Beast Hunters

A Gamelit Harem Adventure Book 1

Dave Austin

Beast Hunters Book 1 © 2021 by Dave Austin. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table Of Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter I

"EVERYONE TO THE RIGHT! THIS ROAD IS PROHIBITED. THE HUNTERS ARE SOLVING THE PROBLEM," a policeman in black uniform and a golden badge shouted, his hand pointing to his right side.

A mixture of red and orange flashed before my eyes. Explosions were getting bigger, and a huge, green-scalped dinosaur with a metal arm had just fired a Hunter across the air. It was hard to follow every movement when the people behind were constantly honking. At the same time, others turned over to a secondary street and speeded up until they could no longer be seen.

It was not the first time that a fight took on epic proportions, ending up unraveling amidst buildings, tearing them down, and injuring innocent people. It happened a lot when the Hunters were still rookies. They had the bad habit of thinking they were better than they really were, thus taking unnecessary risks. I would not make the same mistake.

Suddenly, the sound of iron dragging through the floor crept in, leaving everyone's ears humming. One of the most prolific hunters of the decade had climbed on his electric skateboard and had just jumped over the police barrier.

I wasn’t a big fan of him, much less his spiky red hair. He thought he was better than everyone. I remembered when once, in an interview, after destroying a level 9 monster, he challenged any Hunter to fight him.

He was one of the few Hunters who always fought alone. Despite the help he gave to the police, they avoided having to contact him. He was 27. His father had trained him to be a Hunter since he was born. In his head, he was still a teenager. He had never developed past that.

Still, he did not lack money, women, or fame. Everything that I desired. He withdrew his semi-automatic gun, the sun beating down on it, dazzling me and those close to me.

"I'M ALREADY LATE!" a man in his 40's, two cars behind me, screamed.

A few minutes later the line finally advanced, and I drove away while looking at the battle, still happening afar.

Buildings crumbled, and glass was shattered. This would most likely lead to another anti careless’ Hunters protest. They had been happening a lot lately. People were fed up, and public opinion on Hunters was slowly changing.

I had not set foot in the capital for a while. People walked across the streets, and the colorful digital billboards constantly blinked. They were advertising all the recent news about Hunters. One was now informing of Foxel’s latest victory, the red-haired boy, while the other announced that there were less than 24 hours left before a new batch of long-range weapons were put on sale. The minimum cost was 2500 Hunter Points. Nice, I had zero.

To get points, I had to get the Hunter App and then kill some monsters. Those points could also be used as real money. Well, no wonder the population saw us as outsiders instead of vigilantes in plain sight. We not only had a monthly wage, as we also got extra money for slaying monsters. It was a way to incentivize Hunters to be more active. Which I always thought was weird, seeing that it was our job.

The streets were almost empty at the time. Most people had parked their cars in the main parking lot before going to the nearby restaurants. But, unlike them, I drove for a few more minutes until I saw the big yellow-brown building that rose splendidly above all others.

I didn’t leave the car right away. Instead, I inhaled the hotdogs’ scent that danced throughout the air, coming from the walking ban down the street.

The building had five huge floors, and each one was the base of the Hunters of that specific level. The red doors were never closed for more than a few seconds. People were coming and going all the time. However, they ignored and avoided touching each other.

Despite the three years, I had spent in the academy, since I was 18 until now, the distance between Hunters who didn’t belong in the same level still confused me. Maybe because I grew up with a whole house every weekend and all the neighbors, a few Hunters, sharing funny stories during barbecue. Even today, the chop smell takes me to that tender age where everything seemed way simpler. But, anyway, I was already wasting too much time. After closing my car’s door, I moved on to the building’s gate. My heart was racing faster than I would ever admit to anyone. My knees were trembling, and I swear that for a few seconds, I could not hear anyone or anything.

It was my second time inside that building: the yellow walls and the newly painted black ceiling contrasted with the white marble floor. I was immediately taken aback by the main room. It was huge, and several groups talked to each other while others were walking up to the stairwells that stood in the furthest corner. Before it, there was a desk where a girl with red hair up to her shoulders, green eyes shining under the light that brightened them, softly rubbed her rosy cheeks.

She was pointing out the names of all those who passed by and their ranks. No one dared to disrespect her. Instead, everyone said good morning to her, even the most badly regarded. I waited until my turn came and cleared my throat before I spoke to her. I explained my situation to her, told her my name, that I was new there, and asked her where I had to go.

She never took her eyes from me, numbed by my words, shaking her head slightly to the right while I poured everything out.

"You need to go down those stairs. The second door on the left.” She said. A soft, embellished and almost therapeutic voice, "Welcome to the Hunters Headquarters, James!" She added, this time with a smile.

The scent of jasmine rose through my nostrils.

"Thank you. I’m making sure I don't get lost." I answered her, trying to keep the conversation going even though I knew there were at least 10 people behind me in line.

"If you get lost, just come back here. I'll help you," she said and leaned over to me, the cleavage not being enough to hide her boobs.

I must admit I was embarrassed to the point where my cheeks turned red. I thanked her for the help, and she smiled once more, this time putting some loose strands of her hair behind her ear.

I rolled up my sleeves and walked into the unknown. I wasn’t the best student at the academy, but I had excelled at using long-range weapons. My teachers used to say I had a lynx’s eye.

The corridor was empty. Despite a dozen doors, there was only one room with the lights on, a space whose white floor contrasted with the high black ceiling. A lady in her 40’s, wide-hips and sloping shoulders, was on the back, tidying up some dusty pages between reams of paper. She didn’t hear me coming. She hummed a pop song, the kind you could listen to on the radio every morning, using her free hand to drum her fingers in her brown pants.

I buzzed the small bell that was on top of the desk, and she turned around. She smiled, showing her yellow teeth and her wrinkles twitched.  The hidden iris behind her bushy eyebrows and her curved upwards eyelashes brightened. She leaned over the table and asked me how she could help me.

“Hello, my dear. You’re from the new batch of Hunters, right? I assume you’re here because you want your Hunter APP. I hope you know how careful you must be out there. A lot of people came here in search of money and fame and come back with less than they had.” She said, frowning and scratching her left nostril.

“Yes, I am. And thank you, but what do you mean by they return with less? Less money?” I asked her.

“Money is not everything, young man. They come back with grief on their minds – repentance consumes some. Others, happier or not, depending on how you see life, come back without body parts. Not forgetting those who don’t even come back. It’s not as easy as it looks out there.” She answered, her fresh cinnamon scent filling the room.

“I’ll be careful,” I answered, omitting how anxious I was. How I felt my toes curling as an electric charge run down my spine.

“Your choice. I just need to know what your type is. I’d say you’re not a huge fan of short-range fighting. Maybe a shooter?”

“You have an eye for this sort of thing, don’t you?” I replied, trying hard not to laugh, “You’re right. I’m a shooter.”

“Mm-hmm.” She mumbled, “I have a few options here that I think you’ll appreciate. Long or short range?” She asked, the wheels in her head turning as she thought about the different types.

“Long. Do you have something with a huge impact power but light enough to handle?” I asked her while remembering those long afternoons in the shooting range.

“Of course, boy. We have everything. I’ll pick up something.” She replied.

She smiled at me and turned around. Her fat, greasy fingers ran through the metal of the bookshelves as she walked. My heart was beating like 1000 men marching towards victory and apogee. She grabbed a few boxes, searched them, closing, and repeating the same accuracy of movements in others. Despite her ample hips, she didn’t seem to have any difficulty in bending or kneeling.

After a few seconds, she opened one of the boxes in a corner, looked at me, smiled, and picked it up.

She placed it on the table carefully, and that was when I noticed the little yellow symbol in the left corner saying “fragile.” The blue and orange colors peered through a tiny opening. My toes curled up, and my arm hair raised. She took an x-act from a drawer under the desk and opened the box until the smell spread across the room – a metallic, warm fragrance. I inhaled it, taking a deep breath, still incredulous with the three options that stood in front of me.

It was a pistol with two pipes, one black and one orange, with a black handle and the rest dark blue. It wasn’t heavy but not as light as I was looking for. I ignored the second option – a three-arrow bow. My knowledge about bows was zero. I’d used them a few times at the academy, but the arrows had a habit of ending up on top of a tree, forcing someone far more skilled to get them with sharp, precise shots.

The third option seemed to be the most appropriate – similar to the first, but orange strokes under both gray pipes and proper weight. I was able to maneuver it with ease and even did some tricks with it. I moved my fingers between the handle, throwing the gun in the air, recovering it, and turning it.

The woman looked at me, her eyes following the glint, the orange obscuring the grayness.

“I see you’ve already decided.” She said, putting the rest of the weapons away.

“I think so. For a beginner like me, this is great.” I answered her, putting the gun on the table, “I’m excited.”

“They always are, boy. You can have the gun now. Just sign here.” She said and bowed again.

From another drawer, she took a tablet. She asked for my fingerprint and a signature using a small rubber-tipped pencil. I followed her directions. I pressed the base of my index finger against the plate until the color changed, and a laser analyzed the whole palm of my hand, scanning it and running my prints through the system. Letters began to appear, slowly, joining until they formed sentences, pointing out information about me.

James Crusher

Rank: E

Experience points: 0/150 to the next Rank

Money: 250 hunter points

Weapon: Orange Pistol

“Turn around now.” She ordered me.

She raked through something in an already open drawer and used her free hand to divert the hair whirlpool on the back of my head. I was going to ask her what she was doing when I felt a needle penetrating my skin, going deep, pouring something into my blood. I blinked my eyes - the colors around me surfed the walls, and a sharp pain seized the left side of my head.

"I know it hurts, but it's normal. It'll only take a few seconds." She said while removing the needle from my skin. When she drew the needle, my elastic skin also receded, leaving the area all reddish. She pulled a mirror out of her back pocket and showed me.

"It's done. You're ready to get out of here and fight the monsters that you want, level up, and perhaps reach the top. Now you can see all the information about your colleagues. As you are still in rank E, you can only go up to the first floor, where it is the common space of your rank, and you can come down here, to me, to buy weapons and equipment. Any questions?"

"I don't think so. Thank you very much! You'll see that in a short time, I'll be climbing the ranking, reaching the top, and you'll be surprised, Miss...? I still don't know your name."

"You can call me Grace." She answered and smiled one last time before sighing and turning her back, dragging her suede shoes across the floor.

Chapter II

I went up the stairs again and found myself on ground zero. The same girl from before talked to a boy with long grey hair, brown eyes, and a long black robe that covered his whole body, down to the boots, which were also black.

I disregarded the situation, which was expected, and went up to the first floor. It was the first time I had ever put my feet on that radiant floor. The lights fell on the vast empty corridor, my body reflected in the ground’s brightness. Someone had glued a white paper with a black arrow pointing to the left, indicating that it was the route to the living room. There was no information about what was on the right side, although seeing a wooden door in the corner was possible.

There were pictures of legendary Hunters all over the hallway - from the first one, Carlx, 30 years ago, to Laney, the first woman to be photographed, 25 years ago. He, with his legendary brown robe, black pants, and two swords on his back, while she had her purple dress complimenting her short pink hair and her gloves with long-range missiles.

The door was half-open. As I opened it, the door crept across the floor, drawing the attention of everyone present. Everyone had their eyes set on me, on the newbie, who had just arrived there and was already causing disturbances. As usual, they didn't seem very friendly or receptive. A group was using the interactive whiteboard to see new missions. There were also two girls, one lying on the couch with a black top hat covering her face and a black bustier, one of those that the two parts are attached by metallic threads. The other girl was sitting on a cushioned chair, with a light blue hat and a rose-colored dress, fully matching her rosy cheeks and green eyes. She also had a metallic crystalline glove on her right hand. I had never seen one like that before. The truth was, I didn't even know how they worked. Teachers, of course, used to explain everything about them to us. They had created a natural element out of cells discovered about 50 years ago and how they used body energy to do it. Still, otherwise, I knew zero about how they worked.

Their stats appeared next to their bodies, vertically, like a shopping list, item by item. Both were level E, although the girl in the black hat already had some experience compared to the girl in the dress who had zero like me.

"Are you looking for trouble?" One of them, with long brown hair, a superficial cut extending from his right eyebrow to his cheek, and a chubby nose, asked. His low voice echoed through the room. Nobody moved. The air got heavier, and he took two steps forward.

"He's a rookie. Just ignore him. Come on, we got to get going before somebody gets hurt before we arrive.” A brown-haired boy, with younger features than I, intervened.

"You're right. Let's just go." He said, walking towards me, bumping into my shoulder as he left.

Silence ravaged the room. An awkward environment to which no one was indifferent. Suddenly, an alert appeared on the screen - a red exclamation mark flashing constantly. A video of a monster, a wolf-like metal-clawed creature with a horn on his forehead, and black stains on his white fur, played before us. The aberration had stopped the traffic at the bridge. It now tore car’s bonnets, chasing down some families who were trying to escape as quickly as possible. Even the girl in the black dress took the top hat off her face and paid attention.

"A GROUP OF THREE TO FIVE PEOPLE IS URGENTLY REQUESTED ON OKINAWA STREET."

The capital letters blinked on the screen. There was no one else in the room but the three of us.

Chapter III

"We have to go!" I said, my legs trembling and my left foot tapping the ground like a drum set, "Do you have a group yet?"

"Ah...no... But I don't know, what if things go south? What if one of us gets hurt?" The girl in the pink dress said, her sweet voice serving as music to my ears, while she crossed her arms to shelter herself, her tits almost popping out.

"A Hunter can't be afraid of getting hurt. Let's go. People need us. You agree with me, don't you?" I asked the other girl in the room, who had short green shaded black hair and a smooth eyeliner string.

"I don't join groups. I only work alone." She answered and leaned back on the couch, dribbling her hat through her fingers.

The signal was still flashing on the screen. Although the color was the same as before, it seemed to be redder to me - the danger was getting deadlier, and it drew me to it.

"Just once. There's no one else here, and those people need help." I said, pointing at the screen showing footage from the nearest security camera.

"Just once?" The girl with the black hair asked, "Okay, you're right. We have to help those people, but don't think this means we're a team!" She said, almost steaming.

"If you two are going... I’m going too. I don’t want to be left all alone. Look at his teeth! So angry, so consumed by coldness. I'm a little scared." The other girl asked and stood up, her blonde hair turning greyish when the light shone on it, sticking on her thick, wet lips, “I’m Maggie.”

“I’m Kendra.” The other girl replied, almost twisting her eyes until the little blue light disappeared behind them.

"My car's in the driveway. We better hurry." I said, getting more and more excited.

There it was, my first mission right before me. My father would be proud if he was still alive. After all, he was the big reason why I joined the academy, why I've had this huge craving in me to become a Hunter ever since I was a kid.

"Hey, what's up? Are we going or not? What are you waiting for?" Kendra asked me, my distraction not going unnoticed.

"Yeah, sorry, let's go. Maggie, are you ready?"

"Not really, but I have to, right? Sometimes I wonder why I decided to become a Hunter. Anyway, we have to accept the mission. Take the APP and put it close to each other. The sensors will recognize the other devices and put us on a team. It will be good for splitting the money and the experience points."

As she instructed, we paired the devices until a confirmation that we were a team appeared on each other's screens. Maggie walked to the digital board on the wall and accepted the mission, positioning her device in front of a bar code until different letters came together.

"MISSION ACCEPTED. 3 PEOPLE. LEVEL 2 BEAST. OKINAWA CITY."

"Finally. Can we go now?" Kendra asked, adjusting her corset until it was so tight to her body that all the subtleties of her curves were accentuated to uttermost detail.

The room was still empty besides us. The walls had been painted yellow recently. It was possible to see the brushstrokes whenever the rotating light on the ceiling fell on them. We rushed out of the room. Kendra and I had to take a few breaks as Maggie almost tripped over her high heels every time she sped up.

Time was dragging on, and I couldn't help but think of the citizens in danger. Maggie took off her shoes and ran to the entrance as soon as we got down the escalators. Everyone's eyes hung over her, but she didn't stop. Several laughs rose above the many voices that spread across the wide entrance. Someone was drinking hot coffee, with a soft, sweet spice on top, which went up through our nostrils as we passed them.

As soon as we found ourselves on the other side of the entrance, all the noises were muffled. A breeze of wind whistled through the high trees that hid the building's façade and were also the stage for the lives of a few orange-billed birds. There were very few cars on the road, although lunchtime was about to end. It wouldn't be surprising if the streets filled up - honking until quietness was destroyed. A disgusting petrol odor lingered in the air. Yeah, because, for some reason, no one had yet come up with a permanent solution for that smell.

We get in the car. Kendra sat by my side, and Maggie sat in the backseat, the three seats being taken by her, her hat and her high heels.

I hit the pedal, then drove to the highway, which was almost empty, and followed the GPS directions to Okinawa. Kendra turned on the radio - news of recent attacks worldwide cooled the temperature inside the car. Not even my satin cushions were enough to warm our hearts when the interviewer was questioning people who had been forced to flee from their houses. Mourning and crying flooded my little red car, with only its five seats, and prevented the tires and horns of the other vehicles from being heard.

"Faster," Kendra said, unable to look me in the eyes.

She was gazing at the sight abroad, the green hills that stretched out to infinity, along the sides of the road, illuminated by the delicate rays of sunlight shining on the bumpy hills.

"I'm already at full speed," I answered her, already under stress, the usual protruding vein popping up on the left side of my neck.

"Is this all that this car can do?" She said, giggling sarcastically. By doing so, the cheek on the right side gained a dimple.

"Funny. Do you have a better car?" I answered her, focusing on the still empty road and on a sign indicating the few meters left for Okinawa.

In the back seat, Maggie pressed her fragile fingers into her legs, the joints already red.

I took a detour to the left. A metal plate whose corners shone and reflected the sunlight indicated the entrance to the city. A police barricade prevented the passage of cars. Simultaneously, doctors took care of the wounded - some on stretchers, others with mere marks, sparkling blood flowing down their foreheads, their faces covered with dust.

People in a frenzied rush and heart-breaking screams scratched our ears.

"He's getting closer," Kendra said and pointed to a place a few feet away from us, beyond the barricade.

Regular policemen, wearing black trousers and blue sweatshirts, were shooting at the monster, which now looked like it didn't have normal hair. It looked synthetic, with a slightly metallic tinge.  His claws scratched the ground, the metal tearing it up like paper. Metallic howls made men's hands tremble, and the shots fired scraped against his body instead of hitting it right in the face.

"It's time for us to be heroes," I said, stopping the car and opening the door. I palpated my hips to confirm I had the gun in my holster.

"I can't believe I'm here," Maggie said, getting out of the car and pulling the fire gloves to the top of her wrist.

"Are you always this boring?" Kendra asked her, pulling her whip off the handle but keeping it folded up.

"I just don't like violence. Not everything revolves around that, you know?" She answered, swinging her blond hair to the right.

"Why are you a hunter then? You had to know what you were getting into?" I asked, still intrigued. I had never met anyone who abhorred so much fighting. Cowards, yes, many, but she didn’t seem like one despite being frightened.

"She's never heard that the good in life is in what we shouldn't do." Kendra counterattacked, winking at Maggie.

I couldn't help but smile at her. I was perfectly aware that it wasn't the right time. Still, that sarcastic and daring personality caught my attention more than the tranquility that Maggie transmitted. An inevitable attraction to darkness.

"Come on, girls, it's time." I said, "The cops won't last much longer."

We ran to the barrier, showing our Hunters apps to get access. The policeman who guided us to the other side sighed with relief, thanking us for our help.

"Thank you, thank you, we didn't think anyone would come." He said, rubbing his chubby cheeks with his greasy fingers, "What rank are you?"

"Rank E," Maggie replied while taking out a small bottle of camellia scented perfume from her pocket.

She used it to perfume herself, surprising the policeman, whose dark circles matched the black irises of his eyes.

"Oh, can you do it?" He asked, putting his hands in his pockets and picking a cigarette from there.

Kendra cast a ferocious glance at him, squinting her eyes and frowning, to the point where the man let the already lit cigarette stumble between his fingers and fall on the floor. The ash danced through the air, and he apologized for the offense.

"We better go." The policeman said, his voice trembling while averting Kendra's gaze. "We've already got three wounded cops, one of which had to be taken to the hospital. The cut opened his torso. We managed to keep the monster there, but the bullets seem to be ricocheting. Even when they hit him in the face, the effect is almost zero. He gets stunned, but it only lasts a few seconds."

"Let's go. Tell them to back off. We'll take care of it now." I said, feeling something stuck in my throat, still trying to think of a plan, "Are you ready?"

"I was born ready," Kendra answered, unfolding the whip and swinging it, its metallic tip hitting the ground and sparking.

"I have to, don't I?" Maggie said, opening her hands, letting the small flame take on orange and yellowish colors.

We rushed in until we reached the police force. As soon as they heard the captain's orders for them to move away, a wave of relieved sighs circled the road. They walked backward, always with their weapons aiming at the monster, their legs still trembling with every step the beast took.

The wolf had small, green eyes, almost imperceptible from afar. Maggie straightened her clothes and said that she would have brought other garments if she knew there would be such a putrid aroma.

Kendra started the attack without even warning, maneuvering her whip with tremendous ease, and pulling it back before firing it at the monster. The metal hit the steel, a sound like a chalk scratching on a board, but the effect was null. The wolf took advantage and grabbed her weapon with his sharp teeth, oil dripping between them, sticking them in its sensitive part. As much as she tilted her body, her knees bent, and her hands tied to the handle, the wolf was much more potent. There was no hesitation in his eyes, and he didn't even seem to be making a great effort. He was delighted to see the sweat dripping down her face and opened his green eyes whenever a drop of her blood slipped from her hands to the ground.

"WILL YOU HELP ME!?" She screamed, the fabric tearing her hands.

I was so absorbed in what was happening that I hadn't even moved. Maggie stood still, now looking at me for comfort and orders to follow.

"Maggie, shoot fireballs. See if you can distract him while I help Kendra." I said. I ran toward her, my gun in my holster, putting my body next to hers.

We worked together. We both pulled the whip at the same time while Maggie threw fireballs, the sparks falling to the ground, the flames hitting the wolf. His metallic hair was scorched, and his eyes closed for seconds, but he was still as good as new. He gnashed his teeth against each other and turned his face, grabbing Kendra's whip and using it to pull us toward him and throw us into the air. Our bodies rolled down the road, our knees peeling and our hands scraping on the asphalt. Kendra's body fell on mine, my hands on her hips and her hair in my face. The sun overshadowed her face, and her green eyes took on amber contours, her warm breath brushing against my neck and one of her knees between my legs.

"I... Ah... Get off me!" Kendra said, tripping over her own words.

"You have to get up first!" I answered, looking to the side, seeing Maggie's fireballs losing color and shrinking in size, almost like mere clicks bursting in her hands.

Kendra got up, straightened her clothes, and grabbed her whip, which was on the floor, the end covered in a brownish liquid with a smell that almost made her vomit. The policemen murmured among themselves, with their hands in the holsters, already doubting that we would be able to achieve victory. A mere level 2 monster, and we couldn't even defeat that. All the training I had seemed useless now that I was in a real situation. The voices and roars got louder than my thoughts. The locals were just meters away from me - children crying and clutching at their mothers' clothes as their fathers stroked their foreheads.

"Easy, let's regroup. I've got an idea. It'll work. It's just one monster. We can do it." I said, raising our morale, "Maggie goes left, I go right. Hm, Kendra, as soon as he notices one of us, you try to hit one of his eyes with the whip. Can you do it?"

"Of course, I can. Who do you think I am?" She answered, licking her thick lips.

"Let's do this," I said, and I looked at Maggie, who closed and opened her right fist while using her other hand to remove the wet hair glued to her lips.

"I won't last much longer. My hands are already sore. Using the glove wastes all my body’s strength, you know?" Maggie replied, moving to the left and bending her knees.

"You can do it." I said, a few strands of hair falling in my eyes, "I'm going to count to three. One...two..." The breeze scratched my face, the edges of my eyebrows now whirled, "three! Let's go!"

I pulled the gun out of the holster. I fired bullet after bullet, drawing close to the monster whose eyes were rolling over, targeting Maggie and me. He seemed confused, not knowing where to focus, and we kept gaining space. My hands were heavier than usual, and the gun had the weight of a brick, but I still didn't drop it. Even my legs felt like they were made of a material I couldn't move if it wasn't for the adrenaline running through my veins. My heart was pounding so loudly that it drowned out the sound of the bullets tearing through the air, leaving behind a trail of smoke and a metallic smell. Although the tip of the bullets contained a compound harder than standard steel, it was not enough to break the wolf's shell, just bruising it enough for it to twitch for a few seconds.

"This doesn't seem to be working," Maggie said as soon as she finished throwing another fireball.

"No... wait! Look at that! Lower left corner, in the armor, isn't that a crack? If we focus our attacks, there... We can do it. The plan stands, but Maggie and I are just going to attack that spot." I said, smiling at them, my bitter-sweet sweat dripping on my tongue.

"Come on!" Maggie screamed, the energy flowing through her, while her face glistening with sunlight, "I'm sorry. I got carried away."

I laughed and looked back at Kendra, who, as expected, still had her mouth closed.

We slowly got closer, striking and blowing incessantly. The fissure opened gradually, revealing a shiny interior, several collusive threads, working as a small-scale factory. The wolf roared, its metallic voice losing its sparkle as the circuits became affected by the explosions in its torso.

"One last effort!" I yelled, "This is it. Kendra, his eye."

She turned her hip to the side, raised her left foot, and fired the whip like a guided missile. In a few seconds, it hit the monster's eye, which broke into chunks of glass. The wolf became disoriented, gnashing its last whimpers, able to realize that his end was near. Suddenly, his tail began spinning, like a lifeguard ready to get him out of there as soon as his vital signs descended into a danger zone. His feet got off the ground.

"HE'S GONNA RUN AWAY," Maggie screamed. Her fireballs would not be able to reach him in the air, "What do we do?"

I took a deep breath. I knew exactly what to do. It wasn't a question of "what?" It was a question of "can I do it?" I lifted the gun, placing it at my shoulder level. I closed half an eye and aimed at the small hole in the monster as it moved away faster and faster, its presence being just a close memory. I slowed down my breathing and let my heart settle down. A few strands of hair moved, rubbing against my forehead, but I ignored them. I fired. The bullet came out of the barrel, a roaring sound, and burst through the air until it reached its goal - it entered the crack, causing a short circuit that stopped the tail from turning and shut down the monster. He fell from the sky, crashing into the road, breaking into several pieces after a colossal crash. The area where he fell would have to be interdicted and blocked.

I wielded my gun in the air, waving it, celebrating our victory. In the background, the people and the police applauded us, thanking us and hugging each other, happy to return to their homes. A thin river of tears flowed down Maggie's face. I kept my gun and walked to her.

"Are you okay?" I asked her and put my arms on her thin shoulders, her hair covering my hands.

"Yeah, yeah, I am. For a moment, I thought it would all be in vain." She said and hugged me, her chest rubbing against mine, her tears dampening my chin.

"It's over. We better call in a pickup patrol now and get the experience points. See if we can climb the ranking."

"Do you think we can? If we had so many difficulties with a simple level 2 monster, how would we have a chance with a stronger monster?" She asked.

It pissed me off how right she was, "Yeah. I guess so. Let's get going. Kendra's already there." I said, leaning over and kissing her right cheek before I moved away.

I heard her footsteps as she followed me until we got to the monster's shattered body. Kendra was crouched and had pieces of glass in her hand while peeking into what was left of the wolf's eye.

"There's a camera here. Someone was watching us." She said. She stuck her hand in the small circular hole, pushing until she pulled out a bunch of wires, including a small camera that was still transmitting, its green light blinking.

She threw it to the ground and stepped on it until there was nothing more than mere golden and gray filaments remaining. 

"Why did you do that? We could have used it to find out where they were transmitting from!" Maggie said, kneeling, picking up the pieces, trying to see if they would fit but eventually giving up.

"Could we? Too bad." Kendra answered and turned her back.

She took her Hunter app out of her left trouser pocket and pointed the transparent part at the monster's body. On her screen, and also on ours, letters joined together until the following sentence appeared.

"Congratulations! You have defeated a level 2 monster. 50 experience points have been given to each, as well as 50 hunter points. Do you want to continue as a team?"

And a square signaling yes and no.

"Let's call it a day," Kendra repeated, her finger moving closer to the no.

She was about to press it when a buzz, coming from the distance, stopped her.

Chapter IV

Wheels spun on the ground, scraping the road’s granite, increasingly loud. The three of us stared ahead and witnessed an oversized shape, the sun obscuring his face, on the last generation motorcycle, smokeballs coming out of the engine. He drifted as he got near us and stopped the bike just a few inches away from my face.

It was like a slow-motion scene out of a movie. The man seemed to have calculated the exact moment when he should have turned his bike to end there - a demonstration of his perfectionism. He didn’t wear any protection other than a pair of red gloves that he removed as soon as he jumped off the motorcycle. He used his hands to straighten his shoulder-length gray hair before he even looked at us.

He cleared his throat, "Interesting," he said, looking at what was left of the monster, "I'll talk to you in a minute."

We didn't answer him. The surprise of having a Hunter level S in front of us prevented us from speaking, almost as if we had furballs stuck in our throats. His clothes emanated a sparkling glow - from the black cloak with a pocket on each side to the gray pants of lightweight fabric. He knelt, his gray hair spindly without moving a millimeter, and peered into the monster using a small flashlight. He shook his head, muttering to himself, lost in his thoughts. The cops were removing the police barrier, and the captain walked to us.

"You didn't tell me you were friends with someone so strong. Rank S? I've never seen one before. Let me tell you, I even thought they were a myth."

"He's not our friend." Maggie told him, wiping her hat, "I feel like I've seen him somewhere before."

"Difficult. Nobody knows who they are," I said, my heart racing. I had never before been in the presence of an S rank.

I had met some A's as teachers and speakers, but an S? There were only 5-6 on this continent. They weren't in commercials, TV, magazines, nothing. They took shelter in the shadows, where the night embraced them, and there they thrived.

"The three of you defeated him, right? Without help?" He asked as he picked up the pieces of the camera, "You have to come with me." And he got up.

Intense rays of sunlight fell on his mantle, a shadow on the floor now accentuating his curved nose. Traces of blood appeared in the corners of it. He noticed I was looking but didn’t even flinch or move.

"Yes, we did," I answered him by taking a step forward, "Without help."

"I'm surprised. You know, this monster is not a normal level 2 monster. I don't like to repeat myself, but I will. You must come with me, whether you like it or not." He said and placed his hand on the handle of his sword.

"We're going. We don't want any trouble," Maggie answered immediately.

Kendra spat on the floor as she walked up the car. The Hunter, who soon introduced himself as Ashen, mounted his motorbike and waited until we got into our car to hit the road. Behind us, the policemen waved, the red and blue lights blinking.

He entered Okinawa and followed the moan road until a sign indicating that we were about to leave the city limits popped up. The city was vastly different from Laverne - the one where the Hunters' building was located. There were no tall buildings, blue and red lights pointing at the floor, or advertisements in the surrounding blocks. It was a humble city; rows of second-hand clothing stores, separated by a few cozy cafes, where the scent of snacks came out and wandered across the sidewalk. People smiled and said hello to those who passed by, waving to the acquaintances on the other side of the street.

Ashen accelerated until we got off the main road, following a secondary alley, the gravel-filled ground, leading us to an empty camp. Dust rose and clung to the windows, blocking our view and getting our tires dirty. Ashen signaled with his left hand to stop there, in the middle of nowhere, and so we did. As soon as we got out of the car, the sand stained our clothes. Gusts of wind rocked the trees and the bushes that colored that place.

Small boulders were scattered across the sandy terrain. Soft windy breezes sailed through the trunks, whistling as they left. The edges of Ashen's cloak were covered with a brown layer, and as I looked down, I noticed that my jeans were as well. The dust was spreading and clinging to our clothes. Sometimes a few grains would get stuck in my eye, and tears would come out, dribbling down my cheeks.

"The rest of the way has to be done on foot. It won't take long." Ashen said, fixing his cloak, some of the dust dancing through the air, blurring our vision.

We followed a man-made dirt road, as we could see from the sidelines, flanked only by a few bushes with nearly no leaves. The smell of wet grass became more intense even though it had not rained. I had verified the weather in all the surrounding areas fearing that I would end up soaked on my first day.

My mother would tell me it was a bad sign, my father would tell me that the rain strengthens the weak. It was around 3:00 p.m., and the sun was glistening high up, lightening the whole area.

"I don't like this at all. Can we trust him?" Maggie asked, looking at me, her sweet green eyes blinking.

"I'm not sure, but we don't have a choice either. What happened during the fight? You looked scared... Didn't you train for that?" I asked her while Kendra picked up her short hair and put it in a ponytail.

"I... Ah... I've never been to an academy." She said, quietly enough so that Ashen, who was a few steps ahead of us, wouldn't hear her.

"You what? What do you mean? All Hunters must spend three years training." I answered her, a bit overwhelmed by what she had said.

"Not when you have a father who owns one of the largest arms manufacturing companies and has connections within the government. Actually, I think he just wants me as Hunter so I can be his guinea pig and experiment new features on the field. See this glove?" She said, pointing to the red glove on her right hand, with dozens of blue filaments, "They're not even on the market yet."

"A rich girl..." Kendra murmured, the words coming out muffled without her dislodging her lips.

"It's not like I had a choice..."

"Didn't you have any training?" I asked her.

"I did, of course—private training with someone who was Rank A before retiring. However, when we were face to face with the monster, it seemed as if I had unlearned everything I knew. I'm sorry." She said and leaned against my chest, her cheek rubbing against me.

I stroked the back of her head and told her she didn't need to worry. Kendra bit her lower lip and walked away from us. Sometimes she'd look back, and seeing us still close to each other, she'd roll her eyes.

The road narrowed as we got closer to a black smoke coming from behind one of the hills.

"We're almost there. Let me do the talking." Ashen said, never looking back.

We reached the end of the road, and there was nothing but a green wall covered in gray rocks, several of them sharp. Ashen whistled until a shadow popped up above us with a wooden ladder. The sun struck him on the face, darkening him, his vast shade-providing us a shadow as we went up.  I helped Maggie climb by placing my hands on her curved hips and pulling her up, where Ashen held her by her arms. Kendra then went up on her own, and I could swear that she was swinging her ass as she did, as if having me focused on her made her feel good.

"You're the only one missing, James," Ashen said, even though I had never told him my name.

"Ah. How do you know my name?" I asked him, grasping at the wood, taking care not to scrape my hands on any loose splinters.

"You'll understand everything." He said, a fat, shrill laugh behind his back, drowning out his words.

I climbed the ladder. Ahead of us was a two-story wooden house, smoke coming out of the chimney, and next to it a small lake of crystal-clear water, glowing due to the sun's reflection. There was a considerable contrast between where we had come from, dusty and impoverished, to that space, isolated from the world, seemingly concealed from civilization. A few birds were chirping, hidden among the orchard trees a few meters from the house, the trunks still damp, and the artificial turf underneath.

"Rank E? What are you doing, Ashen?" The big-bellied man, with no shirt, asked him, scratching his right sideburn. He had to have 50, or even 60 years.

"They destroyed one of the new beasts. I've got an idea. We better get inside." He said, smiling at the man and starting to walk to the door.

