I trailed behind a group of people who were maneuvering through the alleyways of Sector 11. I waited on top of a building, watching the people below pause before splitting off into smaller groups. I watched two of the smaller groups drift into smaller alleyways, leaving one last group of three in the alleyway they stopped in.

I pulled my hood a little further over my head and dropped down into the alleyway, knocking out one of the three on my way down. The other two reacted almost immediately, but were not fast enough before I knocked them out as well with hidden stunners in my half-finger gloves.

I heard footsteps come from the smaller alleyways as the other members of the group came rushing back. Most likely after hearing the sounds of surprise from the three men I had just knocked out. The other six people ran in and I immediately pounced into action.

Thanks to my training, it didn't take long before the rest of them got knocked out. I heard a grunt behind me, followed by a thud as a body fell onto the floor.

"You forgot one." Christopher walked up to me, putting his gun back in its holster. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"I changed the bullets to tranquilizer darts." He said, stepping over the fallen bodies. I shrugged and pulled the hoodie off my head.

"I still don't get why they made you come with me." I mumbled, beginning to make my way out of the alleyway.

"It was to make sure you don't do anything stupid." Christopher replied, following right behind me. I could just hear him grin at me. I grumbled under my breath in annoyance.

"So," Christopher started, throwing an arm around my shoulders, "now that the mission is over, are we heading back to the management building?"

I scoffed, "Duh. Where else would we go?"

"Well..." Christopher trailed off. I turned my head to look at him and narrowed my eyes accusingly. I pinched his arm that was still draped over my shoulders and he yelped in surprise.

"What was that for?" Retracting his arm to rub the spot I had pinched him.

"Nothing." I continued to walk forwards. I soon stopped walking when I saw a familiar person walking on the street opposite us. He spotted us as well and began to make his way towards us.

"Hey Kyle." Christopher greeted as Kyle reached us.

"Hey." Kyle greeted, fist bumping with Christopher.

"Are you patrolling right now?" I asked.

Kyle nodded, "wanna join me?"

I hesitated and nodded in agreement. I turned to Christopher, "I'll see you later." Christopher nodded and gave a casual salute before he walked away, heading back to the syndicate management building.

Kyle and I began to walk down the street in silence. "How is everyone?" I asked.

"We're all doing good." Kyle replied. We fell silent again.

"Do you guys... hate me?" I asked in a quiet voice. That question had been haunting me for a while now, mixed in with the guilt that I still felt even though I had left the Syndicate over a week ago.

"We still don't fully understand why you left in the first place, but we do understand that you have your reasons. We don't blame you or hate you for it."

I dipped my head at that. "If Vanessa was here right now," Kyle continued, "She would say something like 'we're still here if you need us' or something along those lines."

I found myself smiling slightly. I was truly grateful to have had a family like that.

As we were getting closer to the boundary where Sector 12 used to start, we heard a crash come from one of the alleyways nearby. Kyle and I exchanged a look before we rushed to check what was going on.

The two of us used a pipe to climb up to the roof of a small building and continued to travel that way, while keeping a close watch on the ground. I heard footsteps and began to head towards the source, Kyle keeping up behind me.

Another crash sounded and I saw two small children scrambling to stand back up after crashing into a discarded metal trash can. The two of them were both dressed in scraps and were covered in dirt. They most likely lived on the streets.

The two of them cornered themselves at a dead end and I watched as they turned and began to shake in fear. Was someone chasing them?

A large man began to walk down the alleyway towards the two children. He walked at a leisurely pace, swaying slightly on his feet. A gleam of metal caught my eye and brought my attention to the knife he was holding. The desire for bloodlust radiated off him, bristling the hairs on the back of my neck.

I felt the air beside me change slightly and turned to look at Kyle. He was shivering. With rage. Before I could react, Kyle threw himself over the edge of the building we were on and landed right between the man and the two children. Without a pause, he began to attack the man in a flurry. I had never seen Kyle like this before, and I could only stay frozen in place as I continued to watch him in shock.

I watched as the man managed to dodge all of Kyle's attacks before delivering a kick to Kyle's stomach that knocked him backwards. The man began to walk away and I jumped down as well.

"Kyle?" I asked, helping him sit up.

He had a hand on his stomach and sat up groaning. "Where is he?" He growled.

"What?"

