I don't look back.

I have a lot of work to do.

The silence is murky, swamping my muscles. But I find the will to move. Move faster than ever before, my eyes void of tears. Emma's last breath burnt them from my body. I hardly register raising my head or wiping Alice's tears from my face. I barely notice standing up, rising from the bloodstained carpet.

Karen Hill's expression betrays nothing, only stoic determination. The gun bears no silencer, so we probably have ten or twenty minutes before the local cops coming knocking. I'll only need a few seconds. Hill moves the gun to rest upon my shadow, but I'm moving. Rolling into another man's legs, sweeping them from under him. He topples onto me, shielding me from the bullets. I don't bother to see if he's dead. I just jump up again, the dead's man semi-automatic still warm in my hand. That guy had really sweaty palms.

"Alice!" Noah, Doc'. They're calling for me, but their voices are so faint, such a long way off. I pretend not to hear them. Doc' was right about me before: I am a monster. And I'm about to show him just much of a monster I can be. Hill fires again, emptying the first clip. She has a second, lodged in her belt. I only smile, throwing my newly acquired weapon into the woman on my left. The barrel hits her forehead and she drops like a stone to the carpet. Out cold. Hill inserts the second clip, but before she can fire, I'm running at full speed. Racing towards the multiple armed men behind her. My fist connects with a solar plexus, forcing one of them to double up. Their gun falls from their grasp. I almost have to claw the weapon from the other man's arm and although I see him trembling, although a sliver of guilt threatens to rise up inside of me, my eyes are soon drawn back to Emma's body. Crooked and graceless on the carpet of this dive of a safe house. No place to die. Not for her. But for him... I snatch the gun, put it to his head, and pull the trigger. Part of me knows I should have hesitated, given my shrivelled heart some time to reconsider. But I don't. I don't hesitate, and I know why: I am tired of compromise. I am tired of my family, my friends, being caught in the crossfire. The man practically fades in front of me, his eyes open in an expression of pure terror.

Brushing him to one side with my shoulder, I think I can hear Noah retching. Good. This is who I am. Who Emma failed to see. Who she should have seen.

Karen Hill points the gun at me, but this time I sense the slightest trembling in her fingers. Will she pull the trigger? Will she? Will I bleed out in this shabby living room, with the body of one of my only true friends for company? Maybe I want to. Maybe that's what I deserve. But she doesn't. Emma doesn't deserve this, and Karen Hill makes the mistake of failing to pull the trigger. Too late.

I drop onto my hands, slash her legs, and snatch the gun as she falls. She hits the carpet with an audible thud. I stand over her, gun trained on her heart. A few centimetres from where Emma was shot. She doesn't hold her hands up, then again, I don't expect her to. Bodies lie dead and dying around us, like melting statues. I scan the men and women, dotting the room as if they are ink blotches. They'll have money, wallets, IDs. I can get buy for a few weeks. Food, water. The essentials. Everything that Emma has now been denied. But Karen Hill. I lean closer, grabbing the ridges of her armoured clothes. My hands are strangely still, my breathing stable. I'm used to this now. Used to being the bad guy. The monster. Why bother to be above that oh so preserved image? My grip tightens, hands itching to close around her throat. Being close to her, to the woman who lied, who made my life worth living, then teared it apart, makes me want to vomit.

"If you kill me, it won't change anything," she's saying. Hissing at me. If she is expecting some perky quip or sarcastic remark, she is going to be sorely disappointed. My words have deserted me. It's not as if I need them after all. People never listen to the real me, so I doubt they'll start now.

"Please. Don't do this," she implores. Again, and again and again. I've been yearning to make her plead, to beg for her life like Emma never begged for hers. Karen Hill's life is worth not even a fraction of Emma's. Yet... I raise the gun to the ceiling, seemingly about to retreat. Hill sits up, rubbing her jaw from where she struck it on the floor.

I let her take a single breath of relief before striking the gun in one sharp arc across her temple.

She slumps instantly. Unconscious.

She should have realised I was never going to kill her.