We followed them until we entered the house. The main room consisted of mahogany walls, a dusty piano, different cushioned benches, and walls filled with photos of iconic missions. From there, access to the kitchen, the main hall, and a spiral-shaped staircase in the corner farther from the light was available. Ashen slipped his finger over the piano and nodded his head in disagreement, twirling his delicate lips as well.

"Don't judge me, Ashen. Do you know how boring it is to be here? How long has it been since I've had visitors? We can't all be visiting the continent, killing monsters, and eating in good restaurants, you know? Either I'm dipping my feet in the lake, or I'm upstairs working as an observer." The man replied, ending with a long sigh, which quickly became a burp, "I'm sorry. I just ate a while ago. So why did you bring them here?"

"Are we safe here, or do we need to go upstairs?" Ashen asked, looking around. Most of the lighting came from the kitchen, where the windows were open and faced towards the sun.

"The whole house is blocked. They can’t track us. You don't have to worry." The man said, "But we should go upstairs. Better safe than sorry."

While we were going up, the man asked us for a few seconds before heading for the kitchen. Sweat ran down his hairy chest, some of the drops getting stuck between his hairs. Even Maggie and Kendra had small lines of sweat running from their necks to the crack between their tits.

Upstairs, everything was different. The classic walls and the rural layout were replaced by iron walls, a grey floor. Instead of a piano, there were dozens of monitors, all with footage from different parts of the continent, plus a map with flickering red lights all over it. The man, whose name we still didn't know, appeared shortly afterward. He was already wearing a red T-shirt that still left his navel out and a plate of cookies with chocolate chips in his left hand. Maggie leaned against me again, now more tightly, her fingers pressing against my ribs. Kendra had her ass and soles on the wall, her back curved, and her head millimeters away from the wall.

The man sat on the only chair in the room, the sides of his belly sticking out. He pulled out a keyboard from under the desk and pressed a few buttons with his dirty fingers. A recording of my group defeating the monster showed up right up to the part where Kendra stepped on the camera.

"You shouldn't have done this. Ashen, did you pick up what's left? Maybe I can salvage something." The man asked and stretched his hand until Ashen dumped the scraps he had put in his pocket, "All right, explain to them what we do here while I take care of this."

He laid down the filaments and small parts on the table, spread them out, and started trying to put them together. He was now using some of the machines he had in a box hidden under his desk.

"Well, where do I start... You've certainly heard of the Reapers, right?" Ashen asked, leaning against the wall.

"Yes, of course. They're the group behind the beasts. A couple of scientists and renegade Hunters." I answered him. All the teachers talked about them in the academy and how dishonor would drop on us if we followed that path.

"We don't know how but they've had access to new technology. We're trying to figure out if they developed it themselves or if someone else supplied them. What we do know is that there is an increasing amount of beast reports and, barely two weeks ago, we discovered that the latest models not only contain cameras that record everything even after the monsters have been destroyed, they are also becoming stronger and smarter as well. What you defeated was probably a level 4, not a 2. We also don't know how they dodged the level processing." Ashen answered, sometimes pausing to see if we were paying attention.

"Apparently, you don't know very much," Kendra said.

Ashen laughed before continuing, "You're right, we don’t. I was at one of our other secret bases when I received a signal, similar to these red ones but black, and ran to that place. You gave me an idea, I don't know how the hell no one had thought of this before, but we need you. People from lower ranks who can defeat weaker monsters. It would be suspicious if a rank S was fighting a supposedly level 2 monster, you know?"

"Are you saying you want our help because we're weak?" Maggie asked him, her light eyes popping out in the darkness of the room that only had a small, flashing light on the ceiling.

"I wouldn't say it that way... But a bit, yeah." Ashen answered her.

"I think it's a good idea," I said, "If the rewards are good... We'd be delighted to help, but we want new weapons, payment for everything, and when this is resolved, we want our photos on the headquarters wall."

"It's a deal. I'll talk to my superiors. However, you will need a few adjustments. To begin with, follow me. Gordon, stay here and take care of that. I'll take them to the warehouse." Ashen said and waved his hand for us to descend again.

We followed him to the main corridor and entered the second door on the left. He turned on the light, and a double bed was revealed to us, as well as a bedside table on each side of the bed, with tiny lampstands and a purple cover book on the left side, in addition to a large wardrobe in the opposite corner. Skipping everything, Ashen continued to walk and stood in front of a wall. He knelt and pressed an almost imperceptible button. The division moved to the right. An even bigger room appeared with dozens of weapons, items, maps, climbing and swimming instruments, and a few other objects. I had no idea what they were for. The guns were organized by type and then by size.

"I know what you must be thinking. You were expecting a warehouse, weren't you? I don't know why we call it that. When I came here, somebody had already given it that name. Anyway, pick whatever you want. You need to reinforce yourselves. The monsters will have no mercy. Neither should you."

I was the first one in the room. I traversed the corridors with guns, from minor to semi-automatic, with bullets capable of piercing most beasts' shells. And yet, my eyes didn't stray from a simple weapon, with golden and black strains, two thin barrels, and bullets with sharp tips. The gun seemed to be calling me, and I couldn't ignore it. I picked it up, swung it, and it seemed to fit right in my hand as if it had been waiting for me. As I did, Kendra and Maggie wandered around the room, looking for something that would be worthwhile.

It didn't take long before Kendra picked up a whip similar to hers but of superior metal. Meanwhile, Maggie held a thin layer of protection. This new invention adapted to the person's body and protected it from regular attacks and even falls, but, on the other hand, the more shocks it resisted, the heavier it became.

Then I took a cloak like Ashen's, but even darker and unblemished by blood or dust. I folded my sleeves so the fabric wouldn't cover my hands and put the new gun in my holster. Ashen signaled us to put the old ones on a metal plate that was on a table.

"Leave them there. Gordon will then use the components to create something better. He might be gone for a while. The best thing to do is to show you your room." Ashen said.

"Ours? There's only one?" Maggie said, "I usually sleep alone..."

"That's all there is. This place isn't supposed to be so crowded. Surely, you'll find a way, won't you?"

"Yeah. No problem for me. I’m sure we can find a solution.” I answered, and the girls agreed.

We left the room, and Ashen took us to the lake. We lay barefoot on the edge, cold water cooling our toes while the orange-ray lights burned our faces. We spent the afternoon between comfortable silences and Ashen's stories about how he achieved the S rank. He didn't tell us much, just enough for us to realize that he was the real deal. He shared that he had been a Hunter for almost 15 years and told us about the first time he defeated a beast alone. He even added that he had to spend a whole week in the hospital with serious injuries.

The sun had hidden behind the hills, the wind roared, and the trees answered it, and sometimes a breeze would make the water sprinkle over our clothes. In the distance, the violet horizon hid the city's darkness and the population's fear that the night would bring new beasts. It wouldn't be the first night my mother called me, complaining about the weird noises she heard outside, when in fact, most of the time, it was the wind bumping into poorly closed windows or some drunkard walking around, bumping into the doors and tripping on the floor.

"It's getting late... Can anyone cook? Knowing Gordon as I do, there should be very little in the fridge, and we can't order anything to this location."

"I can fry eggs, and if all goes well… fries." I said, "I usually buy pre-made."

"I know..." Kendra said, her voice more acute than usual, her cheeks rosy in the light of the rainbow lake.

"Cooking?" I asked her while I was wetting my hands.

"Yeah. I've been living alone for a few years. Somebody's got to do it," she answered and stood up, "Don't follow me. I don't like having eyes on me while I'm cooking." She said, and went to the kitchen, leaving us there, the sun's rays about to fade.

Ashen told us he was going to see how things were going with Gordon. I was left alone with Maggie, leaning against each other, listening to her light breathing and sometimes the birds whistling.

"I should have told you the truth before we ran into the monster. It could have been worse." She said, her voice as sweet as cotton candy on a bright night.

"You should, but there's not a lot to do now either, is there? Don't worry about it. You'll get the hang of it." I told her, and I took the liberty of putting my hand around the back of her head.

Our eyes met for seconds before she briefly laughed and laid on the grass.

"You know, I never thought I'd end up here. In a secret hiding place, on a secret mission. I've been spending my days in the lounge between naps and listening to others talk. I've always liked to keep an eye on the conversations, you know?" She said, her wet hands under her hair.

"Neither did I, much less on my first day. I still don't know if I got lucky or this is a mistake, but at least I'm in good company." I replied, "I have a feeling we have a lot of adventures ahead of us. I don't think the Reapers will simply give up." I added, also lying down, both appreciating the view of a fine light purple stripe disappearing, giving way to a dark blue. The stars scattered all over the painting.

"I don't know if I should tell you this, but a few weeks ago, I heard my dad on the phone. I don't know who he was talking to, but he said that Reapers were good for business and that he wasn't the only one who didn't want to see them disappear. When Ashen said, someone was helping them... I..." She said, pausing, covering her face with her hands.

"Do you think your father might be involved?" I asked her even though I already had an idea of her answer.

"Yes. Him and his close friends. Owners of other companies, and even his company. I think they're all in on it. I never felt comfortable in their presence again. I think that's why I finally accepted my father's offer, after a year of insistence, to be a Hunter. I just wanted to spend as much time as possible away from that hell. I usually just have dinner there—lunch and snacks at headquarters. I'm sorry I'm talking too much. I do that when I get nervous." She said, her voice failing her in the light of the starry night, "Don't tell anyone. At least for now."

"That's interesting. From what my father told me when I was a teenager, I distinctly remember him saying that it all started after a lecture on morality in experiences. Some scientists wanted to operate outside the law, unregulated but were denied the possibility. What began as a fight for science became a battle for world domination. Perhaps there is more to it than we know. However, there is also no point in overthinking about it for now. Let's focus on surviving the next battles."

"You're right. We'll see how everything goes. Thank you." She said and turned her face to the same side as mine.

Her warm breath grazed my skin between my nose and my lips, and we drew closer, our knees bumping into each other. She closed her eyes and moved her head close to mine when a scream from the door abruptly pulled us away.

"Dinner's ready. Are you coming or not?" Kendra asked, at the door, her silhouette accentuating her hips.

"Yeah, we'll be right there." Maggie said, "Maybe next time." She said and winked at me before she got up.

I still grabbed her hand, ready to pull her towards me, but I didn't think it was the best time with Kendra staring, and Maggie's fingers slipped through my hand. Truth be told, both attracted me for different reasons, but having both at the same time would be a mission in itself, and one false step would knock everything down.

The dinner was quiet. We all ate in silence, the sound of our teeth shredding the pieces of slightly undercooked meat that Kendra had cooked, the blood still visible, filling the whole house. Even Gordon joined us, his shirt full of oily spots, while Ashen had left his cape on one of the couches and was now wearing a black V-neck shirt, showing some chest hair.

"I found something," Gordon said, still chewing.

"Eat first," Ashen said, his low voice, carrying the weight of his request as if it was an order.

As I ate, I exchanged tender glances with Maggie, who laughed, a dimple appearing on her right cheek and lowered her gaze. Simultaneously, sometimes also trading them with Kendra, but with her they were lust-filled glances. She smeared her fresh red lips and dragged her teeth through her soft skin. I almost choked, and Ashen had to hit me on my back, asking me if everything was okay. I told him yes, that a piece of the food had got stuck in my throat and a glass of water would fix the problem. I could handle women, but I knew I had to tread carefully to not mix pleasure with work.

"I found out..." Gordon started and burped towards the table, the smell spreading through the kitchen, "I think I know who made that camera. Do you know how sometimes gun manufacturers and such have their mark? A little inscription that helps us know where they come from? If you ask me, it's a little egocentric, but I do it too. Not going to let anyone say they did it on my behalf." He said, babbling, some of the words being shortened.

"Get to the point," Ashen said. He pulled a toothpick out of the box and brushed it between the gap between his two front teeth.

"You know I don't like being interrupted," Gordon said, his black eyes mixing with the dark layer underneath them,

"As I pieced together all the chunks of the camera, I noticed that there was a little black dot on it, and I know exactly whose signature that is, but I don't know if it's a place where you want to go... Hunters aren't welcome there. And I can't go either."

"What's the place?" I asked him, "And why can't you go in?"

"The black market. It's impossible to get in without a password. Hunters' entry is forbidden and I... well, let's just say I'm not very well-liked there." He said and glanced at Ashen, lowering his head after doing it and taking a few bites out of what little was left on his plate.

"How do we do it then? We need to get to the bottom of this. Find out if this man is involved or if it was just a gig." I said, my blood boiling, realizing more and more why my father was excited to speak at the table.

"Dr. Asa," Gordon said.

"There's a way in..., but you won't like it." Kendra said, and everyone's eyes fell on her, “I didn't want to tell you, but the situation demands it. Have you ever heard of someone called Esfinx?”

"Yes, of course. The police, and even Hunters, have been trying to capture her for years. Weren't they close to catching her a few months ago?"

"Yes, they were. Esfinx is my sister!" Kendra said it fast like she was ripping off a band-Aid, and the quicker she was, the faster the pain would go away. I had never seen her so nervous before.

"Sister? That's not in any of our files. All we know about her is that she entered the arms business a few years ago, has enough soldiers for no one to stand up to her, and governs with an iron fist." Ashen said, "I had to look at your files too. Is there anything else you'd like to share? All the secrets spilled over the table."

I looked at Maggie, but she didn't say anything. She kept her lips closed, her eyes on her plate, stirring the fork around the bone.

"It’s not a surprise that you don’t know. It's been years, and you still don't know her first name. I won't tell you why, but she owes me one. I can get us inside and find a way to talk to that doctor, Asa." She added.

"In a normal situation, I wouldn't accept it, but this isn't normal, right? If you think she can help us, you're allowed to communicate with her. I'm going to go get some rest. Today was a turmoil. In the morning, we prepare ourselves."  Ashen said, excused himself, and left the table, his lips still in a loaded red that contrasted with the whiteness of his skin.

Gordon also left a few minutes later. Before leaving the kitchen, he warned us that he was a heavy sleeper and that if we needed to wake him, we would have to shout in his ear. Strange, but each to his own.

Soon after, the three of us went to bed. We were as cozy as we were tight. Their hands on my chest, going down, running over my semi-nude body. We had agreed to act like it was a typical night. I was wearing my boxers, and Kendra had a black thong that gave wings to my imagination when her crotch fold, and a black bra that barely contained her boobs. Maggie had a pair of transparent shorts, blue pants that accentuated her ass, and a red bra that covered her tits to the point of not being able to see more than their curve.

"Forget it. I can't sleep here. I'm going to the couch. But don't think I'm going to sleep there every night." Maggie said, standing up with her pillow in her hand.

She closed the door cautiously, and yet a sound of it dragging on, because of how old it was, spread all over the house, sounding like someone was destroying the furniture.

As soon as Kendra heard her from afar, she climbed on top of me.

"Finally, time to ourselves." She said, "I'm stressed. You know what I like to do when I get like this?"

"I'm about to find out." I laughed, put my hands on her naked hips, and turned her over, so that I was on top, "You've already been on top once; it seems to me it's my turn now." I added. She smiled and bit her lower lip until a thin thread of blood came down her chin.

I leaned over and kissed her neck until her warm breath fluttered the hair near my ears. Her heart beat faster, louder, and between her half-open lips, short and muffled moans gave life to the moment. Her hair smelled like vanilla, and her lips were swollen and wet.

"If tomorrow goes wrong, at least we'll have today." She said, pausing between every word.

"This isn't the best time for you to talk," I told her as I went downstairs, my lips pressing her stiff nipples.

I didn't stop there. My body was heating up too, and my heart was racing. My fingers touched her skin, following out her silhouette to her hips. She nailed her fingernails in my back and pulled me closer to her.

"I can't wait." She said, in a frail moment...

She dragged my boxers down and curved her hips until we both fit together, swinging until we found the perfect balance. My lips were still on the soft skin of her breasts, which sometimes I also bit, as I moved inward, increasing speed, following through her now louder moans, and by her hands that clutched the sheets as she squirmed.

The bed was shaking, all four legs scraping on the floor, and there was another sound—a unique sound, each time more perceptible. The more I repeated my actions, the moister she became, the more the impact of our bodies released a sound similar to a splash. She ended up covering her mouth, preventing more than mere muffled groans from coming out.

It didn't take us more than 20 minutes between the beginning and the end; a mutual, long-lasting climax that ended with my chest crushing hers as I finished inside her, her sharp nails scarring my back. In the room stayed a sex aroma mixed with sweat and a faint smell of vanilla. I rolled over to the other side of the bed, and we both looked at the white ceiling until she turned to my side and put one of her legs on top of me.

"Thank you." She said, letting a quick smile slip away.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep shortly after. I remained awake for a few minutes thinking about the turnaround my life had taken. There I was, with a beautiful woman beside me, another on the sofa, with the idea of having both for me, and at the same time risking my life on a secret mission.

Chapter V

A sudden jolt woke me up. Everything around me seemed to be spinning, and I'd barely opened my eyes. The objects had not yet taken shape, and a shadow beside me was still hazy. Her lips opened, and words came out but seemed to dissipate before they reached me.

"Come on, we got to go." The high-pitched voice said.

"What, what?" I said, rubbing my eyes until the silhouette took shape. It was Maggie, already dressed.

I looked sideways, and Kendra was already standing, getting dressed, her tits bouncing in the air every time she ducked and got up to make sure her ass wouldn't stop her skirt from ascending.

"A beast appeared in the city of Luzuri. We have to go as soon as possible. It's a level 4." Maggie said, throwing my clothes over the bed, without asking any questions about the moaning or why the sheets were waddled in each other and had tiny patches of toasted yellow.

"We? Now? Well, I suppose someone has to. I'm just going to get dressed." I told her, and I started putting on my pants, "Is it a level 4, really 4?"

"Yes, exactly 4. The same level of the previous beast." She said, "I hope none of us get hurt this time." She breathed a long sigh.

Gordon and Ashen were already in the room, both in their pajamas, sitting on the armchairs, their eyes still half-closed. Gordon had a tablet in his hands and pressed the buttons at a dizzying speed, informing us what was going on step by step.

"He's already in town. Some citizens have been... You know what I mean. Check this out. You know I hate blood." He said it and passed the tablet to Ashen.

"The police have already gone to the scene, but they won't last long. Hurry up. Move on. We've blocked the transmission to the remaining Hunters. The mission is yours." Ashen said, "Oh, take one of the cars in the back of the house. There’s also a man-made road there. From now on, use that road only."

We waved and left the house. The night sky shone in all its splendor. Where I came from, it was possible to see one or two stars and, if I was lucky, a shooting star on clear sky nights. But not there, we could see everything there. There were no secrets under the moonlight, the lake with a white layer, nearly auroral. Crickets broke the silence, in a chorus, and in the depths, the answer came from crows, hidden among the blackness of the trees, perched on the trunks.

Ashen gave us three communicators to plug into our ears. That way, we could communicate with each other and listen to his suggestions and get a visual of what was happening before we got there.

We ran behind the house, where three cars were parked, all the fastest on the market, the bonnets still shining despite the dark colors. 

"Let's do this," I said, getting into one that looked gray in the moonlight.  It was a model that I had drooled over many times through the shop’s windows, "Maggie, how many minutes are we from there?"

"At least 15 minutes."

"I can do it in 10. Hold on tight." I answered her, and I waited for them to buckle up.

I was careful getting out of that area, breaking several branches and bouncing up and down on slopes, but once I got to the highway, I sped up until I couldn't anymore. The lights became just constant blinkers, the wind-scraped off the car, the moon still above us, and the empty road paving the way for us. GPS guided me to the midtown, an intersection between a bank whose golden walls were still shining and a clothing store with the alarm beeping. Red and blue lights mixed and illuminated the place, the smell of rotten blood being a decoy.

"Ask them how the situation is and where the beast is," Ashen said, in the communicators.

At least three police cars in front of us, stationary, with their doors open even though there was no sign of a single living soul.

"What's going on here?" Maggie asked as soon as we got out of the car.

"I don't know but watch your back," Ashen answered her, as we approached the cars, weapons in our hands, looking around, watching the buildings that made up the street, the roofs and windows, and even the interior of the shops, whose uncleaned glass had dulled them up.

Of the four lamps on the street, three blinked constantly, their light disappearing for seconds, and as for the remaining, the lamp was fused. We pulled up to the police cars; drops of fresh blood spread over the still fogged windows. I put my hand on the door, took a deep breath, and opened it. A human head rolled out. At the place where the eyes were supposed to be, there was only a space left, with nothing but blood, human skin that had been dragged until it looked wrinkled and deep rips all over his face. Maggie was close to me with a fireball in her hand, ready to throw it if one of the beasts popped out of nowhere.

"Kendra, did you see anything?" I asked before I looked inside the car.

Five bodies piled up, still in police uniforms, with no eyes and bites of different sizes, all with a circular shape, all over their bodies. A sticky green liquid covered them, gluing and blending their skin.

"Still nothing. I don't like this at all." She said, closing her fist tightly on the handle of the whip, the joints between her fingers red due to the effort made in the cold.

"We're looking at all the cameras and nothing. The beast seems to have disappeared or is inside one of the buildings. Be careful." Ashen said. He was about to continue, but the transmission became mere static, a few loose words standing out in the noisy fog.

"My comms stopped working. Yours?" I asked, taking it out of my ear and putting it in my pocket.

"Same here," Maggie answered.

"It doesn't work." Kendra said and paused, "Do you hear that? Shut the fuck up. Listen."

None of us said another word. Metal clawing, scratching the ground came from one of the buildings on our right. Some people peeked through the windows, facing downwards, only their eyes and hair showing, hot breathing blanking the windows. I waved my hand so they'd be safe, but they pretended not to see me.

"It's getting closer," Kendra said, placing one foot in front of the other, the extension of the whip going from her hip to the floor.

The sound escalated. The sheer metal hitting on the ground rose to an excavator drilling through the floor.

In less than a minute, the glass from one of the balconies on one of the highest floors broke into hundreds of small pieces, and a beast jumped down. I looked up and saw its shadow; a fat belly and four tiny legs on each side, with metal tips, the green liquid dripping down from it, falling from the sky.

"James, it's going to fall on you!" Maggie screamed, throwing two balls of fire at the belly of the beast, only for the flame to dissipate into sparks as soon as it hit it.

I only had time to run out from under the landing target, and that didn't stop me from rolling down the street to the nearest lamp. The beast landed, and the impact caused all the glass around it to shatter, the dustbins to topple, and for me to be thrown back. Kendra used her whip to hold on to one of the lamps while Maggie hid behind the corner, crouched, her hands on her face, the heat scorching her cheeks to a greyish color.

"Shit. Are we sure it's a level 4?" I asked, now looking at the beast, three times bigger than the wolf, like a giant metal spider with a viscous liquid being pumped out of the shell.

"That's what Ashen said. What do we do?" Maggie asked, standing up and walking towards me, crossing the road to the other side, using the police cars as a cover.

"What we've been trained for. We defeat the beast and collect information and experience points." I answered and got up. I rubbed two fingers on the back of my head and rubbed them on a scar that I had gotten, hidden by my hair.

"Do you have any ideas?" Kendra asked, joining us.

The beast unleashed sonic sounds, close to a metallic voice, and marched towards us, destroying everything that was in its way, the liquid gluing itself to the ground. The street got narrower and the buildings taller. My legs froze for a fleeting moment, my heart almost imploding as my thoughts raced. I had dozens of ideas on how to solve the situation, but they all ended up with me risking myself to get on the beast's head to blow his brains out. The adrenaline was running through my veins, the danger being its aphrodisiac.

"All right, let's do this—Maggie, fireballs straight into its eyes. Kendra, flog one of its legs. We have to put him down."

"What are you going to do?" Maggie asked, her soft voice struggling to hide her concern.

"You'll see. I just need you to keep him down for a few seconds. As soon as I fire. Get ready." I said, seeing the beast coming closer, already near the police cars.

Sweat ran down my forehead. The street was full of shattered glass and coffee smell due to the machine that had burst in the café. Even clothes danced through the air, some having already fallen onto the ground, while in the distance, the ambulance took care of the wounded in the adjacent streets.

"Ashen must have called them. Now it's up to us." I added and removed my gun from its holster.

I fired a blast of shots. Most of them hit the beast's dark green triangular-shaped eyes, catching its attention while the rest of them hit the metal structure, the crushed casings falling to the ground. Its eyes pierced me, a light gleaming behind them. He excavated one of the police cars with one of his tapered legs and, without hesitating, flung it at me. I swerved while loading the gun, and I shielded myself by hiding behind one of the other cars. Its green painted metal structure was enough to hold the car, breaking it in two, both parts falling in front of the dim yellow light, flashing, one of them smoking.

"Now!"

Small amounts of rain started falling from the sky, tinkling on the metal, dampening the street, and leaving its traces on the windows. The drips slipped down my jacket, down Kendra's face, and split the edges of Maggie's hair. The solemn moment was broken by a child-like cry coming from a boy at the door of a building, not even big enough to reach the doorknob. The beast's eyes turned to him and opened its mouth, showing, for the first time, its silver teeth covered with a thick, enamel-colored liquid.

"What is a child doing here?" Maggie asked, looking at me, her eyes teary.

"I don't know. Oh, shit. We got to get him out. All right, quick. Stay on plan. We must act now." I said, watching the spider turn around, the back protected by a green shell and a yellow stinger with black stripes, "It looks like a mixture of spider and a wasp. Be careful," I added, removing my cape and throwing it into the cafe.

“Why the hell do they always look like animals, and not even the pretty ones?”

“I was thinking the same. Damn, there has to be a reason.” I replied, “Let’s focus on the fight.”

The child's eyes lacked color when confronted with the beast's nearness, his shadow obscuring the slender body. Maggie's fireballs tearing through the rain, the flames losing strength before the attack even exploded on the back of its curvature. Kendra ran to shorten the distance between her and the beast, her boots clapping, and stretching her arm behind, she threw the whip at one of the metal legs on its back.

"This isn't working." She screamed, using all the strength she had trying to stop the beast.

"Harder!" I said, waiting for the right moment to take a chance.

Maggie ran through the rain and gripped her whip with both hands, tugging at the same time. Both of their jaws were clenched, their hands reddened, and a vein protruded from Kendra's forehead, but even that didn't stop them from being dragged forward. The beast stopped. The leg bent over, falling to its knees, and, like a piled-up deck of cards that loses a base card, the entire structure crumbled successively.

The heavy air froze my thoughts. I told myself that I needed to act, that that child relied on me, that it was to save others that I decided to become a Hunter. Like my father used to say, "Not everyone can save themselves." Looking back, perhaps it had a different meaning, maybe I could have saved him before he sank deeper into his investigation, but that was the phrase that I needed to repeat in my head.

"Get out of there! Run away!" Maggie yelled at the child.

Yet, it was useless. Snot flowed down his face, red-eyed as well as cheek-washed, but unable to move. He even tried to jump twice to grab the doorknob and close the door, but it was in vain. The beast crawled across the floor, the shell scraping along, like chalk scratching an old chalkboard, as his head drew closer to the sidewalk.

I put the gun in my holster and ran down the street. The road seemed to stretch all the way down, the beast distancing itself from me no matter how hard my feet moved across the ground, how soaked my socks were and how blurred my vision had gotten.

"Help!" The child shouted for the first time.

I stopped and looked sideways; Kendra and Maggie were still working together to hold the beast on the ground, who struggled to get up. They shouted a lengthy "Ahhh" to conceal the pain they were feeling, their skin peeling off as they receded whenever the beast pulled them close.

"It's my time to shine." I thought to myself.

I ran to one of the police cars and used it to raise altitude and jump on the beast. As soon as she felt me on top, she abruptly moved, knocking over the façades of buildings around her, the sting creating holes in the crater-like walls. People hid behind the windows, some of them running into their houses as soon as they exploded. I held on to a loose nail on the beast's back; the rain blended with the viscous liquid, and both ran down, covering my body with a dusky green reeking of rot.

I clung with only one hand and pulled the gun from its holder with the other. With the monster in motion from side to side, still crawling on the ground, it became difficult to have a steady target. I fired twice but missed both, the bullets scraping the black hair she had on her head, the strands flying up through the air, the wind currents lifting them up.

I was trying to balance myself when the sting of the beast came off, shooting at the girls and using it as a tail. The beast tossed them to the ground. Both tumbled to the left, Kendra falling on one of the police cars and Maggie being thrown against a wall, the thin layer of protection shielding her from having a severe problem when her head slammed into the wall. She fainted, and her body slipped to the ground, the rain making her face a small pond. Kendra tried to move but couldn't either. She had one of her hands on the right side of her belly and her eyes closed. I was on my own.

The beast rose and stepped on the sidewalk, opening his mouth as he lowered his head to the same level as the child. The boy sat down on the ground and shrunk, his face between his knees, unwilling to face death face to face. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't. How could I ever want to climb the rank if I couldn't overcome a D rank, a C rank, whatever the beast really was?

I got up, taking a few seconds to balance myself, the white of my shoes gone. I walked on the beast's back, the quicksand liquid in my path, burying my legs and forcing myself to use all the force I had left until I reached her neck. Behind me, I left the footprint of the sole of my shoes as thick as the fluid. I was panting, my arms and legs were sore, and my right hand was shaking, making it difficult to aim at the target. Drops ran down my face, and I felt each one slipping down to my chin, dripping on my clothes. My pants were already soaked, and my movement slowed down. Every step taken was like having bricks attached to my shoes.

The beast's head waved towards the building's façade, its graffiti-stained brown walls, and the rain falling on the red roof with white stripes that protected those who were leaving the entrance.

I removed the safety from my gun, and as soon as I had the beast’s neck in my sight, I fired. The shot went through one side and came out the other like an arrow. She raised her neck, twitching, shaking her head in all directions, losing control of her own body. Smoke came out of the hole I had put in her body, as well as an electric current that spread throughout the beast's closest proximity to its backbone.  I was tossed back, and again I grabbed the loose nail, scraping my hands on it, the blood flowing and mixing with the rest of the fluids. Everything was happening at the same time, and I knew it wasn't over yet, not until the monster was on the ground, his legs motionless, his eyes and cameras ripped out.

"Kendra, take the boy, get him out of there. I'll sort it out." I said, as soon as I saw her standing up, stretching out.

She went around behind the beast, ran to the front door, picked up the child, putting his face on her shoulder, covering his vision and protecting his neck, and ran towards Maggie, who had only just woken up. The monster turned around again, knocking down the bricks he found along the way, still fumigating, his spike swinging through the air, a metallic chain connecting him to the place where it fitted in.

"Hide behind the wall. Now is the time." I said, under the moonlight, seeing a possibility as soon as the head of the beast approached my car. Well, not totally mine.

The beast stabilized, and I got back on my feet. I took a deep breath and started running like never before, the wind scraping my face, the heavy air cutting off my thoughts, and as soon as I reached her head, I jumped backward without thinking if I was on the right trajectory—three bursts of gunfire; one in the middle of her metallic forehead and one in each eye. The circuits went up in flames. The face began to burn, the fire spreading through the body of the beast using the liquid as fuel. I landed on the hood of the car, crushing it and destroying the front windscreen.

"It's going to explode!” Maggie shouted, "Hide!"

I ran to the corner and threw myself into the café as soon as I heard the click that triggered the explosion. Luckily for all the residents, it was contained in the space between the sidewalks, and apart from the broken lamps, there wasn't much more damage, except for the road itself, which in addition to being bumpy, now also looked charred. I got up, grabbed my cloak, and waved it until the shards of glass fell off.

"Are you all right?" I asked, exiting the café, being careful not to step on any vertical percolated glass.

"Yes, we are. Is the beast dead?" Maggie asked; the shield that covered her was now red and clearly slowing her down.

"Thank you!” The boy shouted, the words muffled as he spoke while wiping his tears with the sleeve of his sweater.

Chapter VI

He freed himself from Kendra's arms, ran to me, and hugged me. He didn't have arms long enough to wrap around my trunk, but he stretched them as far as he could.

I patted his head until he looked me right in the eye "you're the best Hunter I've ever seen!". He said, his blue eyes glowing like they were the crystal-clear water of the lake next to Ashen's house, "What's your name? I want to tell everyone how good you are!"

I couldn't remain serious, and a smile slipped through my humid lips, "James Crusher, but you can call me Crash. I'm still just a mere rank E, but, boy, one day I'll be as big as the ones on the TV," I told him, his warm words heating my heart.

"You will be! I've never seen anyone do that," He said, holding on to me, his child's fingers trembling from the wind that was blowing.

The night was long gone, and the winds were roaring, raging, and devastating, the rain dropping harder, the raindrops on the metal being turned into a moonlit piano concert.

"The comms are working again." Maggie said, "The beast must have had some blocker. They're not very expensive but connecting one to a beast this size without also disabling it is the work of someone who knows what they're doing.”

"The things you know..." Kendra said, chin up, sturdy, moving towards the metal body.

My communicator was still in my pocket. I put it in my ear, and in mere seconds I heard Ashen's proud voice again, repeating the same question in different ways.

"Are you all right? Did you win? Are you alive?" He said, losing all the composure we knew him with.

"Yes, we're fine. The beast was defeated. Do we have to do something new, or can we go back? I'm all sore. I just want to lie down in bed and wake up at lunchtime." I asked him.

"Destroy all camera evidence in the beast. Collect the experience points and get out of there before the pick-up arrives. The fewer people who can identify you, the better. We cannot risk anything. It probably wouldn't make any difference, but it's the best." He said, and from afar, I heard a long sigh.

There was nothing left of the cameras. My bullets had drilled through them, leaving nothing more than pieces that we picked up and threw in the nearest trash. The boy followed me wherever I went, jumping, splattering all around him, not losing the smile on his face even though there was no sign of his parents. We were ready to leave, but I couldn't leave him there alone.

"Parents being a disappointment. Nothing new." Kendra vented, whispering something inaudible and straightening her corset, her breasts rubbing against each other.

"Kendra"! Maggie said, "It's not the best time."

"He might as well know that blood doesn't mean sympathy," Kendra said and spat blood on the floor, her lips wounded.

"Silence, both of you." I said, meddling in the discussion, "Boy, where are your parents?"

"I don't know. My father is working outside, and my mother is asleep. She always sleeps after eating the white jellybeans."

"White jellybeans? I asked.

"Yes, she always eats one before going to sleep. I've tried it, but it tastes bad. I don't know why she likes it."

"What floor do you live on?" I asked him.

Part of me wanted to be able to relate to him, to be able to tell him that everything would be fine, but I could not promise him anything so valuable. The truth was that I had been lucky; a lifetime of present parents until I became older, and all derailed.

"Second." He answered, breaking my thoughts about what lay behind the event, which my older brother loved to describe as the great separation.

"Maggie and I will take you back in a moment. Kendra,  get our experience points, and then feel free to hop in the car." I ordered her. She frowned but didn't retaliate.

"Mother will still be asleep. She doesn't like to be woken up. I'll be fine."

Maggie and I shared a glance loaded with questions, but we kept our mouths shut. To enter the building, we had to move a few boulders, remnants of what was left of the walls, the once golden façade now little more than a few yellow lines between layers of dust. Families had joined at the windows, applauding and thanking us, some parents taking pictures of the beast. Most likely to send them to television, where not only the name of the person who took the best picture appears, but the person will also receive some money for the service. 

