Alisa all but dropped Becca, running over to where Red now lay unconscious on the ground. "No, damn it!" she yelled, falling into a crouch. "Wake up, you fucking idiot! This is no time to pass out or die!"

An ocean of blood pooled around the boy. "You useless Disney princess wannabe!" Alisa screamed again, slapping him in the face in an attempt to bring him back from Dreamland.

"Li, stop!" Cheng Xin shouted, grabbing her hand before she could hit Red again. "You're not helping!"

"He can't faint now! He'll die if we don't keep moving!"

"He'll die if you keep slapping him," Cheng Xin stated, his tone even. "Calm down, Li. He's injured. You're injured too. We all are. And..." His voice trailed off as his gaze flickered to Becca, who had fallen silent and was staring at them intently with her glowing eyes, her bottom lip trembling. "We're down a person."

Alisa wasn't sure how to feel about Lennox's assumed death. On one hand, he'd been an absolute pig. On the other, he'd sacrificed himself to save all of them. And if it hadn't been for his timely arrow...she would surely have died. Now, they were without the only person who could keep Becca calm. Alisa was tempted to leave her behind.

"We need to keep moving," Alisa insisted.

Cheng Xin's eyes were full of earnest concern. "Please, Li. Let's rest. We haven't slept in...how long has it been?" In Vanguard, time was a foreign concept, one just out of their reach. "We need to tend to your wounds, and Red's too." Jada's wet nose nuzzled Alisa's covered breast softly, as if agreeing with Cheng Xin. Her twin pointed at her arm. "It's split open. You can't go on like this."

Alisa took a few deep breaths. Her brother was right. There was only so long she could keep going before she herself passed out from either blood loss or exhaustion. It would be stupid to continue. "Okay. Okay, we'll stop, but just for a few hours."

She really wished she still had her grandfather's watch with her.

After Cheng Xin tended to her arm and face, she insisted on binding Red's injuries, tying the bandages extra tight in the hopes that he would wake up. He didn't even stir, making her curse. He was in extremely bad shape, his clothes soaked with blood and grime. The coppery tang lingered on her fingers long after she had washed the crimson liquid away. She hated using their precious water supplies like that, but there wasn't any choice.

"You useless fuck," she grumbled as she settled his head in her lap and scrubbed blood off his thigh, more to herself than to the unconcious boy. "Why couldn't you be better at fighting so you could defend yourself?"

"Not everyone has the guts for hand-to-hand combat with robots, Li," Cheng Xin reminded her, dabbing at the claw marks that lined his arms like tally marks. His dark hair was stiff with dirt. Becca, seemingly impervious to any bodily harm, watched them with silent interest. "You punched a freaking metal wolf. That's some crazy courage there."

Her hand still stung. It hadn't been bravery though, not really. She'd punched the wolf more out of panic rather than anything else. Still, she'd saved Red's sorry ass and repaid his favour.

A life for a life. She owed him nothing now.

The throbbing pain in her empty eye socket seemed almost mild in comparison to her other wounds. Her arm burned every time she flexed it. The dozens of marks and bruises littered over her body felt like they had been doused in gasoline. The new gash across her face, layered on top of the old one, stung the worse of all.

She studied Red's face in the pale steel-edged light that the section of the maze they were in provided. He looked like a child, an innocent child, a sweet summer child who'd been ripped away from a sheltered life and tossed out into the real world. His skin was almost snow-white in the soft silver glow. She'd managed to clean most of the blood coating him away, and only now did she realise just how young he appeared. Although he seemed around the same age as her, he looked so much younger.

He's too young to be doing drugs, she thought. And too old to be living a space fantasy. Other than the obvious hallucinations, of course, there were no other signs indicating Red being high on something. She wondered if, perhaps, he was perfectly lucid---but simply had an overactive imagination.

There was no way the skinny boy in her lap was an alien. Aliens didn't exist, after all. Alisa knew that.

Alisa couldn't breathe.

Her eyelids fluttered open to complete darkness. Her heart raced into overdrive, thudding out of her chest as panic reigned dominant within her mind. There was something pressing down on her torso and abdomen---something just heavy enough to cut off most of her air supply.

Sometime during her nightmare-riddled sleep, the maze's pearly light had faded.

"Get...off...me..." she wheezed. For a moment, she wondered if the sleep paralysis demon that often haunted her had come back. It did that sometimes, especially when she was scared. And in the pitch-black maze, she definitely was scared.

But soon, silver irises lit up the dark, and Alisa realised the thing on her was not her resident demon. She would have preferred the sleep paralysis. Becca was straddling her chest, hands pinning her shoulders to the ground. The girl's eyes, staring directly into her face, glowed with radioactive malice.

