Bean and Charlie were still unconscious when we arrived at Jun's safe house. By then, the sunset was upon us.

It was a narrow, three-story townhouse of old English red and large rectangular windows, though it had been barricaded by wood planks and plywood from inside. It had a stone fence and a gate; the driveway was gated, too. Front steps led to the raised level, three or four feet off the ground.

Jun climbed out of the truck and unlocked the driveway gate. He then strode ahead to open the garage doors at the ground level, and there, we hid the vehicle inside. Jun closed it behind us.

I climbed out of the car. "How safe is this?" I asked Jun.

"Safe," he said and walked away toward the door. Alfie and Peter followed after him, dragging Bean and Charlie.

Logan sidled next to me, looking at Jun suspiciously, and then whispered, "Do you trust him?"

"I owe him two now for saving my life."

"Something's off with him."

"A lot of shit went down for him to survive this long. Think of what we went through, and then do it on your own."

"Yeah. I guess so." He looked down on my clothes and frowned. He didn't say anything.

Logan reckoned I wasn't mortally wounded even if I had a gallon of blood all over me and that not all of it came from vectors. He had seen me kill one man right in front of him without a beat, but then again, as I looked into his eyes, I realized he carried the same burden. Had he killed someone as well? It would only make sense. He was in that school with too many armed men.

Without saying anything, I put an arm on his shoulder, letting him know that I understood.

"Oh, by the way, guess what I got?" Logan asked, dropping the subject. He pulled out a crossbow.

Bean's crossbow.

Logan handed it to me. It weighed around seven pounds and twenty-five inches long, and a scope, labeled with a hundred yards optics. It came with a shoulder sling. "He almost shot me with an arrow," I said.

"We got the arrows." Logan held the quiver up with six arrows painted black, but the fetching was in blood red.

"Yeah. It's ours," I said chuckling.

"You know how to use this?"

"Nope. But it can't be that hard. Pull and shoot, right?" I tried to pull the strings back, but they hurt a lot. I let go and flailed my hand out. I had to put it on the ground and used my foot as a holder on the stirrup (the metal bar at the front) while I pulled the string back with both hands. I managed to pull it back on the retention spring and put an arrow on the track. "Wow. That's a bitch to do." It took me seven seconds to do it all. That was too long when a vector was charging you.

Logan laughed. "You kinda struggled there a little."

I slapped him on the shoulder. "Ass."

"What if we get caught out by a horde out there? Oh, let me see." Logan acted like he was taking the crossbow down onto the floor. "I just gotta bend over here while a vector jumps on my back."

"If we want a silent kill, this can be very useful."

"Huh. Never thought of that. We can use it to sneak around, too."

"Maybe. Let's store it for now and keep it close." I handed the crossbow back to him.

"Will do."

"And careful with the trigger. I'd hate to find an arrow lodged on my knee."

"Heh. I'll try."

"Bren?" Peter called out from inside the house. He stepped into the door frame; his eyes narrowed on Logan and I. "What are you two doing?"

"Relax, Gauthier. I'm just showing Bren what I got from the other dude." He pointed at the crossbow.

Peter gave Logan a grim look. "You should be inside," he said to me.

I smiled politely. "We're heading there. Don't worry," I said as I walked toward the door.

"It's my job to worry."

I heard Logan scoffed behind me.

Peter whirled around. "You got a problem?"

"No problem here," Logan said.

Peter didn't let his eyes leave Logan until we narrowed a corner and approached Jun. By then, Logan had moved further off the room.

Though it may look like the house was three-stories high, it was actually five. The first two upper floors had the four bedrooms, the third floor—or the first floor where the porch stairs were connected to—was where the kitchen and the living spaces were, which was also connected to the balcony patio that led to a small back yard below.

The room next to the garage, which was the ground floor, was small and cramped compared to what was above, meant to be a basement, but it had been refurbished into another living room. Glass-sliding doors led to the same back yard surrounded by stone walls. The windows were small and narrow here, propped closer to the ceiling, and a door that led to the actual basement where there were no windows—a perfect place to stow prisoners.