The handrails marked my hand with black, and I almost slipped twice. The interior of the building was much older than one could have assumed; the stairs at the corners and in the middle an open space, where the moonlight reached through the transparent roof. The walls hadn't been painted in years; you could see the difference between brushstrokes. Some areas had a more worn-out color and even a tiny signature that had the date 2019 on the side, 150 years ago. Even after having changed the structure of some buildings to something more resistant, of a rustic appearance, the walls remained taking only a light painting.

"We're here." The boy said, looking at me, the happiness in his eyes wasted. He opened the door with a key he had in his left pocket and pointed to the end of the hall, "It's my mother's room there." he said, a shy voice, as if inside he wanted to tell us, but inside he tried to show that he would survive alone, as he was used to doing.

Maggie and I took the lead and walked down the white-walled corridors, dust-covered photographs and pierced with punctures, and stepped on the varnished brown floor with scratch marks. We walked through the bathroom, wide open, and looked inside; the toilet lid down, the remains of a toasted yellow half liquid still in it, cigarettes on the floor at the entrance, and a bottle of liquor beside the shampoo.

"He lives in these conditions..." Maggie said, "What do we do?"

"Do nothing. You must get out of there. We can't save everyone." Ashen said, on the communicator.

"There's got to be something we can do! What's the point of being Hunters if you can't help those in need?"

"We help by defeating the monsters. We save them from a horrible death. The rest is not up to us. Focus on your mission. Just leave him there and come back here."

"If you have to sacrifice humanity to be a rank S, I'd rather not be one," I answered and removed the communicator from my ear.

Maggie followed in my footsteps, "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, he's right about something. There's not much we can do, but it doesn't mean that we can't do anything, that we have to be content with it. My father wouldn't settle for that."

"Your father... his name was John, wasn't it?" Maggie asked, a few steps away from the boy's mother's room.

"You've heard the stories then..." I said, looking into her eyes, not looking away even when the boy pulled my clothes, "We'll talk about this later."

"Do you think one day I'll be as good a Hunter as you are? I want to be able to save people and save my mother!" He said, with his fist closed, his eyes as bright as before and, still, a certain sadness in the way his lips bowed.

"Of course! Why couldn't you, boy? You just need to train and study. You know they want the best of the best, right? You mustn't be careless." I told him, and I sent him to the living room, saying that we would take care of it without causing him any problems.

He ran down the hall and turned left. His footsteps echoed through the house every time he stepped on a sensitive part, the mold underneath destroying the ground's firmness. We knocked on the bedroom door and entered. Maggie palpated the wall until she could turn on the light. A woman rolled up her sleeves and scratched her eyes, covered with a red blanket, with her thin bare shoulders, visible bones, and facial features embodying the face of death. The lifeless black eyes, the colorless cheeks, and even the features next to the nose seemed to be rooted in the skin itself.

"Who are you? What do you want? GET OUT OF HERE." She said, standing up, ignoring the fact that she was only wearing panties. Her tits were almost at the navel, unable to walk without zigzagging or leaning against the wall.

"Relax, we're Hunters. We've come to bring your son back."

"What did he do this time?" She asked, taking a cigarette out of a box she had in a mahogany secretary in the corner.

"He helped us defeat a beast! You have an excellent son. You should be proud. He might even become a hunter." I explained it to her, looking for a weakness I could use to change her attitudes.

"Oh, good for him." The woman said, disinterested. She pulled the smoke to herself until her chest was no more than thin bones and exhaled until a cloud of smoke overshadowed her face, "His father also wanted to be a Hunter. It didn't go so well for him. If he takes after his father, he'll run away as soon as life gives him a nudge," the woman said, moving toward us.

"Isn't his father traveling?" Maggie asked her, deviating to let her through.

"Yes, he always is. The longer he spends abroad, the happier he is. He doesn't have to remember failing." She said and went to the bathroom, "You make a beautiful couple." She told us and slammed the door.

"We are not a..." I started but was interrupted by Maggie.

"We are not a couple.” She said and elbowed me, "I know about you and Kendra. It's hard not to notice the ruined bed or her hair all tangled up," she said softly.

"Is there a problem?"

"No, on the contrary. I think it's a good idea. What better way to get to know each other than intimately?" She said, smiling at me.

"We still have a lot to learn about each other then." I replied, moving closer to her, whispering in her ear, "How long have you been waiting for this?”

"Ever since I saw you fighting for the first time." She replied, her knees trembling, clashing with my kneecap, her panting breath blowing behind my ear, "If Kendra didn't intimidate me so much, I'd have already hopped on you." She added, revealing her dark side; daring, boundless, she opened a button on her dress, the outline of her breasts popping up in plain sight.

"Are you saying that you don't care if I have both?" I asked, my body boiling in the face of a miracle, a new and welcome development.

"I'm 24, James. I'm young. I'm over the age of passionate lusts. I want to have fun, but I still want to maintain something steady. To have a shelter but also a place where there is pleasure. What you do beyond that is up to you." She said, "I've had my share of disappointments. I won't get into another. You don't seem like the kind of guy with whom something serious would last."

"Probably not." I started, "We all have our problems. I'm not good with commitments. I suppose I still need to grow up. Or stop having so much fun with hunting monsters and ending the nights in my city bar doing karaoke with my friends, who are also shortsighted people." I told her and laughed, trying to break the heavy environment.

She was going to answer me when the boy's mother came out of the bathroom. Her front hair was still wet, and her cheeks were red. She returned to her room and took another cigarette out of the same box before lying in bed, stretching her arms, and leaning her head against the bed. Before she opened her mouth, our apps started shaking

"Congratulations! You have defeated a level 2 monster. 50 experience points have been given to each, as well as 50 hunter points. Do you want to continue as a team?"

"You should go. Don't worry about us. He will be fine. He has a roof over his head. Something I didn't have for a long time." She said, cleaning the ashes that had fallen on the blanket.

"James, we really have to go... The pickup truck should be here any minute now." Maggie told me, bending her knees to look out the overcast window.

I bit my lips before I spoke. I needed to ward off the whirlwind of emotions going around inside me, "Let's go, but I hope you value your son. One day you will be able to hear his name in the limelight and in advertisements. All you have to do is support him." I told her and turned my back, closing my fist until the vein in the center of my hand appeared and the knuckles between my fingers hurt like hell.

I didn't expect an answer from her. I walked down the hall. I called the boy, wished him good luck, told him never to give up, and left. I was cold, maybe even a little rude when I said goodbye, but I couldn't cope with the impossibility of not being able to do anything. I realized there that I wanted something more for myself; that beating monsters just wasn't enough for me. I wanted everything and whatever was beyond that. I wanted to save people, and the monsters were just the path I had decided to take to do that, but it wasn't enough.

"You told him he needed good grades to be a Hunter... I thought they were more interested in physical skills." Maggie told me as we walked down the stairs, some people at the door thanking us.

"And they don't care. Not that he needs to know that."

"You're a good person, James." She said, before stopping in the middle of the stairs and inhaling deeply, "Oh... Your father... The conspiracy he was investigating... It could be the same one I think my dad's into, right?"

"Yes, I thought about that too. My mother hid all the papers after what happened to my father, and although she still has a few in the pantry, she never let me touch them. I read some of them behind her back, but most have the interesting parts crossed out, and the little I could read only talks about a conspiracy that goes up to the high levels and the possibility that there might be something else besides the Reapers. Maybe someone behind them, someone we trust with our lives on a daily basis." I confessed to her, being the first time I'd talked about it since I entered the academy. I didn't exactly do what you might call ‘make friends’ there. I had fun, I went to parties, but we spent so much time training that we didn't talk about our personal lives at the end of the day.

"I suppose we have a lot to do yet. We just have to figure out where to start." Maggie replied as soon as she entered the hall.

"Hopefully, tomorrow, Kendra's sister will tell us something about the doctor."

Maggie nodded, remaining silent as we left the building, running to the car, placing her hands on her hair so that the rain wouldn't get her wet.

We got into the car. Kendra left the driver's seat and moved backward, as did Maggie, who winked at me as she watched Kendra bend over to make the crossing, her tits swinging, almost jumping out of her clothes.

I placed the communicator and warned Ashen that we were getting out of there. I didn't get an answer in return, but I could hear his breathing on the other side. I knew he had heard me but withheld his words beneath the technology. The beast's green liquid slipped down the street, being drained into the sewers along the way, covering the road with its trail. Part of the moon had been swarmed with black clouds carrying a rainy arsenal, firing throughout the night and growing heavier by the minute.

I drove along the empty road, the signs switching between green and red, the front glass fogged up, distorting the road ahead, the black-granite blending with the white lines that separated the three rows, each for a speed. I was in the middle, not too slow for a skater to catch me, but not fast enough for a curve to make me lose control over the car. I didn't think Ashen would congratulate me if I destroyed it, much less when he was no longer in a good mood after ignoring him.

"Everything is going to be fine," Maggie told me, leaning her body against the door, the dress almost on her hips which I could see through the rear-view mirror. She kissed me on the cheek and smiled, sticking out her tongue.

Once again, we had to drive along the recluse road, paved with small holes, bumps that made me almost bump my face on the steering wheel. The smell of wet grass was more robust than in the afternoon and was accompanied by a sweet aroma that I could not understand what it was. Melted mud covered the tires, as the black smoke that came out of the chimney at that time obscured the clouds, offering the house an apocalyptic setting, where the sky was consumed by the ashes, and there was nothing left but that isolated shore and a dark-blue lake where the light could no longer reach.

I stopped the car on the back of the house, and we ran until we reached the building, where a slight roof slope protected us from the raindrops, now nearly ice pebbles, shattering as they crashed against the roof, the snowflakes falling beside us.

"Finally." Ashen said, leaning against the door, as soon as we reached the final corner, "We're going to have to have a good conversation. Fortunately for you, it's late, and you'll have a long day tomorrow. Eat something. Gordon made some lemon cakes and hot chocolate. Feast yourselves and go to sleep." He added before he turned his back on us and walked to his room.

I took a breath of relief. We entered the house and were welcomed by Gordon, who was in the kitchen eating one of his cakes, dirty lips in the corner, and crumbs on his pajamas. He offered each of us a tray with two cakes and a drink, which was still steaming, and told us it was better to go to the living room, where a reddish bar, stuck on top of the wall on the opposite side of the entrance, spread heat to all four corners.

"Kendra, are you ready for tomorrow? It can't be easy having your sister on the other side of the law." I asked her, as soon as we sat down, the lemon scent, which I didn't recognize before, spreading throughout the room.

"I have grown used to it. Not everything is black and white. I've also done a lot of illegal things, and she protected me, or I would never have been able to become Hunter if they'd known the half of it." She confessed, followed by a bite of the cake, eating half at once, showing her pointed canines.

"Why are you telling us this?" Maggie asked her, taking a totally different approach with the cake, eating it, piece by piece. Small bites, the crumbs filling the plate.

"We're a team, aren't we? If I'm going to trust two strangers with my life... It's better that they're not for long. Besides, my sister tends to love playing people off against each other, exploring their secrets, and putting them on the table."

"If we're sharing secrets...It's better to confess one's own." I said, stretching my neck to confirm that Gordon was still in the kitchen and that we would have to be careful about what we said, "My father is...Ah, he was...John Crusher, the only Hunter ever to be relegated, treated like scum for daring to investigate the corruption among us. He never discovered anything but always believed that it existed, that several men up there had taken precautions for it, going so far as to murder his potential witnesses. He knew that someone close to him was involved and distanced himself from his friends. He plummeted into ruin, with no one supporting him, thinking he was crazy and addicted to an idea with no facts to prove it."

"I've heard of that story. He..." Kendra paused before continuing, "He killed himself, didn't he?"

"Yes," I told her, my eyes staring at the varnished floor.

"I'm sorry." She said, "We better leave it at that. What about you, girl, something to share?"

"My name is Maggie. You know that." She replied before taking a deep breath and telling her all about the plot her father might be involved in.

"That means..." Kendra started, but I interrupted her.

"That perhaps my father was not far from the truth."

We remained silent. The only sound in the whole house was the noise of the teeth shredding the cupcakes, the lips around the mugs, sipping the hot chocolate, and the orchestral melody that came from the cicadas and owls on the outside, taking refuge from the stormy rain.

" You better go to sleep." Gordon said, his thick voice reaching us with a soft tone, the night lulling it, "You need to be in shape tomorrow. You cannot risk not being at your maximum. One extra second can be the difference between life and death." He said, the sole of his shoes tapping on the ground, creaking at every step.

"A little dramatic, Gordon," Maggie told him.

"I used to be a Hunter like you, too, you know? Filled with excitement, aiming to save everyone, to rescue the world from the villains, but that same confidence betrayed me when I needed it." He said, bent over, his beer belly slipping out of the tight t-shirt, and rolled up his trouser hem revealing a metallic right leg, "My group and I thought that being good C ranks was enough to defeat a level 8. That was the result. Two died, one was in a coma, I have no leg and one had part of his torso ripped off. What I'm trying to say is... Think twice if you want to risk your survival for a lesser evil."

"You mean the boy?" I asked him, placing the tray on the crystal table in the center of the room.

"Yes, and not only that. Decisions have consequences. Whether it is that or going to talk to your sister, Kendra, or even going to bed late. Do you have a plan B? I didn't. It took me a while to get here." He said before he took off his shoes and put them in the lobby, "I'm going to sleep. Don't forget what I told you."

We said goodbye to him and stayed there for little more than a few minutes until we went to our room and undressed as we had previously done. This time we found a position good enough for the three of us to fit in there, without one of us almost falling, or getting elbowed in the face.  We ended up in seashells. On one side Maggie's tits against my back, on the other side rubbing my dick against Kendra's butt.  None of them opposed it or complained about physical contact. On the contrary, there was a confident smile behind the weary masks; the already half-closed eyes, the still moist cheeks of the icy current we caught running and the reddened lips. Our eyes shut, curtains hiding the sun behind them, and we fell asleep shortly afterward.

Chapter VII

I woke up with nails scraping away from my chest to my navel, followed by kisses from there to the inside of my boxers. I opened my eyes and the curved silhouette in front of me took shape until I saw her long blond hair falling on both sides of her face, her green eyes fading away under a golden fence, her lips touching my skin, sometimes sucking it to the point of leaving a mark, occasionally pinching me with her teeth until I squirmed.

"What are you doing, Maggie?" I whispered, striving not to wake Kendra, who was right next to us, "You're going to wake her."

"That's the fun part, isn't it?" She answered me, a malevolent smile on her face, lowering my boxers all the way to my knees.

Her hand wrapped around the base of my dick and went up, a thin thread of saliva flowing from her mouth to my head, the palm of her hand taking advantage of it to slip better. I bit my lips so I wouldn't moan as she went on; her lips around the whole length, her head moving until her eyes were moist. The youthful simplicity, the features on her face that defined her softness, shifted and took on grown-up contours.

She licked from one end to the other and spread the extra saliva over her face. She tossed her shame through the door and risked being caught. My heart almost jumped out of my chest each time the tip of my dick hit the bottom of her throat and she would let it sit there for a few seconds until she stopped, slid back and regained her breath. Sweat ran down her forehead, glowing across her face unlike me whose chest was blazing, warming, dripping down to the contours of my abs. It didn't take long before I tilted my ass over the mattress, pulled her head down and exploded inside her mouth, as her eyes rolled over as she attempted to swallow everything.

She would have made it if it hadn't been for a thread of thick white fluid that ran down the right corner of her mouth, down my length, to the very bottom.

"Oops." She said, as she moved back and licked me once more until she left no trace of her presence, "They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, isn't that right?"

I gulped, not having an answer on the tip of my tongue, "Oh yes, you're right, I... Ah, I hope Kendra is still asleep." I said, looking to the side, Maggie's eyes following my trajectory.

"I'm not." Kendra answered, still with the right side of her face on the pillow and both eyes closed, "You make a lot of noise."

"Did you hear everything?" Maggie asked her, biting her lip and, at the same time, getting out of bed.

"Almost everything. I didn't know you had that side, Maggie." Kendra said, treating her, for the first time, by her name as if she respected her boldness.

"We didn't want to wake you up!" I told her, without even knowing where to look. On one side there was Maggie half-naked, with a trail of sperm going down her tits, and, on the other side, there was Kendra, who had just woken up, her lips swollen and moist, and her hands waving under the sheets.

"Such a shame." She answered and winked.

The conversation was interrupted by Gordon and three strong knocks, warning us that it was time to wake up and that Ashen was waiting for us in the living room.

"Take a shower first," he said, "The bathroom is just down the hall."

I took a deep breath, sighed, and grabbed my pants that I had placed on a chair by the bedside.  I would have liked to have seen where the situation was leading, but duty was first, and pleasure was second. If we survived the hypothetical day, we would have plenty of time to venture into satisfying meals, soaking ourselves in luxuries that would make the most incredulous blush. I warned them that I was going to bathe while they could talk about what had happened and, if everything went as I planned, they would both agree to have something with me at the same time. It was between that or ending up arguing and losing both, but, well, fear was something I had learned to deal with.

I left the room. I went into the living room and waved to Ashen, who, in return, moved his head up a few inches, but didn't say a word. In his hands was the daily newspaper and he leafed through the pages as if nothing caught his attention. I ended up giving up.

The bathroom walls were blue and white, all the objects of the latest technology. The light turned on when someone was present, and the water regulated itself according to one' s reactions. A camellia scent went off as soon as I entered, and the smell remained as I bathed. I took a deep breath in, the water flowing through my hair and over my face. I loved to feel the pressure on my face. It was as if the world beyond that ceased to exist and, at that moment, it was just me and my thoughts chatting by the fireplace.

I hurried, put a towel around my torso and went back to the room. The girls were still naked, each on her own side of the bed, looking at the ceiling and talking. They shut up as soon as I walked in.

"Did you talk?" I asked assertively, dropping the towel.

After a few seconds of pause and wheezing, Maggie answered, "Yes. No problem. Neither of us mind sharing you. It may even lead to some interesting experiences as long as no one disrupts the natural balance of things. We don't have big secrets between us, do we? There shouldn't be much of a problem then."

I looked at Kendra and expected an answer from her, "I agree. It doesn't mean I love you or will give my life for you if you are idiots, don't have any ideas. But we're together, whatever happens." She said, the last sentence being said with a thin voice, as if out of fear, apprehensive about making the emotions, which she tried to hide, a real thing.

They ended up taking a quick shower and wearing yesterday's clothes for lack of others.

"I'm sorry. In the evening I will take you home and you can pack your clothes and utensils. For now, you will have to be satisfied with that. The most I can get is a shirt for you, James." Gordon told us as soon as we entered the room.

"Please call me Crash. My Hunter’s name."

"Do you intend to follow in your father's footsteps? Or did you think we didn't know who you were?" Ashen asked, standing up, straightening his gray cloak, with the black folds raised around his neck, covering part of a syringe's mark.

As soon as he saw us looking at it, he pulled the fold up a notch to cover it.

"My father was the best Hunter I've ever met. He didn't even give up when everyone turned against him." I answered him, approaching him with my neck up.

"And we all know what happened to him," Ashen answered, realizing too late the mistake he had made.

My instinct overcame my rationality and I raised my fist, prepared to punch him, accepting the consequences straightaway, if I were not prevented from doing so by Gordon. He grabbed my arm, deviating it, my skin rubbing against Ashen's face that didn't move, except for a few strands of hair. No one said anything. Silence swamped the house. Neither the birds chirping outside nor the wind gusts that rocked the plants and tossed the dew to the ground, which I could see through the window, pulled us out of the bubble we were in. It took Ashen a few minutes to step forward, place some of his hair behind his ear, apologize, and leave the room.

"For an S rank, he seems to be very impulsive," Kendra said after he disappeared down the hall.

"He has a reason. I'll tell you when you get back. Now focus on your mission and leave whatever quarrels you have here." Gordon said, sweating around his neck, staining the top of his gray t-shirt, "Grab your things. Kendra, contact your sister. Tell her you want to meet up in neutral territory."

Kendra did so. She took her mobile phone out of her pocket, pressed a few keys and we waited until we heard her ring tone, one that came with the mobile phone. What was expected of someone like her. Unlike me, who had a rock song for every message I received, which, to be honest, was also rare.

"At this address," Kendra said, showing us her mobile phone.

"Largo St. Patrick, Lynnaria. Half an hour." was the content of the message whose sender was only classified as "sister". Gordon took his tablet, which was also on the crystal table, and entered the location. Within seconds, a 3-dimensional image of the area appeared on the screen, covered with fingerprints, which Gordon rotated in all directions counting the possible exits as well as places where she could place her men. It was an ample green space, amid Lynnaria city, one of the richest of the surrounding areas. Four roads led to the square; one of them was a detour made on the highway and the remaining three came from the city, each from a different part, from the poorest to the richest. The differences were striking, from the buildings along the streets to the road materials and the shops on each street. In the poorer one only a dried-up drugstore, the announcement on the roof already worn out, the colorless words, other than for a "cheap" that escaped the deterioration, while in the richer alley the lights of two welcoming cafés covered half the sidewalk in blue and purple, having on the other side competition with the neutral light of a gold smithery.

"She must have men here, here and here." Gordon said, pointing to three distinct corners, "At least."

"Probably," Kendra said as if she expected nothing less from her sister.

"Well, you already have your mission. Get on your way. I'll talk to Ashen. We will accompany you on camera and we will speak to you through the communicators. Don't withdraw them. They have a locator embedded." Gordon finished speaking, wished us good luck and left us alone in the room, the heat becoming unbearable, contrasting with the temperature outside. 

The naked trees, the ice melting in the light of the sun's rays, the birds with the moist feathers, and the still crystalline lake with some floating moss seemed to have emerged from a painting. It wasn't as cold as expected. The sun smiled, behind several white clouds, and given the time, 11 am, it still had a chance to peak.

We got into the car, the wheels still muddy, warm seats, and the fogged front windows, covered by a thin layer of melted ice.

"Are you ready, Kendra? You haven't seen her for a long time." Maggie said, breaking the silence that followed us on the road.

"Yes, everything will be all right.” She said, looking out the window, her yawn dirtying the glass.

We were lucky enough to pick up all the green lights and most of the vehicles on the road at that time were trucks transporting food to the restaurants. Lynnaria was just under 20 minutes away. We followed the indications that took us to the wealthiest street, where our car was seen as just one more, not standing out from the dozens of luxury cars that were in the parking lot, where we also left ours.

Apart from a lady who in addition to a pink hat also had a purse of the same color, held by a gold chain on her left shoulder, and a fur coat, there was no one else on the street. Even the air tasted better there. We walked down the long road, at times, being watched by shopkeepers peeking at the entrance, whispering with customers and other owners.

"They don’t get many visitors," I said, ignoring the looks.

"I wonder why," Kendra answered. Her brown eyes drier than usual.

We got to the intersection. Two old ladies were crocheting on a bench while their dogs chased after a couple of young skateboarders. On a corner a few black dressed men, trousers tight to the body, wearing sunglasses despite only a few rays of sunshine reaching them.  The entrance to the garden was open and a young security guard wandered around, eyes wide open, his hand on his gun. He shivered at any noise, finally wiping the blue sleeve of his uniform over his forehead, soaking it up.

In the midst, where all the streets connected, a girl with long purple hair answered a call. She stood out by being so out of place within the image, her black boots with two-inch heels and a black top under a jacket that she had left open. I looked at the buildings around us. The windows reflected the sun, the beam protecting anyone who dazzled in the darkness. If there was anyone hiding in any of them, it would be impossible for us to predict the location. We were at her mercy and she knew it.

"There she is!" Kendra said, pointing to the purple-haired girl, "Don't move."

“What do you mean, "Don't move"? Didn't we move? What do you mean by that?" Maggie asked him.

"She's not distracted. She knows we've been here since we stopped the car in the garage." Kendra said, keeping herself unscathed, waiting until her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She saw the message and walked, "Follow me."

Strangely enough, and only by accident, I noticed that she was only stepping on the white cobblestones, avoiding the grey and black ones. She would twist her foot if necessary, to do so. I wondered if it was her liking, a memory from when she was younger, and I didn't comment. It didn't take us more than a few seconds to reach her sister. She asked us for a minute while she was talking on her cell phone, turning her back to us, acting as if no one could catch her even if she was being sought and there she was, in plain sight, under the unfolding sun, her lycra pants resting on her butt so well that even the young skaters had stopped and wheezed while sharing a can of soda. She seemed to have noticed and loved the attention.

"I'm sorry. Hello!" She said, facing us, her lips thickened by the red wine lipstick concealing a beautiful smile behind it, "I'm glad you still remember the rules, Kendra. Follow me. You have to tell me everything. How do three level E hunters have a car like that? I had to double-check if it was really you and you know how much I hate having to look at something twice." She spoke fast, with no second thoughts, her words being thrown in the air like bullets.

We followed her into the garden. The security guard bowed to her and the sunglasses men followed us as well, spreading themselves in the different corners of the park, two of them accompanying us through detours where there were "stop signs". A man-made trail stretched over long meters, hidden among a sea of enclosed trees, thick trunks that omitted that secret. She guided us to a rustic door, equipped with a metal lock and a delicate sulfur and gunpowder smell. No one spoke all the way. Her purple hair, now caught in a ponytail, swung from side to side as she put a silver key in the lock.

"We can talk in here. Ignore the smell. It's the bombs." She said, pressing a button at the door, the lights went on all over the dark blue-walled corridor, where death seemed to have already stepped. The typical place where it wouldn't be a surprise to find bodies lying on the ground, rotting in the dirt.

"Bombs?” Maggie asked, glancing around.

"Obviously. In the event of this place being put at risk. Remember, precaution is the basis of all escape. That and a beautiful sister, isn't that right, Kendra?" Her sister said and winked at her, "Who is this handsome boy you have with you?" She clung to me, smelling my hair, her tits rubbing against my face.

"Let's get down to business," I answered her, holding her arms and pushing her away.

I hadn't even let her go and the two security guards already had guns pointed at me. The lasers roamed along my body, the little red ball going from my forehead to my genitals.

"Lipa. Stop." Kendra said and grabbed her sister's arm. An electrifying exchange of stares took place in front of us.

"You're the same as always. So serious, not living life. You should have fun, you know? I bet the boy knows how to have a good time." She said, winking at me, "Let's go inside before someone sees us. My security guards will control the garden and change the surveillance cameras. The guard will take care of the cops who patrol this area."

We walked down the arched corridor, through the medieval walls, to a sizeable windowless warehouse, into dozens of stacked boxes and a white-haired man with a beard all the way down, sitting at a wooden table, counting banknotes.

Kendra's sister raised her hand and instructed her bodyguards to position themselves on opposite sides of the room. The old man didn't even blink at the sight of our presence. He had a small mobile lamp in the corner of the table, one of those that are molded, and one can change where the light points, and at that moment it fell on his wrinkled fingers and the green and purple notes. The whole place was illuminated by a single chandelier on the ceiling, the light spreading to the tiniest corners, revealing the mold that crested in the corners where the walls hadn't been cleaned for dozens of years. A fly swirled around our bodies, sometimes landing near my eyebrow, sometimes ascending to the light where a dozen other insects were warming up.

It was the typical criminal location; where there weren't any laws, where today it could be a money laundering warehouse and tomorrow a gathering place for illegal fighting, the fighters' blood seeping into the sewers, the voices muffled by the roof thickness and the surrounding garden shut at sunset time.

There was no sun there. It was always day or night, depending on whether they lit the lamp or sought refuge in the darkness.

Kendra's sister sat on one of the wooden boxes, "Shall we get down to business? Dr. Asa, right? What do you want from him?"

"Don't bring that up. You owe me one. No questions asked." Kendra answered her. I had never seen her with such bulging eyes, tired of being there, no longer looking like the first time she put her feet there.

"Oh, they don't know, do they? You didn't tell them why I owe you one..." Lipa said, jumping out of the box, her boots tapping the floor, the sound echoing through the room.

She walked up to me and, once again, leaned over and whispered in my ear, the perfume rising through my nostrils, "She's not as tough as she looks."

I strove to hold my attention on her words and keep control of my body although the growth in my boxers was noticeable. Her breasts, even bigger than Kendra's, rubbed against my lips, with her a few inches above me due to her high heels. Her erect nipples rubbed against my chin, or maybe it was the other way around. Her amber eyes remained on Kendra, just like a long-standing challenge, as her warm breath tickled my ears and a chill descended through my spinal cord.

"That's enough! Just tell us what you know about him." Kendra said, breathing fast, her chest rising and descending.

"I know that he makes objects that can be imperceptible on radars, some of them practically invisible to the naked eye. I know where he is, and I have an idea why you are here." Lipa began, wearing a smile on her face, "She told you that it was thanks to her that I managed to escape when I was almost caught? That she hid me in her house? What better place for a fugitive to hide, don't you agree?" she said, licking her lips, loving my and Maggie's stunned look.

"You what?" Maggie said and stepped away from Kendra, eventually tripping over a pebble and as she wobbled, she put her hand on a spider's web, "Shit." She let it slip.

"She's my sister! She knocked on my door, wounded, what was I supposed to do? It's not like you haven't been protecting your father too!" Kendra said in retaliation, "You're loving this, aren't you?" she asked her sister, who was leaning against the same box, the arched smile rubberizing her cheeks.

"Maybe." Lipa replied, "Your father is involved in a number of shady businesses. You didn't really think I'd bring you here without knowing who you are, did you? Or do you think I haven't noticed your comms? Don't worry, they don't work here."

"I'm leaving," Maggie said and then turned, walking down the long corridor.

The security guards pointed their guns at her. She stopped and came back to us without saying a word. We would only get out of there if Lipa wanted us to, or if we forced our way out, regardless of whether we endangered ourselves or not.

"What do you want from us?" I asked her.

"Better that way. A promise is a promise, Kendra. We, who live on the verge of the law, have not much more than our word. Agreements are made based on it. If you want to know about Dr. Asa, there is someone you have to know. Let's get going." She said and motioned again to the bodyguards.

They marched to the other side of the room and diverted an old closet until a dried-up wooden door appeared. They didn't take more than a minute and didn't make the slightest noise.

"Where are you taking us?" Kendra asked. She adjusted her clothes and walked behind her sister, who was heading towards the door.

"To the best place in the world. Where everything happens. The black market. I advise you to keep your Hunter apps in your pocket. Pretend to be potential customers and never, ever, show fear to anyone. Just because there are anti-violence rules on the market doesn't mean there isn't always someone willing to break them."

She advanced on her own, hopping, leaving all three of us alone in an awkward environment, the words stuck in the back of our throats.

"Kendra..." I started, but her voice overlapped mine.

"I know. I know. There should be no more secrets between us, and I hid something. But how the hell could I tell you that I helped hide my fugitive sister? One of the most wanted? Do you know the worst? I would do it again. She's my older sister! She saved me more times than I can count with my fingers."

"Does anyone else know?” I asked her.

"No, I never told anyone. I couldn't."

"Let's keep this between us for now. Ashen and Gordon have no idea and right now they're waiting for us to do our job. That is what we are going to do. Understood? Then we'll sort it out between us."

"How am I supposed to work with someone I don't trust?" Maggie asked and I could see from her look that she was sadder than upset. A few wrinkles in the corner of her eyes and her teeth grinding as soon as she finished talking.

Before I or Kendra could answer, Lipa told us to hurry. Behind the wooden door a narrow corridor, torches on both sides providing the only light that existed there, stretching endlessly. In the hall, we could only hear our footsteps, almost like a stone thrown into a well. There was an echo, but we didn't know how deep it was.

I was in the middle of them. They refused to talk and, to replace the silence, Lipa nearly had an orgasm as she told us how beautiful the black market was.

She spoke of the cobblestone streets filled with all kinds of stands, selling everything from weapons to shields, of the neon blue lights that bounced off the floor and reflected on the medieval walls. She told us how beautiful the dark cloud scenery was together with the broad streets, the piss smell and the songs that came from the tavern. She ended by describing it as "a poor city for the rich".

The tunnel came to an end. An open round space, with several small corridors around it, where delicate rays of sunlight entered through the cracks in the degraded and oval roof. Dozens of people, ranging from ones wearing stained and torn clothes to others wearing new T-shirts, visible in the way the fabric was not creased along the arm and shoulder, were in queue. There were still more people coming from all the tiny hallways. Most of them seemed to know each other or, at least, were polite enough to say hello when walking past someone. A row of 6 security guards, 3 on each side, led to a grey door, with two more checking the people in the queue.

One by one, the people stopped, looking at Lipa with a particular disdain, raised nose, and half-closed eyes, but also fear, paving the way for her to pass.

"Follow me." She said, giving us time to get close to her, "I never like to come here. People always look suspicious, expecting something from someone. It's strange." She added, sticking to a straight line, avoiding contact with anyone.

"What is this place?” I asked, looking around, noticing the decaying skin of two ladies who were a few meters from us limping, as well as the grandeur of the roof, reminding me of a few churches with their large-scale works, containing lines carved into the material itself.

"The entrance. Do you see these different paths? They all lead to a different place. Some of us, like me, have an entrance for ourselves, but most of them use the ones in the major cities." She explained as we passed the guards. None of them asked us for identity, as they were asking the rest of the people, and in no instance did they show fear or any suspicion of our presence there.

One of them left the formation, walked up to us and whispered in Lipa's ear. She frowned and arched her eyebrow before thanking him. The same man opened the main door and wished us a good afternoon. The contrast between the dim light of the quasi-cave and the flowering circus lights on the other side was immediate, as was the icy current that flowed from there and made most of the people rub their arms. I was fascinated even though I already had an idea of what to expect.  We, Hunters, heard about that place, but no one ever set foot in it. It's almost an unreachable myth. I've never met anyone who did. Much less entering the crime's holy grail through the front door.

"Stay close. You don't want to get lost here." Lipa said.

Chapter VIII

The place matched her description. The blue lights wandering between the site, traces of them on the 19th-century walls, and, in the background, above all buildings, a clock tower, the top of it tapping into the sky, which Lipa quickly explained to us, was produced by a cloud-making machine. That way they could remain in the sky, lightening the atmosphere, cooling it down and make it reminiscent of dark alleyways during the coldest nights.

People there were different. Their steps were measured and there was no one running, as well as the long, old-fashioned clothes that seemed to hide something underneath. There were some men with black robes, symbolic lapels hanging over a front pocket and metallic chains from the shoulders to the chest and from the belt to the knees. Others wore light brown robes and concealed their faces behind same colored hoods.

"Look." Maggie said, having elbowed me on the shoulder, "That woman there."

So, I did. Behind a mob of people who rumbled through police weapons, a woman wandered with long black hair matching her tight trousers and a transparent shirt that made no secret of the metallic prosthesis in her arm.

"Don't look too much. It's a recurring theme here. Technology-enhancing changes to the body." Lipa started, "Is there really that much difference between that and that glove you wear?" She asked Maggie.

"Oh...No. Not much. But why isn't this known? I've never heard of experiences like this before."

"They're not experiences. It's a job. You know, there's a world behind the normality curtain. In the neighborhoods where the police avoid setting foot, in places like this, which are forbidden to them and to Hunters. Technology proliferates but in different ways. Some do it for pleasure, others to be stronger or to become an expert. There's everything. It's not very much in my interest. I just have these piercings and that's enough for me." She said, diverting the hair from the ear and showing a row of 4 piercings.

"You've been here before, haven't you?" I asked Kendra, who had her lips clenched, and her brown eyes hidden behind a layer of dark circles.

