you need to tell me?”

  “That Touched woman who broke into your house and assaulted you last night?” Mr. Moon said. “She’s been on the Mendakian Union’s top ten most dangerous Touched list for an entire decade now.”

  Jerry jerked backwards like Mr. Moon had clawed him across the face. “An entire decade? Then how come I’ve never heard of her until she broke into my house, threatened my life, and shoved her tongue down my fucking throat?”

  “The list is a secret collection of touched individuals that have been declared national security risks by the Five Chairs, but have continued to elude capture,” Mr. Moon said. “Do you think that is an uncomfortable fact the Mendakian Union would advertise if they could help it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “And now for reasons that are inexplicable as they are alarming, Saudins has her eyes on you, the Rangers, and our activities.”

  Jerry laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t say she has eyes on anything, actually. It’s just skin, a lot of rough, creepy skin where they should be.”

  “I knew that long before you!” Mr. Moon sighed and stared at the house’s ceiling for several moments before returning his eyes to Jerry. “I apologize for yelling at you after what you went through. You don’t deserve that sort of treatment right now.”

  “I’m the last person on Catto Oculo to get upset at somebody else for losing their temper.”

  “Still…what a stress-inducing disaster this simple case of trying to catch a few domestic terrorists has degenerated into.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Proceed with extreme levels of caution, even though Saudins claimed she would stick to the background of your life. Taking a Touched like her at her word would be foolish at best, actively suicidal at best,” Mr. Moon said. “The investigation will continue, but for the safety of you and your husband, you two will have to seek safety in numbers by staying with one of your fellow Rangers for some time. Believe me when I say I would offer my home as refuge without hesitation, but allowing not just one, but two Triple I Divisions special agents to live with me would create issues that would rival the sudden appearance of the Saudins.”

  “I suppose it’s the thought that counts,” Jerry said. “But there’s one thing I’m still very concerned about.”

  “Yes?”

  “Our dogs.”

  “Our dogs?”

  “The stray dogs that sorta belong to Brax and I,” Jerry said. “Seven of them. I refuse to let them stay here, wondering where the Vullen we ran off to while some sick fuck with more knife edges and live bullets than humanity might try to get them to get at us.”

  “There’s a simple solution for that,” Mr. Moon said. “I’ll let all of them stay at my house for as long as they need to. I have a decent-sized home and an even larger, fenced backyard I use for sunbathing during the summer.”

  Jerry started to cry again, not from recalling the traumatic night, but the sheer weight of Mr. Moon’s sudden, unexpected generosity destabilizing him. “Mr. Moon, I’m not exaggerating when I say that is one of the nicest things somebody has ever done for me, but I thought dogs hated Hissians?”

  “I dislike dogs, but that is a common misconception,” Mr. Moon said. “You’re welcome by the way, but don’t confuse my generosity for a declaration of friendship. My goal is completing the mission, and maintaining your mental stability the best I can is a part of that goal. I refuse to have you running about New Chemeketa hunting terrorists while you’re half-insane with anxiety over some dogs, throwing yourself into dangerous situations that could get you killed and me into immense trouble.”

  “Don’t make me take my earlier words back,” Jerry said. “You had a really good thing going on a few moments ago.”

  Mr. Moon shrugged. “Your words and opinions matter very little to me, but your actions do. Now get some clothes, some toiletries, and your husband, then leave this place already. This place has some intense surveillance it needs to go through.”

  While the operators went about their work with Jerry and Braxton’s home, the couple went into Mr. Moon’s work vehicle. “Where to?” he asked.

  Jerry and Braxton discussed the matter between each other.

  Noura’s home was not even to be considered. She had a rule where no man was allowed in her apartment, declaring it a space of “feminine divinity.” And despite the severity of their situation, Jerry had no interest in violating her firm boundaries considering how badly his firm boundaries were violated last night.

  Mallory and Howard were open to providing Jerry and Braxton a place to stay not only because of their Budayeen beliefs that mandated they provide safety to those in danger, but also because they were just that nice. However, their apartment was quite small and while Mallory was a joy to live with, Howard wasn’t. Jerry was Jerry, but not even Braxton possessed the tolerance to withstand Howard’s bizarre antics.

  Rosa lived in a two bedroom apartment with ample space in New Chemeketa’s Zapotown. In addition to this boon, she was just as willing to provide a safe place for Jerry and Braxton as Howard and Mallory. Rosa was quite the quiet, contemplative loner, matching well with Braxton’s personality. This was the opposite case with Jerry. Braxton and Jerry didn’t need to imagine what sort of clashes would erupt if they had to live with her for some time.