"Get off me, Becca," Alisa repeated, her voice a breathless gasp, the oxygen sucked out of her lungs from pressure and fear. She was crippled in the dark, and wasn't sure if she would be able to hold her own in a fight. Although Becca seemed weak, she was unpredictable. Alisa didn't know what the girl had up her sleeve.

Know thy enemy.

She didn't.

"Is this about Lennox?" Alisa managed to get out. It had to be about Lennox. Becca had been obviously smitten with him, and having him taken away from her like that...it was probably enough to make anyone mad. "If it's about Lennox, you do know his death wasn't my fault, right?"

Keep calm and keep talking. Don't fall asleep. Her ribs felt like they were slowly being pushed together, caving in on each other. Becca was kneeling, Alisa could tell, the sharp points of her bony knees digging into Alisa's fleshy stomach.

She couldn't see the other girl's expression in the dark. Becca's voice was monotone when she spoke, so unlike her usual emotion-wracked words. "There can only be one winner of Vanguard," she said robotically. "Only one." She pushed down more, the pressure on Alisa's chest increasing. "There can only be one."

Suddenly, Alisa understood.

"We have to, uh, survive it to get out. I...I don't really know much other than that."

"I think we should work together."

Red had lied to her. He'd held back information, and she wasn't sure why. He'd told them that they only had to survive. He didn't mention there could only be one winner---and that the rest would have to die. Whether it was for his own benefit or theirs, she didn't know.

The heels of Becca's palms were slowly pushing her shoulders into the steel floor. The darkness had won the fight with Alisa's mind. She was helpless, afraid, deprived of air. She was giving in to the childhood memories that threatened to devour her whole. Every inch of her body throbbed with pain and exhaustion.The cupboard---it had been suffocating too. Why must you suffer any longer? the little voice inside her head screamed. Just give in. You're going to die anyway.

Her eyelids closed.

Then there was a new memory, a new thought. One of Nina, comforting her after one of her father's belittling insults. Who are you? Nina had asked, eyes full of love and warmth.

I'm Alisa Lee, her fifteen year old self had replied.

Remember that. Remember who you are. You're strong, brave, intelligent, and beautiful. Don't ever let anyone take your identity away from you, Nina had told her.

I am Alisa Lee. I have an IQ of a hundred and forty. I'm the twin sister of Lee Cheng Xin, the daughter of Anna Ong and Lee Swee Leng. I have---had---a stepmother, Nina Kane, and she told me to never forget who I am. I'm brave and strong and smart. I'm not going to let some crazy fucking bitch take me down.

I...I have a brother to live for.

And...I'm in...there's...a boy...

Renewed strength filling her body, Alisa dragged her hands off the ground, trying to move them only from the elbows. Her groping palms found Becca's wrists in the dark and ripped them off her shoulders. At the same time, she stood with some effort, effectively throwing the other girl off her. Becca landed on the hard ground with an audible thud.

She stared down into those glowing silver eyes, the only part she could see of Becca. "I am Alisa Lee," she said. "And you will not kill me."

Becca lunged like some kind of spindly-legged, demonic spider, hands slamming into Alisa's chest and bringing her down again. Alisa's palm shot out frantically, connecting with a ridge of hard bone---and metal. She knew what she'd hit: Red's hip, with the gun tucked safely into his waistband. She'd fallen asleep next to him. She remembered that now.

I'm sorry, Red. She carefully slipped the gun from his waistband, smacking the muzzle into what she assumed was Becca's face. The other girl let out a pained scream, distracted enough for Alisa to push her off once more. Alisa was surprised everyone else hadn't woken up yet.

Becca's nails raked down her bandaged arm, making her bite back a cry. Alisa swung the gun up again, aiming for those glowing eyes. They were perfect targets, beacons in the night. The other girl flew back with another agonised howl. Alisa took her chances, steadying her hand and pulling the trigger. Once, twice, three times. She felt momentarily guilty, since she'd accused Red of wasting bullets, but here she was, doing the very same thing.

She comforted herself with the reminder that she would die if she didn't kill the other girl first.

Becca's glowing eyes went dark, but a liquid-slick hand still grabbed at Alisa's ankle. Alisa blindly fired two more shots, shots that added on to the deafening ringing in her ears and made her fall to her knees in pain. She felt liquid pool beneath her covered thighs. The hand on her ankle finally loosened, and Becca's wails halted.