"Our father used to bring us here when we were younger. She followed his path and I walked away. I followed the opposite path much to his disappointment. I don't think he ever forgave me." She answered, a few words getting lost amidst the frantic vendors' screams and the heated arguments between customers who wanted the same gun.

"You're wrong, you know? Dad was proud of you. Not that he was ever going to show it, but he followed your progress and never took that picture of you on a swing from his desk." Lipa said, intruding, "We're near. Let me talk and don't touch anything."

The watch pointer hit 4 pm.  The sound flew from one end of the market to the other; shrill, being heard everywhere. However, no one stopped. There were no casualties. They were already expecting it and continued to place weapons on their shoulders, experimenting them, handling knives between their fingers, moving diagonally, juggling with them. Lipa's two security guards were still following us, at a considerable distance, one ahead and one behind.

We made a detour to a narrow alley that ended a few meters in front of us, where a wall, three times my size, blocked the passage. Besides a few metal bars windows, the place contained only a full trash can, bits of leftover food all over the dusty floor, and a dark-blue door, which had some graffiti and a lock with an adn identification pad. Lipa slammed her finger against the sensor box and waited until a green light appeared. She opened the door and asked us to remain there. The security guards covered the entrance to the alley while we stood there, between babbling and sighs, waiting for her.

I wanted to say something, but I didn't think it was the right time. My mother had taught me that there are moments for everything and that sometimes silence had more impact than any word spoken in such a time of reflection. The trust between the three of us had suffered a blow and it would take time before it was restored. Even the physical relationship would suffer its changes. We would have time to talk about it. At that moment I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. We were on our own, in a place surrounded by unpredictable madmen, lacking support, on a secret mission. If something happened to us, we wouldn't even be remembered, maybe someone would release a "James Crusher. Must be the name" referring to me and that would be the last time Crusher's name would be spoken anywhere near the main building.

Fortunately, people didn't even notice us, we weren't anyone there, and our clothes didn't stand out.

"Are you sure your sister can be trusted? I don't know anything anymore." Maggie asked, hurt in her voice.

"I wouldn't let you come here if I didn't trust her too. I know I made a mistake, but now you're just being an idiot."

"I am worried about our survival. I'm sorry if I'm the only one." Maggie struck back again, firing splinter after splinter, still irritated by what had happened.

"Gee, okay, I'm sick of you. This is why I don't join groups." Kendra finished and started slamming on the door, "But can we go now or not?"

After a few seconds, a guy in there answered yes. A thick, hoarse voice, the voice of someone who had been smoking cigarettes since his childhood, grew higher by the minute, saying that we could go in but to wipe our shoes on the carpet at the entrance. We waited until the man opened the door for us and so we did. We only saw his shadow entering a door and that's where we'd go if it wasn't for Lipa showing up at the opposite door and calling us. Her security guards were still outside, aware of all the danger.

"Come on, come on. Doctor Asa is here." She said and left the door open.

It was a long clean white-walled corridor with at least 4 doors and at the end some stairs leading to a second floor.

We entered the small room, a spinning blue lamp lighted the only table that was in the middle, full of objects such as safety goggles, drills, screwdrivers, among others. There was also a metallic arm where he had drilled some holes around it to attach an iron glove that was on the right. It still reeked of burnt metal, which was scorched but molded by the measurements that were written on a paper at the edge of the table.

"Is that Dr. Asa?" Maggie asked me quietly, "I was expecting someone more...fearful, you know?"

I didn't answer her. I heard her, but before agreeing with her, I got distracted by the way the scrawny man in front of us, with his cheekbones in a straight line, a nose ring and spiky hair still glistening from the gel, ignored our presence, typing on his computer, making it impossible for anybody to follow his fingers.

"He looks like an old rock star," Kendra commented, sitting on one of the chairs and putting her foot on another.

"Asa, ASA!" Lipa screamed until he noticed her.

"Oh, yes. I'm easily distracted. You said you got buyers for some of my cameras. Didn't you?" He asked, not even noticing us. He scratched his chin goatee with sharp fingernails until he nearly bruised, and then straightened his metal-rod round glasses.

"Yes, they are here. They have a few concerns." She said and sat on one of the chairs, stretching her feet.

The doctor looked at me and Maggie and shrugged her upper lip. He invited us to sit down and said he would do his best to answer our questions. He removed a box from under his desk, where he had the cutting-edge computer, and from there he took three cameras.

"So... Hm..." I started, taking long pauses to quickly think about what I could say, "We know you also sold it to the Reapers. And if we know that, how can we prevent anyone from knowing that we made a deal? We'd like to keep this just between us, you know?" I asked, lightening my voice to sound more eloquent.

"Don't worry. It's all just between us. As for the Reapers, I sold them over 100 cameras. It's normal for one camera or another to end up in someone's hands. It' still not illegal to sell to good people, you know? Even if they investigate, they will only find cameras bought and paid by Hunters, there's not much more to dig into." He said, speaking as he keyed.

"That's a good idea. I'm not a big fan of Hunter's. They can't be trusted, you know?" Maggie said, her dress gluing to her body thanks to the subtle breeze that slid under the jammed window glass.

"I've worked with them before. There are good people and there are bad, nasty people. Not that the Reapers are better, to be honest. There are no good or bad people in this society, you know? Only desire to destroy and the need for sustenance. Each one bets on the one that gives them the most goose. I, for example, am good at building things. What they are used for is not my business. As long as I can continue to do so, to push technology's limits, that is fine."

"Even if thousands of people die?” Kendra asked him, biting her lower lip.

"People are still going to die, aren't they? Sacrifices have to be made." He replied, unflinchingly, without even blinking. There was no empathy left in him.

"Just hurry up. I have places to be." Lipa called out.

She got up, went to the window and stood on her toes so she could peek. It was so dirty that she still had to blow and wipe with her sleeve.  Maggie was talking to Dr. Asa. She made up the idea that we needed two cameras to hide in our house and told him it wasn't the first time someone had stolen something from us, and we wanted to know who, at all costs. I was impressed with her, but perhaps it was also a real situation and she was just seizing it. Kendra kept leaning against the chair, her buttocks almost spilling out while she yawned.

"EVERYONE HI..." Lipa started but her words were engulfed by a vast explosion that threw us against the walls.

Chapter IX

I woke up with Kendra punching me in the shoulder. My head was stinging in pain and my vision was still a little distorted, as well as hearing a constant buzz, a drum set that kept the same rhythm in my mind, and yet still distant. My mouth was dry and as soon as I tried to talk, I coughed until she handed me a bottle of water.

"We have to get out of here. Quickly." She said, and only then did I notice that she was bleeding from her forehead.

"What happened?!" I asked, still confused, my eyes searching the room for Maggie and Lipa.

I couldn't find them. Only Professor Asa, leaning against the wall, one of the metallic fingers stuck in his heart. His white coat was stained with red and his brown eyes were still open but lifeless.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Kendra said, not waiting for an answer, "We have to run away!".

"We can't. We have to look for Maggie and your sister." I told her, holding and caressing her, "We can’t leave them."

"They're probably dead already!" Kendra answered me, sobbing while sniffling.

I struggled to get up. My head was still spinning, it was hard to see anything beyond the smoke and there was already screaming and pleading from the outside. People were distressed; a rule had been broken and now it was every man for himself. Small-scale brawls started everywhere. Minor explosions, the sound of metal clashing, all came together in a quick and bloody outcome. I used my cloak sleeve to cover my mouth and part of my nose and told Kendra to do the same as we roamed the room, guided through by tact, hands on what was left of the walls. It took us a long time, or at least that's what we thought, to find Lipa, lying on the floor, blood dripping down her shoulder, pebbles all over her chest and a rock trapping her arm. She wasn't moving. She had a heartbeat, but she had passed out.

"You have to stay here while I look for Maggie," I said, the rush controlling my body.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this...but I'm scared, James." She said, looking me in the eye, her eyes popping out on her dusty face.

I took her hand, brought her close to me, until our bodies touched, and kissed her. Our lips intertwined and, for a moment, both the smoke and the sound violence were just a distant nightmare.

"Everything will be alright. I won't take long." I said, as soon as our lips moved away, "Give me one end of your whip, then it will be easier for me to come back. If someone shows up, give it a couple of pulls and I'll run back, okay?"

She nodded and got to work lifting the rock from her sister's arm, keeping the whip between her fingers, and removing it. It was the last thing I saw before I ventured into the fog. It dissipated gradually, but it was still difficult to see much more than what was ahead of me.

I found Maggie leaning against a wall. The protective foil weighed more than she did, and I had to detach it. Her eyes were closed, and her heartbeat was uneven and slow. I grabbed her by her head and feet, being careful not to hurt her more than she was already, with her shoulders skinned and part of her dress torn and showing a sliver of wood that had penetrated the right side of her stomach. Using the whip, it didn't take me more than a few seconds, or maybe minutes, to reach Kendra. Lipa already had her eyes open. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Don't talk, don't talk. We're getting out of here." Kendra repeated, "James, what now?"

My head still hurt, but they relied on me. I breathed deeply and took control of the situation, "We have to get out of here. It doesn't matter if we have to use force for that. If we get to the main gate, we should be safe. Your sister's security guards must already know what happened and must be looking for her." I said and noticed that Maggie struggled to open her eyes, her long eyelashes almost rubbing against her eyebrows, "It's okay. You can open them, Maggie. Kendra, we need a bottle of water. Quickly."

"I think I saw one around here," Kendra said and stretched her hand until she grabbed a bottle whose identification paper was browned, and the words were fading.

She took a sip, I drank another, and I opened Lipa and Maggie's mouth, tilting their heads, while Kendra poured a thread of water down their lips and throats. Finally, with the rest of it, we cleaned our faces. We saved the rest to use on the way.

After a mild shaking, they both woke up. Eyes twirling, chests lifting, holding on to what they could, nailing their nails into my skin, still trying to figure out what had happened.

"I saw it, I saw it! Someone on a rooftop with a bazooka pointing this way. They wanted to kill us. The rest was by accretion. What the hell are you guys into?" Lipa asked and paused for a long time, taking a deep breath, before continuing, "I thought you were trying to catch some reapers, climb the career ladder, but this is serious. If the Reapers are willing to break the black-market rules it's because they're scared, which means they won't stop. The council will not want to get involved. There is nothing I can do. You have to run away and hide."

"The council?” I asked, helping her to get up, while Kendra helped Maggie, who in the end thanked her. Nothing like a deadly experience to put dramas aside.

"Who do you think sets the rules here? It's the council. The 10 biggest criminals of our time. They meet once a year, in a secret location, with no security guards".

"Aren't you the eighth most wanted?" Kendra asked her.

The fog had disappeared in the meantime. The wall on the opposite side of the door was ruined and provided access to another empty alley.

"I am. But I stopped going. They refused to let me speak because I am a woman. They said that I had inherited everything from our father. As if!  Okay, I inherited part of the empire, but it was never as big as it is under my command."

"I see you're better now," I told her, trying to cheer her up.

She dropped a shy smile and winked at me without her sister noticing. I wiped the sweat off my face with my cloak' sleeve and, with Kendra and Lipa's help holding Maggie's arms, I removed the splinter that was embedded inside her belly. Fortunately, Kendra covered her mouth before her agonizing screams drew the attention of other groups out there. I ripped a piece of my sweater and used it as I could to stanch the blood. She needed to get to a hospital as soon as possible, but we still had to get out of there. I helped her up and held her by her hip.

"Do you know how to fight?" I asked Lipa. I knew that many were afraid of her and so many others respected her but had never seen her carrying a gun.

"Better than me". Kendra answered.

Lipa took out two small pins of metal, one of the ends with a black button, and pressed them. The metals expanded until two swords arose in front of me, sharp-edged and with metal handles. Her and Kendra took the lead as I helped Maggie walk and had my gun in my other hand. We walked down the long corridor, now filled with the wall debris, wood, rocks, blood, ripped doors, and no soul was seen. We opened the building door. Lipa's two security guards were dead. The explosion had thrown them against the wall where their heads hit and crumbled. There wasn't much left of them apart from the broad-shouldered bodies and a thick liquid flowing down their hair.

We leaned against the wall and walked all the way to the end of the alley. I asked Kendra to grab Maggie while I peered into the street. People were still running over and into each other, screaming and crying, a few groups in the corners, torn tents, and some people with a less good-looking appearance were taking the opportunity to keep the weapons that had been left behind. I signaled with my hand for them to follow me as I made my way down the street, wary of any danger and, at the same time, trying to keep a low profile.

"Look who it is! Lipa, come here, don't even think you'll get away from me this time." A thick voice said, dragging a razor across the floor, scraping it, constantly calling her out.

"Come on, we got to go. Shit. The security guard at the entrance warned me that he was here but we were supposed to get in and out fast." Lipa said, helping Kendra push Maggie.

"Where do you think you're going? You're not getting out of here. I know you're the one who stole that long-range gun business from me. Let's work this out, one-on-one." The man said, giggling like a pig.

We ignored him and continued to walk. It didn't last long, because a knife shredded Kendra's hair, chopping off her tips, and striking a wall in front of us.

"I won't repeat myself, Lipa." He said, tapping his sword repeatedly on the ground, "Stay back." He said, and the few people who were still there, lost or looking for someone, obeyed.

We stopped and turned around, looking at him head-on, broad shoulders but rectangular face. His eyes were lost between his bushy eyebrows and the hollow space where they were.  He had a pointed and crooked nose, shaded lips, which were also hidden behind a months-long beard. He wore a black wavy hat, typical of pirates of whom I'd seen images in children's tales, but which didn't hide the fact that he had no hair. Next to him was a young girl with long black hair, black pants and a black sweater that made the round shape of her breasts stand out to the eye. She played with another knife, like the one she had thrown, and even licked the blade. On the other side of the leader, a dwarf was holding an ax bigger than him. He had large blood-colored eyes and his palms were full of superficial cuts. It looked like a challenge from the old western movies that I used to watch. The clock pointer kept moving even if time had stopped there. The dust was sailing around us, each with his hand on his weapons, waiting for the start signal.

"Run away," I said. It was the only chance they had. It was to save people that I became a hunter, and this was my chance. I realized at that moment that fame and recognition would be nothing if I fought for them, if I saw them as a goal and not as an achievement of what I had done.

"But what about you? There are 3 of them! You only have one gun with 9 bullets!" Kendra said, still holding on to Maggie, who worked hard to move her head to both sides.

"Well, I only need three, right?" I told her, even though inside my heart was pounding a mile an hour in the face of a situation that could be my last.

"James..." Kendra started, but I covered her lips with a finger.

"Go. Now. Tell them what we discovered here. Investigate. If I don't get out of here, strive to clear my family's name."

"Survive, please." Those were Kendra's last words to me before she kissed me. Hot, warm and humid.

"Are you finished? We have to go. Thank you, James. I'll be back as soon as I can with reinforcements." Lipa told me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Together they carried Maggie through the rubble, disappearing from our sight in a few seconds.

"Well, I'll catch her later. I can't say no to a gentleman sacrificing himself for them, can I? I abhor men like you. They have all the attention they want. What about me? Nothing. I always treat them well!" He said, and pulled the young girl close to him, his fat, greasy hands clutching her hips to her displeasure.

"You can tell. I don't think she's enjoying it very much." I answered him.

No one dared to come between us. The people who remained had flung themselves against the corners, whispering, wishing for the fight to unfold. Others, even amid the hell that the market had become, applauded and shouted for us to start the battle.

"Of course, she's enjoying it!" He shouted and squeezed until his fingertips bruised her skin and she squirmed, "Who do you think you are? Do you think you can speak badly of me, the great Zeryn, and get away with it? I'll take care of you and I'll do it myself. It's been a while since I've dealt with a worm with my bare hands."

He went ahead, raised his sword up to his chest, and waited for me to make a move. He seemed too confident for someone who was just one bullet away from dying. It had to be a bluff, I firmly believed so and pointed the gun at his chest. One shot and everything would be over. I pressed the trigger and the bullet broke the sound, made its way through the fog, and once it was just a few centimeters away from him, he slid his right foot across the ground, placed the sword upwards and used it as a shield. The bullet hit the metal, sparkled, and the casing tumbled to the ground.

"8 bullets." He said and took another step forward.

Shit. I didn't even know it was possible to defend bullets with a sword. Where the hell did this guy who was twice my size and had a sword that was almost my height come from? He took another step. And another. The distance between us shortened. The crowd around us was shouting his name. The people moved apart and formed a circle around us. There was no way out of there other than by defeating him and it wouldn't be an easy task. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and as soon as it fell off my chin, I fired again. The bullet had the same fate as the previous one.

My heart beat faster. The same drums as before, the usual rhythm. My head felt like a time bomb, my legs were frozen, and my feet were sinking. I felt the muscle in the back of my leg, but I couldn't get out of there, out of that place, as if I was trapped in an invisible square. And now what? I asked myself, keeping my breathing under control, not for long, looking around, seeking anything, or even someone, who could help me. I wouldn't stand a chance in a physical combat and even if I simply wanted to get close enough to shoot, I would risk being caught by him. The experience he had in battles completely overshadowed my advantage.

He kept coming. The loud chuckle, rising above all the other voices, bathing in the despair he saw in me. But, no, I couldn't give up there. Kendra and Maggie were waiting for me at the house. I couldn't leave them, I couldn't leave halfway through my second day as Hunter, let alone disappoint my father. I trained for years for a high-risk situation. I recalled a situation that happened at the academy. A training match against someone bigger than me who, incidentally, didn't find me very funny. Knowing that I could not beat him in a head-to-head fight, I tackled his feet in one go, knocking him down and keeping him on the ground as I could. Okay, I already had a plan, I just had to put it into action.

"You seem very nervous. Come here." He said, just a few feet away from me, still dragging the tip of the sword across the ground, leaving behind a trail.

"I'm just getting started," I answered him. I adjusted the folds in my cloak, put one foot behind the other and bent down. I had to gain some momentum to shoot myself out of there like a bullet.

I waited for the right moment. The clock tower marked 5 pm. The building hadn't been affected, nor had the cloud machine. The sky was full of black clouds, some white cotton-like clouds along the way. The sound frightened the present crowd who thought it was another bomb. Fear was on the surface, responding to any noise. A hellish rush began, some people taking cover, others throwing whoever they could to the ground in order to escape.

I seized the distraction. I fired 3 blasts. The man still had his eyes on me and moved the sword diagonally, ready to block the shots. Just as I had predicted. He was so focused on the trajectory and precision of the bullets that his background became blurred. I ran like never before till I reached him. The wind flew down my face, my clothes clung to my body, sweat-soaked me, but nothing stopped me. The bullets hit the metal of the sword and leaped to the ground, the spark earning me the last seconds I needed. When he noticed me, it was too late.

I threw myself at his knees, knocking him down, punching him until my fists were wounded and using the handle of my gun to hit him in the face. He used his arms to protect it, suffocating under all the pressure. He stretched out his arms trying to pick up his weapon, but it had bounced away. Blood flowed from his face, but I found myself unable to stop. The people no longer screamed. The only sound I heard was the metal from the gun shattering his nose. The adrenaline was feeding on my fear, but also on my courage, and my arms refused to stop.

I only did it when a knife scraped my cheek, peeling the skin and cutting it off at the surface, landing meters away from me.

"That's enough." The young girl said, her eyes already wet.

"Oh, I... I didn't want to exaggerate. I should go," I told them, scared of myself, looking at the man's face, wrecked, covered in blood.

"You are not going anywhere. We will avenge our leader!" The midget said. He raised the ax and began rushing towards me.

His legs were tiny and his feet even more. I could see him approaching me and yet he seemed distant. I grabbed my pistol and was about to shoot when someone tossed a smoke ball into the middle of the street. A black curtain separated me from them, isolating me, whether for my own good or for theirs. I leaped back when I felt a hand touching me. Smooth fingers slipping through mine, but I saw no one around me. I swirled around and only spotted black, some of which were dimmer than others.

"Grab my hand. Quickly." A docile voice said, a glimmer of light at the end of a tunnel.

I stretched out my hands until I felt one of her fingers and did not let go. She walked and I roamed through the darkness with her. I didn't know how long it took. The path was cleared, and the voices were no more than mere whispers in the distance. Suddenly she took a detour, we left the smoke and entered an alley far from the mayhem. I was going to ask her who she was when she threw me against the wall and grabbed my neck. My gun fell to the ground and she raised her knee until she was pressing my balls. I could have stopped her, but I wanted to find out who she was, why she had helped me and, no doubt, how she had gotten a new generation ice glove.  Her long orange hair covered part of her face, her blue eyes escaping through the strands. We were even further away from the clock tower than before.

Chapter X

"Are you James? James Crusher?" she asked, her fingers pressing down on my neck until I felt my breath through a string.

"Yes, shit. Yeah, who the hell are you? Did you help me just to kill me?" I asked her, between hiccups, my voice losing strength with every word I said.

"Ashen told me to keep an eye on you. Apparently, he already knew you were going to get into trouble." She answered and let me go.

"We didn't... Well, I guess now it doesn't matter how it started, anyway. Are you a hunter?"

She laughed,

"No. I used to be. They were far too nice for me. But you, you have something else within you. I saw how you left his face in a swamp of blood."

"How did you meet Ashen, then?" I asked, ignoring part of what she had said. To answer her was to admit the truth, that I had lost control for fear of being there. There was still so much to do, so many dreams and unfulfilled desires.

"You're asking a lot of questions, boy." She answered me. She tossed her hair back and tied it into a ponytail.

"Boy? We're the same age." I answered her and this time I grabbed her by her hips, turned her over and leaned her against the wall until I felt her breathing warm and panting before me, "How do we get out of here?"

"We do not leave... Oh, I mean, we have to go that way, there, yes." She said, switching several times. She shoved me, straightened her clothes and took a deep breath, "There's something I need to pick up before we leave here. We have to go to the tavern."

"And can't you pick it up some other time?"

"Steal, James, we need to steal." She said and blinked her left eye.

"I'm a Hunter. I can't steal. You know that."

"I assume you can't get into direct fights with criminals either or almost kill them, but I don't think that was an impediment before. Don't worry. It will be our secret. Something only, we will know. Don't think that having a pretty face is enough for me."

"Okay. I don't think I have any other choice, do I? But on one condition. I want to know your name and what we're going to steal." I asked her, my eyes wandering between her thick, damp lips and her tits under the brown soldier's top.

"Fair. I am Elisa. You don't need to see it as stealing, it could just be borrowing... forever.  It doesn't matter what it is, at least for now." She said and turned her back on me.

She peered outside the alley. Seconds later, she threw me against the wall and kissed me. She had vanilla-flavored lips and orange-scented hair. I opened my eyes halfway through the kiss and, through the corner of my left eye, I noticed that there was a group of 3 black hooded men covering their faces strolling through there.  We pretended to be madly in love, seizing the confusion to venture into our passion. They didn't even look at us twice.

I followed her through secondary streets, mostly empty, and some narrow corridors where we had to pass one at a time. The houses there were different from those around the main avenue; small and cozy, with reinforced windows, metal doors, and most of them had a lamp on the outside illuminating their part of the street. The flowering blue lights did not reach that reclusive part of the city, where the white roofs were all at the same level and the walls were made of marble. I asked her where we were, whether it was safe there and, above all, whether she knew which way to go.

"This is where they store their weapons. Houses are made to resemble vault boxes. As long as you don't make any noise nobody will bother us and there is no safer place than this. The tavern is just down the street."

I didn't answer her. We continued to walk down the street until we returned to the main avenue. Nearly empty, unlit, tents splattered all over the floor and a horrible shit and piss smell. In the background, there was a rectangular wooden building, from where inaudible shrieks came, mugs beating on tables and a disgusting alcohol smell. I, an alcohol fan, had to ask for a few seconds. The stench of liquor, wine, vodka, all blended together and, as if that wasn't enough, there were several fresh vomit puddles at the tavern's wooden door. It was too much even for me.

Elisa advised me not to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds with anyone and to avoid bumping into someone. She knocked on the door and a thick voice, on the other side, asked for the password.

"Niko." She said to the door, "Owner's name" she told me, low enough so that the man wouldn't hear her while he opened the door.

The room was even bigger inside. Four long tables spanned from one end to the other, and dozens of small tables filled what was left of the space at the back. There were also chairs at the bar, some of them empty. The floor was full of vomit puddles, alcohol, even shredded food pieces, in a mixture of colors and smells that made me nauseous, puke coming up to my throat. The men sang and toasted; the booze jumped on their already stained clothes, on their long beards and sprinkled their grown-up faces, already wrinkled and with prominent contours. I only saw two women at a table, in a corner, both drinking a pint.

I followed Elisa, straying from men larger than me and looking at the floor until we found a space behind one of the tables, where there was no one. She signaled me and pointed at an albino man, playing cards with five other men, his rotten, yellow teeth catching my eye. He had a wooden tipped knife next to him, where the sharp part was just a piece of glass taken from a shattered window. Only when he turned the right side of his face to us could I see that he had a cut that went from his eyebrow to the middle of his cheek, and sometimes he would put the cards on the table, face down, so he could scratch himself. In addition to the five men who bet thousands on a single move, the table was full of others watching and a few even standing, with their fists closed, shouting at every card that was placed on the table.

"Many securities guards. We need a distraction." Elisa said, "Let's have a drink first."

"Security guards? All I see is the red-haired one with the knife between his fingers." I answered her, my eyes looking for the rest.

"That one, yes. He must be new. He's nervous. You have the one with the short black hair, the one with the sideburns all the way to the middle of his face and the other near him, with the blue shirt and black pants, who has been looking at us ever since we entered. Standing still and having no drink in our hand makes us stand out. Let's go."

We sat on two empty chairs at the bar. A man, I assumed to be Niko, asked us what we wanted. Elisa asked for a gin and tonic and I asked for an original vodka. I shouldn't drink on the job, but it's also not like someone is going to find out or, after everything, as if I didn't deserve a five-minute break. As the cold drink descended my throat, I wondered if Maggie, Kendra and her sister had managed to escape. Whether they were in Lipa's hiding place or already on their way to our base. Whether they focused on the hope that I had survived or whether they were already mourning my death. I took another sip and pushed my thoughts away from my mind. They wouldn't help me get out of there. I would go back to them, healthy and safe, we would solve our trust problems and lie in bed to enjoy victory.

"You just asked me how I met Ashen, right? You might as well know it now. He was in a group, him, a girl, and two other boys. That was a good couple of years ago. Let me be blunt. They were murdered, brutally slaughtered. Do you believe in fate, James?" She asked and took a sip of gin, "It all started with your father. Ashen believed in it. After everything that happened, Ashen tried to create a clandestine group. There were 3 of us, playing outside the law, going further than any other group. The other boy disappeared without a trace.  Ashen ended up kicking me out and quitting, or so I thought. Apparently, he continued to investigate on his own, with the help of Gordon, who was already our watcher at the time. And here we are. By fate or coincidence, you are following your father's path."

It took me some time to think about what to say. It was too much information at the same time, "I... knew nothing about it. Did Ashen know my father? Was he a rank S before the first group?" I asked, Gordon's words about Ashen's secret past echoing in my mind.

"Maybe. I don't know much more than I told you. I know Ashen believed in him, but not if they ever talked. I don't think so. Ashen would still be a young Hunter when your father was already rank A." She replied, paused and looked at the albino man once again, "He was rank A at the time of the first group. There was a period between what happened to the group and him calling me in which he spent the days somewhere between drinking and vanquishing monsters. This led him to be rank S and to be awarded individual honors which he refused to accept. Come on, enough of this, drink what's left and let's get to it. I have a plan. Don't ask what it is, just follow my lead."

I drank what was left and followed her amongst sweaty men, droplets of alcohol skipping in my face, the lights on the ceiling falling on the white and stained T-shirts and the curly and moist mustaches on the tips. We were passing by our target's table when Elisa, without me seeing, set her foot in front of me and I tripped, bumping into one of the man's security guards. He fell to the ground and in a few seconds the other two had their weapons pointed at me. The game stopped. Silence flooded the room from one end to the other. They grabbed me and removed me from over him, holding my arms, looking at the albino. They waited for him to get up and walk towards me. Behind the confusion that had arisen in the area, Elisa snuck past everyone, her hand grabbing an envelope whose paper-cream corner came out of his pocket.

"I'm sorry. I don't even know how I tripped. Damn, this alcohol...alcohol is strong." I said, pretending to be out of my mind, pausing to sob.

"Boss, can we kick his ass?" The man I had thrown to the ground asked. He was frowning with his fists closed until a vein popped up in his forehead.

"Let him go. There is no fighting at the market, much less at the tavern. Those guilty of what happened earlier will be punished." The albino said and warned me to go back to my life, "Don't come back here."

They shoved me and dragged me out. I released a "shit" before noticing that Elisa was leaning against the wall, laughing, with the letter in her hand. I had in mind what I wanted to do to her, but I also knew it wasn't the right place. At that moment I just wanted to get out of there.

She told me to follow her and so I did. With the streets empty except for a few men returning to see what was left of their stalls, the path to the entrance was peaceful. We didn't cross paths with the group I had had a skirmish with, nor with the hooded men. The blue lights were off, and the entrance was open. Of the 6 security guards from before, there were only two left. They checked the few people in line, carelessly, letting them in after wishing them a good afternoon. There was no longer a dusty blanket up in the air and the flames had been extinguished.

We stepped into one of the tunnel's branches; water was flowing above the black ceiling, a few drops finding its way into the tunnel. The side walls were covered in moss, damp and even yellowish mold. I won't even talk about the smell. If I thought the tavern smelled terrible, what could I say about it? Even worse. It entered through the nostrils and liquefied the brain. I used two fingers to cover my nose. The smell didn't seem to bother Elisa. In the glow of the light that illuminated the whole tunnel, her hair seemed on fire and her cheeks glowed contrasting with her sea eyes. Her ass swung from side to side like a hypnotizing watch.

It took us about 10 minutes to reach a door whose side facing the tunnel was white and the side facing outwards was black.

"Doesn't the smell bother you?" I asked her as soon as I closed the door and we found ourselves in a garden where the group of trees were cramped, and few rays of sunshine escaped through the dark green wall.

"I have no sense of smell. I had a problem with my nose, and I lost it." She said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

The grass was short and had recently been watered. The bushes grew to our height and were dark as pitch. Everything in that garden seemed to have been plunged into a cauldron of black fumes. I assumed the news of the attack had spread once I saw that only two men were in line to get in. The wet mud on the floor still had recent footprints on it, and there was a specific smell of cheap perfume in the air, not to mention that I heard the two old men commenting that the remaining friends had given up going. They complained that they would have to go by themselves to the tavern and get strangers to join them and play Swedish.

The garden was in an ancient history museum. The satin red framed walls, with old paintings, from the Renaissance to the Romanticism, themes that I had been taught in class, to more contemporary pieces like heroic photos of Hunters in combat. Some statues along the way and some manuscripts inside crystal vaults protected by security sensors.

"I live nearby. You better stay at my house today and I'll take you to Ashen tomorrow. What do you think? I'll let him know you're with me." She asked as soon as we left the museum.

Chapter XI

The violet horizon disappeared behind dark clouds that flagged that it would rain in the dawn. Elisa lived in one of the continent's 7 main cities, in a conglomerate of cheap, grayish buildings, all of which had nothing to differentiate them. In front of the building, there was a small playground for children, but it didn't seem to have been used in years. The slide full of graffiti and only one of the swing chairs was still attached to the metal bar. There were also some posters advertising promotions on Hunters' weapons and shields. The price tags were covered in a layer of dark brown dust.

The color in the objects had been lost over time and now only adults used the park to use drugs. Elisa told me that she had already had some problems with some of her neighbors due to the excessive noise during the warm dawns when they would head over there and play music out loud.

We entered her house. There were no pictures on the white walls and except for some magazines about Hunters on a crystal table in the living room, no one would say that anyone lived there.

"Now that we're more comfortable, what the hell was that in the tavern? Couldn't you have warned me?"

"I needed a genuine reaction from you. The albino would know if it was engendered. It went well, didn't it? Do you really want to waste time on this?" She asked and took off her top, keeping only a black bra and her trousers.

"But who is he? And what the hell is in the envelope?" I said, trying to keep my eyes off her sharp curves as she unbuttoned her pants.

"I'll tell you in the morning if you're not too tired to hear it."

Her pants dropped down to her knees. The light bulb on the ceiling shone over her slender body, her lengthy hair covering the contours of her breasts, and her black panties with a thin thread between the cheeks of her butt.

Well, I suppose I deserved it. After the long day, I had had, of having sacrificed myself, of having almost died about three times, the least I could do was end the night spending what was left of my energy fucking until I got wasted.

I walked up to her and kissed her neck while I quickly removed her bra to her surprise. One of those that you have to untangle three pins until it falls off. She told us to go to her room, where we could lie on her king size bed, but now she was the one in my habitat and at my mercy. I pushed her back against the wall, kissing her neck and lowering her panties. The growing moans filled the room and then the whole house. Her breasts slammed against the wall, as well as part of her face. My erect cock was already rubbing against the fabric of my boxers, wanting to free itself, as if it were attracted by the sweet nectar that was on the surface of her. We didn't stop there. I turned her around. We kissed each other like crazy, tossing what was in the way to the ground, from magazines to a small lamp in a corner, to the sound of the little rain sweeping into the blinds. I sat on the blue pillow sofa, which was suitable for up to three people, and she knelt in front of me, shamelessly throwing herself at my pants, removing the belt and pulling them down.

She rejoiced with my length until threads of saliva ran down her mouth, descending over her body, some getting stuck between her wet lips. Her mouth was warm and not once did her teeth rub against me. She had plenty of experience and after a while, all my movements were automated. My mind was cloudy with thoughts and desires for intense pleasure and everything else, the problems and the solutions, remained in the background. She sat on top of me, on her back, leaning down until her face was next to mine, the hot breath on my neck as she moved up slowly to get used to me.

It was intense, dirty, passionate and ephemeral. The screams drowned out the thunderstorm that had set in outside. The smell perfumed the room, mixed with the sweaty aroma that ran all over our bodies. We spent about 10 minutes in that position until I put her on her feet, on all fours, and thus it was over. She didn't even look like the person from before. There were no mysteries when she was naked, and she did not hide behind lies and slight sarcasm. I finished up in her mouth. She showed me the thick white liquid descending from her red tongue. We stayed on the couch, naked, leaning against each other, our breathing still accelerated, each lost in their thoughts. It was not only sex that had happened there, but the union of two people who had put their lives on the line for each other a few hours before. We did not exchange any more words that night.

I fell asleep shortly after, still to the sound of the roaring wind and rain, leaning against her, sweaty and exhausted.

I woke up early, with the sun's rays peeking through the window cracks. Elisa was already up. The air conditioner was on and the engine roared loud enough for the sound to repeat in my head even after I left the living room. I put on my pants and left my sweater and cloak next to the hot air gusts.

She was in the kitchen, surrounded by eggs and milk, preparing breakfast. I stood behind her, rubbing myself against her ass, and ended up beating the cream as she broke the eggs into a bowl.

"Good morning. We have a long day ahead of us." She said, still drowsy.

"Yeah, did you phone Ashen yesterday? I fell asleep quickly. I was tired."

"No wonder," she replied and laughed, "Yes, I did. I explained what happened. He thanked me for the help and said he was waiting for you tomorrow. Today." She added.

"Excellent. If I remember correctly, you were supposed to tell me something yesterday. Who is the albino? And this time don't you think you can avoid the question."

