It was scarily fast how the word spread around our little town.

Not exactly about the break-in in my apartment, but more so about how bravely Cinder Girl had saved me from dying last night.

People, especially the big-mouthers in my college, were so readily spreading rumours. I wanted to go up to them and say that it hadn't been Cinder Girl but my own self who had saved my life. But clearly, that would've been stupid. It wasn't like I was jealous of the attention Cinder Girl always seemed to get.

If it were up to me, I'd prefer to throw her under the bus whenever any sort of attention came my way.

Even Penny seemed to be believing that until I told her--thrice--that it hadn't been anything like that. Just a scary break-in that was handled perfectly well by the police. There had been no Cinder Girl or Ice Phantom, much to Penny's disappointment, and there had been no near-death scenarios.

Perhaps I couldn't blame the people of this town anyway. Ever since heroes and villains showed up in this city, people wanted to believe in stories and rumours and anything that made them wonder. As much as my life wasn't a source of entertainment, I had a feeling most of the people took Cinder Girl that way.

A hero out of the comics. A hero who'd always be there to save them. A hero whose brave armour never cracked. A hero who'll sacrifice everything in the end like every hero should.

The moment I finished my classes at college the next day, I reassured Penny that I did not need a ride back home (she was acting scarily protective over me ever since she heard about the apartment break-in), and took a subway to the secluded land outside town where the Agency headquarters were.

Orias was busy in a meeting when I asked around for him.

"You seem tense," River told me as he accompanied me inside Orias's office. River and I were the only ones who had permission to step inside the office when Orias was absent.

I paced across the white tiles. "I am."

"And why is that?" He asked me, leaning against the doorframe. "Did something happen?"

Clearly, River wasn't one to believe in the latest town gossip.

I wasn't sure if I should tell him about what happened last night. I had to tell Orias, though. Two attacks by two individual ski-masked men. And after my encounter with the last one, I now knew that there was a group of them out there.

And they wouldn't stop until they got what they wanted. Which was bad because they knew my secret. They wanted me dead. One slip up of tongue and this whole city would know that Dahlia Winters was the real Cinder Girl.

"Where is he?" I stopped and looked up at River. "You said he'd be back from his meeting hours ago."

River sighed and straightened up. He somehow sensed the urgency on my face, which mustn't have been hard, and spoke up, "I'll go and check out."

When he left the office, I started pacing again. My hands were fidgeting and I needed something to grasp onto, to stop and gather all my thoughts together.

The woman from last night was still locked up in the nearest precinct. She knew my secret. She wanted me dead. She could've hurt Jamie. They tortured us to the point of death.

I paced and paced.

Does that sound like your Agency, hero?

That's when I noticed a few black files piled on the glass table in the corner. I wasn't one to snoop around someone's things, especially not Orias's. There had never been anything to snoop around for me here anyway. Orias never hid anything from me. And as much as that ski-masked woman's words were still ringing in my ears from last night, I wasn't one to doubt the Agency. The Agency was all I had.

So I rounded the glass table and picked up the file on the top, flipping it open. Sure enough, it was just technical data related to government and stuff. I hadn't ever been much involved with this stuff either. All I did was train, help Orias out if he ever needed my help, and protect the city from crimes.

That's all Orias had ever trained me to do.

That's all Orias has ever asked from me.

I glanced over at the tiny framed photo at the corner of his desk, one he kept here at all times. I smiled because I remembered when that photograph was taken. It was of Orias and me. I'd been eight back then, grinning a little goofily as Orias gave me a piggyback ride, my wide green eyes on display. It had been a snowy day. Orias always used to take out a bit of his time to build a snowman with me every winter. He had always been there to care for me.

Sighing, I was about to close the file when something shiny caught my eye. Sliding it out from in between the papers, I noticed that it was a series of pictures--mugshots of a handful of people.

My eyes scanned across the faces but none seemed familiar. All except for one woman right in the middle.