Prisoners? Is that what they are now? I shook my head.

Jun told Alfie and Peter to put Bean and Charlie in the basement since no one could hear them there.

"Do you have a rope?" Peter asked Jun.

"Kitchen. It's the second lower compartment on your left."

Peter went up the stairs and asked me to come with him. I nodded and followed him.

"Logan's a bully, you know," Peter said suddenly as we made it there.

"He's kind of okay now," I said. "Seems like the same old Logan before I came out."

Peter didn't look convinced. "Have you forgotten what he did to you? To us?"

"Of course, I haven't. It's not that easy to forget."

"Then why are you too cozy with him?"

"I wasn't too cozy with him."

"Well you are."

"He's a friend now. I trust him. Back in New York—"

"You look like a..."

I paused. "Like what?"

Peter shook his head. "Never mind. Let's just go find what we came here for."

——

"So, how are we going to do it?" Peter asked after he found the rope.

"I...I don't know."

He studied me for a moment. "Do you want me to do it?"

"No. It's my plan, so I should interrogate them."

"Okay. What's your strategy then?"

"Um, maybe scare them a little?"

Peter stifled a chuckle. "We can play good cop, bad cop. But frankly, I am not very effective in interrogations. We never really learned that kind of thing in West Point since I'm only in my first year."

"We're going blind as it is. I doubt Bean, I mean the older guy, would break easy."

"Why, Bean?"

"It's the name of his dog who I killed."

Peter raised an eyebrow. He must have caught the pang of remorse in my eyes as I slouched my shoulders. "You didn't kill the dog, you know. He allowed that to happen, so you're not at fault. You're innocent."

I narrowed my gaze but thought it wasn't worth arguing over. I had more pressing things to worry about, and if this was Peter's idea of trying to make me feel better, it wasn't really working.

"What did you do to Payne, exactly?" Peter asked.

Oh, that's kind of a long story. I went with the shortest. "I threw him to the vectors and made them chase him. He had to run back to our car if he wants to live."

I was surprised to see Peter grin. "Ah. We can do that. But it's risky with those...um, Alphas, running around, too. You did that on the open road. We can't start shooting when surrounded by buildings where vectors are bound to be hiding and can jump us. We don't even know if there are outposts like the school, so we'll attract the Alphas' attention."

"We'll do it here then, down in the basement."

"How about the kid?" He meant Charlie.

"He's not a kid. He's our age."

"Still the same. Have you seen how he carry that gun? He doesn't know what to do with it."

"You scared him. You were this close to killing him."

Peter shrugged. "He's the enemy."

"Still..."

"Anyway, what of him?"

I mulled it over for a moment. I didn't know who would break first, and this wasn't a normal interrogation. They're rattled enough as it was, and maybe I could use that to our advantage. They would carry expectations, the frightening ones when they didn't know what to make of me. I did kill their friends, and all they managed to do was banged my head and nicked my skin with a bruise or two. They might perceive me now in a particular light after all I had done, probably talked about me in their circle from what I've overheard from the passing patrol, so they definitely had heard of me.

They even called me by name. Ah. The Devil. Maybe I can be one for tonight.

It struck me then that they feared me.

I can use that.

Peter sighed. "In any case, he'll sing like a bird with a couple of his fingers lose. It might make the old man break, too."

I was confused at first why Peter would suggest something so drastic out of the bat. Then I realized we were no longer restrained by laws or what was right or wrong, nor the cops standing by around to exact the justice we sought. It was up to us to find the answers. To my horror, I realized blood had to be drawn if my presence alone didn't frighten them. I wanted to puke.

"We start with Bean. He'll break first," I said, making a final decision. I hoped I was right.

Peter shrugged as if he didn't really care who came first. "Okay. But I have to be in the room with you in case something goes wrong. Maybe put Jun there, too. He seems capable."

"What if we are all there? Large numbers intimidate people."