She sighed, licked her lips and finally spoke, "You're right. Have you ever heard of the council? He is one of the members. The envelope contained details of where the next meeting is." She said as she poured hot milk into a glass.

"I have so many questions. Why letters and not messages? If they know that someone knows where it is, won't they change the place?"

"It is good that you have questions. Corruption finds its place in the trenches because not everyone asks their questions. As for your questions; messages could be captured and decoded while letters are always with them and, the truth is, they didn't think anyone would challenge them. Until now. Even so, they won't change the place. Planning a meeting with the 10 bosses takes months and they know that I am neither a hunter nor a policeman. They have informants in both. Reapers are not the only problem in society. There is more beyond the shadows." She said, calmly, without feeling the need to pause.

I thanked her for her answer and sat down at the table. There was toast, omelets, fresh milk and some blackberries in a small box. I hadn't eaten in almost half a day. I had slept for about 10 hours and my stomach was already growling. I devoured everything I laid eyes on.

Before we left her house, we took a quick shower. According to Elisa, the gas there tended to fail, and it was better to use it together while it was working. I knew that even if it was true, it wasn't the main reason she wanted it, but I played it off.

We repeated the previous night; from kissing to groping, to touching our bodies. We didn't leave an inch unexplored. Her shower gel smelled like raspberry. The bathroom also had one of those sprinklers that spreads lemon-scented perfume every hour. The aromas mixed and overlaid the animal-like and primitive smell of what we had made there, with her leg tilted and her back against the wall.

We left her house. My mobile phone marked 11 pm. I already had two net traces, but the battery was running red.

That place was even uglier during the day. There wasn't a beautiful sun, or colorful reflections, to save it. It was all gray, lifeless, and so were the people. Two boys smoked a cigarette in front of the front door. Faces punished by life; sharp lines, stiff black beards, and calluses on their hands. They nodded their heads and wished Elisa good morning.

That place bothered me. It was the opposite of where I came from, the happy and sociable neighbors, the karaoke bars open until late in the morning and the clean streets, without rotten orange leaves, to the spicy aromas of the market that opened every day.

We stepped into her car; an old one, the sooty bonnet at the top, and with room for just two people. The engine rumbled and didn't run at more than 80 per hour. It was a Tuesday and the streets were empty at that hour. She got on the main highway and it took no more than 20 minutes for us to get to the detour that led us to the hideout.

The sun shone on the damp ground, reflecting on the puddles, part of it still behind the steeper slopes.

"I forgot to tell you. Don't say anything to Ashen about this," she said and pointed to the envelope inside the glove compartment, among some old, almost colorless papers.

"It's not like I can just tell him that I helped you steal from the council, is it? I hope this doesn't turn into trouble for us."

"You are lovely. Don't worry. I'll take care of everything myself."

"Are you going to attack the council alone?" I asked her, still confused by her words.

"No, obviously not. I'll have help. But you better not get too involved in this. You already have other problems to deal with." She said, before her voice gained a sarcastic tone, "It looks like your fans are waiting for you."

At the end of the muddy corridor, flanked by the two rocky slopes, Kendra and Maggie waved at me. Maggie was holding Kendra's arm, which appeared to be struggling to maintain a certain distance without kicking her off. In front of the house was the car that we had left in the rich part of the city, which, to be honest, I no longer remembered. There was no sign of Lipa, nor of Ashen and Gordon. As soon as I got out of the car, they both ran to me, hugging me until I could hardly feel my bones.

"This is a one-time thing. Just because you sacrificed your life for me." Kendra said, as her hands grabbed me from the right side, while Maggie settled for the other side.

"By now you should have known that I wouldn't leave you like this. We still have many adventures ahead of us." I answered while stroking their hair.

"Don't scare us like that again." Maggie said to me, her eyes swollen and moist, 'You don't know how much I cried."

"She spent the whole night like this. Even after Ashen said you were okay."

"Will the children take long?" Elisa said, already in the doorway. She walked in and closed the door.

They both looked at me, wondering who that woman was and why the hell she was still there. I asked them to be patient. I told them that she had saved my life and that she was a friend of Ashen's. I knew it wasn't the best time to hide the truth from them, but I also knew that we didn't have time for that. The past was the past and all that mattered was what awaited us in the future.

I kissed each one's forehead first and we headed for the house.

Ashen, Gordon and Elisa were on the second floor, exchanging a few words, as they watched street images, from all over the continent, on the various screens. The map was still flashing red. Sometimes a black one would appear, but it would disappear at that very moment. I assumed that maybe there were other groups like us, that we weren't in that battle alone and that more reliable Hunters were fighting the status quo.

"Elisa gave me a summary of yesterday. You did well, James, but don't take that chance again. If they had caught you and made you reveal what you were doing there, you could have thrown it all away." Ashen said, pressing a few buttons until a 23-second video of a burning city appeared, "While the market was under attack, this was happening in a suburban town.”

"He's never pleased, is he?" Kendra said as low as a sigh.

I was going to answer her when gruesome images unfolded on the screens. During the fog a human shadow emerged, moving like a robot, one step at a time, raising his knee to his belly before lowering it again. He raised his arm and pointed it toward the security camera. He fired two energy beams; one struck a car, the explosion covering him up with smoke, while the other beam destroyed the security camera. There was a period of hesitation in everyone in that room. The video kept repeating until Gordon finally stopped it.

"They did it. I never thought they'd make it, not even that they'd go this far." He said, turning off all the screens.

"What?" Maggie asked, lowering her gaze when Elisa stared at her.

"Monsters. Human monsters. This is just the beginning of what they intend to do. I never thought he'd do it."

"Him? What aren't you telling us?" I asked and took a step forward.

"I suppose everyone here has secrets, don't they?" Gordon began, "I was once a Reaper. At the time we had no name, let alone the intention of imposing rules in the world. We were only 3 youngsters who had fun building robots. Sometimes we entered competitions in the big cities, sometimes among ourselves. But one of us, Damien, wanted more than that. He wanted to sell our talent to military companies, but we refused. We didn't want to be the cause of death, you know?" He said and sat on the chair. He put his neck against the cushion part before continuing, "When me and the other boy, Chris, found out what he was doing, it was too late. He had gone behind our backs to ask for funds to create bigger, stronger monsters that could give him the power he longed for. After that, he disappeared. Chris walked away from all this. He dedicated himself to teaching in a college and I, well, here I am. I know that a few years later he asked the government to do unethical experiences and they rejected. Then, it all started."

"How do you know this is the work of your ex-friend?" Maggie asked him.

"Because this has always been our dream. A human with robot power, with the possibility of using missiles, flying, even creating fire, for example, without needing special gloves. I never thought he'd get there, not in less than 10 years. If this was a test, believe me, there's a lot more to come."

I thought about what to say and picked out the words that I thought were suitable, "Now what?  Do we keep beating monsters knowing that the worst is yet to come? Do we remain hidden here while everything happens out there? When are high-ranking Hunters involved? We have to go to war. We have to show them that we're not giving up."

"It's not that easy. Not everything is black and white, boy." Ashen said to me.

I was getting more and more annoyed. It all seemed so pointless. The effort we made, putting our lives in danger, to then sit in the shadows waiting for someone to make a wrong move.

"The boy has the same temperament you had a few years ago, Ash," Elsa said and leaned against the wall.

"You know I don't like you calling me that." Ashen began, "And where did that temperament get me? We can't save everyone, I've already tried to explain that to them."

I interrupted them, anger flowing through my body, "I know! I know we can't! But if we have the possibility to act before the consequences, why shouldn't we? Are we waiting for more people to die?" I said, raising my voice, each time more pissed off, "We became Hunters for a reason. It wasn't to remain still."

"He's right, Ashen." Gordon said, still reclined in his chair, "maybe it's time to get out of the shadows. Damien needs to know that the path is not clear, that someone will stand up to him."

Ashen sighed and asked for a few minutes alone. The rest of us left the house and stretched out under the orange and red sky shining over the semi-cold water of the lake. The water splattered on our naked feet and the sun rays tanned our faces, also blazing our fragile eyelids. Kendra was on my right side, wearing only a black top like a long ribbon that wrapped around her body and only covered her tits and black lycra pants, while Maggie, on my right side, was wearing a blue dress up to her knees with 3 buttons above her chest, two of which were open. I didn't need to ask them to know that Gordon had taken them home to pick up fresh, new clothes after the old ones had been covered in dust and blood.

Unlike everyone, including me, who had lain on the already dry grass, Maggie remained seated. The bandage didn't deprive her of the pain she felt as she moved into certain positions. Gordon broke his silence to say that it had been some time since he had last set foot there, that the sun had faded in his face, highlighting the freckles he had around his nose. Taking advantage of his voice string, and a few birds humming from the nearby trunks, I asked Kendra what had happened to her sister.

"We left her in the warehouse. We heard her making some calls as we left, but we don't know a whole lot more. She dispatched us right away. She was scared, you know? I’ve never seen her like that, with her lips trembling and teary-eyed."

"It would be good if the council joined us against the Reapers. All that common enemy crap." I said, dreaming about the possibilities.

It wasn't the best of choices, but one enemy was always better than two unpredictable ones.

"It's not going to happen. Part of the board is involved up to the marrow with the Reapers. Who do you think gets them the technology? Just because it's paid by us, Hunters, doesn't mean that we provide them ourselves. It's a complot. A triangle in which everyone does their part. The council gives them weapons, we pay, and the Reapers give us a reason to spend more money on weapons, often produced by illegal sub-companies controlled by the larger ones. There are no good people in this world. Only those who have not yet stepped out of line." Elisa said and sighed, the icy air spinning in the sunlight.

"That's a very pessimistic view, don't you think?" Maggie said, intervening.

"I know who you are, girl, and who your father is. I don't think you're the best person to talk about how bad the world is."

"Do you think I've never had people dying around me? That I didn't see pain in other people's eyes? Not all my life has been roses. I've had enough of being judged because I'm the daughter of him and not because of who I am." Maggie said, exalted.

She closed her fist as hard as she could and punched the ground. Soon after, the bandage was ripped and blood surfaced, staining the lighter dress.

She got up, her spring-like perfume soothing along the way, as she limped, taking small steps, permanently settling one foot on the ground before raising the next. I couldn't see her like this. I ended up helping her, sticking my arm to her hip, lifting her up until we reached the small stairs that led to the ridge that surrounded the whole house. We crossed the living room and the kitchen and entered our bedroom.

She removed the dress over her head and laid it on the bed. From a drawer on the bedside table, she took out the utensils she needed to sew the wound and make a bandage to staunch it. Most likely she was repeating the same movements as the day before.  She knew where everything was and what to do in a way that displayed a certain amount of experience. Her hand didn't shake even when her skin was being pulled, and her gnashing teeth didn't distract her. Sometimes she paused and only then continued. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it while performing the final touches. The skin around the scar was dry, faint red, and seemed to be unsalvageable. Being who she was, she would have no problem buying skin to replace that one, but the words that came out of her mouth were different from what I expected.

"I want to leave the mark, you know? It will help me when someone talks about my father. I'm not him, I have nothing to do with him. I'm on the good side. I get my hands dirty."

I smiled and kissed her. It was one of those that went on for almost a minute until lips broke off and a string of saliva lay on them.

"You don't know how happy I am that you're alive." She said and hugged me, turning only the upper half of her body, "As you may have noticed, I'm not very sociable... I'm glad I have you now."

We lay down on the bed and stayed there, curled up in each other, until the minutes were hours and the hours felt like days.

Chapter XII

Two weeks went by without anything of importance happening. After the heated exchange of arguments between me and Ashen, and his time alone, we finally came to an agreement. We would be more proactive, but if at any time he thought we were in genuine danger, we would have to obey him and flee as soon as possible. Running away was not in my personality. I was taught to fight until the end, that's how I grew up and it wouldn't be any different now. However, now that I knew the reasons behind the request, I accepted it. If something like that happened, I would have to choose what to do wisely. Every situation is a situation, as one of my academy teachers said. A grumpy man, with a goatee on his double chin, already in his 50's, but with an outstanding sword skill. 

We spent the time between researching the Hunters' board members and even a couple of A rankers and destroying monsters. We reached rank C in an instant. Elisa helped us a few times to defeat level C monsters and two B monsters. She confessed to me that she was fond of being around me and that she had begun to get attached to the team, although when I invited her to join us, she refused.

"It's still early." She told me, before we leaned over her couch, as had become regular on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Kendra and Maggie had no problem with that. They learned to like her style; ruthless but, at the same time, more preponderant when she gave them suggestions on how to improve.

At the end of the seventeenth day, Kendra's mobile phone rang during dinner. She ran a napkin over her lips before taking the mobile out of her pocket.

"It's Lipa! I haven't spoken with her since that day."

"Pick up. It could be important." Ashen told her and we all put down our cutlery.

We heard her exchanging a few "yes" and "are you sure?" but we remained uncultivated about the subject being discussed. The expressions on her face ranged from relieved to severe, with half-closed eyes and twisted lips, until she finished with a smile on her face, just before releasing a "Be careful. Don't get caught.". We all had our eyes on her, following her movements, from putting her mobile phone in her pocket to sitting down.

"Good news?" Maggie asked, stirring up the fork on her plate.

"Yes?" Kendra said, trying to hide her enthusiasm, but unable to conceal the smile rising up in the corner of her lips, "My sister told me the council will meet on Friday, but she is aware that most of the members won't want to get into trouble with the Reapers. But not everything is bad news. She heard rumors that there would be a party, also this Friday, in a mansion in Fortress, the richest small town on the continent, where they would demonstrate a new weapon to powerful men. She doesn't know which mansion, what or to whom."

"Well, that's enough. It's a start." Gordon said, the words going out at half a gas, mixed with his teeth crunching the food, "I can investigate which of the houses will have a party."

"That's not necessary. I know which one." Maggie said, shoulders away from the upper body, a downcast look, "It's mine. My father texted me yesterday. I still haven't answered him. I wasn't planning on going. Parties are always boring. They have fun talking about money. Not to mention the times I ended up cleaning vomit off my bedroom carpet because some idiot thought it was the bathroom." She said, before pausing a second time, "I can get invitations, but I can only get two. My dad keeps telling me to bring along a couple of friends."

"Excellent. But I'm not satisfied with just the three of you. Elisa is going too. She should have no problem infiltrating the party." Ashen said, smiling for the first time.

At that point, Elisa was probably already preparing a group to attack the council and I knew how hard it would be to convince her to put that aside to help us. Her presence offered me a particular security that no one else could. In fact, each of them had something that made them stand out. It was with Maggie that I felt most comfortable and laughed, with Elisa that I felt safe and at peace, and with Kendra that I talked about the world under the limelight.

Maggie put the plate aside and left the table. She told us she was going to call her father, but we all knew there was more to it than that, that there was a mixture of hope that her father would be good versus the fear that he was not. She was on a tightrope between lost until she knew whose side her father was on. She was in our room, lying on the bed, sideways, with her feet hanging out and her cell phone by her side. She heard my footsteps as I entered and tilted her head up. She hadn't lit the lamp in her room, but the lamppost on the bedside table. The dim light was bright enough to illuminate her upper body and the left side of the room.

"You are both invited. My father wants to meet me half an hour before the party starts to check on the gloves." She said, and took a deep breath, "If he's really evil... We have to capture him, don't we?"

"You know that, Maggie. He could be an essential part of finding out everything. We already know who the scientist is behind the beasts, but what about the rest? There's still a lot to discover." I said and sat next to her. She elevated her upper body and stood on the same level as me, "You're not alone."

She hugged me and sniffled, "You may have noticed that I'm not very sociable. But it's a good thing I was in that room on that day so that I could meet you. I'm lucky to have you!"

As soon as she finished talking, she lowered her face and raised her eyes, an angelic pouting frown, asking for comfort and shelter. I placed my hand on her hot pink cheek and kissed her humid lips.

"Hurry up!" Kendra screamed, from the kitchen.

"Shit. I almost forgot. A level 6 beast appeared nearby. Ashen is contacting Elisa, but until then we have to take care of it."

"We better go then." She said, this time with a smile.

She took the mobile and put it in her pocket. When she got up, she ran her hand across the scar she had got. She had earned the habit of sliding her finger through the healed curvature before each mission. I don't know if she did it to remember the consequences and the danger to which we were subjected or if she just liked the sensation. I avoided touching on the subject. I had already tried to do it, but I always felt that she avoided the talk.

"I'd forgotten. You must bring a suit to the party. It's a gala dinner. It's my father's rule. No one goes in without one."

"Where the hell am I going to get one? I'm a man of action, not a man of two fingers in a glass and drinking sitting on an armchair." I said, remembering the infamous day I wore a suit to an academy party, and it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Not only didn't I look good, but it made my movements slow and uncomfortable. Still, I accepted. After all, being a Hunter was also about making sacrifices for the cause. To be willing to go further, to skip a once frightening stage, to go beyond anything else.

Kendra was already waiting for us in the room, grasping the whip with both hands. Ashen wished us good luck. He had been a tad more relaxed in the last few days. Elisa's presence also reassured him, and, above all, there had been no deadly situations. A few scratches and lacerations on our legs and on the palm of our hands, but nothing more. Gordon also told us that he had already tried to contact Elisa but that his mobile phone was occupied. He had left a message with the location.

Chapter XIII

We switched our car to a black, open-top convertible with a curved hood and broader headlights. In the morning it stood out, at night it went unnoticed. We left through the same man-made corridor, to the sound of the creaking trunks and the chirping owls, under a half moon and a starry sky that plunged into minimal lights, distant from the other, as we sank into the road. At that time only four or five cars were being driven on the street, on their way home, mostly with only one person inside, fatigued eyes and a repetitive yawn.

The car smelled like Maggie's wild fruit perfume. It changed when we got close to the city of Irishima, where the monster was, and the sky had been covered with ash and a burnt odor. Putrid, as if something was burning at thousands of degrees.

We were minutes away and we could already see the buildings being torn apart, others burning and the sound of people screaming, running to where they could. Some of the buildings looked like nothing more than floors with the light on until the color faded, and they crumbled. The city was now merely a g made up of the remains of buildings and flames of a red as bright as the blood winding through the narrow streets. Some 19th-century houses intertwined with modern skyscrapers and, in each lane, a different kind of food restaurant and some museum, whose entrance was a cream milk dome between rows of pillars whose bases were already blemished.

We arrived at the edge of the city. Most of the people were at the door while the rest took what they could from their homes and put it in their cars and vans until the trunks filled up. The streets there were narrower than I was used to. Some didn't even have two lanes. Just one, where our car almost ripped off the walls, and I couldn't deviate a centimeter.

It took us at least another two minutes in the street maze to reach downtown. Kendra squeezed the whip and Maggie closed her fist and stretched her foot until she couldn't anymore. I felt her behind me, banging against my seat occasionally, sometimes slow as a clock and sometimes like a nervous bomb about to explode.

Downtown was a wide-open circle, surrounded by skyscrapers of still-lit businesses, a few technology stores, and one or two convenience shops. Behind a wall of buildings, facing us, the flames roared, an explosion rebounding at several lower levels, but steadily closing in on us. In the silence of the night, a sound rose. Loud steps, craters opening on the ground, and the earth shaking. They were getting louder and louder. The beast howled, the thick metallic voice distancing itself from its body, not losing its strength, echoing throughout the city and causing Maggie to gulp.

"This is going to be a tough one." She said, "I think it's coming from there." And she pointed to the left, above one of the convenience stores with the lights off, whose windows reflected only a thick blue line that came from the ceiling of one of the companies.

"Are you ready? It's close." I said and took my gun out of the holster.

Gordon had made some modifications to it over the two weeks. Not only were the bullets more powerful, with acix tips, a rare metal, even more potent than steel and discovered just under two years ago, but he had calibrated it to a 99% unerring aim. After using it three or four times, I ended up asking him how he had gotten that material. He replied with a sarcastic smile and a plain answer, "Damien is not the only one who knows where to get rare parts and materials. I still have a couple of underground contacts and, truth be told, Ashen has amassed quite a bit of money."

My thoughts were interrupted by metal scraping on the plastered roof of the humble shop. A double-legged monster that made my legs look like a toothpick, with an orange carcass as its belly and sharp tweezers as its hands. Basically, a giant metal crab under two legs, with a flame thrower in the middle of its right shoulder. Good, it wasn't as if the blending of a wasp and a spider or a hare with a horn on its forehead weren't strange enough. I had never dealt with such a huge monster, much less one capable of destroying a building with just a right hook. It sliced the store apart and walked through the gap, knocking down the electrical wires along the way, the sparks rebelling through its body and electrifying the air. It opened its mouth to release a screech and its spiking teeth salivated oil to its orange chin. We were still contemplating the magnitude of the monster when gunshots flogged the air, straight to its chest, a few bouncing off the carcass and falling flat on the ground, others getting stuck up there, but not before catching its attention.

Shit. A bunch of policemen were in the middle of the square, shooting until their barrels were empty while motivating each other until the last involucre hit the metal chest and freefallen without even having made a scratch on it. Morale dropped. Silence imposed itself on them as well as the mask of death in the face of the beast' shadow that befell them after it got close. I didn't think she even noticed us.

"We have to get them out of there," I said, awakening Maggie and Kendra from a dreary sleep.

"How?" Kendra asked, "We're too far away. Look at them, they're paralyzed."

And she was right. The five men and woman had not taken a step. Their legs trembled, their knees frosted with fear and their eyes widened, blinking and closing for two seconds, as if they believed that the third or fourth time, they opened them, they would wake up in their beds, in one piece, and it would all have been a nightmare.

"We must draw the beast' attention."

"We're going to lose the element of surprise," Maggie said, extending her hand, a spark hovering over the glove.

"I don't think it would make much of a difference against this monster either. Normal bullets don't even tickle him," I answered.

"Very well,” Kendra sighed.

"All right, are you ready? You know what to do." I said and watched as they stayed away from me. I remained in the middle and, in a few seconds, we had surrounded the beast, "Now!"

Kendra's whip cracked the air, the forked end hitting its metal back. Maggie's fireball, three times as big as the day I met her, slammed against the closest thing the monster had to his nose, a slight sprain in the center of his face. It didn't seem to have a lasting effect. It looked at the half-moon and roared, tapping with the solid part of its hands, that small part before the clamps, on its chest. H was pissed off. The wounds were only superficial and scorched metal that looked like a puberty pimple.

I only had 7 acix bullets left and Gordon had told me they would have to last until the end of the month before he could get more. Having the party on Friday and knowing the dangers we could be facing, I couldn't risk spending them all. I closed half my eye, aimed, the gold stripes sticking out under the night rug, and fired as soon as the sight centered on the exact spot where Maggie had also hit. The bullet was halfway there, and I stopped hearing everything else. My vision took the form of a long tunnel and the rest became blurred.

I knew that Kendra and Maggie had rushed to the police and helped them get out of there, but I saw no more than a niche of distorted colors, running down the open street until they reached a black spot. Even the sounds were muffled until I finally heard the "click" when the bullet hit the monster and didn't stop until it ripped a crack in his face. Electric wires danced over the air, sparks spattering on his face, but nothing changed. I hadn't done enough damage to it, or hit a vital spot, to stop it.  The beast stopped and turned to me. Under the light of the tallest building in town, whose floors in the center were still lit, I could see it had two black eyes, a spinning camera in the middle of them, and a secret compartment on its left shoulder. It had four lines stamped on the metal that had not yet been opened.

The beast moved, its monstrous legs spinning in the same place, and kept its empty gaze on our car. It rubbed its clamps against each other, and, for a moment, I could have sworn that I saw a smile on its rectangular mouth.

We were no match for a rank B, not without Elisa's experience and prowess. The most we could do was to inflict enough damage to slow him down. It stretched its robotic arm, two parts connected by black and visible wires, and knocked down another building. The floors tumbled upon each other, like a Tetris game, until there was nothing left but dust and cluttered debris.

"What now? What do we do?" Kendra asked, still a few meters away from me, along with Maggie and the cops.

"We have to keep him in this area. We can't let him go to the suburbs," I replied, facing the beast, with the gun taped to my hip, "Don't you happen to have a missile launcher at the station? Something that can cause the slightest damage?" I asked the officers. They were still frightened but some had already started to recover their composure, the metaphorical ice fading away.

One of them, the tallest, with a chunky beard on both sides of his face and a thick mustache covering the entire space between his thin upper lip and curved nose, took a step forward, "Sorry... That was all we had. We’ve never been attacked before. We didn't expect it to happen. We know it's our fault."

"It's the Reapers' fault. Not yours. It's better if you go back to your family. We'll take care of it." I answered, trying hard to smile, even though I didn't have that desire in me.

The ground kept shaking with every step of the beast. A thunderous rattling sound, the pavement stones arising and shattering the nearby glass into thousand-fold pieces.

The beast spotted the policemen escaping through one of the narrow streets, but he did not swoop in. The eyes followed them but showed them as no threat. He walked to the center of the street and rushed towards us. It certainly was his running. His broad legs scraped over each other and his metal head swung sideways.

"Move!" I yelled, and so they did.

The beast never stopped. I didn't think it could make a stop or sudden detour at that speed. He stomped on and obliterated Ashen's car. It jumped on his car until it was so dented that it could be mistaken for a blackboard returned to the factory because it had been scrapped. He kicked what was left of the seats against the floors' windows that brightened up the place. One by one the lights disappeared, and the night enveloped the gplace, the soot dispersing in it. A drizzling rain dropped over the place. Enough to lower the fire level but not to extinguish the flames. The sulfur smell rose to the skies, and, among it, there was also the burnt metal odor.

"I don't think he even wants to run away," Kendra said, the whip rolling out until the metal hit the sidewalk.

"He wants us. Only us. We're the targets." Maggie added.

"Well, at least we don't need to worry about him getting out of here," I said, but I regretted it soon after. It wasn't the right time to indulge in sarcasm, "Don't let him come near you. Let's keep the distance and the attacks constant. We better focus on the right leg. He can't do anything if he can't walk."

The first to attack was Maggie. Three fireballs, in a straight line, hitting the beast's leg and scorching him. In return, it waved its leg until a portion of the ash was carried across the skies, took what was left of the car, a thin three-dimensional slice, and swept it in Maggie's direction. It was moving at an impressive speed and she barely escaped. She hurled herself to the ground, peeling her knees and hands, and tearing her dress as she rolled off the sidewalk. The beast didn't stop there. He walked, in double step, down the street, closing in on her, without Kendra and I having time to remove her from there.

"Run away." Kendra still screamed, but her voice was muffled by the earthquake that was each step of the beast.

Shit. I couldn't let him catch her. I started running parallel to the beast, steered to where Maggie was, sweat streaming down my face, hair sticking to my forehead, strands falling over my eyes. My heart was beating, my legs were aching as I went beyond my limits, going further than ever before. She got up. She had blood leaking down her legs, but she stood up and put all her strength into one part of her body, while the other one remained down, with her knee bent. She wiped her bloody hands on the dress just before throwing two more fireballs, albeit weaker, at the beast, who, in a single gesture, hid its waist behind one of the clamps. The flames faded as soon as they hit the lighter orange. I seized the opportunity the tiny brown cloud of dust that burst out provided and held Maggie by her hip one-handed and continued to run, firing two bullets along the way without even being sure that the aim was in the right spot.

Only when we stopped, a few meters ahead, under the roof of a five-star hotel that I hadn't even noticed, did I see that one of the bullets had scraped the beast's shoulder and left behind a black streak under the sash of orange. The other one had hit the crotch. The beast was still behind us, but now slower and nonetheless as scary as before. It didn't suffer, it didn't wail from agony, it didn't go backward. He wanted us and he wouldn't stop until he pleased himself with us.

"Are you okay?" Kendra asked, trying to buy us some time.

She lashed the whip at the beast. The handle stretched out, cracking the air, the metal spike in and out of the beast's body. It created small holes in the leg that didn't seem to affect its normal functioning. It had nothing inside but cables and, at the same time, a deadly instinct. He rotated only the upper part of his body and fired one of the clamps, fastened by a string that went from his shoulder to the four fingers that he had, all the way to Kendra. She tried to dodge but was hit by it. Her body was thrown against a building's door, knocking it down, the nails loosening and falling to the ground, as well as the door itself.

The wind was getting stronger. The rain accentuated the ever more prominent blend of scents. Behind us some buildings were still burning, the flames not dissolving and daring to face the water. There were no stars in the area. One or two bright spots in the sky and all that remained was darkness. The fire siren rang out through a secondary street accompanied by the police. Time dragged on without seeming to have an impact on anything around us. The seconds were passing but no one moved. I heard the water gushing over the buildings and the flames being replaced by black smoke, rising and mixing with the night.

"We don't stand a chance against it." Maggie said, her voice sounding strange, almost powerless, "Where the hell is Elisa?"

"I have no idea. There's no reception and the communicators don't work. We can handle it until she arrives. We have to endure it." I said and took a deep breath, the salty sweat dripping on my tongue.

"What if she doesn't arrive?"

"She’s never failed us. We must be confident. It shouldn't be much longer." I said, even though I didn't believe my own words. She was taking longer than usual. I knew why or at least I had a vague idea. Something, or someone, on the council, was consuming her. A thirst for destroying them that gradually took over. A fire in herself that was used to climb up the ladder, but that now burned her up. When the subject was council, everything around her disappeared and I still didn't know why. Our nights were spent between lust and pleasure and the work left outside the lifeless house, except for a few goodies that she afforded herself the luxury of owning.

"He's coming over! What do we do?" Maggie said, clinging to my cloak' sleeve, the voice already hoarse.

"We fight. We're Hunters. That's what we do." I said and held my gun until the joints between my fingers became red and sore from the cold, "I have an idea. I still have 4 bullets. When I tell you ‘now’ you run towards Kendra and check on her, okay? On the way there throw as many fireballs as you can into the ground next to the beast and his eyes."

"But what about you? There's no way you're going to risk your life again. I won't let you commit the same madness twice!" Maggie told me, an exasperated voice, the dampness of her eyes mixing with the rain.

"Trust me. This won't be like last time. And you are close to me. I really can't fail, can I?" I reassured her and, before she answered, I kissed her. Her lips were wet, fresh with a delicate lemon flavor.

"I trust you." She said. She adjusted her dress and tore the fabric below her knees, "I run faster like this. It's time to be a real Hunter." She winked at me before racing down the street, soaked, targeting the places I had told her until the fog rose and the monster's field of vision darkened.

It was now or nothing. I had the outline of a plan in my head and it would have to work. I looked at my pistol, the same one that had accompanied me since the first day with them and freed a "don't fail me now".

"Four bullets" my mind replayed, the hollow voice echoing throughout me. The ground was soaked. The beast had returned to the center. Around it the floor was cobbled but in that exact spot, the floor was flat and contained two overlapping triangles drawn on the floor.

With that body and tweezers that only reached its knees, it would never be able to get down to catch me if I went underneath it.  It was the only solution. I took off my cloak and was left with only a black sweater, which I rolled up my sleeves on, and a pair of tight black pants. Maggie hadn't stopped firing fireballs yet. Each new one smaller than the previous one, the flame already a flare that faded before it got there. I drew all the strength I had left. I thought of my father. How he might have given me a hard time for doing it, but at the same time he would say it with a smile in the corner of his mouth, proud that I was willing to risk my safety for the well-being of both the townspeople and my people. It would not be my last action, not now that we were so close to discovering the whole truth.

My legs moved before my brain. By the time I got back to myself, I was halfway there. Running down the street, not looking around, seeing only the smoke over the buildings through the corner of my eye. The beast closed the curved upper part of the clamp against the lower one as if it was hoping to catch something in the air. Little did it know that my plan was totally the opposite. My feet touched the flat part of the floor and I bent my knees until I slipped inward from there. The cold raised my hair and made my fingers tremble on the gun, almost dropping it twice. My knees scratched on the floor, my pants almost peeling off, leaving only a thin fabric separating the flesh from being completely skinned. The smoke in front of the beast's face dissipated right in front of me. My heart imploded. I could not fail and I wasn't going to. I glanced at Maggie already with Kendra in her arms, her hand sliding down her face under the building light where she was. I closed my eyes for one second and when I opened them again, the beast was looking at me majestically, from above, trying to reach me but it was too late. It was firing its clamps at the ground, trying to hit me, but I was already in the wolf's den.

I fired three shots at it. There was nothing but the two legs on my side and between them a kind of oval bottom. The acix bullets broke the beast's defense where it was weakest and went up through its body, destroying everything they found along the way. When I reached the other side, I put my hand on the freezing floor ground in order to break and using my feet to turn my whole body to the beast one more time, I fired my last bullet, from the bottom to the top, hitting its neck. The bullet went up through its face and head and exited from the other side, carrying dozens of wires with the edges still electrified.

"Get out of there!" Maggie screamed.

If it wasn't for her warning I wouldn't have remembered. If the electricity touched the flat wet ground where I was, it would spread across the circle and I would be electrified. I left as soon as I got up. I ran towards them as I watched the beast fall. First, on its knees and then on the ground, crushed, its legs trembling before they stopped for good. My hands were tattered, and my knees were naked. We had lost our car and clothes, but we had saved the city. We had defeated a level 6 on our own. Just us, without help. Kendra already had one knee on the floor, one leg tilted and her chest gasping.

"You did it!" She said, the words being plucked out of her mouth.

"Luckily. We better collect the experience points, call the pickup and get the hell out of here. An air-conditioned evening and Gordon's snacks await us." I said, smiling, moments before helping Maggie to lift Kendra, "You were great. I still remember when you didn't want to be on a team, Kendra."

"And I still don't, unless it's with you. And, well, Elisa, but where the hell is, she?"

"We don't know." I said and took my cell phone out of my pocket, "Weird, still no reception. Nothing with the communicators either..."

Chapter XIV

I hadn't finished talking when a chalk-like sound scratching a blackboard burst into the night. It came from the beast. The three of us looked at the street center and most of the stones on the sidewalk were out of place. The moon was shining in its corner. Only one of the buildings still had its lights on. The rest were dust or dark as pitch. Teeth were then scraped and dragged across the floor and metal tapping into the ground, tumbling, rising again, repeating, until the sound stopped. The fog disappeared and, behind it, the beast still alive, its eyes still spinning, but this time, it was not standing. The clamps had pierced the ground and now held it there, along with the feet that made it look even more like a crab.

The secret compartment opened, and a missile appeared on the surface; white plump shell with a red tip.

"Shit." I said, "Hide! Hurry!" I shouted as soon as the beast spun until the missile pointed at us.

Kendra didn't even have time to pick up her whip, which was a few meters from us, outside the building before the beast mooed and cracks burst around the missile's bottom before it was fired into the air. Even though it was still functional, many of its systems were still faulty. The rocket swirled mid-air until it gained traction and headed toward us. Higher than the water gushing from the fire hoses, more robust than the bright, soot-covered sky, the missile found no opposition.

They both hid under the stairs and I sheltered them under my arms. I wasn't going to let anything happen to them even if I had to suffer to protect them. We closed our eyes. We heard the explosion tearing through our ears. The splinters popping, the glass being shattered and crumbling into the ground, floors being wiped out in a matter of seconds. And yet we were there. No pain, no boulders falling on our heads and the stairs still stable despite the tremors. The missile had deviated at the last mile and hit the building next door. It was now nothing more than ashes flying up in the air and covering the door of where we were. Maggie had her hands in her hair and Kendra had hers on her face.