I barely recognised her. Mainly because the right side of her face wasn't marred with burnt scars in the picture. It was the ski-masked woman who had broken into my apartment just last night.

"Seven." A voice came from the doorway, making me look up in surprise.

Orias stood before me.

He stepped inside the office and unbuttoned his overcoat, taking it off. He didn't bat an eyelash at the pictures in my hands.

"River told me you've got something on your mind to discuss?" He asked me, hanging his coat by the stand at one corner. Then he was punching in something on the electronic tab by the door.

"Yes, I've..." I trailed off, glancing down at the pictures again, confused. "Actually, I'm a little confused right now."

He raised a brow but didn't really look at me, his posture calm and collected. I envied him sometimes. How could he always pretend that everything was fine? The weight of the entire Agency must be heavy sometimes. Yet he'd never shown it to anyone. Not even me.

"Someone broke into my apartment last night," I told him. "A woman who had a ski mask on. Just like the one in that building that got burned up."

He diverted his attention from the tab and nodded at me, silently asking me to go on.

"She had some...things to say. Accusations to make. She said the group that she came from wants to kill me."

The silence that followed was pretty awkward. Though it was tense too. I hated when Orias's facial expression went totally blank; impassive.

"And you're confused whether you can handle her threats or not?" He questioned.

I backtracked. "No! No, of course not. I can handle her. I mean, I did handle her pretty fine." Barely.

"I don't see a problem then."

Before he could've made his way towards his desk though, I held up the pictures. "She's in this picture too. She and...the people with her, they have this vendetta against the Agency."

A tiny furrow formed between his brows. "You think she's one of them." He waved his hand at the series of pictures in my hand.

I nodded, then pointed at the woman in the picture. "That's her. Her face was...it was scarred at one side. But I'm pretty sure that's her." And then the next question must've been pretty obvious on my face. Why do you have her picture?

Orias frowned. "I was told they were all dead."

"Dead?"

He rounded the table and sat down on the swivel chair. It was brief when I noticed his shoulders sagging, the weight on his mind finally being noticeable. "They're former recruits of the Agency." He told me. "They were trained to be spies, protect the city, help the Agency. But they went rogue."

I stared at him in surprise. "Why did no one ever tell me that?"

Orias shrugged. "Like I said, they were put to justice and killed for committing crimes all around the city. There was no reason to bring them up in conversation."

"They...How are they...alive?" I asked him worriedly. "More importantly, how do they know my real identity? She broke into my apartment, Orias! My roommate could've been there instead of me. He could've...died." The word felt foul on my tongue. Just thinking about Jamie getting hurt because of me had made it nearly impossible for me to sleep the whole night.

Orias placed his elbows on the table and linked his fingers together. "You should've thought about that when you decided to get a roommate."

I opened my mouth to protest but he held up a finger, silencing me. "Doing what you do, being who you are behind that mask, it's a big responsibility, Dahlia. You know that. You know the risks that come along with it. You were told that if you step outside these walls of the Agency, people around you might get hurt."

I visibly deflated. "How do I keep them safe?"

"You can't always."

Three words. Those three words sometimes haunted me at night. Just those three words that left me restless all the time.

"But--"

"If you encounter any of those ski-masked men again, you'll kill them." Orias cut me off.

My mouth fell shut and I stared. I stared with wide eyes. "What?"

"You heard me." He said, his tone final, as he started sorting through his files and paperwork.

"You want me to kill someone?" My voice lowered. "I don't kill. You...you've taught me my whole life never to kill an innocent person."

"They're not innocent, but liars." He fixed his stare at me. Dark eyes with only seriousness in his gaze. "Those people went against the Agency's rules. They defied. They rebelled."

I felt my throat going dry. "But I can just knock them out. Bring them here to make them talk." I was desperate, I realised. I didn't want to kill. Just the thought made my hands shake.

"There's no point in talking. Like I said, they'd lie," Orias said. "Seven, are you telling me you've gone too soft to put a crime to proper justice anymore?"