  In the end, Braxton and Jerry decided on the most sensible choice of a living arrangement via Anthony. Anthony lived in a one bedroom, shoebox of an apartment near New Chemeketa’s city center that was within walking distance from the Triple I Division’s field office. Even if Anthony was under the pain of a single death, Anthony was the kind of stalwart, rock solid man that would’ve suffered ten thousand deaths to provide safety and succor to Jerry and Braxton due to their long, difficult, and often traumatic history together.

  “You two have been talking for some time,” Mr. Moon said. “Have either of you decided yet?”

  “Sure have,” Jerry said. “Let’s rock up to the anthill.”

  Mr. Moon regarded Jerry with a blank, confused stare. “Come again, Mr. Genovesi?”

  “The anthill, Mr. Moon. Where Anthony lives. Because he’s kinda tiny like an ant, and—”

  “Okay, I’ve heard enough. Let’s get you two there already, but make sure to give him a catcall before we arrive. I would hate to terrify the man by showing up to his home unannounced with you gentlemen in the back of my car.”

  Following a long, tiring day of mind-gnawing anxiety, adjusting to Anthony’s home, and triple-checking the security measures of his home, the three retired to his living room. Anthony’s foster cats, Gorgonzola and Asiago, played in the kitchen while Anthony himself sat in an upholstered chair, finishing off his sixth and final cup of coffaux. Jerry laid on the floor, reading the novel he nearly shot a deliveryman over. Braxton rested on the living room couch that was barely big enough to comfortably fit him. In the corner of the living room, a holographic phonograph the color of real brass played a pleasant, twinkling song called “A Cinder Above” by some band called the True Verticals.

  Were it not for the looming threat of a Touched assassin with murder on her mind and domestic terrorists with ballistic ambitions in their twisted heads running around New Chemeketa, this would’ve been a fantastic night in. Yet ever since the home invasion and Jerry’s subsequent assault, he felt like everything he was doing was a distraction at best, or a delay of his inevitable doom at worst. Vivid, intrusive thoughts of a white hand holding a black knife lunging out of the darkness to stab him in the heart accompanied him all day.

  Jerry eventually failed to focus on the novel before him. “Fuck this! I’m going to sleep. Or more accurately, trying to go to sleep.”

  “Is the novel really that bad?” Anthony asked. “I told you that author was a hack. They only know how to write one plot. Badly.”

  “Be serious,” Jerry said. He sat up to face Anthony. “And I really mean it, Ant.”

  “That’s a funny request coming from you of all people.”

  “Am I going to die before the year ends?” Jerry asked.

  “You will not die before the year ends,” Braxton said firmly. “I know what happened to you earlier was the very definition of harrowing, but you are also the definition of hard-to-kill. Even if that Touched stabbed you directly in the heart, you would’ve pulled it out and gutted her with it.”

  “Listen to your husband,” Anthony said. “He’s been around you long enough to know you better than you know yourself, and what he knows about you is that you’re prone to catastrophizing, panic, but also springing back from events that would’ve convinced weaker men to give up.”

  “But I have to have a limit somewhere, right?”

  “Jerry, do you remember the time in Zapotek when you got shot in the head so badly by a sniper, Anthony, Rosa, and I became intimately familiar with what the inside of your skull looked like?” Braxton asked.

  “Fuck yeah, I remember! It’s real hard to forget the times I’ve been shot in the twelvedamned head.”

  “What happened afterwards?” Anthony asked.

  “I crawled out of the shallow grave y'all put me in, used the grave marker as a walking stick for several kilometers, then tracked y'all down while being hunted by the Zapotekan military,” Jerry said. “What I really remember was being thirsty as Vullen. The first thing I wanted to drink was some ice-cold tequila, but all I got was some old well water that tasted like older copper from a family that took pity on me.”

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  “Do you remember what happened when that claymore went off on you while we were running away from those helicopters in the Zapotek oil fields we sabotaged?” Anthony asked.

  “I sure as shit do,” Jerry said. “So many ball bearings went through me, I felt like a pinball machine on crisk while I got way above my daily recommended dosage of iron. But Rosa and some other rebels stitched me back together and told me to watch where I stepped next time. Wretched demon of a woman she is, but an angel on the battlefield.”

  “What do you think we’re trying to tell you?” Braxton asked.

  “That my trauma doesn’t matter because I’m some kind of unbreakable, blonde-headed bastard or something?” Jerry asked.