"It's okay. We're alive." I said, giving them space to get out of the corner.

"Now what? You don't have bullets, I don't have my whip and..." Kendra started,

"I don't have much energy left. The battery is running low." Maggie's finished.

"Come on, don't give up. If Elisa got the message, then she'll show up. Just a little more." I said.

I wasn't sure she'd show up anymore. Maybe what we had was a mirage. A decoy to take advantage of our information. The doubts began to grow and, as much as I didn't want to believe them, I wouldn't put my hands in the fire for Elisa anymore. After all, she had taken advantage of me to get the letter on our first day, why wouldn't she do it more than once? The sex was great and maybe that was it. Perhaps she only existed in a genuine way at that moment and for the rest she wore a mask.

My hands were shaking just like my knees. We coughed and sneezed in shifts. We were tired, powerless and far from a victory. I wanted to be able to tell them that I had a plan, a path to success, but for the first time I was empty-handed. I could still hear the beast outside, digging up the ground with each step, hammering out the buildings and stores that were left.

No, it couldn't be like that. There had to be a way. If I wanted to become one of the best Hunters of my generation, even ever, I couldn't just give up when everything felt impossible. I walked to the door and peered outside. I used the fog as a cover so I wouldn't get caught. The beast was on the opposite side. It slammed its head against a building, strolling along, until they collapsed at its feet. It had its back to us. Maybe it thought it had already defeated us or didn't care.

The metal on the end of Kendra's whip shone through the brownish haze. I walked, slowly step by step, the sole of my shoe brushing only on the surface of the ground all the way to it. I picked it up and went back to what was left of the hotel. The yellow tile had flown a few meters forward and the entrance that used to be just a door was now a hole about the size of us 3.

"I managed to get this back," I said and handed the whip to Kendra.

"Good, but what are we going to do with it?" She said, fatigued, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude, but I'm frustrated. I couldn't do anything."

"We gave it our best shot. We already knew that a level 6 was too much for us. This must have happened to Ashen and Elisa too. It just means that we have to train more." I said as I stroked her hands.

Maggie used what little energy she had left to generate a tiny flare that warmed and dried us up while we were there. I looked up and at the end of the stairs there was a pool terrace, with a bar, and several plants scattered around the place. Everything was covered under a glass roof that now reflected the moon's white light and dispersed it over the stairs. I rubbed my hands close to the flame and allowed the ember to warm my face. We had reddened noses, cold cheeks, and still wet eyebrows. It didn't take words for the three of us to know what had to be done. They followed me outside and we stood there, waiting for the beast to turn to us. In the moonlight, we were just three defenseless shadows about to face a beast that could crush us with just a pair of clamps, feet, head, really any part of its body.

"I just want you to know that I don't regret anything. Leaving headquarters with you was my best decision." Maggie said and closed both hands, "Till the very end."

"It's mutual. To the very end, so be it." Kendra added.

"To the very end," I said.

Kendra yanked her arm back and threw her whip like a slingshot, the stone being the metallic part of it. It hit the sidewalk and made one of the stones roll over the others. The beast had turned to us and, unlike the previous times, hadn't tarried. Like a wild animal at risk, he raced to us, his head bumping into his shoulders as he did so.

"Look!" Maggie said and pointed over the beast.

The dim outline of a slender body with a semi-automatic descending, until it landed on the beast. They ran from its neck to its rear, firing, opening it in half, and finally jumping to the ground and not even turning back, standing there. The beast fell a few meters behind them and close enough to us to see its eyes losing power and the cameras shutting down. The bullets had pierced the iron body and had left a trail across the ground. Bullets with a higher acix concentration than mine. They had destroyed not only the entire inner structure of the beast but also the cameras that were spying on us. It was over in a few seconds. Whoever it was didn't want to waste much time there. He was still facing back, with his gun to his chest, and his hair pierced. Spiked. Shit, it couldn't be. Not him. What the hell, why would he be here?

Through the shadows of destruction, a male voice and yet slightly acute breezed, "You can have the experience points. It's not like I need it, is it?" and he laughed before us, who were wounded and still trying to figure out where he had come from, "I haven't fought such a weak monster in a long time. But, hell, I knew I shouldn't owe Ashen any favors. Oh, you guys are okay, aren't you? Hurry up. Let's go."

"Who are you?" Maggie asked him.

I kept quiet. I knew who he was, but I didn't want to give him that pleasure. I had seen him dozens of times in advertisements, on the day I went to register at headquarters and now he was there in front of me. One of the top10 Hunters of today, Foxel, at least that was the name he was treated by, the red-haired boy. At night it seemed more orange than I was accustomed to but still the color didn't go unnoticed.

"Don't you know who I am? What the hell did I come here for?" He said as he walked up to her and held her hand, "You can call me Fox. You must have heard of me."

"No, never. I don't care much for names." Maggie answered him and tried to walk away but he still had her by the hand.

"That's enough. Let her go. We appreciate the help, but you can leave. We'll take care of the rest."

"The rest? I don't think you would have taken care of anything if it wasn't for me. I'm just getting to know the girl." He said, all the while, the yellow teeth shining through the fog.

"We've already seen how good you are. Nobody here cares about that." I answered him. I grabbed his arm and pushed him back, "Don't touch her."

I had never liked him before and now even less so. It was not only arrogance that annoyed me. It was thinking that he could do whatever he wanted and that others had to mold themselves to his will. But that wasn't all. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. He had saved us. I felt frustrated and his face was as good as a beast to unload my rage.

"But who do you think you are? Just because you're Ashen's protégé don't think I'll spare you." Foxel told me, raising his chest and shoving me too.

His chest stood by my navel, but his hair reached mine. No matter how good his weapons were, one-on-one was not a competition for me. I shoveled him down and he fell to the ground, drenching his sweatpants and his red hoodie. The gun slid to the floor and slipped a few meters forward. He gnashed his teeth and closed his fist, treading quietly towards the weapon, whispering something between his closed lips. He took off the safety guard from the gun and pointed it at my head. He had two fingers on the trigger and his beaky green eyes sharply pointing at me.

"Let's stick to this," Kendra told him, keeping calm, unlike Maggie who already had a fireball in her hand.

"So now you're scared? I can see your eyebrow shaking." Foxel said, tapping the barrel of the gun on my chin.

"It's arched, you idiot. We both know you're not going to shoot. Hunters can't attack Hunters." I answered him, and stepped forward, the pipe rubbing even more against my chin until I felt the circular shape pressing against my skin.

"Do you think anyone will care about a rank C? A Hunter that no one knows if it's not for his last name?" Foxel said.

I knew he was trying to provoke me. Stirring me up to get a reaction from me, a reason to justify shooting at me. But I wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. He raised his right foot to take a step forward but couldn't lift his right. He was stuck to the ground, ice chips wrapped around his entire shoe.

"What is this shit?" He asked, forcing his way out, but his foot didn't move, "Which one of you is doing this? You better stop," he added.

He knelt, leaving the gun at his feet, and started punching the ice until it cracked. His hands were reddish, swollen and there was blood on the surface, trailing along the veins. He had lost control. He didn't even remember us anymore, he just had to get out of there, he had to be free and to show us that we couldn't lock him up.

"Nobody...Nobody can stop me," he repeated, with each punch, the ice splashing his angry face, his eyes one step away from popping out and his hair dripping.

The rain hadn't stopped yet. It was still just us in the downtown area and the fireman and police sound had stopped. The moon stood out even more from above and the disgusting and heavy odor dissipated. None of us moved to help him. A thin bright red river slid over the light blue and transparent ice.

"That's enough, Fox." A familiar voice said in the quiet of the night, "You shouldn't have messed with them." Ashen warned.

"Get it off me! Remove this from me!" He kept repeating, as he stood up and tried once again to pull his foot up, "What do you think you're doing?!"

"They're under my wing. Especially the guy. He's mine." Elisa's silhouette rose among the remains of a building, received by a few hisses from Kendra and Maggie until she re-started, "He's ours. Sorry, girls, it's the habit. He protects us and we protect him. That's how it works. Not that you know it, Fox, you've never had a group for long."

"I have my reasons. Now set me free, quickly. The sooner you do it the sooner I get the hell out of here."

Elisa snapped her fingers and the ice melted. Her glove didn't have as much potential as Maggie’s, but her control was superior. She walked up to us and stood beside me, not without first kissing my cheek, and looking down, where Foxel was still rubbing his shoe to remove a stain on the right side.

"You ruined my shoes, Lisa!" He shouted and before speaking again a line of ice covered his delicate lips.

"You know how much I hate being called Lisa. It's not even a diminutive. My name is Elisa. Don't test me. I'm not a Hunter anymore, I don't need to hold back." She said and snapped her fingers again.

"Damn it! Tell Ashen never to ask me for help again. And you better train them for what's coming."

He picked up his gun again and walked until he disappeared into the haze, with it next to his hip, wet strands of hair covering his forehead as big as the rest of his face.

"What did he mean by what's coming?" I asked Elisa.

"First, sorry I'm late. I was working on some stuff." She started, keeping her hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket, "He also knows what the Reapers are up to. You didn't really think you were the only secret group, did you? Ashen is one of the greats but he's not above everyone else. There's someone pulling the strings and organizing all the groups. I have no idea who he is. What matters here is that Friday everything happens. I won't be able to help you, but I'm sure you can handle it on your own. You'll have support on the outside."

"About that... I want you to come with us. We are a team, Elisa. I know how important the other mission is for you but either we go together, or no one goes."

"Do either of you mind explaining it to us?" Kendra interrupted us.

"I suppose this time is as good as any. Where's Ashen's car?"

"Well... There was a little problem... It was destroyed. I hope Ashen isn't too attached to it. Did you bring yours?" I said, feeling my body slowly freezing and losing mobility.

"Let's go to mine. So that we can warm up and talk about everything. You have to be patient with me. I am not used to this. I've been working alone for years and, James, I can't promise you that I'll show up on Friday."

I didn't answer her anymore. The rain poured down heavier. The raindrops were now stiff and each one reached my scalp. Me, Maggie and Kendra ran to the monster. We took the experience points, picked up some coins and called the pickup.

"Congratulations! You have defeated a level 6 monster. 150 experience points have been given to each, as well as 300 hunter points. Do you want to continue as a team?"

I took my Hunter APP out of my pocket and checked my stats.

James Crusher

Rank: C

Experience points: 750/2000 to the next Rank

Money: 1250 hunter points

Weapon: Golden Double-pipe Gun

Chapter XV

We followed Elisa through one of the wide streets that led us to a beautiful villa area, with mowed lawn gardens at each entrance.  Her car was in the middle of a two-lane street, blocking the passage, standing out from meters away due to its bright red color. The road was illuminated by four lamps, one in each corner, one of which blinked with a dim light.

We got into her car and the change was instantaneous. The heated seats, the warmth inside, the sound of the rain hitting the hood and the windows, without ignoring the sweet camellia perfume. We were comfortable and finally we could take a deep breath without having to be alert and worried about what could come out of a second’s break.

I sat in the front seat next to her, and Maggie and Kendra in the back seats.

"Isn't it weird that Ashen and Gordon haven't said anything yet? The comms is already working." Maggie asked, touching hers, putting it deeper into her ear as if she thought it was broken.

"Let's go to my house. Ashen asked me to take you in today. They're working on something." Elisa said, the engine snoring behind her voice.

"When were you going to tell us about it?" Kendra asked, "Just secrets and more secrets. You remind me of my sister."

"Lipa? Good girl. Although sometimes she's very impulsive and annoying."

"You know my sister?!" Kendra responded by placing her hands on the top of Elisa's seat and leaning forward.

"We had a common problem to solve. We also spent a few good nights between booze and street fights. I must admit; the girl knows how to fight. “

"Is there anyone you don't know?" I asked, jokingly, before changing the theme, "Kendra is right. Secrets must end. Tell them why you're not sure you can come with us Friday. And why didn't Ashen tell us that they had something to deal with today? What's going on?"

"I'll try to sum it up." She said, taking a detour to a narrower street that ended up leading us to the empty highway. We saw nothing all around us except for what lay ahead of us. And we couldn't even notice that well. One of the headlights didn't work and Elisa didn't seem to be the kind of person who cared. In fact, from the way she drove, I didn't think she did it very often, "What we saw... The human-robot prompted all the groups to be on alert. I know that the leaders of all the groups were invited to participate in a last-minute meeting. I also know that Gordon's presence was requested due to his knowledge of the new monster and Damien. I didn't want to pressure you, but all eyes are on you. You're the only group that has invitations to Friday's party, and we can't afford to try to put another group inside and get caught, you know? This goes way beyond what we expected, and people are nervous. There's a lot of buzz running around, some have already arrived at headquarters and there is already chattering about groups in the shadows and so on. A handful of the Hunters leadership have already ordered a search of all the groups and taken an anti-secret stance. It's all a cover to find out and eliminate who does the work they avoid. I'm sorry, I'm talking too much." Elisa said, not pausing, but always with her eyes on the road.

"For the first time..." Maggie said and between her still moist lips she let out a soft laugh that spread all over the car, followed by one of each of us, "We still want to know why you can't come with us Friday. Did you see what happened here today... It didn't go very well."

"I'm sorry. I was planning...Ah... I want to attack the council. I've already got a few interested people. Some Hunters and a few police officers, all willing to participate. Friday is our only chance. I know you want me present, but I have been planning this for so long. I can't just put everything aside."

Silence was imposed inside the car. Unlike the taciturnity out there, it was a strange mute, I would even say nervous. Elisa scraped her upper teeth on the underside and clenched her hands around the steering wheel. She drove us off the highway. We entered her city, through an area of poverty, where the streets were filthy with scraps of paper, shards of glass and the walls were nothing more than a canvas for unfinished drawings. Garbage cans burned in the light of the lamps that had not yet fused, the splinters splashing on the floor, and a few people all wrapped around them, rubbing their hands. Others slept outside the buildings or even under the bus stops that seemed to have been abandoned a long time ago. We looked at some people, briefly, at their wrinkled skin and hairy warts, and looked away as soon as some approached the car, begging for alms. We were still in the middle of the long straight street when we heard irons dragging on the asphalt. I looked through the rear-view mirror and saw three men in stained jeans and jeans' jackets over black wool sweaters closing in, with thick iron bats.

"Step forward, Elisa. I don't think they want to talk, and we can't get into street squabbles." I told her.

We could finish them off in a few seconds, if that were necessary, but it wasn't to hit passers-by that we had trained to be Hunters. Also, one of the rules in the Hunter manual was precisely that we should, at all costs, avoid fighting civilians. There were rare exceptions, but even those ended with a suspension. 

Elisa accelerated and we left in a few seconds, knocking down two empty trash cans before turning to the left. We all breathed a sigh of relief and only stopped when we reached the car park near the chain of apartments where she lived. The place was as neutral as ever. The empty playground, all the shutters downwards and the doors closed. The only light in the area came from the main entrance where a rusty lamp was left on the desk until the first maid in the morning turned it off. Elisa had told me a week ago that they used to have a security guard, but that he had quit after being attacked by two vandals wearing cat masks. We got out of the car, ran to the entrance of the building and climbed the stairs. The elevator was yet to be fixed and smelled like a cat sandbox.

Finally, we reached Elisa's door. She put the key in the latch, unlocked it and we entered.

Chapter XVI

"Are you moving?" Maggie asked her, passing her hand through the dusty corner of the crystal table in the center of the room.

"Not really. All I need is a place to sleep and it's cheap." She replied, taking some Hunters' magazines off the couch and signaling us to sit down, "I have some cakes that I bought yesterday. I'll get them. You must be hungry."

"Yeah... I could eat something." I said and rubbed my belly which was already growling, "And then you have to tell us why you're so obsessed with the council."

"It's not a pretty story." She started and slammed the tip of her shoe on the floor, "This can't really leave this place. I’ve never told it to anyone."

Clumsy, she left us and went to the kitchen. From the room, we could hear her opening the fridge, her sifting through bags and breathing loudly as she murmured. Kendra stirred through the magazines, leafing through them from one end to the other while Maggie looked around.

"What is it?" I asked her while we waited.

"Strange. Her house is comfortable but, at the same time, she doesn't seem to live here. She is here to have someplace to go, even if she doesn't want it. Is her room like this too?"

"Yes, white walls, white ceiling, no photographs or anything that catches the eye. She has some makeup and a lamp and nothing else."

"Even stranger, don't you think? My room is all decorated. Hunters' posters, pictures from when I was little, all things that give it a sense of personality, that call attention to be my room." Maggie said, "I bet she has also had a bug out bag in case she needs to run away. I have that feeling."

"I do. It's there in that corner." Elisa said, coming out of nowhere with some muffins in a box on her right hand and orange juice on her left, "I don't like feeling trapped in a place. I don't tend to stay in one for long."

"Oh, Elisa, I'm sorry! I didn't want to..." Maggie started but Elisa didn't let her finish.

"It's okay. I understand. That's why I'm not a big fan of bringing people home." She said, paused, and sat on a cushioned chair in front of the couch, placing the food and juice on the crystal table. "Why do I hate the council? They destroyed my family. My adoptive mother, 20 years ago, saw something she shouldn't have seen. She was parking her car in a parking lot when she saw a murder and the worst mistake in her whole life was to report it. They broke into our house when it was just the two of us and dragged her by the hair. I hid under the bed just as she had told me. I heard their frantic steps, the agony in my mother's voice, her desperate screams and their husky voice as they told her to shut up. When she didn't, they hit her with the barrel of a gun in the temp. I still have nightmares with the click it made when her skull cracked from the over-strength they used. I need a break." She said and stood up.

She went to the window and opened it. She took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, from where she took a cigarette and asked Maggie to light it.

She blew a few breaths into the window, fogging it up, blowing out what was ravaging her heart. Her hand trembled as she held the cigarette. I had never seen her like this; so sensitive and vulnerable even though she was secure.

"You have all the time in the world," I told her and smiled without opening my mouth.

"It is better if I continue before I repent... My father was never the same after that. He filed a complaint, pressured the police, but most of them were either in the pocket of someone on the council or were too afraid to face them. The case died quickly. At the time I didn't know any of this. It wasn't until I became a Hunter that I started investigating, secretly, until I found out that she had seen a paid assassin hired only by council members for murders. I tried to find him, but it was too late. He died a few years ago in a skirmish with the police. I haven't found out who sent him yet, but I've never been this close. I can't give up. Do you understand now why I can't go with you?" She answered us.

She extinguished the cigarette with her fingers and threw it out the window. She stood there and watched as it fell.

"Elisa...We...We didn't know." Maggie said, her voice losing strength as the words came out of her mouth.

"I'm sorry," Kendra said like she was pulling a Band-Aid.

They both looked at me. They expected me to say the same as them, to apologize, to say that everything was fine. But no, I couldn't say it. I had seen what pursuing a target could do, what happened when desire and frustration blinded the person. I wasn't going to let her fall over the same precipice.

"If you know who my father was, you know what happened to him when he left everything behind to focus on a target. It's not healthy, Elisa. You can't walk away from everyone. Not establishing roots in a place. All for something that happened about 20 years ago that I understand hurts and that you want to find the culprits. But what does it matter if when you do it, you're not yourself anymore? I'm going to ask you one more time. Come with us tomorrow. Let others take care of the council attack. You may very well interrogate them later." I told her, hoping she would answer me, but she didn't. She looked intently at me, as if expecting me to add something, "I became a Hunter for fame, so that my surname wouldn't mean disappointment, but being here, working with all of you, has changed my perspective. My father fought for what he believed in and I admire him for it. When I was a child, I hated that he was never there but now I understand why. I have not seen my mother or brother in almost a month. The only problem is that he didn't know how to stop, he didn't surround himself with people who knew how to make him stop overdoing it. You have us. Here, now. Take a step back. Fall back. The world won't run away because you're after it, Elisa."

"I know all of that. I know that my whole life, since I was 10 years old, has been guided by my thirst for revenge. But it seems too late to stop, don't you think?" Elisa asked me. She then sat once again on the chair in front of us.

"You can stop whenever you want. I want you to stop now. Tomorrow I hope to see you at the party. If you're not there I'll know that you let revenge win."

"James..." Maggie said, rubbing her hand on my leg.

"No, Maggie. She has to understand that we're a group. That we can have different opinions, argue, but when one of us needs the others, we’re there."

Elisa got up without saying anything and walked into a closet that stood by her knees. She opened it and took out an old bottle of wine and a bottle of whiskey.

"Well, no matter what happens tomorrow... We might as well enjoy tonight. I don't think we will have time after that."

The cork leaped to the ground and the drink surplus flowed down the bottle, dripping to the floor. The red mixed with the brown until the area around where the liquid had fell gained a dark red color. She put the bottles on the crystal table and went into the kitchen to get glass cups.

We ended the night drinking and laughing. Stories were shared, some getting laughs and other silence moments, breaks for thinking and hugs. Maggie told us that her mother had died when she was still very young. A brain aneurysm blew up overnight and left her lying in the bathroom. She fell, hit her head on the toilet and finally lay down on the marble floor from which she only left when the paramedics arrived. Her voice remained monotoned, and her eyes were on the whiskey cup with two ice rocks that she stirred.

Kendra confessed that she was very close to following the same path as her sister. Apparently, when she was a teenager, she was involved in shoplifting and street fighting. She became attached to a leather whip she used to impose respect and her taste remained unchanged. Her father controlled the empire and Lipa, being the older sister, attended some of his meetings and was in contact with a few tradesmen. Kendra also told us that she was annoyed that she would not be given a chance and that was why she took her frustration out on others.

"What made you want to be a Hunter?" Maggie asked.

"One time, when I was with 3 older boys, one of them had the idea of robbing a convenience store. We just wanted gummies, potatoes and alcohol. We were young and stupid." Kendra said, between drinking breaks, "The robbery didn't go well. We had the misfortune of going to a store where a Hunter was doing some shopping. When we realized that it was too late, and instead of running away together, they tripped me up and left me on the floor to buy time. I still tried to escape but the Hunter had already grabbed my leg and from there I didn't leave. I thought he was going to arrest me, that as soon as he knew my name, he would use me as an advantage against my family but, instead, he became thoughtful and asked me what I wanted for my future. No one had ever asked me that before."

"Are you what you wanted to be?" Elisa asked her, her head already resting on the chair.

"It's a good question. At the time I told him that I wanted to be a good person, that I didn't want to have to run away from everything and everyone like my family always did. My mother did it. When she realized that my father was not going to stop, she ran away and didn't take us with her. She left a letter behind saying that she could not take us, or we would never have peace. Funny, we never had it anyway. Now I'm a Hunter and I like it. I like to know that I am doing good, that I am compensating for all the harm my family has done and still does. But at the end of the day, they are still family. I still believe Lipa will open her eyes."

"Your sister is not exactly the most reasonable person in the world, Kendra. I've seen her start a fight just because she wanted to." Elisa replied, "But by the way, what did the Hunter say to you?".

"He told me that I could be whatever I wanted and that being a Hunter wasn't as bad as I might have been led to think. And, look, here I am. I took the admissions exams, went to the academy, trained and that was it. My father didn't stop me, but I noticed him looking at me with these eyes, as if I wasn't worth it and I wasn't family anymore. Do you understand?"

"That sucks." Elisa said, for lack of better words, "It seems to me that the three of us had a rough childhood. Maybe that's why we get along so well."

"Maybe." I said and drank directly from the bottle, "We shouldn't be drinking, should we?" I added, already feeling the head spinning and the colors sparkling. "We may not have many other chances, huh?" I added.

Elisa said, "Are you afraid of getting a headache too big for tomorrow?" She said, teasing me, and smiling until a dimple appeared on her right cheek.

"Funny. I can handle my drink." I answered her and sipped another drink.

Two hours went by before we carried the fun into the room. The memory of how we got there was blurry, but as soon as my back landed on the mattress, the rest stopped mattering. I had no hands for so much places to put them. The right went down Kendra's butt, the biggest of the three, while the left was busy with Maggie's tits. None of us were dressed anymore, although I didn't even remember getting naked. Kendra sat on my face until her fluid flowed down my lips and soaked my chin. Someone's hands, which I didn't even realize entirely who belonged to, but which were soft, grabbed my length and moved upward and downward, along with the tongue of someone else on my head.

I couldn't even keep my eyes open anymore. The alcohol had left me with no strength and my eyes became too sensitive to the room's light that was above me. Pleasure raced through my body. I relaxed and let them slurp me in, getting lost in the confines of my body. And, I felt them, their hands touching every corner of my body, their tits swinging in my face and leaning against my belly, someone taking one of my hands and putting it in their dampness. There was nothing beautiful in what we did except for the feelings that they had for me and the appreciation for each other. At that moment I felt like the king of the world, capable of everything, capable of defeating any beast along our path. I would do it with them beside me.

One of them, probably Kendra, seemed to be her due to her hair, sat on me. Her moans grew until they drowned out the hail that was falling outside. Even with my eyes half closed I could see her silhouette; her tits bouncing, following the movements of her body. Someone behind her slapped her ass while telling her to go faster. I wanted to speak but couldn't. I had a boob in my mouth and my teeth scraped off the nipple and bit the skin. Whoever it was pressured my chest and leaned down until I bit harder. Their moans merged to create a symphony of their own, some more acute, some deeper, all of them expressing pleasure. Kendra scratched my chest before she got up and gave way to the person behind her.

Despite the alcohol in my blood my shaft did not go down. I grabbed the person's hands and made her lie on top of me. Her chest against mine, panting, warm breath on my neck and ear, and my hands on her ass, until it was bruised with my fingertips. Till I couldn't hold it any longer and finished inside her. It seemed to me to have lasted half an hour but maybe it lasted longer or less. I could only see flashing lights spinning around me and my body still processing what had happened. My diaphragm went up and down and I was still leaking from my dick. Suddenly, someone put it in her mouth and licked it until there was nothing left.

I don't remember much more. I fell asleep shortly after. Naked, sweaty, with them beside me, my mind blank for the first time in a long time.

Chapter XVII

We woke up the next day, still together, in Elisa's bed, naked, warm and with massive headaches.

I knew we shouldn't have drunk. It was the big day and there we were, powerless even to get up or unwilling to do it. A sharp buzzing sound had taken over my head and the chirping of the birds outside did not help, neither did the child on the swing nor the rest playing catch-up. I heard them say that his time was up and now it was someone else's turn, but he didn't seem inclined to leave. He asked for two more minutes and no one opposed. I thought I'd get up and stare out the window, but the glass was dull.

I had Elisa's leg on top of my right leg, Kendra's hand on my crotch and Maggie's hand, who was further away from me, on my chest.

I never would have thought my life would reach such fate before, but I had been graced with three beautiful women on my team who were willing to fight alongside me. I didn't want to wake them up, but I couldn't move if I didn't do it. All I had to do was move one hand and it would trigger a chain reaction. Fortunately, I didn't have to. My mobile phone, on top of Elisa's desk in the opposite corner of the bed, started ringing. It stopped. It rang again. Same old ringtone. One by one they woke up, stretching, and lying on me again, elongating their arms over my body. Truth be told, for me, I would remain there all day. Maybe even more than one. I liked the warmth, the tranquility and the trouble-free life. But still, the world depended on us. That night would change everything, and we would be in the epicenter.

"Girls, the night was good, but we have to get up.” I said, sighing, thinking that I had become the person who put work before leisure and pleasure. Maybe I wasn't as different from my father as I thought and perhaps it wasn't that bad.

As soon as the blankets rolled down onto our legs, a stream of cold crept up on my body.

I got up and covered them up again. I answered the call and heard Ashen's voice on the other side. He, too, sounded somewhat drowsy, his voice a little more hoarse than usual, accompanied by Gordon's yawns in the background. He must have noticed that I wasn't 100%, but he didn't comment. He just took a deep breath before asking me,

"Are you ready for today?"

"Hello." I answered, my voice dragging itself to the other side of the line, "I have to be, don't I?"

"You better be, James." Ashen said, before pausing and gulping, "We can't afford to make mistakes. But, moving on, did Elisa take good care of you? I assume she arrived in time to help all of you."

"She was the usual Elisa. But we had extra help against the monster." I was saying when he interrupted me.

"Foxel, right? I never thought he'd actually show up. But what matters is that you're okay. Now get over here. It's still early, but we need to review the plan. I'm telling you again, we can't make mistakes. All eyes are on us, you know? It's okay if you're a little nervous."

"A little, yeah. It's not every day you get to wear a classy suit." I said, hiding the fact that I was genuinely anxious.

It was my first serious mission as a Hunter and it really had to be something so important. Not even a few months ago I was in the academy and my only concern was to study each weapon's flaws and virtues.

"This is no time for jokes, James. But since you mentioned it, the suit's ready. I took the liberty of asking for a few extras, but we'll talk about it. Hurry up." He said and ended the call.

I let my shoulders fall beside my body and yawned. My head still hurt, and my eyelids closed like blinds being shoved down. I looked at the bed; they were still lying there, with only their heads outside the sheets, and their silhouette lines went from one end of the bed to the other. I picked up my white T-shirt, black sweater and black boxers that were on the floor and shook them before I put them on. No sign of my pants. I went up to Elisa and kissed her forehead, also shaking her arm until she woke up.

"What is it? I want to sleep," she said to me in her husky voice, turning to the other side and pretending to snore.

"Ashen's waiting for us."

"Let him wait then." she answered with her eyes still closed, stretching her hand and resting it on Maggie's hip, who was in the other end of the bed.

I realized right there that to get them out of bed, I'd have to take control of the situation. I did what anyone else would do. I pulled the sheets down and watched them squirm, whining, as they opened their eyes and tried to understand what was happening.

"Rise and shine. The sun's coming up and Ashen and Gordon are waiting for us to review the plan."

"Can't they wait?" Maggie asked, stretching out, the voice coming out like a lengthy whisper.

"Yeah, yeah, I bet they can. Just a few more minutes." Kendra added, "You were right, James. It wasn't a good idea for us to drink last night."

"Don't tell me." I replied, sarcastically and looking back at both sides of the bed and even under the sheet for my pants, "Damn, where the hell are my pants?"

"You don't remember half of what happened last night, do you?" Elisa asked, followed by a giggle.

"Not really. I remember us being in bed, the three of us, the sensations..."

"Yes, the sensations..." Maggie repeated, making quotations in the air as she repeated the word.

Kendra and Elisa laughed. I tried, for a brief moment, to play pissed off, but I ended up laughing too.

"We took your pants off while we were still in the living room." Kendra answered, "Where you were drinking straight from the bottle." She added and winked at me.

Oh, shit. Fuck. I was no longer old enough to drink too much. I should have known my limits and not overstepped them. But part of me needed a few moments of a blank brain. I needed to have fun, realize that there was not only more to it than just running around, fighting and secrets, but also having the notion that it was for those fun moments that I was fighting. To have more days, to create more memories and to give others the chance to do so too. It wasn't the fame or the money that moved me anymore, it was something above, something I couldn't achieve just by wanting it, something I had to fight for. Recognition would come with the effort.

"It won't happen again." I answered, this time very seriously, watching them get out of bed, totally naked, "I... Ah... I'll get my pants."

My heart was pounding. They were a dangerous temptation, one in which I wanted to lose myself, but not at that moment.

As Kendra had told me, my pants were in the living room, on top of the cushioned chair. The liquor bottle was still on the crystal table but there was only one thin thread left in the bottom of it. The bottle of wine was in the coffin that was supposed to be used for the umbrellas. I sat on the couch and waited until they showed up. Kendra and Maggie sat next to me, the skin around their eyes wrinkled and darkened, and their lips were swollen. Elisa appeared minutes later with cups of coffee for everyone and the leftover cakes. Most of them were already sturdy, but we weren't in a position to complain.

"I just don't have any sugar. You have to drink it like this." Elisa said and put four coffees on the table, removing the bottle and putting it back in the small closet.

"Thank you, but I don't drink coffee." Kendra said, and picked up a vanilla-covered cake.

Maggie drank it all the way down with an unpleasant face the whole process. As soon as it was over, she put her tongue out and her chin on her chest until she had an almost imperceptible double chin.

"I'm sorry, Elisa. But it was unbearable. How can you drink this?" She said, "What about you, James? Don't tell me you're really enjoying it."

"Not really, but this is all there is. And it always helps the hangover calm down. We can't go near Ashen like this. He will have a heart attack."

"Look, Ashen's not as strict as you think he is. At least he wasn't. He looked more like you than you think, James. He's under a lot of pressure right now. He needs to show quick results. The whole group needs a big win."

"How do you know so much about everything and everyone?" Kendra asked her, as she took the crumbs one by one and put them in her free hand.

"Can't you tell right away that I'm a nice person? People tend to trust me." She said, snarky in tone, like she took the question as an insult.

No one said anything else. I assumed she'd created a network of contacts over several years as a Hunter, and since she wasn't anymore, she must also have some knowledge outside the usual places.

We finished the coffee and the cakes. The hot water wasn't working by then. Elisa said the pipes must be frozen from the previous night and the best thing to do was to take a quick shower when we got to Ashen's house. We left her house the same way. Yet wearied from the day before, our legs trembled as soon as we left the building, our lips bruised. We didn't have gloves, not even hats to cover our ears that cooled without the few rays of sunlight that escaped through the whitish morning clouds opposing it.

Despite the wet ground and the dew on the windows, in the park and on some shy plants that grew in remote corners, the city was awakening.

The sound of the cars and horns intertwined with the poorly baked bread aroma and the typical sweet weed and pollen smell. Elisa's car was covered with ice, most of which was already in a liquid state, and the windows concealed the interior. On the inside, warm, as usual, although she left a frizz open in her window to let in an autumnal breeze as well as the aroma of the pastry cakes that was on the sidelines of the highway entrance. The strong coffee was kicking in, and peace was building up in my head. I still had dry lips and a slight sting in my chest.

A hangover like this... I thought to myself. I had asked Elisa to drive. I had also gotten used to not seeing much more than three to five cars on the road but there was a dozen of them now and traffic seemed to drag on.

"Turn on the radio. Maybe they're saying what's going on. It's not normal to have so many people at this hour." Kendra said.

Elisa also had to skip through the stations dedicated to music and cinema before she got to the news station. A woman with a slender voice discussed the usefulness of the Hunters in society against the existence of the police. She complained about too much money being spent on technology for Hunters, academies, and other extras instead of establishing a SWAT force within the police force itself.

"Would Reapers exist if it weren't for the Hunters? Has anyone thought about that? What about the damage the Hunters do to the cities? With so much training, shouldn't they be able to fight without inflicting harm?" The woman said, the voice projecting loudly and from a distance...

"I understand your point of view, but what if the Reapers still existed? If a special force alone wasn't enough?" A man with an older voice answered her.

"A lot of ifs and few options, that's what I tell you, that's what I tell you." The woman backfired.

"Geez, I hate this woman. Always with the same conversation. She has no idea what it's like to be a Hunter. Her husband is a policeman and must probably be the only reason why she puts herself through these ridiculous figures." Elisa said it and turned it down. The woman's acute voice was still heard, but it did not disturb the atmosphere inside the car.

"It's Catherine, isn't it? I recognized the voice." Kendra asked, "My sister hates her. Says she's not who she appears to be, but never told me why."

"I'll have to ask her about that someday." Elisa answered her.

"Does anyone want to tell me who Catherine is? I'm not used to listening to the radio when I'm in a car. I'm never in the front seats to turn it on." Maggie asked.