"Why didn't you go after him?" He growled even louder, grabbing my shoulders in anger. His eyes were filled with anger and bloodlust. He was ready to kill.

"Kyle, calm down!" I yelled in his face, trying to snap him out of it.

The two children who were previously cowering in a corner stepped towards Kyle and crouched next to him.

"Mister?" The young girl asked in a timid voice, placing a hand on one of his arms.

"Thank you for saving us." The young boy said, placing a hand on Kyle's other arm.

This seemed to have calmed Kyle down as he released his grip on my shoulders and leaned backwards to look at the two children. He seemed to be at a loss of words before giving a small smile. He placed a hand on both of their heads and ruffled their hair.

"No problem. Be more careful around these areas." He said to them in a soft voice, any traces of anger gone.

"Do you guys have a home?" I asked the two of them.

The girl nodded as the boy replied, "It's pretty close by. We were just out playing when we bumped into that man."

"I see. Be careful on your way home." Kyle said as the two of us stood back up. The two children gave us a large smile before they ran off, making sure to avoid the direction that the man had left in.

"Are you okay?" I asked Kyle, giving him a sideways glance.

He let out a large breath, "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"What happened?" I asked as I made my way back to the roof of the building. Kyle followed behind me but hesitated in his reply.

"It's quite a story." He said eventually.

"We have quite a distance to walk to get back to Sector 3. You might as well just tell me." I said as we got back onto the main streets.

Kyle heaved another heavy breath. "Well, it has something to do why I joined a Syndicate." I shot him another look, telling him to continue as we walked.

"I had two siblings. A younger brother, Kurt, and a younger sister, Abigail. My mother had died after the birth of my sister. A few years later my dad got into a car accident and was paralyzed. He's still in the hospital to this day."

He paused slightly to collect his thoughts.

"I lived alone with my siblings in our house, our neighbors would occasionally come over and help us with things but it was usually just me. I was eight when it happened. Kurt was six and Abby was only three. The three of us were heading home from the convenience store. We lived in Sector three of Rexron at the time, so I thought it would be safe enough to walk at night. I was wrong."

Kyle stopped again and took in a shaky breath.

"At one point, I got knocked out. When I woke up again, I was nailed to a wall with knives along my arms. Kurt was bloody and his limbs were twisted in strange ways but I could still hear his whimpers. And I couldn't see Abby but I could hear her screams."

Kyle's eyes gained a faraway look in them as if he was reliving the moment.

"I remember screaming for Abby. Screaming at Kurt to answer me. Screaming in agony when Kurt stopped moving. When Abby's screaming had disappeared, and my voice was nearly gone. The person behind all of this appeared. He had blood all over him and a sadistic smirk on his face. He approached me and ripped the knives off me and grabbed me by my hair as I fell forwards. He dragged me, screaming and crying, to another room. He chained me down to a table and I saw the bloody corpse of Abby."

"Before anything more was done to me, a Syndicate that was active in Rexron found the place and detained the man. They brought me to a hospital and I stayed there until I was fully healed and I entered the syndicate program right after. The government told me that man was put in jail. But that man just now..."

Kyle trailed off. "Did he escape somehow?" I asked quietly.

"Most likely." Kyle clenched his fists. "Every time I think back to that time, I am filled with regret and rage. Just then when I saw him again, I felt an indescribable urge for revenge and bloodlust. I couldn't stop myself."

Kyle heaved another breath. "Thank you for listening to me though." I gave him a small smile and nodded.

"I think I'll head back home now. I'll see you around sometime." Kyle gave a mock salute and walked in a different direction.

I stood in one spot and watched him walk away before I began to make my way back to the Syndicate management building.

When I got back to the building, I still had some time before my virtual training for that day so I went into my room. I had installed several screens along an empty wall. I started them up and began some research on the criminals that were being kept in Foscario's prisons.

As I did my research, I found out that a few criminals had managed to escape the prisons and were roaming around the different cities of Foscario. I frowned and went through the list. I recognized a few faces as the people I had taken down today. My frown deepened. If our missions were based on this then why didn't they just tell us that criminals had escaped and we had to detain them again?

I shoved that thought aside by thinking it was just for control over the situation since the criminals have spread into different cities as well.

I stopped when I spotted one man. It was the man that we had encountered in the alleyway, and the man that had destroyed Kyle's life.

So, he did escape from prison. I stretched and started up several more screens.

I'll lend Kyle a hand.