  Braxton and Anthony groaned together at Jerry’s tedious bullshit.

  “No, you absurd circus of a man,” Braxton said. “We’re trying to tell you that even when faced with true physical danger, everything seems to struggle to kill you. The Taxman tries to get His due, but you’re an expert at tax evasion it seems.”

  “I guess it runs in the blood,” Jerry said bitterly. “Even when my daddy was having his prefrontal cortex munched on by dementia, I read in my older brother’s autobiography that he could fight him fair and square.”

  Anthony nodded in agreement. “Frankly, we expect you to outlive all of us, like some kind of fucked-up, supernatural cockatoo.”

  “Fine, my body is one thing. Break it, burn it, twist it, and pop it like putty, but what about my mind?” Jerry asked with heartbreaking earnestness. “Do you two think I can keep that together? Or will I eventually lose the last few marbles left in the hole-filled sack I call a mind one of these days?”

  Anthony and Braxton fell silent. They looked at each other, uncertain and hesitant, but continued to say nothing else. One of Anthony’s foster cats knocked something over in the kitchen, providing him with an excellent way to extricate himself from the uncomfortable pause in the conversation.

  Jerry laughed bitterly. “Just what I thought. Now please turn the lights and that dreadful music off, Anthony. I have tolerated it far longer than I should because of my refugee status.”

  It was some time near 0800. Dressed in nothing but a bathrobe and sitting on his now profaned porcelain throne, Daniel Gonzales suffered a nightmarish case of the runs. The war in his digestive system left him sweating, dehydrated, bent over in agony, and praying to Saint Muntrass above for any form of relief. The saint of adaptability failed to answer any of his desperate calls.

  Yesterday, while Daniel was running late to his job, he was in desperate need of quick, cheap calories, so he made the choice of buying sketchy chili from an even sketchier hole in the wall of a greasy spoon called the Squeaky Rat. This turned out to be a poor choice. Daniel decided that if this current case of food poisoning left him disabled, he would sue the place into the ground. But for right now, he focused on more pressing, immediate matters, like the matters shooting out of him at an alarming rate.

  There was a knock at his door. That was unnerving. He seldom ordered anything, his few friends always called before visiting him, and the only other people that bothered him at odd, unplanned times were those coercive Grey Men bastards.

  Much like the street chili, Daniel had made the, earlier, much terrible choice of embezzling funds from his workplace. His now luckily deceased supervisor, a predatory man by the name of Rentoir Augsaux, discovered the immense theft. But rather than hand him over to the gendarmes for prosecution, Rentoir had cut Daniel a deal that felt like it was crafted by Vullen Himself. Rentoir worked some financial magic that got any and all future heat off of Daniel. In return, Daniel would provide information, a safehouse, and whatever he could provide to a Grey Men whenever asked.

  At the time, the deal had sounded so simple and clean. But as it had turned out, nothing was simple and especially not clean when it comes to the downright dirty dealings of the Grey Men.

  After making sure he was proper, Daniel stumbled over to his apartment’s front door and looked through the peephole. He gasped and nearly lost control of his bowels at the sight of who was behind the door before him. It was Rentoir dressed in a hoodie. The man was somehow alive despite Daniel going to his memorial service and touching the silver urn that held the remnants of his earthly remains. Then again, this shouldn’t be that shocking to Daniel. Rentoir was not only a tricky bastard weasel of a man, but more than likely Touched as well. Like most mundanes, Daniel knew death and his devious coworker, the Taxman, possessed a slippery hold on things like the Touched.

  Daniel cautiously cracked the door open. He looked Rentoir up and down, unsure if he was hallucinating from his losing battle with foodborne illness. “Rentoir, is that really you?”

  Rentoir flashed that smarmy, skin-crawling smile he usually did with Daniel. “Who the fuck else could it be?”

  “But I thought you were dead?”

  “You thought wrong,” Rentoir said. “Then again, you Zapos aren’t known for their intellect, impulse control, and other such important aspects gifted to the higher, more civilized races of humanity.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Daniel said. “That is definitely you. What do you need and why are you here?”

  “To tell you some important things concerning our unique relationship,” Rentoir said. “Move aside and let me in.”

  Daniel Gonzales did so with pathetic, servile swiftness. He went into his kitchen to get Rentoir a glass of water and a slapped together ham sandwich, proper food safety be damned. Daniel was certain that most Touched were immune to most diseases, or at least that’s what he read somewhere on the national internet.