Looking at her, I noticed she had one eye bigger than the other. I had never seen it before, and maybe it was due to tiredness. Not that I was the best informed on the subject, but I explained to her that Catherine was a morning show journalist and she was also one of the loudest voices in the anti-Hunters fight.

"She's not the only one. There's a few more, and they're the ones organizing the anti-Hunter rallies. She raises the ratings for the channels that give her airtime and it only takes one Hunter, one mistake, for someone's opinion to change. We walk the limbo between being adored and being rejected by society. It's not exactly a comfortable place to be."

"I didn't know that. My dad doesn't like me watching those kinds of shows. He tells me that public opinion only matters to those who have to deal with it."

"Your father's an idiot. I'm sorry to tell you." Elisa told her, "I don't think it's imperative, either, and we shouldn't be constrained by what they say, but it's important to have a grasp of the issues that are being said. There has been a resurgence of hatred that wasn't so big since the incident in Kioshima."

"That was when a group of rank C's wanted to battle a level 8 and ended up imploding a nuclear power plant, wasn't it? I was still a child when it happened." Maggie answered, ignoring the part about her father.

"Yeah. I was a teenager at the time and a lot of my classmates at school made fun of Hunters. Much of what's available now, such as APPS and information boards, even the floors dedicated to each rank, has all been damage control."

"Shhh, turn it up now. They're saying something important." Kendra told them.

Elisa increased. The older man was talking about an accident that had happened. He described it as an accident, but the woman spoke over him and repeated that it was a Hunter's fault. The man ignored it and added that they were close to cleaning the road. Apparently, a fight had happened and although the Hunter had won, not only had he been injured but the pickup was taking a long time to appear and dismantle the beast.

"We really must have bad luck." I said, putting my hands behind the back of my head and leaning against the fluffy seats.

"We must wait. There is no other way." Elisa said, "But I'm changing the station." She did and switched to music.

A jazz song became the background of our trip. The saxophones grew among the other objects and became the main actor of the symphony.

Finally, the cars started to move. It took us three times as long as it was supposed to. When we got to the detour, my head was no longer hurting, and I had no trouble opening my eyes. The sun had risen, and the rays were striking head-on on the car's display and in the rearview mirror. We were still on our way and Ashen's shadow on the top of the hill was a sign that we were late.

"Well, one more lecture." I said and sighed.

"To you. I'm not old enough to be lectured." Elisa said, "He probably already knows why we're late."

"I hope so. My head still hurts." Kendra said and massaged the corner of her forehead.

"I thought you were tougher than that." I answered, now taunting her myself.

"Not when it comes to alcohol." She answered, and turned to Maggie, "And you, how are you doing so well?"

"It's like I said. My dad always liked to receive attention, so he always had a lot of parties. It was all so boring that I drank until I made it all minimally interesting. I ended up gaining resistance, which has its advantages." She said smiling, and seeing her smile, it all seemed more beautiful. The reflection of the sun reached her green eyes and gave them an even lighter color, a sea green.

Elisa stopped the car a few yards from Ashen. We went out and inhaled the fresh air. Much lighter and softer than the place where Elisa lived, where it was heavy, putrid and had a constant burnt odor.

"I heard about the accident." Ashen said, "And by the looks of you, you drank last night and haven't even bathed yet."

"How does he know? Damn it." Kendra told me, clinging to me, low enough so he wouldn't hear.

"You don't have to keep your voice down, Kendra. I can hear well. Same clothes as yesterday, yet to be ironed and red eyes still to be fully opened."

"And you're wearing sunglasses because it's too sunny, isn't it?" Kendra said, "You must have had a long night, too."

Ashen didn't answer her. He mumbled a "mhm" before he turned his back and went on his way to the house.

"You knew he drank too, didn't you?" I asked her.

"Yes, I've also been to important meetings. I know that after the serious, important, boring part, comes the fun. I didn't tell you because I wanted to see your reaction."

"You really don't change." I said and laughed.

Ashen had already entered the house. He left the door leaning for us. The ground was still damp, drops of water still dripping from the trunks and the birds still spewing water from their feathers when they took off. For the first time the lake was covered with a gray sheet, bound by four poles, one in each corner. We also ended up going into the house.

Chapter XVIII

There was no one in the living room or in the kitchen. We walked up to the second floor. Ashen and Gordon had set a square-table in the center and, on top of it, dozens of papers, some already with curly corners and others were new, the sheets were still smooth and shining every time the light fell on them.

As I got closer, I realized that they were schematics of Maggie's house, some from the inside and others concerning a tunnel in the basement. She looked as surprised as I did, sifting through the papers, finger-tapping them and trailing the lines, with two fingers, to the pages next to her. She looked up at Ashen, and again at the sheets as if she was expecting an explanation from him that was taking too long to come. The screens were off and so was the map. The only light in the whole room came from the lamp above us.

Ashen removed his glasses and placed them next to the main desk buttons. He also had narrowed his eyes, the light behind them half dimmed, and crusted lips.

Gordon looked like he always did, in a gray sweater wider than himself, if it wasn't for the slower movements than usual. We looked like we were stuck in a slow-motion dome when he stretched out his arm to grab one of the blueprints.

"Did you know your house was built over some old tunnels that lead to different parts of town?" Ashen asked Maggie. His tone sounded like he was accusing her instead of giving her a chance to explain herself.

"I had no idea! I swear to you. Believe me." She said, "My father always told me that he had chosen that place because he loved that it was an isolated area with a garden around it. Perfect for his parties and for resting away from the mayhem of the city."

"Are you sure?" Ashen asked once again, this time raising his voice.

I had to butt in, "Ashen, don't you think that's enough? She already said she didn't know anything about it. Tell us what you have to say."

Maggie murmured a "thank you" that was suppressed by the fuss that Ashen was making with his mouth.

"Stay out of it. We can't afford to make a mistake today. You know what's at stake. Gordon, explain to them what they need to know. I'm going downstairs to get a cup of coffee." He said and left us there.

"Sorry about that. He's all over the place. He's been doing this for years and he's never been this close." Gordon told us. He rolled up his sleeves, "Let's get down to business, shall we? We think the demonstration will take place in one of these tunnels, far from curious eyes, your home and the whole city. According to these maps we recovered from a pile in the library, the tunnels are long and wide enough so that an explosion there won't be heard anywhere else. Is there any place where your father can have a door to there that you don't have access to?"

"The only place is his office. You need a key and he's the only one with it. I tried to get in there several times, but I never could. It's an impenetrable fortress. Even the maid can't be there without the presence of one of my father's security guards."

"I see... It won't be easy. Do you know how many security guards the party will have and where they'll be?"

"Usually it's about 10 to 15, one at each exit," Maggie said and pointed to the places on the blueprints, "another at the doorway to my father's office and the rest scattered around the party. But he'll probably hire a few more today."

By now we were all around the table, keeping an eye out for the exchange of words between her and Gordon. I felt as if my body was there, but my head moved away, and my eyes saw everything from a distance. It was real. I was there, on a secret Hunter base, on a secret mission, on what could be the beginning of my journey towards recognition or it could be my last. I remembered my mother saying goodbye to me with a kiss on my forehead when I was still 18 years old, right before I joined the academy. My brother, two years younger than me, behind her, laughing and asking me how long I would last there. It had always been like this between us; a constant competition to find out who was the best, the strongest, the toughest, the fastest. We've never reached a consensus on that. He and I would win in different categories depending on the day. He was still in his sophomore year at the academy, but like me, he was one of the best in his class. He hated that teachers compared him to me when all he wanted was to overcome me and I loved to provoke him by telling him that he would be nothing but my shadow. Yet he was my brother and I could not risk my life without talking to him one last time, without also hearing the sweet voice of my mother. I owed it to them, and I needed to have their voices in my head reminding me what I still had at home.

"James, James." I heard a voice calling me. It was Kendra who held my hand and rocked it until I woke up.

"Now that James is back, let's review the plan." Gordon said and was ready to point to several places saying that Elisa could enter through there.

"I... Oh, I still don't know if I'm going. I'm sorry." She said, "I better get going. I've got stuff to take care of." And she ran out.

We were perplexed, speechless, still trying to figure out what had happened. I had told her what I thought about how dedicated she was, and it didn't seem to have taken effect. Or maybe she'd understood, but she was already too deep in the tunnel to dig into the light. Gordon asked us to be patient with her. He explained that she was afraid of commitment after Ashen forcibly removed her from their old group.

"Forced?" I said, "She just told me that Ashen ended the group and she walked away."

"That's a very reductive summary, James. Ashen ended the group, yes, but she didn't accept it. She continued to act as if we were functioning; in the shadows, not obeying the laws, entering risky fights. Ashen was forced to revoke her access to the Hunter APP and the weapons they sold at headquarters. After that, she was never the same, as well. She created her own path."

"Is that such a bad thing?" Kendra asked.

"It took her a few years to calm down and forgive Ashen." Gordon started by sitting in his chair. I'd bet it was already shaped like his ass, "In the early years she messed with a couple of people she shouldn't have. Including your sister, when she was still on the council. But we'll have time to talk about this some other time. Let's focus on the plan. Your clothes are in your room. You're going an hour early. Maggie's going to talk to her dad and let us know how security's doing. Once the party's starting, you'll join it. Your plan is simple: to find out who is interested in financing the Reapers, if any of them is a Hunter, and to leave the party unharmed. At no time must you challenge anyone. Understood?"

"What if we get a chance to arrest them all? To destroy the humanoid?" I asked him, still trying to figure out the big picture.

"You do nothing. Take pictures. That's it. Most likely, only a few of the top men will go and the rest will be middlemen. We can't risk them finding out we're on their tail." Gordon said. He opened the drawer and pulled out an object smaller than my nail, "Here. One of you put it between your eyebrows, come on, it's a camera. It'll record everything you see."

"Hm... My dad won't let anyone in without going through a metal and technology detector. Cell phones and guns stay in the lobby."

"Nobody's gonna touch my whip. No way!" Kendra interrupted us by grasping the whip attached to her belt.

"They won't let you in with it. Not even with your gun, James. Even I will have to remove the glove. My dad's paranoid about it and everyone has to play by the rules."

"Ashen and I had already predicted something like that. It doesn't make any difference. This camera is too small to appear on the sensors. As for the guns... well, James, that's a good reason not to cause any trouble, don't you think?"

"Better than good. No mess, no problem." I answered him, my heart pounding louder than before.

We decided Maggie would use the camera. Not only were her eyebrows straighter, but her hair was darker, and the camera blended perfectly. We reviewed the plans once again and memorized a few emergencies exits in case everything went wrong. I exchanged several glances with both Maggie and Kendra. An understanding between us that we would be together the whole time.

After a long speech by Gordon about what to do in case we get caught and other precautions, we went down to the first floor, where Ashen was cooking. The smell of burning salmon had spread to the living room and the hallway. The weather outside had brightened up. The sun shone, its arms reaching out to the earth, burning the horizon with lively colors and drying the remaining soaked lands.

"You may sit down. This won't take long." Ashen said. He had a white apron protecting him from the oil that sprinkled on him.

He was calmer than before. There was an empty cup of coffee in the middle of the wooden table. It was apparently kicking in. We sat at the table and waited for him to finish.

The salmon was so good, no one spoke at lunch. It wasn't burnt, and the colors popped out. The smell was great, and it tasted even better. I didn't even know Ashen cooked so well, but I suppose he had to get used to cooking while working in a remote area without being able to order food. It was something I still had to learn. Of course, I knew how to make eggs, pasta and rice, but that was all.

"Take advantage of the sunny afternoon to sleep. You're going to need to be at your best for tonight." Ashen said, after we all put the cutlery on the plate, "You... Ah, you can do it. You know I'm not much for this stuff, but without you, we wouldn't have gotten that close. I'm grateful for that." He added, keeping his eyes up, his jawline sharp as a knife.

"We're a team, aren't we?" I said, "You don't have to thank us. Each one offers the group what they can."

"Yeah, you're right. But after so many years of trying to get closer, of everything that's happened, we're finally there. Not only me, but all of us who fight to end corruption."

"Who's behind all of this?" Kendra asked, leading Ashen to choke on one of the puddings. I'd never seen him so bothered, losing all his composure, the spoon slipping through his fingers.

"Changing the subject... Have you tried the outfit for tonight? I used the measurements in your Hunter file." He answered. He picked up the spoon again and continued to eat the pudding as if nothing had happened.

"No..." Maggie began, speaking calmly, hoping he would interrupt her to answer Kendra's question, but he never did, "For me anything is good, as long as it's not black."

"Black? The best color?" Kendra intervened.

"To you. Do you think black would match my light eyes and blond hair?"

"Of course, you had to think about that." Kendra said, "But I'm glad you don't like black. At least we're not going to be wearing the same outfit."

I ended up laughing and saying they both looked good anyway.

"What a Don Juan you are, James." Ashen said, " You better be that tight. There aren't many groups like you anymore, you know? The more money and fame are involved, the more the groups are mere smokescreens seeking the top. They don't have fun, they don't socialize out of the raids, nothing. It's weird. When I started, there were no shortage of bars where Hunters from all over the city and even outside ended their nights. Now there are one or two left and they are almost always empty, with only two or three veterans drinking until it closes."

I nodded my head. I didn't answer, but I agreed with him. I had lived it first-hand. Hunters' lunches and dinners at my house before my father fell. And I tried to take that philosophy to the academy, but it didn't go well. People would look at me sideways and questioning me why every time I tried to plan a convivial. I ended up quitting. There's no point in pushing myself for something that wasn't even appreciated. Even team lessons became individual, as everyone wanted to stay on top, regardless of whether the rest of the team stayed behind. By the end of the first year I too had become individual and focused only on myself. Apart from three or four people I met there, I didn't keep in touch with anyone else, much less had any interest in doing so.

Gordon was the first to get up from the table, which was the opposite of the usual, leaving half a slice of chocolate cake on the plate.

"Excuse me. I need to get some rest, too. It's been a while since I've felt so tired." He said, before he left the kitchen.

"Is he okay?" Maggie asked Ashen.

"Yes, it was a bit of a shock for him to know that Damien hadn't given up on creating a humanoid. I guess deep down he still believed he could change him, you know? I don't think people can change, at least they can't run away from what they genuinely are." Ashen answered, and stood up from the table, "I still have a call to make. Get some rest. I'll wake you up later."

I heard him open the house door and tread on the wooden tiles as he walked down the stairs. I leaned back on the chair and sighed, "Well, I suppose he's right. We should get some rest."

"Wait." Kendra said, "Do you believe what he said? That people can't change? Do you think I won't be able to save Lipa?"

Truth be told, I didn't know how to answer it. I'd never thought much about it, but I knew that not only could I not lie to her, but I also didn't want to leave her one foot away from sadness, "I can't tell you for sure that you're going to save her, but it's worth the shot, right? She doesn't look like the other killers. I don't know, I don't know her like you, but I believe there's still a shred of kindness in her. After all, she helped us, right? Even if she owed you one, she could have said no."

"She'll open her eyes." Maggie said and put her hand on Kendra's shoulder. She thanked us and smiled, which was as rare as her flickering voice.

I looked out the window one last time before we headed for the room. Ashen had removed the sheet covering the lake and circled the crystalline blue mirroring the sun's rays as if they were escaping through windows gaps, all the while with the phone close to his ear. He seemed upset by the way he was waving his arms and partridges jumped from his mouth to the already dry ground.

Maggie grabbed the sleeve of my sweater and pulled me into the hallway. My smooth black suit was lying on the bed next to a short simple yellow dress and a long black dress with a lacy neckline. I told them the best thing was to try them after we woke up so we wouldn't mess them up. After all, we hadn't even bathed after the fight we had. Sometimes traces of shattered rock would still come out of my hair as I brushed it.

We lay on the bed and turned off the light. It didn't take more than a few seconds for my eyes to close too. Still, my brain wouldn't shut up. I could think of several scenarios that could happen during the party; from the successful options to dozens of mistakes that we could make and that would lead us to getting caught. My palms were sweating beside my body, and an anthill seized my right foot. I took a deep breath and tried to convince myself that nothing would go wrong. It was just a recon mission.

Chapter XIX

I woke up with Ashen staring at me, standing at the door, the light in the room lit and the two of them still asleep.

"We better talk privately." He said it and went into the living room.

I still had the clothes from the day before and that's how I walked up to him. He sat on one of the cushion chairs, his hands on the smooth fabric and his eyes following each step of mine. I sat in the chair in front of him and asked him what was going on, why he had to talk to me alone.

"Look, there's a lot you don't know yet that you'll know someday and maybe you won't like it. Maybe you'll even get angry, but I want you to know that it was never meant to have happened, that plans changed as fast as they can be undone if the truth gets out."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, interrupting him.

"Don't talk now. Just listen to me. Whatever happens today, don't give up. Protect them. They'll do the same for you. You're more than a group, you're a team." He said and paused, pulling an old battered paper out of his pocket, "Here. If you ever need a place to hide, go to this address. The key is hidden at the bottom of the third vase in the flower bed. I know you must be full of questions. They will all be answered. You just have to be patient."

We stayed the rest of the time in pure silence until Maggie appeared behind me. I didn't even hear her. She had tiny feet inside woolen socks that didn't make any noise when they touched the floor.

"I'm going to take a shower. Kendra said she was next. You want to go after that?"

"Yes. Tell her to call me. Didn't your father tell you anything today?" I asked her when I noticed she had her mobile in her left hand.

"Not really. I was just texting him and asking if he remembered what we had arranged. It wouldn't be the first time he forgot about me." She said, head down, with bags under her eyes, "I better go. I left the water running hot."

The girls took almost an hour to bathe. They came out of there with scented hair, honey-smelling bodies, and glowing skin. Unlike me, who took a quick shower and used the regular soap... When I got to the room, I really had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Kendra sitting at her desk, looking at herself in the mirror while Maggie was doing her makeup. Both with only towels covering their lower body.

"I was able to convince her." Maggie told me, as soon as she noticed me, "It's a party. We can't afford to be careless. We must prepare ourselves as if we were excited."

For the first time, I put on the suit that Ashen had gotten me. It settled perfectly on my body. The chest folds facing outwards, the neck folds upwards and a leather belt fastening the whole outfit. He even got me black shoes. My toes hurt, but it was just a matter of habit. The girls asked me for a few minutes alone in the room to get dressed. They wanted it to be a surprise to me.

When they finally showed up in front of me, with their dresses, makeup and straightened hair, I released a lengthy "wow" that made them blush. They looked terrific. The yellow dress matched Maggie's green eyes and pink cheeks and the soft highlighter she had on, as well as emphasizing her breasts and legs. The black dress fit Kendra's brown eyes and black hair. Maggie had made her a small curved eyeliner and used a soft gray shade for her eyeshadow. They had not lost their essence; instead, each one stood out in its own way.

"I'm really lucky." I said, my eyes sailing acres their bodies.

"Well, all three of you are ready. There's not much time left. You better get on your way." Ashen said, looking at his cell phone as if waiting for a call, "James, I placed a pocket on the inside. In case you need to hide something. Plus, you can turn the upper part around and it will serve as a silver coat. Good luck. I believe in you."

"Thank you. Where's Gordon?" I asked him. We were already on our way out. Maggie had opened the door and still no sign of him.

"Still asleep. I guess it's been a while since he slept this long. We won't be able to track you this time, so it doesn't make much difference either. We're trusting your abilities. I can't reveal much, but there'll be Hunters around."

I was never one to believe in signs, but I was all over the place. I believed, with all my strength, that the shining sun above us was a portent of the success that awaited us. The black car had been destroyed, but in the back of the house, a new car was waiting for us; red, with a grey stripe in the middle of both sides, which I had no doubt could compete with the best in the market.  I remembered Gordon's words telling me that Ashen had saved up some good money. It seemed that way and no doubt he wouldn't mind spending it if he had to. Maggie and Kendra sat on the satin seats in the back. Elisa hadn't even left us a good-luck message since she had freak-out, and as I looked at the bench next to me, I missed her presence.

I entered the palace address where Maggie lived and turned on the radio. I left it at the first station that came; a man's voice thundered over the classical instruments. The car's clock marked 6:13 pm. The highway was filled with people going home after a long day's work and what was left of the sun stumbled on the sightings and spread across the tar. In the distance, the sight of a blazing horizon fatigued us and softened our bodies.

At least it's not raining today... I thought to myself.

"I'm glad we came early." Maggie said looking out her window, "The line seems endless."

In addition to the engines rattling, there were also horns and men and women screaming at those in front of them to ride. Time was passing by, minute by minute, and we were barely moving. Even after 20 minutes, we didn't seem to have left the same place. The man on the radio had been replaced by a female voice accompanied by soft electric chords. I confirmed once again that I had the gun in my holster. I was afraid that I would forget something, that I would make such a basic mistake that instead of ending up on a photo in the hallways of the headquarters, I would end the night with a dictionary entry in the word "error".

The sunset descended, timidly sheltering behind one of the green and rugged heights. The remaining rays struck the sharp grass and the nearby rear-view mirrors. It was 6:34 pm when traffic finally started to move at an average pace. We had cars ahead of us, in the back, even on both sides. Trapped in the modernity and cloistered on the road one hour away from the party that could lead to the apocalypse of everything. The grumpy faces and the smiley faces stamped all over her would be replaced by fearful glances and blood gluing both lips.

"Turn right at the next exit." The GPS said.

It was a small road, with only one lane on each side, and surrounded by boulders on the right side and the city landscape on the left. The buildings looked like mere constructions produced by ants; small and prone to destruction with a finger snap. The road morphed into a serpent, each curve hidden behind another and with metal brackets, in the corners and in parallel, which protected against falls and skidding. I slowed down and gripped the wheel. We all had our belts on, but still, each turn made us swing to the opposite side. Maggie knew which way to straighten her body before the curve even came up.

"Don't tell me this was your father's plan." I asked, as soon as I saw three luxury cars, one of which was a limousine, a few meters ahead of us.

"It is... Look over there," she said and pointed to a hole between two rocks, the passage of time leaving it there, scrapping only the surrounding walls in different shades of brown, "You can't see but there's a camera there. Several places here have hidden cameras. If anyone goes down this road without permission, they will be received by my father's private army of security guards. I told you. This house is a fortress."

"Why does your father look like a megalomaniac villain out of a cartoon? Does he also have an eye patch or a scar on his face?" Kendra asked, waving her ass around the seat, still adjusting to the dress.

"Kendra..." I intervened.

"She's not far from the truth." Maggie said, "There's no mark on his face, but there's something that draws attention. You'll understand when he shakes your hand. James don't be surprised if it's a strong handshake. My father likes to test his new guests."

Finally, after making the last turn, there was only a straight road that led us to a metal door surrounded by a high crevice that went around the house and its surroundings. Outside and around hundreds of trees peeped for endless miles. It was more of a military complex than a house. Hidden beneath the leaves and forest density, the solar panels on a black roof still welcomed the remnants of the sun's rays hovering in the air.

The faded green gate before us was majestic, flowery in the middle and sharp-edged on top. The only thing modern about it was the computer box with a hand shape on the monitor, five blue squares underneath it and a small keyboard under the screen. Maggie got out of the car and put her hand on it. It scanned her hand and, in an instant, presented a picture of her. It was an old one. She had blond hair with brown highlights up to her shoulders and wore a red uniform with an eagle symbol on her chest.

"I think I was about 16 years old in this picture." She commented, as soon as she saw us looking, "And the pass is always my name. It's the only thing around here that never changes." She said, pressing the letters and smiling for the first time since we had left home.

We heard a click and the gate started creeping along, the edges scraping the ground until the noise became more severe than a felt tip scratching a table and causing the birds to flee from the nearby trunks. There were already orange and light brown leaves in some of the trees, held by a string, and the area reeked of wet grass. Maggie asked me to stop a few meters away from the entrance to the house.

"You better stay here. I'll try to be quick." She said and kissed me on the cheek before she left.

Chapter XX

Both muscular security guards and the porter with the curly mustache at the entrance bowed at the sight of her. She smiled and nodded before starting to chat with them. One of the security guards said a long sentence and then pointed to the right side of the house. I was trying to read their lips but the only thing I figured out was a short "thank you" from Maggie, seconds before heading towards where the man had pointed.

"Well, now we wait..." I told Kendra, who'd been lying on the seats in the back, "You're going to ruin the dress."

"It happens. I can't do this anymore. I haven't worn a dress since I had a dance at my school years ago. Damn." She said, before throwing her high-heeled shoes onto the car floor, "Plus with these shoes. They're too small for my feet."

"I'm suffering from the same evil." I told her and I took my shoes off, too.

The security guards stared at our car. Other cars arrived, old men in suits accompanied by boys with wet hair and short beards, and were sent into the house. Those who noticed us bit the lower lip, but no one commented.

With the warmth of the few sun rays pounding on the screen, I closed my eyes for a few minutes, or so I thought, until Maggie knocked on the window.

"That's it, that's it. We can go in."

"Did it take you about five minutes?" I asked, still blinking my eyes, trying to make sense of everything around me. The trees were still shaping, and the contours of her face were slowly appearing.

"Five? It took me almost half an hour. I can't believe you fell asleep."

I looked back and Kendra also seemed to be waking up from a brief nap. We were surrounded by twice as many cars and there was already a line to get in. The sun had already said its farewell and the sky was darkening, with glowing lights popping up and tinting it yellow. There, as in our base, there was no pollution. The starry sky was not seen as a novelty, only as another night.

"Come on, let's go." Maggie repeated, "My father said he wanted to meet you."

"What did he want with you?" I asked her while I was putting on my shoes.

I straightened my clothes, pulled down the trouser sheath and made sure that the fabric in the shoulder area was not wrinkled.

"No big deal. He wanted to ask me what it was like to wear the glove and if I thought it needed any changes. Then he told me to be careful. It was weird. He’s never said that before."

"Do you think it has something to do with why we're here?" I asked her as I got out of the car and locked it up.

"Every time something like this happens, I believe that more, yes.”

"There's only one way to find out." Kendra said, already out of the car.

"I suppose so. Come with me. We don't need to be in the queue." Maggie told us.

We walked alongside the line until we got to security. We put our guns, including Maggie's glove, in one of the boxes that said "guns" and the cell phones in another that said "technology". We were given a key to open them and the boxes were thrown into a white bag that was almost full. One of the security guards, the same one who had pointed to the side, insisted on groping our pockets anyway, as well as under our arms and the sides of our bodies. His hands were thick and rough but neat. He didn't even leave a trace on the suit and concluded with a head nod and an invitation for us to come in.

"Let's go, let's go." Maggie said, and she was the first to come in, "Just clean your shoes when you come in."

I looked down and there was a brown carpet with already different fur colors, some of which were black, but I scrubbed the soles of my shoes on it. Maggie's house entrance was almost as big as my whole house. It had a crystal chandelier on the ceiling and two curved stairways to the top. It had a half-open door adorned with golden lines on the left and another all white and closed on the right.

"That's for people to store their coats, suitcases and stuff," she said, pointing to the left-hand door, "That's my dad's lab. Sometimes he spends hours there. I've heard screams and explosions and I'm pretty sure I heard other people once. Which is strange, because I've only been there four times and they were all because of the glove." She told us, also serving as a guide. After all, it was her house.

We went up the stairs to the second floor. We followed her along the long right-side corridor, the walls covered with a satin red lining and several family paintings even of relatives who were no longer alive. Then we turned left. The walls there were totally the opposite. While the previous ones were a celebration of several generations of Maggie's family, there it was a massage for her father's ego; dozens of pictures of his face, others with him holding on to some prize and by his side the bound rewards.

She bowed her head, perhaps embarrassed, but said only three words, "It's that door."

I still stopped by to see some paintings up close. I recognized her father's name, but I had no idea how many awards he'd already won. There were dozens of him, from his 20's with hair as blond as Maggie's, to the present days, already with 57, the strands of toasted yellow hair and a few whites unveiling among them. He remained in shape. He had long shoulders, suits that fit on his body and emphasized his muscular silhouette.

We were near the white door, with precise blue contours from one end to the other and flowery in the corner, when a couple left. They were already drunk, zigzagging and tripping over each other's feet. He kissed her face and she filled her cheeks with air. They were both wearing dresses, although his was dirty near his chest, since he spat every time he spoke. They waved as soon as they saw Maggie and told her that her father had asked about her. She thanked them and wished them a good party.

"You know everyone here." Kendra told him.

"Most of the guests are regulars." Maggie said, putting her hand on the doorknob, "Their parents are some of the biggest shareholders in my father's company."

She opened the door and we entered a vast ballroom, several candlesticks on the ceiling, tables with white towels at the opposite end of the room, and the rest of the space open for dancing. In a corner, a man changed the music, by reading what his audience wanted. Several couples, some young and some old, danced with their hands on each other's hips and shoulders. We had not yet taken more than 10 steps forward when a loud voice called her. The three of us looked to the right where her father was coming from, his footsteps echoing through the fragile wooden floor.

"Oh, Oh, so these are your adventure buddies?" The man asked, laughing and belittling us. Maggie was right about one thing, he did have something that caught the eye. One eye of each color; the one on the right was green and the one on the left was blue.

"Father..." She started, her voice was low as if she was afraid to face him, "We're a group of Hunters... Not children playing monster hunting."

"Yes, yes. I take it that my glove helped you a lot, didn't it? It's good. It will be even better when my daughter finally manages to control it at 100%," he said, but none of us answered his question, "I'm sorry. I didn't even introduce myself properly. I'm her father. You may know me by name, Archibald Lenetius, the owner of Lenetius Enterprises. Maybe you've even seen the name of my company announced under some of the weapons used by the top Hunters." He said and smiled, the tip of his lips bending strangely, so much so that he was struggling to maintain a smile.

He stepped forward and held Kendra's hand, kissing her palm. She frowned her nose and forehead but didn't draw her hand back. She did what she could to seem interested. Then he stretched out his hand and we shook hands and, as Maggie had said, he squeezed hard enough till my bones snapped. He had a very characteristic smell; a mixture of lavender and gunpowder. I assumed he'd been messing with guns and perfumed himself to disguise it.

"Oops, sorry. I forget that sometimes people can't stand a strong greeting." He said, and laughed again, the voice surpassing the music, "Well, I've got important people waiting for me. Enjoy yourselves. There's plenty of good music and great food."

He left us and walked towards some men who had just arrived. One of them had a silver suitcase in his hand, handcuffed to his arm, and they all had gray suits and sunglasses covering half their faces even though we were inside the house. Maggie's father stood in front of them, hiding them from whoever looked at them, and placing his hand on the shoulder of one of the five men, leading them to an emergency exit in one of the corners.

"Where does it lead to, that exit?" I asked Maggie.

"It's a staircase that leads to the first floor. My father's office is behind the stairs we climbed, just a few steps away. Do you think they'll go there now?"

"I think so." I answered her, but I couldn't be more wrong.

Her father opened the door for the men, waited for everyone to enter and closed it behind them. He returned to the party, greeting those with whom he had not yet spoken, always with a smile on his face. We didn't know exactly what was happening, but we decided to act as if everything was fine and dance together. Kendra told us to get going while she rested her feet a little.

Maggie and I went to the center of the room. I put my hands on her wide hips and she laid her hands on my shoulders. We swung our bodies, dancing to the sound of the music; a woman playing the harp and a high-pitched male voice on top. Nobody noticed us. They were more interested in dancing or indulging in conversations with people as wealthy as themselves.

Another group of five men came in. This time they all had red hair, three of them with beards up to their chests and two without beards, but all five of them had metal chains on their waistbands. They stood in the entrance and waited for Maggie's father to see them. He shook their hands, and, as before, led them to the door, opened it, and closed it after they had entered.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked Maggie, even though I knew she probably didn't have an answer, "Will someone else do the business?"

"No. My father likes to have control over everything. He would never let anyone else handle his business. Maybe not all the groups have arrived yet?"

"That must be it. Sure." I told her. I couldn't shake off the idea that something wasn't consistent with our plan and with our information, "Did you recognize any of them?

"Not really. I've never seen them before." She answered me and moved closer to me.

She leaned her face against my chest, and we danced. When I looked down, I could see that some tears were running down her face. She closed her eyes and struggled to hide them, but her skin was wet, and her eyes did not keep any secrets. I massaged the back of her head and whispered in her ear that everything would be fine.

Kendra came up to us, "Look who just walked in."

We both looked at the door. A small, slender, black-haired man with bald spots at the front, wearing a purple suit that made him stand out. It was different than when I was on TV. He had trimmed his sideburns, shaved his beard, and the hairs on his eyebrows that almost covered his eyelids had vanished. And yet, there was no doubt who he was; John Shinner, one of the main speakers pro Hunters, who was also a member of the Hunter General Council. He was accompanied by two black, muscular, tall men in striped black suits. They were taken to the emergency exit. This time Maggie's father still had a few words with the man but didn't follow. He had barely closed the door when another group came in.

"Shit." I released it. The couple next to us heard me and squinted their eyes at me.

"Do you know them?" Kendra asked me.

"Yes, damn it. Elisa stole a letter from him with the date of the council meeting. And I... I helped her. They might remember me. I better move." I said, and I spun until I had my back to them, and Maggie had her eyes on them.

I was surprised that he was there, he was supposed to be on the council, but there was no mistake, it was him. Something strange was going on.

The albino was at the door and at his side the same two men who wished they'd kicked my ass. He scratched his white beard and sniffed his fingers. As opposed to the formality that her father showed to the other groups, this time he hugged him. A long hug with a pat on the back.

By the face that Maggie was making when she saw it, no doubt she had never seen him there before. Her father took the three men to the door while we pretended to dance. When he got there, he raised his arm and signaled to the man who was in control of the music.

He stopped the song and asked everyone for a minute of their time, " A big round of applause for all of you who are here. Let this be a night you won't forget." He said.

It would be weird if we were the only ones not clapping. So, we did. We got distracted for a moment and it was enough for her father to disappear with the albino.

"Shit. It was a distraction. How did we fall for this?" I asked. I was angry with myself. It was apparent what it was and yet I had let it slip through my fingers.

"Now what?" Maggie asked, looking at the door.

"Let's see if we can get in from there. If not, we have to go back to the first floor and find a way to get into the office without getting caught." I answered her and started walking towards the door.

"Good, sounds super easy." Kendra said, with sarcasm on the tip of her tongue.

I tried to open the door, but it didn't move an inch. There wasn't even a lock on our side.

"There used to be a lock here. My father must have taken it away." Maggie said, only after I'd been looking like a fool.

The truth is that we were all nervous and the fear of failure was causing us to make mistakes. It didn't take us long to realize that wasn't the way we were going to get in. We left the ballroom, crossed the same corridors as before and went down the stairs. There were still people coming and the security guards were still at the door. We followed Maggie to the back of the stairs, where another door gave us access to an even longer corridor with several doors on each side. The roof was arched and along the hall there were different statues, mostly busts of family people. A red carpet covered the floor from one end to the other. Maggie stopped at the third right side door and knocked on the door.

"What are you doing?" Kendra asked her.

"Seeing if anyone's here, right? Imagine us going in and having dozens of eyes on us."

"You're right. But no one seems to be there. They should be in the tunnels by now." Kendra said and leaned against one of the walls, "This thing about us not having guns with us sucks. We're vulnerable," she said, and her words couldn't have come at a worse time.

