We turned to go, crossing the empty space around the fountain. Just before entering the rows of grapevines, Aden stopped short and her hand flew to her mouth. I squinted in the direction she was looking, making out a dark shape on the path in front of us. A body. My stomach lurched in protest as I held up the pen light, the beam skittered wildly as my hand shook, and I had to clamp my other hand down on top of it to get myself to stay still. It was Beefcake, or at least, it had been. He was lying on his back in the middle of the pathway, one leg twisted so badly that his toes pointed the wrong way. His arms were flung out across the path, as if he'd been trying to fly someplace and fell out of the sky before he could get there. Beefcake's neck was at an unnatural angel and his blue eyes were open and staring directly at me. It made me want to scream like a little girl and hightail it back the other way, but I remained frozen where I stood.

"He was keeping watch on the widow's walk," Aden croaked. She glanced back at the church, and the realization of what she was saying made my eyes bulge. He'd been thrown here. Someone had the strength to fling Beefcake hundreds of feet through the air and he'd landed right here.

"Holy shit," I squeaked out, "Oh my God." I staggered backwards, turned away with my hand over my mouth, trying to force my heaving stomach into calmness. 

Gravel crunched behind me, Aden's voice was shaky. "Come on, don't look. We have to go hide."

"Oh shit," I gasped, trying to keep my eyes straight ahead as we stepped around the broken man on the ground. "Oh shit." The vineyard blurred around me. It didn't matter if I cried in front of Aden. I didn't care anymore. "He – he was..." I'm not sure what I'd been about to say, at that moment we both caught sight of a flashlight beam sweeping the grapevines behind us. The deep murmur of men's voices was growing steadily louder.

"Go!" Aden hissed at me. We darted off the path, and I followed her through the criss -crossed intersections of vines. "If we can get to the forest on the other side, we'll have a better chance of staying hidden," she panted.

"Right," I looked over my shoulder to see how far away our pursuers were, which is when my shins wacked into something solid and I pitched forward with a grunt of surprise, landing face first in the dirt.

"Lucas? Are you-" Aden's voice cut off sharply, and I looked up to tell her I was alright. She was standing very still, her face pale in the beam of light that shone over the tops of grape vines.

"There's the girl," a man's voice shouted, and Aden poked me in the stomach with her shoe without looking down at me. "Stay down."

"No!" I started to reach for her, but she was already running. Running away from me, the flashlight beam bouncing around the vineyard as it tracked her progress. I could hear the men shouting, their thudding footsteps as they chased her. "Damnit!" I scrambled to my feet. I was done letting her save me. She was not going to sacrifice herself for me now. I'm the one that should be doing that. I'm the one who should protect her! 

 I ran down the narrow corridor of vines and out onto the pathway toward the sounds of the men shouting, toward the sweeping lights. In the dark I slammed into someone on the path, someone who grabbed me, wrapping their arms around me in an iron embrace. 

Sloan's voice was amused, his breath hot in my ear. "There you are, Lucas."

I stiffened, trying to struggle out of his grip, but he had a firm hold on me. Several more men in dark suits stepped out of the surrounding grapevine. Two of them had Aden by the arms, she looked sullen and out of breath, her hair a tangled mess. One of the men was walking with a limp and another stood far apart glaring at her, cradling his arm. She'd obviously fought hard. Had they known where we were the entire time?

"You really like this men in black thing, huh?" I grunted.

"Pop culture references," Sloan chuckled. "How very amusing."

I shrugged, squaring my shoulders, determined not to look like a coward in front of Aden. "Yeah, well, best I got." I was desperately straining my ears, hoping to hear people running down the pathway. Amazon, Tattoo Guy...anyone. It couldn't possibly just be Aden and I against Sloan and three men. That wouldn't be fair.

Aden glared around at the men. "Come on, Sloan. Just accept the inevitable. The switch is just minutes away. It's going to happen automatically, no matter what you do."

"Ah, well, you never know." Sloan shrugged. "This has never been tried before. It very well may work. I kill him just moments before, and Abbadon has no time to choose a replacement."

"So that's why you've been waiting so long to attack," I tried to make my voice casual, to match his, "I just thought you were a coward."

He pretended to be offended. "Manners, Lucas. Honestly! Well, anyhow, now Abbadon can't do anything to help you. I hear he's very busy."

"You killed thousands of people," Aden said, her voice shaking. "You greedy, selfish bastard!"

"Goodness," Sloan chuckled, close to my ear again. His breath was unpleasant and hot. "Let's not go slinging unkind names about. You might say something you'll regret later."

"Your plan is flawed anyways," Aden snapped. "So it's all been in vain. Even if you found loop holes in the contract..."

Sloan barked with laughter, and I grimaced as flecks of his spit hit my neck. "The contract! You really believe I'm bound by such an archaic piece of garbage? I'm God."

"The third fate will..."

Sloan actually threw back his head as he laughed this time. "You really believe in the third fate?" he said mockingly. "Oooh! The mystical third fate that secretly runs everything. Please, spare me that old bedtime story. Be good or the boogie man will get you." Sloan shifted, and I felt cold metal press against my neck. 

From the horrified look on Aden's face I guessed he'd pulled a gun. "Spare me your pathetic threats and warnings. No one controls me. I intend to continue on as I always have. And now, let's get on with this." He pressed the gun harder against the side of my neck, sending a jolt of electric panic through my body. I was going to die.

This seemed all wrong. I'm not sure what I'd been expecting him to use, holy lightening? Or maybe I'd thought the earth itself would swallow me up, or some kind of plague. But no, God was going to shoot me? It was because he was human. I remembered what Morgan had said ages ago. "It means he bleeds". He wasn't so scary, he was just as human as me. I began to ready myself to attack him. That was the plan. He would say other macho monologue type stuff, and then I would kick him in the crotch or something, and when he fell over Aden would tackle him and take his legs out and then she and I would run away to Brazil and live in the rainforest or something.

But Sloan didn't monologue. He didn't even cock the hammer and give me time to hit the dirt. He just squeezed the trigger.