  Rentoir wasted no time making himself as comfortable as he could be, sitting on Daniel’s couch and crossing his muddy boots on Daniel’s nice coffee table—the one his late uncle gifted him. Daniel painfully swallowed the urge to strike Rentoir in the face with his fist, but knew that situation would end in tears that belonged to him.

  Rentoir consumed the water and ham sandwich at a rapid, alarming rate. That was nothing like his usual behavior. Daniel wondered if Rentoir was on the run and had eaten nothing solid in days.

  As expected, Rentoir failed to say even a simple “thanks” before he asked a bizarre question. “Do you know what it’s like to die screaming?”

  Daniel recoiled as if Rentoir pulled a gun on him. “Excuse me?”

  “Do you know what it’s like to die screaming?”

  “Uh…no. Why would I want to even know that?”

  “Let me spoil it for you like my body is currently spoiling,” Rentoir said. “In two words, It sucks. In four words, it really fucking sucks, especially if the person making you die screaming is some race-mixing, druggie dipshit armed with the blade of a paper cutter. As the name suggests, a paper cutter blade isn’t really well-suited for getting through the meat of a full grown man’s neck, but it can get the job done in a pinch with some elbow grease.”

  Daniel stared at Rentoir like he was explaining there was a cure to cancer in his testicles that could only be obtained by smashing them open with a sledgehammer. Something was deeply wrong with Rentoir—well, more than usual. In addition to this, Daniel noticed there was yet another thing wrong with Rentoir: A foul, sour stench like rotting meat emitted from him.

  Rentoir continued talking. “By the time Bradley got to the real juicy and most vital parts to cut off my head, I’m certain he severed the nerves that let me feel most things below my neck. But I still tasted the blood flooding my mouth, saw him swinging like a man possessed, and felt my toes and fingers twitching, begging me to do something, fucking anything. But there was nothing to be done. I simply faded off to the big black that awaits us all. No Taxman. No Vullen. No Eternal Arcadia. Just…blackness. Do you get what I’m getting at here?”

  “You’re not Rentoir,” Daniel whispered. “You’re something wearing his skin.”

  “Something close to that, but not quite it,” “Rentoir” said. “You catch on quicker than frogskin-flavored condoms, don’t you?”

  “I think you should leave, whatever the fuck you are.”

  “Soon, my impatient Zapo, soon.”

  “Rentoir” looked at the wristwatch on “his” right hand. Daniel noticed an alarming detail about the supposed wristwatch. It wasn’t on “his” wrist. It was somehow embedded in “his” wrist while leaking a mysterious, stinking, emulsified liver-colored fluid. Daniel started to tremble and hyperventilate. He had an unshakable feeling he was about to die this morning.

  “In about twenty seconds, two combat-certified special agents from the Triple I Division special will raid your apartment,” “Rentoir” said. “They will blow your door down with an explosive charge. They will then arrest you without more force than needed if you don’t try to resist or flee. But don’t even think of trying to run away, champ. Not only are you on the third floor of your apartment building, this place is surrounded by a few Exorcist Division operators. They are nowhere as nice as I am, and they are willing and able to start their mornings with a fresh body instead of a fresh pot of coffaux. What do you say, Mr. Gonzales?”

  “What?”

  “Good luck, Mr. Gonzales. You’re going to need it.”

  “Rentoir” rapidly disintegrated into a puddle of bubbling flesh and shattered bone fragments, ruining Daniel’s couch, coffaux table, and the floor beneath both. The stench was immense. But before Daniel had a chance to even gag, “Rentoir’s” advance warning came true.

  Daniel’s front door exploded into his apartment with a deafening crack he not just heard, but felt travel through his body with such force, he felt his breathing and heartbeat disrupted for a few seconds. Wooden shrapnel bounced off of everything and flew everywhere, but Daniel’s reliable bathrobe shielded him from the worst of the damage.

  Through the cordite scented haze of the explosive entry, two rifle-carrying men dressed in black tactical gear emblazoned with the Triple I Division’s insignia rushed into Daniel’s apartment. The first man was a tall, lanky Nuragian man while the second man behind him was one of the largest Affrodians Daniel had ever witnessed. He resembled a wall of meat draped in black more than a human. Despite the intimidating size of the second man, the first one somehow felt much more dangerous and unhinged to Daniel. This was soon confirmed by the first man bellowing.