Peter shook his head. "Alfie will puke at first sight of blood."

"You don't know that. He's strong."

"Trust me. He will. I'll do the peeling anyway..."

"We're not that far in yet."

"If we want answers, we will be."

"Okay. Alfie can be our lookout then. He can watch the street for trouble."

"Good. Also, maybe don't put Logan in the room?"

"Well, if you ask him that, he's more likely to be in there and happy to do it, too."

"That's what I fear."

"But Logan's capable."

"He's trouble."

I sighed. "You always think that."

"You do you, Bren. I'm just trying to help."

"Duly noted. He stays."

Peter was big and burly, and his presence in the room might help. Logan was, too, and having them both in there with me might contrast any of Bean's plans, made him think twice of pulling whatever bullshit he cooked up in his head.

Then, there's Jun, who they no doubt knew about since Jun had been here for more than two months. I had seen how Jun looked at the two unconscious men, his gaze narrowed and focused, and I sometimes thought he would kill them right there in front of me. Jun had been the only adversary of the Alphas in this town and had no qualm about killing them right off the bat. He even made secret paths to go around their patrols for weeks now, dangling his little foot for the fishes, and the Alphas couldn't seem to catch him.

And now two fishes are on Jun's lap. What will he do?

And then there's Charlie. He almost died from Peter's hand, so the boy would definitely remember him once he woke up. Perhaps that could work in our favor, too.

A plan began to form in my head.

——

Bean looked like a mouse: sharp features, mean brown eyes, and a stub nose, littered with scars where I couldn't tell which one began or ended. Some were old, some new. I had knocked two of his front teeth when I slammed the truck's door on him, but I wasn't sorry about it. Though I wouldn't doubt it if he still had a bite in him, and that was what I was expecting when I came into the room. He sat on a chair, still unconscious, head slumped with drool coming out of his partly-opened mouth; saliva landed on his chest.

Jun and Logan were the ones who bound him, wrapping his torso with the rope, tethering him to the chair's backrest, his arms also attached to the armrest, and then his legs were tied by the ankles together. I made sure he would not be able to move. Peter had put a gag of cloth over his mouth.

Night had fallen, and Alfie and I put candles around the basement for light. A little part of me missed electricity. Just the idea of flicking on a switch to illuminate the room jogged my memory of the past. Luckily, Jun had stored his safehouse with four working battery-powered lamps. Without windows to let the natural light in, the basement and its adjacent cellar was pitch black. I already had an idea about what I'm going to use it for.

I said: "Jun. Logan. Bring Bean in the cellar. Have only one candle in there with him already lit. I don't want him to wake up in the dark."

And I have to make sure I'm the first face he'll see.

Logan and Jun did as I asked. They carried a stool in first. They then put the already lit candlestick on top of it, which sat on a small bowl filled half-way with rainwater that Jun had stored days ago. I am already paranoid about what Bean might do, and he could easily knock the thing off and caused a fire. Then again, the cellar didn't have anything flammable, and the few that were had been carried out by Alfie and Peter.

"What about this one?" Peter pointed to the unconscious Charlie, bound and gagged on a chair as well.

"He stays here," I answered.

"Really?"

"Yes. Really."

"We're not going to do anything to him?"

"Oh, we will."

Peter looked around the basement. "Shouldn't we put him in the cellar as well? If he sees Bean crack, he'll break easily."

"I know."

"I can cut him for you. You don't have to do anything. You can do Bean in there while I work on Charlie here. Let me do it," Peter said.

"No. For the last time, it's my ball, and I'm doing it."

Peter threw his hands up. "Then what?"

I paused for a second, taking a breath. "Have you seen Jaws? You know, that shark movie?" Peter nodded. "In its two-hour runtime, the shark never fully showed up until thirty minutes before the end. And yet, it's considered one of the scariest horror movies."

Peter titled his head slightly to the side, and a warm smile crept on his lips. "Ah. I see."

"He doesn't need to see what happens inside the cellar. He already knows."