My eyes widened again. I took a step back, looking down. "No."

"Then obey your orders." He stated. "You don't know the whole story. All you need to do is protect your loved ones. Because if one of them is let loose, people who are actually innocent will die. And that'll be on you."

On me.

"There must be another way?" I pleaded, my voice a meek whisper.

Orias shook his head. "If there was one," he said, "I wouldn't be asking this from you."

I swallowed.

"It could be your roommate next time, Dahlia." His gaze was fixed on me, not wavering at all. "An innocent person dying just because you couldn't be strong enough to kill the enemy."

I stared. Jamie could've gotten hurt.

The words left my lips before I could've thought twice. "I'll kill the next one."

A beat of silence.

"Good." Orias nodded, going back to his papers. "You're dismissed."

• • •

I spent the rest of my day at the bookshop, trying not to think too much over Orias's words by reading a slightly worn-out paperback novel.

Jon bustled around the shop, picking up things, arranging and rearranging them, sorting through new lists. I sat behind the register and checked out the few customers who came.

One of them also happened to be Neo.

"Whatcha reading?" He asked me, all bundled up in layers as he leaned over the counter and tried to take a peek at the book in my hands.

"A book." I stared up at him warily, bookmarked the page I was on, and closed the book shut.

Neo smiled and pushed his hair away from his forehead. He looked a little pale, I noticed. And there was sweat beading his forehead.

"What brings you here?" I asked him, standing up from the stool I had been sitting on.

He slid a hardback novel on the counter towards me. The Song Of Achilles. "You once suggested it to me. So I'm buying it."

After so long? I thought. But I said nothing.

"Sure," I said and checked it out, punching the keys on the register. "That'll be $19.19."

He nodded and took out his wallet, passing me a twenty-dollar bill. Our fingers touched and his felt hot and clammy.

"You know, you're kinda sweating. Why don't you take off that jacket or two?" I asked him, taking out the change.

When I looked up, he was grinning. The glint in his eyes could totally pass off as a manic one.

"I'll feel cold if I do so." He said.

I gave him a perplexed look, shrugged, then gave him the change and placed his book in a paper bag. Right as I was about to give it to him though, I stopped and looked back at him.

Then I tried picking my words carefully. "So, um..." I trailed off. "I've been meaning to ask you. How exactly did you do that ice trick?"

Neo raised his brows at me.

"In the cafeteria. My iced tea wasn't iced." I said. "Then you came along at my table and it was...iced again."

He seemed to get it now and a laugh slipped past his lips. "Well, a magician never reveals his secrets, does he?"

I frowned and leaned a little against the counter. "So what, you've been meaning to tell me that you're Ice Phantom?"

Saying it out loud felt wrong. It wasn't like I hadn't been thinking about it for days now. Nonstop. How could Neo be Ice Phantom all this time? What if that ice trick had really been just a trick? What if Neo was messing with me?

But why me? Just because I had refused to date him? Or did he know that I was Cinder Girl?

No, I thought. He couldn't know.

"Did I say that?" He tilted his head to the side, all innocent. "Can't quite remember."

I rolled my eyes, pushing the paper bag towards him. "Not like I care, Neo." I did care.

"'Course." He said. His voice sounded icy. And his smile slipped away too. "Being Ice Phantom won't make you fall in love with me."

I grew a little stiff. "Neo--"

"One day, Dahlia." He picked up the bag. "I promise you. One day you will need me."

Before he could've made a move to leave, I spoke up abruptly. "Why can't we get past it, Neo? Why can't we be friends again? I do miss you. I really do."

He smiled again but it was rather condescending. "I don't think we ever were friends, Dahlia."

I frowned. "Of course, we were."

"Not when you kept secrets." He added.

"I didn't...what?"

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." He tipped his head towards me, then took a step back. "Remember, Dahlia, no one will stay with you for long when all you do is lie."

Even when he left, it was his words that echoed through the empty bookshop. Again and again and again.

Maybe Neo knew more than he was letting on.