The sound of anxious barking made its way to her ears. "Alisa? What's wrong?" Cheng Xin's voice called out, laced with the dregs of sleep. "I heard gunshots---"

"It's nothing," Alisa said, her voice extraordinarily loud and trembly over the alarm bells in her head. "Go back to sleep. We'll solve this in the morning...or whatever classifies as morning here." There was some shuffling and a muffled okay. A quiet shush, Jada followed.

Blood clung to her clothes and there was a dead body at her feet, but Alisa couldn't do much about that. Now that the adrenaline rush had faded, the darkness overwhelmed her once more. Her shaky fingers fumbled for her backpack, but only dampened themselves further. She'd dropped the gun at some point. Her ears were still ringing.

"Hey, um, let me..." Hands covered her smaller ones, then recoiled once they felt how bloodied her fingers were. Red's voice was a wavery whisper. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," Alisa hissed back. "It's not my blood. You were awake?"

"I woke up the moment Becca attacked you. I know she's dead." Red sounded scared.

"That means..." The gun. He was awake when I took the gun, and he let me take it. "You let me take your gun...why? I could have shot you. I could have shot all of us and escaped with it."

"I trust you."

Three simple words, but they sent Alisa reeling in shock all the same. Red...Red trusted her. People didn't trust her. She was fierce, dangerous, at times deranged. Still...somehow, Red did.

Her stomach growled. It had been a while since the cardboard sandwiches.

"Are you...hungry?" Red hesitated upon saying the word, as if he wasn't used to it. Without waiting for a reply, his hand left hers. There were some shuffling noises, then he placed something in her palm. Something round and thick. She couldn't quite pinpoint the pored texture of its surface.

"Is this some kind of fruit?"

"An orange. I, uh, someone gave it to me." Water cascaded over her head, making her scowl and blink liquid from her lashes. "You have to clean up and eat something." Alisa wanted to chide him for wasting water, but she couldn't stand the cloying scent of the blood. She figured she would just be grateful.

"Thanks." Her ragged fingernails dug into the orange peel, stripping it away from the flesh. She bit into the fruit with a stifled moan, juice trickling down her chin as she savoured the sweet taste. She remembered the oranges from Nina's garden. The fruit tasted like home.

The ringing in her ears had finally subsided enough for her to think properly. "You lied to me," was all she said.

Red was silent for a while. Then, "I had to."

"Why?"

"I didn't want anyone to die. Looks like that attempt was pretty useless. Why must humans have all this death and animosity between them?" He sounded childlike, wistful. "Why can't we all work together and get along?"

Alisa tore into the sticky pulp. "We're like that. I don't know what fantasy you've been living in, but welcome to the real world, kid."

"I don't like Earth very much," Red proclaimed.

"Neither do I, but it's all we've got."

"Maybe you could come and live on X9-7 instead," he suggested. "It's a nice place. We're quite---"

"You're crazy," Alisa snapped back. "There's no such thing as X9-7, whatever the hell you're talking about. Don't be fucking stupid." That shut Red up, but it was only a few seconds before he started talking again.

"Are you alright? I couldn't see, but it must have been pretty bad if you had to kill her."

"I'm fine. How are you feeling? You got the wolf attack pretty bad. And you passed out like some fucking useless Snow White straight after---"

"Who?"

"You uncultured swine."

"I don't know these mortal customs," Red replied.

"Have you been living under a rock?"

"I've been living on one, technically, since X9-7 is composed entirely of---"

"Let's not start that again." Alisa devoured the last hunks of fruit. She'd tried to pace herself, but her half-hearted effort proved unsuccessful. Her body sang with pain. Her shoulders ached and her limbs stung.

"Do you want a..." Red seemed to fumble for words. "What do you humans call it? Like, you put your arms around the other person and you kind of, uh, hold them."

"A hug, you mean?"

"Whatever you just said, that's probably it. Do you want one? It helps people feel better," he said. Alisa's pulse quickened. She actually wouldn't mind a hug.

Red awkwardly wrapped his arms around her. Alisa pressed her undamaged cheek to his hard chest, his ribs evident to the touch. When he whimpered, she quickly eased off his torso. She'd forgotten about his slightly-crushed ribs. His body, a plane of skin stretched over protruding bones, was warm to her fingertips.

She slowly eased into Red's embrace, gingerly setting her face on his chest again, more gentle this time. When he didn't flinch, she let herself melt into his arms. His heartbeat thrummed like a rushing river to her ear. He felt...alive. How can someone this human be anything else? "Are you scared of me?" she mumbled.

"You survived getting your eye cut out, punched a wolf, and turned the tables on your attacker. How could I not be?" Red answered. He didn't let go of her. She didn't want him to. "But, um, I don't really mind. Sometimes...it's good to be scared."