  “For peace and plenty, you cocksucker!” The man pointed the barrel of his rifle towards Daniel’s face. “I don’t give a shit if there’s a man who just turned into goo at your feet. I want to see your belly in it RIGHT FUCKING NOW.”

  Rather than let himself suffer yet another indignity on this catastrophic morning, Daniel shat his bathrobes, turned tail, and ran. The first man was hot on his reeking trail. He commanded him to stop while grabbing him by the left sleeve of his bathrobe. Daniel undid his bathrobe’s belt and wiggled out of it. Now completely naked, Daniel ran into his bedroom and locked the door behind him, knowing that it was no real solution to his problem. If those two men could get through his front door in seconds, they would easily get through his bedroom door in half that time.

  With no clothes, no good ideas of escape, and no hope of being able to negotiate himself out of this mess, Daniel took the best option he had. He opened the window of his bedroom, then fled onto the fire escape. The freezing winter winds all around him and the cold metal biting his bare feet were no friends of his. There were also no friends to be far beneath him. In the alleyway below Daniel, at least six or several Exorcist division operators were lingering there like hungry dogs who had ran a cat up a tree.

  The window of his bedroom broke. Daniel looked at it and saw the first man sticking halfway through it. If the first man wanted, he could’ve crawled through the window anytime he wanted and pulled Daniel back in through the shattered glass of the window frame. But he remained where he was, attempting to choose reason over raw force.

  “Gonzales,” the first man shouted at a lower volume. He had a curious accent Gonzales failed to place anywhere he knew about. “Your bare asscheeks are getting whipped something fierce by the winter winds, you have no safe, sensible way to escape this situation, and you appear to have literally shit the bed. Get out from there before you turn yourself into cold pavement pizza, man.”

  “No,” Gonzales said. “You can’t make me!”

  “Act like a twelvedamned adult for once in your twelvedamned life,” the first man shouted, immediately losing his pretense of rationality. “Do you really think I’m gonna waste my time arguing with a naked man standing on his fire escape? I’m watching your dick and toes get eaten up by frostbite in real time. For fuckssake, I can see your balls shriveling in real time, too. They won’t bounce like the rest of you if you’re stupid enough to jump.”

  “Maybe I will,” Gonzales said. “I can see a trashcan beneath me. I might hurt myself, but I think it could at least break my fall.”

  “Then your fucking ankles,” the first man said. “Even if you somehow didn’t bust your brains all over the ground and actually survived, then what? We’ll scoop your injured ass off the ground and haul you off to prison for providing shelter and material support to terrorists. And trust me on this one, man, prison is not the place you want to be when you’re crippled. The kind of bad dudes in there are the kind of people who have turned detecting weakness into a science.”

  Gonzales looked at the trashcan far beneath him and the haunting blue eyes of the first man before him. Something in his roiling guts told him he was better off jumping instead of being captured. Even if he missed the mark and died, at least he would be far, far away from the horrifying man near him.

  “Look at his eyes,” the massive man said. “He’s already made his mind up. Jerry, you need to try and grab him right now.”

  “You got it,” Jerry said. “Enough talking either way.”

  The moment the man named Jerry fit his first leg through the window frame, Gonzales moved to escape. He climbed on top of the fire escape’s fencing, took a final look back at Jerry, then jumped.

  “I told you he would be a jumper once we saw the floorplan,” an Exorcist Division operator on the ground screamed at one of his comrades while pointing at Gonzales' rapid descent. “Look at that brown boy fly! I’m fifty drancs richer now!”

  “And I’m fifty drancs poorer now,” a different Exorcist Division operator shouted. “I hope this crazy son of a bitch does a split when he lands!”

  Gonzales plummeted towards the trash can he hoped would break his fall instead of his body. He screamed in immediate regret as his arms pinwheeled wildly through the air.

  A few seconds later, his feet made contact with the cold metal of the trash can’s top. It was empty.

  Empty, he thought. Empty…NO! NO! NO! DAMN IT!

  So rather than the trash can helping to break his fall, it helped to break him like Jerry said it would. Gonzales went through it like his feet were rods of tungsten. When his bare feet kissed the bottom of the trash can’s interior, gravity turned him into a plaything.

  His ankles shattered like desiccated twigs in the hands of an angry Feylian juggernaut. Shattered bone ground against shattered bone, escaping the skin and spraying small jets of blood. The blinding pain made his initial screaming reach its shrill, ear-splitting zenith. The force of the rough landing tipped the trash can over with him still inside of it. His bottom jaw smashed on the ground, fracturing with such speed and mind-melting pain, he instantly blacked out.