A/N:...Hi

It's been a few months...

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Chapter Twenty: Terminal Favour

I stare back at him.

I don't want to keep doing this. Being the death wish genie. This is the third time. I still don't understand what I'm supposed to do or why everyone think that I can keep doing it.

I feel powerless at his intense stare with the expectation that I...what? Wiggle my fingers and boom, he's dead.

Quick. Straight to the core.

...And right on time. I was almost missing you...almost.

"Kae...make it stop." Bolin echoes around me. It rebounds in my skull.

I curse that phrase to hell.

"I...don't want to," I wasn't sure who I was saying that to more...Bolin or myself. I don't want this expectation. I don't need this.

Then who will?

The fog rises and swirls, engulfing me again and ensnaring my view like it was trying to snuff out the lamp that was still beside me. I stare up at it before I feel something tremor from below me.

I was on the unbroken bridge.

I hear the drumming of frightened footsteps. Quickly as it comes, the panting breath of the desperate mouse in a chase. The quick shift in air as something runs past me in the fog, brightening it for me to look down a barrel of a gun on the far side of the bridge.

"Stop!" The voice that rang out was too familiar.

The scene was set. Someone was running away. Seth had taken chase, only for someone from behind decide that the target was better off dead.

The familiar sound of a single bullet firing and landing with the lethal sink into a body rang out. So too the echoed thud of deadweight hitting the ground, the quarry never making it to the other side.

Seth stopped suddenly. Shock etched into his form. He stares blankly through me, at the dead person behind me.

Why are you showing me this?

The person, wearing the insignia of the familiar blue snake lowers the gun and begins walking with a smirk on their face. It was indistinct. But I felt Seth's quiet and embroiling rage.

Just as the man was about to clap Seth on the shoulder as if to taunt him or expecting to be told he did a good job, Seth switched gears.

In that split second, Seth grabs the man's wrist, pushing him to the ground. Without a hint of hesitation, his other fist hammers down. It lands like a clap of thunder. Only...it was not lightning that followed. As the second of silence ticked, the bridge too let out a crack before it was engulfed in fire. As the bridge collapsed, the wall of fire swallows the bodies of the Suppressor and the victim. But Seth was replaced with flame. He was the hellfire. He killed the proof of their target and the killer. The fog swarms around me, only to deposit me back on the island side of the broken bridge where I see Seth staring over the now gap of water, the ashes of the dead and the bridge long settled on the bottom of the lake. But he was still standing there. Shaking to the cold but his eyes were fixated.

Bolin did not want this found. Bolin wanted the dead to find peace without being known...and let it be Seth's burden to bear.

"The person they were chasing was my niece. Though Seth had a hard time remembering me, he found that little bit of knowledge...a little trail I had forgotten he could still pick up if he dug. Which he did." Bolin stated, resigned.

"I thought you said you made sure you were never found?" I ask the fog.

"Yes. But I didn't account for my family quickly enough. I was too distracted to realise what was going on. Suppressors had infiltrated the city and found a subject they could take to try to either kidnap into their ranks or kill if it became a problem. They went with the latter at the last second. It was around that time that Seth agreed to work with them for Siem to see what they were up to. I did not think that the target was my elder sister's kid. In that split second, an inkling of a memory had resurfaced for him. That broken bridge was the sight of the murder of the last of my family and the spark to his memory that was almost gone. So...I made it his cure and his cage."

He made it the only place that Seth could find peace but also be struck with guilt.

"Why?" I stare back at Bolin.

"Because I was left behind. I accept it now but that doesn't mean I wasn't bitter."

"So, you're taking it out on Seth?"

"I suppose."

So fucking...that is so fucking human. "And why are you showing me this memory?"

"Because now you can understand my pain...his pain."

"All I've done is understand pain, Bolin!" I snap at him. "I know this pain far more than anyone in this fucking city that you've been in.." I snap my fingers, dispersing the fog. I've had enough of him hiding behind a screen or in his Tower. "And what I've learned it that pain does not give you any justification to inflict it on someone else just so that you can feel validated."

I was standing face to face with him but feel...different, like my body had changed again. He was looking at me in shock, probably because I whiffed away his smoke screen.

"You made the choice to stay hidden away. You made that choice to let this city fall. Wear that consequence Bolin! Don't state that Seth won't look at you. You kept it that way!" I poke a single claw at his chest. "You claim you know Seth...then why leave it like this?"

"Because I'm tired, Kae. I've had enough being this." He motions to himself and all around him. "This was the only way I could call out and hope something...someone was out there to get it to stop. I didn't choose this but I held out as long as I could. I don't want this anymore. I can't keep being this...fake thing...I can't keep pretending that this existence is ok!"

"No one said you had to," I stare back at him.

"No Kae...you don't understand...there's no going back once they do this to us...Queens...Hexers...none of it."

"I did it for Rain!"

"Rain wasn't a Hexer yet, he had what no one else ever did...time and you...Kae were you ever there to stop the transformation of a Hexer before that? ...you should talk to Hanna about her research if you get the chance...But please...end me...let me go."

I stare at him, "But I don't know how,"

"You don't need to." He picks up my hand that was still pointing at him and lays the palm on his chest. "Just...guide it."

I feel my arm pull back and he did not resist me, letting me go. With the familiar sickening feeling that I knew what was coming next, my hand rushes forward. The distinct déjà vu of sliding though flesh to the other side...I feel myself sag as the frustration and sadness build up in me. This motion that I have repeated three times.

"This isn't fair!' I yell back at him.

"It's not supposed to be," he answers back with such relief. "Kae...I was so tired of pretending to be you."

I blink through the tears in confusion. Zoe had said something similar...but I don't exactly remember the words. "I never said you had to...how are you me? Am I a battery for a Tower?"

"No...Kae, no." He hugs me as he starts to turn to ash. Just like Zoe...Bellasera... "So much more than that...but we can't be that...we can't be you...in the end...it just rips us apart."

I still don't understand.

"Not yet, Kae."

I stare out as his mental body flakes and dances to the dead air and the water drains below. The memory of Seth and the melted stars had long since burned away.

I don't want to face reality anymore...

Fuck everything. I stare down, I feel different in here...and it terrifies me.

I blink and come face to face with the child Bolin who stares back at me with blinded eyes. As I realise my arm was through his chest cavity, the anxiety infests and claws at me as I pull away with the sound of something wet suctioning away. I land on my ass and scramble away with my arms and legs flail about. I murdered the heart of the Tower. I hit something warm and solid on my back. It ensnares me into a hug, stopping me from moving and from the soothing shushes like I was the kid here, I realise it was X.

My brain jars into gear as I see Seth climbing into the room and when he sees me, it changes from a mix of relief to hesitation to...disbelief as he sees the bleeding remains of Bolin, convulsing on the floor. He runs over to his forgotten friend.... taking him into his arms.

Bolin's blind eyes fall onto Seth...whispering a thank you. He then loses his form, tuning into the sludge that Seth could only cradle in shock.

I changed my mind. I hate reality more than dreams.