I need her. I need her to tell me where the Foundation's other bases are, where my true Mother is. I need her to help me acquire all the information I need to hunt the Janus Foundation down and kill them all. Justice doesn't even come into it.

Turning her over, I rip the laces from her shoes, trying to balk as I remember Emma presenting me with a change of clothes.

After Hill is secured, I stand. Face what I've done. I look Doc' in the eye, then Noah, who trembles beside him. I almost nod, almost smile. I would have, if not for the nausea in the pit of my stomach. They should be afraid of me. They should be more than afraid. I am a killer, a murderer. I am everything the Foundation crafted me to be, whether I was one of their experiments or not. Now I am. At least one of their lies finally rings true. I am a monster.

Staring at Karen Hill's slumped shoulders, I reach down and stretch the laces to breaking point, tying her arms even tighter. I hope I've broken or at least dislocated her shoulder in the process.

Standing, I look around, not really seeing. The darkness of the room is superficial, Emma's body on the floor a silhouette. Doc' and Noah are mere road signs. The metallic smell of gunfire, of blood, fails to reach my lungs. I'm numb. Numb to it all.

In one swift motion, I hook my fingers into Hill's scalp, drag her to the door. In the wake of the silence, my movements are fireworks. Popping, lightning fast.

Turning back to the bodies – they've all bled out by now – I search them for ID's, which I pocket, money, which I steal, and ammunition. I take the gun with a silencer, then one without. I want to make some noise, I want to turn the sky red. But, some tired, broken part of me already wants this to be over. It's only Emma's starless gaze which binds me to this path. Keeps me going.

I am not going to let her down.

Shoving the guns into the back of my jeans, I catch the sight of blood on my shirt. Emma's blood. Starkly mauve against the fabric. Like paint. I wish it were paint. I wish it wasn't real. I wish I could shake Emma's shoulder until she blinks, sits up, and offers me a calming smile. Laughs. Tells me she likes me just the way I am, not who I'm supposed to be.

Blinking back what might be tears, I stride towards the door. Several sets of keys jingle in my pockets, a sound too merry for the world. Doc' tries to catch my eye, but I don't let him. He taught me to drive after all. He helped me become more mobile, trained me to be a more effective monster. He should have been more careful. Careful of the monster he was unleashing upon the world. This world deserves it, deserve me.

And I deserve to haunt it for the rest of my live.

Because Emma is no longer laughing, smiling, crying or running. She's not walking, writing or blowing her nose. She is no longer here. She will never again be able to hold a pen, or text or giggle at a joke. Don't they understand? She's not here.

Karen Hill enters my mind. I almost hold her aloft – the only person who can tell me where my Mum is. The only person who can help me destroy the Foundation once and for all. Once upon a time, not too long ago, she could have helped us be better. Helped us feel human again. Now Alice is... She's unresponsive and she has never, in all our years, been unresponsive. She is a bumblebee, hovering at the edge of our mind. Now there is nothing but silence. And I hate it. I hate the silence, hate the fact that the only sound I can allow myself to hear is the thump of Emma's body hitting the floor.

My hand wavers on the door handle, but I open it, breathe in the cloistered air of the apartment block. The city speaks to me, whispers of its heartbreaks, it's triumphs. There will be no more triumphs, for me or for the Foundation. I am done.

Shoving Hill out into the hallway, I hear a final plea. Some desperate attempt to crack the cavern of pain which has bloomed around my heart. Our heart no longer.

"Alice, wait. Please. Alice. Come back to me," he's saying. He begs and begs and begs.

Dr. Light, you're far too late. I was instructed to take control, to take the wheel. To finally have a life of my own only when I feel as if I cannot bear to live it.

Behind me, I can somehow sense the eyes of Emma's body burning a hole into my back. Telling me to stay, to wait. To leave revenge behind. But I can't. I won't. Emma deserves better than that. Better than me.

Pausing on the threshold, I listen to Noah's subdued cries and Doc's incessant begging.

"Alice, you don't have to do this. Come back to me". I shake my head.

"She's gone," is all I say. I step out of the door.

And she is never coming back.

The Current End