A waiter came through the door we had entered. He stared at us for a few seconds before he moved forward and asked us what we were doing there.

"I was just looking for my father. I assumed he was here." Maggie answered and smiled.

"I see. Still, you know your father hates being visited without warning." The man said. He had a machete in his hand and was wearing a black garment.

"I know, but it was important. Do you know where he might be?"

"I have no idea, but you have to get out of here now."

"What if she wants to stay here and wait for her father?" Kendra backfired.

"I will be forced to take you out of here forcefully." The man answered. He was entirely sure of himself. There was no trail of hesitation in his voice.

"I'd like to see you try." Kendra took another chance.

The man began to move closer to us. I knew what Kendra was doing. The further away he got from the door, the more chances we would have of disarming him and knocking him unconscious without him being able to call for help. In a space as wide as that, and with the music so loud, even if he shouted the most likely it was that his screams wouldn't be heard by anyone.

Suddenly, the man fell to the ground. The body bounced off once and then it didn't move anymore.

"Of course, you needed me to come," a single voice, as bitter as it was soft, depended on her mood, said.

"Elisa! You came!" Maggie was the first to say.

"I was not going to come, I really was. But then I remembered something James told me. We're a team and we have to work together."

"What about the attack on the council?" I asked her, holding back the happiness of her decision to show up.

"Everything stays the same. The only difference is that I won't be there."

She said, "So, what are we waiting for? Are we supposed to get in that door?" She said and took a pin out of her hair.

"Elisa, before that... There's something you need to know. The albino's here." I told her and watched the look on her face shift.

"Are you sure? That's weird. He should be on the council. Oh, shit. No. I hope nothing weird happens." She said and knelt in front of the door, trying to force the opening with the pin, "Don't worry. There's no door that can stop me."

And she was right. In a few minutes we heard the door unlock. She opened the door just enough to look inside and confirm that there was no one inside.

"What about him?" Maggie asked, pointing to the man still lying on the ground.

"We better bring him with us. I think I see a rope here. We can tie his arms. All that's missing is something for his mouth." Elisa answered her and opened the door for us to come in.

"I have an idea." Kendra said and tore a piece of the bottom of her dress, "Use this to cover his mouth. I can move better this way."

I carried the man to Maggie's father's office and put him up against the white wall. Elisa tied his hands behind his back with the thin black rope and made a knot in the back of his neck with the fabric of Kendra's dress, stuffing the man's mouth.

"Why the hell does your father have a rope in his office?" Kendra asked, and no one had to answer to her to conclude, "Oh. I see. We better get going."

I hid my laughter and finally looked around. There was a mahogany table in front of us and behind it a window covered by two red curtains. Around the room, which was circular shaped, the upper part of the walls was covered with more pictures of him while the lower part had small closets with a few knockoffs of weapons that the company had produced and photos with Hunters using them. On the table there was an open dossier, with dozens of sheets wrapped in transparent paper, and a black felt pen on top of one of them. Maggie went near the table and sat in her father's padded chair, the kind that not only spins but also allows the back of the chair to be leaned over.

"I've always wanted to sit here." She said, before focusing on the open pages, "Hm, hm..." she murmured as her eyes sailed the pages.

"What does it say?" Kendra asked her.

"It's just company expenses. It says here that they spent millions producing weapons for Hunters, as they're supposed to, but then there's the letter R underneath it and it says that they spent millions on them, too. But that's not all. There are other letters here with expenses in the hundreds of thousands. I don't know what my father's into..."

"The R must be for Reapers. The rest of the letters... Well, we better watch out from now on." I told her. The secret door that Maggie had told us about and that gave access to the tunnels was right in front of me.

It didn't look like a door except for the dotted perforations around the white wall. It didn't even have a lock or a place to enter a code. There didn't seem to be any way in. I looked at Maggie, but she seemed lost in her thoughts.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Shit. We're really not lucky." Kendra said, "Maggie, wake up. Now what?" She said and clapped in front of Maggie's face.

"Yeah, I'm sorry." She said and stood up, walking to one of the paintings on the wall. It was the only one where she appeared. She must have been three, four years old at the most, and they were in the woods surrounding the house, having a picnic. Her mother was still alive and kissed her father's cheek. She pulled out the painting and put it down carefully on the floor, "The problem is, I don't know the code." She said.

On the wall, once covered by the frame, there was now a screen asking for a four-letter password. The screen was touch and the letters appeared below the unfilled squares.

"You have to try to get it right. You know your father better than anyone else. You can do it." I told her and put my arm over her shoulder.

"I thought I did, but now I don't know." She said, before taking a deep breath, "I'll try. I hope this doesn't activate any safety measures."

She inserted the first four letters and pressed the green circle in the corner of the screen. The color changed to red, the screen turned black and a phrase appeared in the middle.

"You have two more chances before you activate the entire Lenetius security system."

The screen returned to its normal appearance, the four unfilled spaces without any letters.

"Don't worry. You still have two more chances." I told her, even though my heart was running at about a thousand miles a second. We didn't even have guns to defend ourselves.

"I'll get it right. I need to know what my father's doing." She said and filled all four spaces without thinking twice.

This time the green circle remained green. Seconds later the screen turned black again and the wall moved a few inches back and to the right, being tucked into a compartment behind the wall.

"What was the pass?" Elisa asked her.

"Susy. My father's nickname for my mother." Maggie said, "It's good to know she's still in his memory."

Chapter XXI

As soon as Kendra, the first to enter, landed her foot on the other side of the door, lights lit up all over the tunnel. Small lamps attached to the ceiling illuminated the metal walls. It was as if we were inside a vault, which we had no idea where the exit was. When we got to the end of the hall, we ran into a staircase that led us to the tunnels. Water dripped down the thick pipes fastened to the ceiling, falling on top of a river of dirty water, almost brown in color, which flowed through there. There was a sidewalk on each side of the supposed river, and we could already hear voices from afar. We didn't exchange a word until we reached a corner and I had to stop them.

"They're over there. Don't make any noise." I said, as low as I could and signaled Maggie to lean against the wall and record what was happening.

The groups we had seen before, including her father and another man with bottomless bottle glasses, wearing only torn black pants and a wrinkled white sweater traded a few words. The man we'd never seen before snapped his fingers and smiled at the others. After a few seconds of awkward silence between the groups, a metallic and deafening sound echoed through the concrete walls. They were steps; loud, the metal scarring the ground, and the closer, the more the groups shared glances between them without knowing what was coming. At least that's what it looked like.

"Well, I present to you the new generation of beasts." The man said and turned around.

In the background, the same shadow that we had seen in the video that Gordon had played, was walking towards the group. Even taller and more terrifying live, he stopped as soon as he got to the man.

"Record everything. This is going to be important." Elisa told Maggie that had already squatted up against the wall, with only half her face showing.

"He looks so... human," Kendra said, looking over Maggie's shoulder.

She was right. Now that the robot was meters away from us it was almost impossible to distinguish it from a human were it not for the bottomless black eyes, devoid of any color or emotion. He had black bowl hair and wore a white t-shirt despite the cold, as well as a pair of regular jeans. It was an average person who could walk past any of us on the street and we wouldn't even look twice. That was the scariest. He was painfully average, enough to go unnoticed among the crowd or anywhere he shouldn't be. Part of me shouted at me to act, to stop him from escaping from there, but it was impossible. Without guns, against dozens of people, we wouldn't have the slightest chance. Ashen's voice echoed in my head, "It's just a recon mission."

The men, belonging to the different groups, probably from out of the continent, surrounded the robot, touching his body and even banging on the nape of his neck. When they did, the hollow sound scattered all over the tunnel. There was nothing in there. He had no brain, no heart, as the man next to Maggie's father explained.

"Now that you've seen it, let's move on," her father said, "Our goal is to create an army of them. Some will be as normal as possible to infiltrate wherever they want. Others will have more destructive...features. We don't have a problem with investments due to our colleague from the Hunters here, John. What we're looking for now is chaos. We want to sell some models so you can spread them around. We want destruction. The more, the better. You get a functional model that will do whatever you want, the Reapers will be happy when there is a decrease in confidence in Hunters and I'll be happy when my company profits from more sales to Hunters and even normal citizens. When fear gets into their heads, everyone will want to protect themselves." He said, raising his voice and rubbing his hands afterward.

"I subscribe to everything. We agree and we would definitely like to buy one right away." John said, "I never liked the building where they built the Hunter headquarters. Maybe it's time for a change. If you know what I mean." He said it and stretched out his hand.

Maggie's father squeezed it. He thanked him for his help in recent years and added that they were close to achieving the global control that they had always talked about.

This was followed by the group of men wearing sunglasses, now clamped in the collar of the suits, who also asked for one. One of them even opened the suitcase that the other had strapped to his wrist so he could reveal dozens of tiny shiny diamonds.

"We can pay now if you give us priority." A man, I assumed he was the leader, said.

"We'll pay more than they will." One of the redheads said, "Double if I have to."

"You don't need all that. We've already got several ready. We just have to talk about specific requirements and prices. Kris, what do you say?" Her father asked the albino. It wasn't the kind of name I expected him to have.

He frowned, "It's all very nice, true, but what about a demonstration?" He hit the robot in the head, "I need to make sure my investment isn't wasted. Just because we’re old acquaintances doesn’t mean that I’m going to trust you blindly."

"I understand you. There's a reason you got where you are now. Do it." Maggie's father said, "Show them what he can do."

The man next to him ordered the robot to fly to the end of the tunnel corridor, return and fire as far away from them as he could. The robot's eyes turned blue before he took off.

"You can give him the orders you want, but it's best to program him. Once you buy it, we'll give you all the information you need to do it."

As soon as he had finished speaking, the robot landed, turned to the opposite side of the one where we were hiding and fired an energy blast that traversed the tunnel until it hit a wall and destroyed it in thousands of boulders that were carried by the water that seized the path as its own. Soon after, his eyes returned to the lifeless black. A wave of whispers filled the tunnel. They were all surprised, some frightened and others even more enthusiastic about the potential.

"In case they attack him, or his position is compromised he will act on his own and destroy anything and everyone who tries to stop him. As a last resort, it will self-destruct so they can't connect it to you. We have planned everything for maximum enjoyment and destruction." The man said, clearly proud of what he was presenting there.

"Interesting. You're right, Lenetius. This will take chaos to another level. I want one." The albino said, "Speaking of chaos. What we talked about... Is it being taken care of?"

"Yes. In exchange for your help, we're taking care of your problem. But don't forget what we asked for in return. Access to..."

"Yeah, I know. You have my word. Are you using another model like this?" The albino asked, taking a cigarette out of his pocket.

"Yeah. He's got a lot to take care of today. Nothing like a large-scale demonstration to appeal to buyers who are not here."

The albino lit the cigarette and the smoke spread. He didn't apologize even after some of the present company coughed.

Maggie took a step to the left to be able to record even more but fell on her ass. None of us moved. No one seemed to have heard or seen her.

When we thought we were safe, the robot's eyes lit up, "INTRUDERS" he said, in a manly voice, and shot a blast in our direction. I managed to pull Maggie towards us moments before the explosion grazed the floor and crashed into the wall on the other side of the river.

"Shit. We have to run. Hurry!" Elisa screamed, helping me lift Maggie up, "Come on, come on."

We could hear the different voices shouting, asking for explanations, complaining that this should be safe and then the safety lock on weapons being removed.

We didn't even stop to look back. We skirted the corner from where we had come from and ran forward as we never had before in our lives. I was sweating from everywhere. Drops slipped from my forehead to my eyebrows and my eyes. Even with the blurred view, I didn't stop running. My heart was beating louder than our shoes going up the stairs back to the office.

Chapter XXII

"Now what? Now what?" Maggie asked, gasping for breath.

"We've got what we need, let's get the hell out of here. It won't be long before they come after us," Elisa replied, "Damn robot."

We got to the office and made sure the door behind us was closed. We were aware that there had to be another way out, but we couldn't waste time wondering where it was or if they'd already left. The important thing now was to get out of there. The waiter was still lying against the wall. He'd already woken up and tried to free himself from the ropes. He looked at us with big, green eyes and I could see the despair in them.

"Go ahead." I told the three of them, "I'll catch up with you in a second."

"But... James..." Maggie said...

"GO! NOW! Don't worry." I told you.

They ran down the hall. I heard every step they took, straying away from the office until the steps were just a distant echo. I removed the ropes that held the man's arms and apologized to him. Even though I was on a secret mission, I was still a Hunter. And he might not have known it, but I also doubted that he knew what was going on underneath him. He was just a mere employee who had the misfortune of lurking in the wrong hallway at the wrong time.

"We didn't want this to happen." I told him before I turned my back and walked to the door.

I was going to start running when I heard footsteps and voices creeping up on the secret door.

"You better get out of here, too." I told the waiter.

He got up and stood there, "I'll explain what happened." He answered me.

I wanted to drag him with me, but I didn't have time for that. I closed my hands and started running down the hall. I was almost at the end when I heard a gun go off. I knew what had happened. I even wanted to go back, but it was too late.

I ran to the entrance of Maggie's house where the three of them were still waiting for me.

"We'd never leave without you." Kendra said, quickly, spitting out the words as if it cost less to say it.

"Let's go, let's go. They're not far behind." I told them.

"What about our guns?" Kendra asked.

"They're in the bag in the lobby. Do you still have the key, James?" Maggie asked me, "It shouldn't take more than a few seconds. We did it."

"Damn it, we should have left the guns in the car." Kendra said.

She was right. It was another amateur mistake we'd made. Now not only did they know what guns we had, but we could get caught getting them back.

"That's what I did. I kept it in your car." Elisa replied and winked at me, 'We really do need more safety measures in our vehicles'.

We left the building in distress, breathing wildly, and knees trembling. I remained unscathed, trying to show that they didn't need to be afraid, but truth be told, part of me had already accepted that it was our end.

"We want... Oh, we want our guns. The party's boring." Maggie said, throwing her hair back, keeping calm. She had nerves of steel and was not the same uptight person, afraid to wear the glove, that I had met.

The security guard pulled a box out of the bag and showed us, "This is it, right?" and put it in her hands.

"Yes, thank you. James, James, open this, please." She said, now tapping her foot on the marble stairs.

I took the key out of my pocket, my hand shaking, and I opened the box. We pulled the guns out of there and thanked him just as we were coming down the stairwell. The security guard got confused but didn't stop us.

We got in the car; me in the driver's seat, Elisa next to me and Maggie and Kendra in the back as usual. I set foot on the pedal and sped up. The gate was still open. There were cars coming in and if I looked through the rear-view mirror, I could see a room on the second floor with flickering lights and loud music. The party hadn't stopped. The sound of the gunshot hadn't even made it that far. They kept having fun without knowing what was going on under their feet. A little like me before I was picked for this group. Well, picked is not the right word, but it would have to do.

"James, watch the corners!" Maggie told me just as we were getting to that part of the road.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to slow down." I answered her and looked through the rearview mirror again, "Don't you think it's weird that no one's behind us?"

"I was thinking about it... Doesn't sound so good to me." Elisa said, looking out the window, "Not even a car. Don't you think..."

She hadn't finished talking when an energy blast hit the road behind us. The human-robot hovered in the sky with his index finger open as a barrel. The bright blue eyes and the wind spinning under his feet. I focused on the road and took the last turn out of that road maze. I sped up as much as I could and thought we'd left him behind, but I was wrong. He was waiting for us, right ahead of us, standing still, meters before the highway. The arm pointed at us, the hair fluttering and the shirt tight to his abs.

"Now what?" Maggie asked, "How do we get out of here?"

"We must fight." Kendra said and grabbed both sides of the folded whip.

"How the hell do we fight that?" Maggie asked her. She leaned against the seat and mumbled a bunch of words that didn't make sense.

I stopped the car before I turned to her, "Maggie, we can do it. We have to work together. Trust me."

"Do you really think we can do it?"

"Yes, of course. Don't you agree, Elisa?"

"Oh, what? Yeah, sure. But we better come up with a plan and fast."

"If we get to the highway, he probably won't follow us. I don't think they'd expose themselves like this." I said and started the engine, "Kendra, drive. I'm going to shoot from the right side, Maggie throws fireballs out the left window, Elisa from above, taking advantage of the fog that the fire will make, tries to trap his feet. Let's take him down. We got this."

The three of them nodded, and for a moment I saw hope in their eyes. The harsh nocturnal breeze scratched our cheeks and loosened the clothes soaked in sweat from our bodies.

I fired bullet after bullet, some of it without even knowing if it would hit the target. I just wanted to get out of there and save them. Maggie threw fireballs at him and they collided with his body and dissipated, leaving only the smoke. Elisa froze meters of road ahead of us until we were so close to him that she saw his feet and bound them with several layers of ice.

She smiled at me, "I did it! Hurry!"

His body was still as good as new. There wasn't even a single fire scar and from my bullets only the ones that had scraped him left a trail. The rest were trapped in the wall that was his entire chest and belly. He took the involucres out like they were nothing and threw them to the ground. Only when he was about to take off to get away from us did he realize that he couldn't move, and it was too late to even use all the force he had. We crashed into it, ran over it and continued, the wheels changing direction along the road due to the ice.

"Hold it, Kendra, hold it!" I told her as I tried to get behind her and grab the wheel too to keep us on the road.

The city, in the distance, was at peace. Hundreds of bright spots but the hustle and bustle of the day had fallen as the sun set. They had no idea what was going on. They would dine and watch television in peace while we risked our lives for them, and then, if necessary, complain about our existence.

We lost control of the car. It started to graze on the rocks, the rearview mirror shattered, as did the blinkers and the black paint turned into the factory's grey. Sparks jumped into the car and we had to cover our faces while Kendra was holding the wheel and doing her best to get us on the highway.

"Almost there!" She shouted, her voice being muffled by the skidding car, the wheels still turning to both sides.

The car almost flipped upside down, but after hitting the roadblocks it stopped. I looked back and the robot was still on the ground. There were tire treads on the ramp and pieces of glass and black metal all over the floor.

Kendra and I switched places and returned to the road, ignoring the glances of the few cars that passed by us. The motorway was lit by lamps that were between the roadblocks and were replaced every week so that no one could blame the government in the event of an accident.

"Are we safe?" Maggie asked, "I can't believe it worked."

"My heart feels like it's going to jump out." Kendra added.

I leaned back into the seat and took a deep breath. The rest of the way was a straight line and all I had to do was have a hand on the wheel.

We breathed deeply and not even the fierce wind was able to cool our adrenaline induced bodies. Moods were still on edge and no one uttered a word. We smiled, and looked out the window, or just outside, now that we didn't have doors on the left side. The comeback trip wouldn't last more than a few minutes. My knees hurt, I had wounds on my left shoulder, and my pants had changed color due to the blood that dripped from the cuts in my legs.

Maggie leaned against Kendra's shoulder and closed her eyes. I knew how hard it was for her to be in that position. In one month, she went from "maybe my father is involved in a conspiracy, maybe he's being forced to, he really is one of the leaders."

We thought we were already safe when her cell phone rang. She didn't even know where she had put it. She touched her body along the dress until she realized that it had fallen to one of the seats during the confusion.

"It's my father..." She said, her hand trembling as she held the mobile, looking at me with her big green eyes watering, "It's not over yet, is it?

"Your father? Does he know it was us?" Kendra asked her, rubbing her legs now that the adrenaline was no longer acting up.

"There's only one way to find out. Pick up. Put it on speaker." I told her.

She answered and calmly brought her cell phone to her ear, dropping a low, "Yes..." She pressed a button and her father's voice rose inside the car as if he was materializing there.

"Where are you?" He asked.

Another voice was babbling behind him, but it wasn't loud enough for us to hear what he was saying.

"The party... The party was as boring as ever. I'm sorry I left without warning." She said, impressively natural. It wasn't really the first time she'd done it.

"Maggie, what have you gotten yourself into? Do you really think I wouldn't have cameras in my own office? That I don't know it was you and your friends in the tunnels? Damn it. Get back here before things get worse. And forget about being a Hunter." He told her, but it sounded more like he was ordering her, and he wasn't used to getting a "no".

"Father..."

"None of that... Get over here! Now! I hope this was just a youthful mistake. I can protect you, but there's nothing I can do for your friends."

"DAD! Shut the hell up. They're not just my friends. They're my team. And we were there to find out exactly what you were involved in. You know what the worst is? I told them that maybe you were being forced but no, you're doing everything for your own enjoyment and ego. I miss the person you were before what happened to my mother," she said and on the other side only silence, "We destroyed the robot. It may take a while, it may even cost us until we get there, but we'll get you and I'll bring you to justice. You were my hero and now you're just another criminal." She said, tears flowing down her face and Kendra rubbing her hands.

"Daughter... You don't get it, do you? Everything I'm doing is for you, for us... Not everyone was born to survive, and if you knew what was coming... If you knew, you'd understand. I'm just on the winning side, and if I can make money off it, why not? You're still in time to come back. But if you don't, I can't protect you. They're going to destroy you like they're going to destroy everyone who gets in their way. Believe me when I tell you this doesn't end with me. And you didn't destroy any robot. You didn't really think running him over was enough, did you?"

"Bye, Dad."

"Maggie...run." were his last words before she turned off her cell phone.

We got knocked off the road. The car swung with us inside, rolling forward, backward, upwards and, luckily, none of us were crushed by the doorless part of the car. Everything got cloudy, I didn't know where they were, my head stung and part of it was warm. I touched it and my fingers got bloody. Everything seemed so white in front of me that I fell on the slope of one of the hills and didn't move anymore. I closed my eyes and ignored all the screams I heard. They seemed so distant. The heat shrouded my body.

Chapter XXIII

Damn... I had to open my eyes. I couldn't just lay there, like everyone else, giving up just because my body told me to be still. I squirmed until I heard my bones crack and I opened my eyes. The bodies around me took shape, as well as the objects, the car burning before me and Elisa and Kendra a few meters from me on the hill. Maggie still in the car, passed out, her body with a layer of dirt over it.

Although I was in pain every step of the way, I dragged her out of the smashed car. I had reddened my hands which were bruised by the effort I had just made, as well as being stained with dry blood. I laid Maggie down on the hillside and fell beside her.

"Are... are you all right?" I asked them, my voice dissipating in the vacuum.

"My leg...my leg...is broken" Kendra said, her body in shock, and unable to keep up with her panting breath.

"Shit. What the hell was that?" Elisa asked, standing up, her black pants torn everywhere, the blood slipping through the holes, "My head feels like it's about to burst."

"Take care of Kendra. I'll see if I can wake Maggie up." I told her, still not knowing what happened.

"Do you hear that?" Elisa asked me as she confirmed that Kendra's leg was broken, "A sound coming from there." and looked behind the flames that were ravaging the car.

"I don't hear anything. My ears are still ringing."

I slapped Maggie's cheeks waiting for her to wake up, for her green eyes to become a beacon of our hope one last time.

It wasn't enough to wake her up. I kissed her and started mouth-to-mouth breathing. I had taken a first aid class at the academy but, truth be told, it was never one that I paid much attention to. But there I was, my lips detaching from her cold ones, my hands pressing down on her chest, longing for a response.

"James, James!" Elisa started screaming, "He's coming." She said.

She was looking behind the car one more time. This time I heard him and saw him as clear as the moon behind him. The robot was walking towards us, his shadow being heightened by fire, the metallic noise overlapping the flames and sparks that leaped to the ground. He tossed the car aside with one hand. The fire grazed the ground and at first dropped to a low volume, but within a few seconds the vehicle exploded, flipped over and exploded again until the seats were no more than two pieces of ash being exposed to oxygen. The metal melted in front of us, bending like it was mere plasticine that we could mold to our liking. I grabbed my pockets looking for my damn gun, but I didn't have it on me. I looked around and nothing. Oh, crap.

I was hoping I hadn't left it in the car. If that were the case, we wouldn't have much of a chance.

Elisa restrained his feet again. She tried to buy us a few seconds but this time he just raised his leg and shattered the ice. As he walked up a crane-like sound tinkered our ears. There was something about it that had been affected by the car's impact, a mechanism that had been broken or a program that had lost track of the original goal. It wasn't perfect, not like it was supposed to be. The closer he got, the longer it took him to lift and lower his leg, and every step he took required a few more seconds of effort.

"Maggie, wake up, come on." I said, and I took advantage of the extra seconds to wake her up.

Her eyes opened in fear and closed again. Breath and pulse became more vivid. They weren't just a sign of survival anymore. She opened them again, the iris filled with red veins and the color moving around as she opened her mouth, but nothing came out until her voice regained steam.

"What..." She started saying it but had to stop.

"You can do it. Take a deep breath."

"What happened?" She asked me, the voice weak, her eyes still sailing through the sky's dark cloak.

"The damn robot. We don't have much time, does the glove still work? I need a distraction to look for my gun. I know you're not in the best condition, but..."

I hadn't finished when she leaned over, putting all the weight on her opposite hand, and conjured up a growing flame that hovered over her hand, "I told my father. I'm going to get him. Whatever it takes. And I won't let them touch any of you."

As soon as the last word dissipated into the air, she threw the fireball, covered with heat around it, like a mini sun, against the robot's chest. He no longer had clothes, only bits of burnt fabric on his shoulder and pants only one spark away from burning to ashes.

I looked for my gun around me but found no sign of it. Under the light of a nearby dimmed streetlamp, I groped anything that shone in that sea of darkness. I ripped grass, picked up a can of juice and almost tripped over one of the roadblocks. An object glowed in the lengthy pit that separated the metal from the slope. I tried to run to it, but my feet weighed more than usual. I dragged them there, lowering myself despite the pain in my whole body, and picked up my gun. I grabbed the leftover bullets I found in my pockets and went back to Maggie's side.

The robot was no longer clothed. He had no gender. In the place where there should be something there was only stretched skin without any mark or protuberance.

Two of the eight bullets slipped through my fingers and fell down the ravine. I didn't even hear them fall. The sound of the flames merging the metal with the asphalt had swallowed up the whole moment.

"What do we do?" Maggie asked.

"We fight. We don't have a choice, do we?" I said, fueling our last spark of hope, "He's no longer at 100%. We have to keep putting pressure on it. He'll fall."

Elisa's ice trapped him for seconds and cooled his controls as Maggie's fire incinerated them as we hoped that his guard weakened enough for the fusible to turn into lava.

I shot him and the bullet hit his carotid artery. There was no blood, no guts, no human semblance. Our bodies sweat like a day at the beach and a tingling anthill went up my leg. They were on their knees, their hands had already descended, red as their overloaded gloves and the ice melted with fire in an explosion of colors in which his body was the canvas. Another bullet. It pierced him through his right eye and came out through the back. The eyeball jumped to the ground and he stepped on it like it was nothing. All that was left was an empty hole containing a blinking blue light. On the floor there was a faint white mixture.

Kendra was still yelling. Although Elisa had improvised a bandage so that she could adjust her leg. Her right leg swelled and incarnated as well.

"Just a little more." I said to her, and I reshot him, this time hitting the middle of the chest.

The robot rested for seconds and the blinking eye ceased and reconnected. We were so close and so far away at the same time. He stepped on the roadblock and wrecked it. He walked near Elisa and closed his fingers around her neck. He squeezed them until her face turned white, life and color being removed from her body, while her eyes rolled over. In a final breath of life, she touched his chest and froze his whole body, but even that didn't stop him. Even though there was a layer of ice from the neck to the knees holding it, the fingers did not move away, nor did they lose the reddish color on the tip from so much pressure on her skin.

"Hey!" my vocal cords trembling until my voice was just another noise in the middle of the night's outbreak.

I got up, ignoring all the pain, my feet burning with suffering, almost as if they had restraints around them and they scraped on the skin at every step. It was all over the place. There were no plans in my head. There was no guarantee that something would work, but something had to do. I jumped on his back, wrapping my legs around his hips, one hand around his neck and the other with the gun pointed at his head.

"Shoot!" Maggie screamed, crawling across the grass and stretching her hand to reach Kendra's hand.

One gunshot. Two. Three. The rest of the bullets I had left. I fired from above to below, diagonally, horizontally. And I kept pulling the trigger even after I heard the gun click for not having bullets inside.

The robot's fingers slipped from Elisa's neck, one by one, until his hand hovered in the air, lifeless, just like the rest of his body. He leaned his neck and lowered his head. He remained like that; eyes, or what was left of them, on the ground and the body immune to the cold but standing as if it belonged to the landscape and there it would stand as a monument.

I got off of him and did mouth-to-mouth breathing on Elisa, who didn't take long to wake up.

"Am I alive? Did we make it?" Elisa asked, sticking her nails in the grass and pulling them close to her.

She tried to free herself, but she didn't have the strength.

"I guess so?" I answered her, still unsure.

I hit the robot's head and it didn't move. I shoved him and he settled on the floor.

We had made it! We were wounded, barely strong enough to walk, but alive. Ashen and Gordon were waiting for us and had no idea what was going on. We'd have a long talk about what happened as soon as we got to the base. Ashen would have to warn the bosses and other groups of what was coming.

"We're not far from the base. Can you two walks?" I asked Maggie and Elisa.

While they were answering me yes and struggling to get up, I bowed down beside Kendra and told her to wrap her hands around my neck so I could carry her until we called for help. I didn't think an ambulance was the best. Not after all the spectacle we'd given there.

Chapter XIV

We had to walk to the detour that was already so familiar to us and that led us to the house. But this time, something wasn't right. It reeked of smoke and rotten wood and the house shone in a warm fire that blasted it from the inside.

"It's on fire!" Maggie said, "What about Gordon and Ashen?"

"Hold her. I'll see what's going on. Don't go anywhere."

I raced to the end of the trail and stopped. The house had already been almost consumed and what was left crumbled before me. She seemed to have waited to be seen one last time before saying goodbye. I shouted Ashen and Gordon's name but got no answer. I got as close as I could to the house, looking for them in the wreckage away from the flames, or, at least, clothes disintegrating. I needed to know if they got away in time.

I was going around the house when I saw a bright beam among dozens of wrecks of rough burnt wood beams. As soon as I got closer, I realized what it was; the silver watch that Ashen used to have on his wrist and that, most of the time, he tried to hide. He had bloody eyebrows, a layer of ash on his face and superficial cuts on his cheeks. He had fainted and one of the beams was standing on his ribs. I dragged him from there with the spark of strength that I had and ended up sitting next to him, still with his eyes closed, watching the house disappear, ingested by the flames, accompanied only by a ringing sound that came from the orchard and by the fireflies that warmed up near the fire.

The wildfire also burned the hopes we had before we got there. No sign of Gordon and Ashen seemed to be hanging by a thread. I hadn't been trained for a situation like that. I knew I had to change my mindset, that I had to adapt, but when does the problem become easier in the blink of an eye?

"Is he alive?" Elisa asked, emerging in the middle of the night, only her silhouette popping out.

"His pulse is weak, but he's alive. I don't know about Gordon." I answered, the flames still burning and tearing down the remaining wood, "I'm glad you were with us."

"So, do I. I couldn't handle it if something happened to you and I wasn't there. But, hell, I've been trying to call one of my acquaintances who was at the council raid and so far, nothing. He's not picking up or answering messages."

"Maybe he's still there?" I asked her. Ashen's fingers slowly moved, one of them circling on the floor. I brought my ear close to his nose. Breathing remained solemn but more noticeable than before.

"It should have been over an hour ago. I'm worried." Elisa answered me as I pressed Ashen's chest, trying to expel the smoke from inside him.

She just stood there watching me, the blurred makeup all over her face. Her eyes hid behind the black that surrounded them and her cheeks glistened under the fire.

It took a while but Ashen coughed up, a hoarseness in his voice due to his lungs that were probably filled with smoke, and then he spat on the floor.

"Calm down, calm down. It's okay. It's OK. You're safe." I told him when I saw him trying to get up, trying to close his fist even though he couldn't do it.

"They took... They took Gordon." He told me, almost without the strength to speak, "A human robot. I couldn't do anything."

"Don't speak Ashen. Rest. We have time for this later."

I didn't tell him we had dealt with one too. I could do it when he got better enough to call for help. I didn't want to be the one to do it, to tell someone on his cell phone that we needed help. A gasp coming from the trail that led us there sharpened our senses. We thought somehow the robot had come back to finish us off, to get his revenge. Elisa raised her arm at a 45-degree angle, as high as she could, and pointed to where the sound came from.

"It's us. Help me." Maggie said, after carrying Kendra over there through the muddy ground.

I hadn't noticed on the way there, but their clothes were torn, stained with grass and dirt. Even Kendra's white clothes seemed to have been attacked by a bear.

I got up and hurried to them, helping Maggie carry Kendra and placing her on the ground next to Ashen.

"Lipa called." Maggie said, "Elisa, the attack on the council..."

"What happened? Just tell me. Say it now. Don't just stand there." Elisa answered her, raising her voice and punching the ground.

"I'm sorry... She wanted to know if we were still alive. I don't think anybody survived to tell a story."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Lipa said it was a decoy. The whole council and whoever were attacking them were wiped out. There's no one left. I'm sorry."

"Shit. Damn it. I had friends there. It had to be what the albino was talking to your father about. I knew he had crazy ideas and wanted more than he had, but I never thought he would dare to do it. No one's ever tried to do it out of fear of the consequences. Just because they killed their leader doesn't mean that all the assassins who were under someone's orders will join the ones who survived. Loyalty is valued. Other leaders will emerge but will not have the same strength and support. It'll be anarchy until new bosses are established, and that takes years. The albino will be able to control the entire black market until then."

"Is that what he wants? Only Lenetius weapons on the market?" I asked. We were brainstorming, exchanging ideas and possibilities. But, the truth was probably uglier than that.

We didn't know anything, we were in the dark, and it twisted our insides.

"Probably. I feel like I have to apologize for my father being so ruthless." Maggie said.

"It's not your fault. What we have to think about now is what to do. I won't standstill. I can't. I want to cause them as much pain as they caused us." Elisa said.

"We have to call somebody for help and be picked up. Besides, we need to show the recording to someone and get a new watcher." I said, speaking along the way, nonstop, "I know someone. A girl who was with me at the academy. She is excellent at this."

I groped Ashen's cloak pockets until I found his cell phone. The screen was scratched, but it still worked. It was only 12% battery and the image was hazy.

"Three. Cardinal." Ashen murmured.

I pressed those buttons, and a soft male voice asked me who I was when he didn't recognize my voice. He also asked me who was the leader of my squadron and why I was calling him. Apparently, the rules said only Ashen could communicate with them. I didn't have time for bureaucracy.

I gave him a summary of what we'd been through. I told him about the human-robot, Kendra's and Ashen's state, and I ended by saying that the base had burned to the ground until there was no more than charred wood and ashes left.

"I've already sent someone there. They will take your colleague and Ashen to our hospital. You and the rest will be brought here. If what you say is true, the rest of the groups will have to be informed." The man said, the voice getting more severe as he spoke, "It should take 15 minutes. You did good, Crash. That's your Hunter name, right? I already have my list of names here."

I told him yes, thanked him, and waited for him to hang up.

There I stayed, with an arm wrapped around Elisa's warm body, under the fireflies that had not yet departed and the flames that dissipated throughout the air. The world was rotten. Being a Hunter had not become as hopeful as I expected. I hadn't put a smile on more people's faces than the ones I'd found out had given up on life. I had wounded friends, and success was a long way off. But I still hadn't quit. I couldn't. Because as long as there was something I could do, as long as I could fight, I wouldn't let the world plummet into darkness.

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