And a realization crossed Peter's face. "You don't want the answers from Bean, do you? He won't crack. You want this one to break."

I frowned. "Reality cannot beat the wild imaginations of a scared man." And that's what I'm counting on.

——

This is it, my palms turned sweaty, I'm really doing this.

I looked over to where Logan and Peter stood, flanking the door at the opposite corner of the cellar. I pointed out where they should stand, just enough for Bean to realize he and I were not alone. I could already picture what he would see: a single lit candle on a stool, and there, right at the corner of his eyes, two imposing figures hid in the darkness, silent and leering.

"Well, let's get this over with," I said. I flinched, surprised how my voice echoed across the gloom, making it seemed like the void could stretch forever. Good. Charlie will hear us well then. One less thing to worry about. Jun stood outside the cellar, watching over the boy, but I gave him specific instructions not to talk or even touch him. He looked disappointed but carried on anyway.

I took the cloth off Bean's mouth. Then, I grabbed the bowl with the candle and then gently put Bean's arm a couple of inches above the flame, careful not to burn his skin. In ten heartbeats, Bean jolted awake and reeled back, screaming, straining against the binds. The ropes held him still. I put the candle back on top of the stool and turned to Peter. He gave me a curt nod and then knocked softly on the iron door, letting Jun know to wake Charlie up.

Bean shook his head out of a daze, his eyes narrowed on me. I tried to calm my nerves, thinking: I should say something now. I didn't know if he could hear my own heart hammering against my lungs and ribcage, the throb of blood pulsing against my neck, but I kept my lips tightly shut. Bean looked around, blinking, trying to make sense of his surroundings. I steadied my gaze as realization dawned on him.

Bean flicked his eyes to the stool, the candle, the shadows standing at the corner, and then to me. He clenched his jaw. "I know what you want, and I ain't talking shit to you," he said. I didn't expect that. I thought he would be sniveling and begging, but perhaps I was too optimistic.

"You killed my dog."

Yes, I did, I wanted to say. And it tried to kill me.

"We're not talking, you understand? We're a lot stronger. We're survivors. I'm no snitch."

I didn't say anything. Silence came with a specific power, a repressive aura that seemed to seep into you, but I had to be very careful because it sat at a delicate balance. Sometimes it could unnerve someone; others were emboldened to do stupid things.

"Isn't that right?" He looked over his shoulder. He didn't find Charlie there, and a frown deepened. He looked at me, confused. "Where's Charlie?"

I didn't answer.

He paused, studying me in the dim gloom, trying to gouge what remained under my sleeve, trying to imagine what I had in store for him. He looked over my shoulder to the steel door, probably thinking what lay behind it. Where am I? Is he dead? Was he tortured like me? Did I wake up first or after him? How long was I out? Those questions would start swirling in his head.

His lips quivered. "Where is he?"

I flicked my eyes to the side, meant for the door, then back to him again in a single second.

"Where's Charlie?" He asked, now with more venom.

I didn't answer. Let him imagine. Let him visualize it. Let him see.

There, I caught him fidget a little. "What have you done to him, you sick fuck?" He scowled and then bellowed louder, "Where's Charlie?"

I cocked my head slightly to the side without speaking a word. Ah, he's family then. Son? No. Nephew? Could be. A friend's nephew? Maybe. A charge? Definitely. He feels responsible. I recalled how protective he was of the boy when we had barreled onto him with the truck. He got him out of the burning school, leaving his men behind for Charlie. I kept that information, meanwhile making it plainly obvious he had just given me a piece, albeit small.

"Charlie!" Bean screamed. Charlie's muffled shouts echoed through the cellar door, but we had gagged him earlier, so all he shouted were inaudible. I thought of what Jun might be doing with him, but I kept my composure and trusted he would not do anything foolish.

"Charlie! I'm over here!" Bean shouted. More unintelligible answers, but now Bean knew where his friend was, a single wall separating them. I let him have that.

"What have you done to him?"

Silence.

He sighed, shoulders hunched over. "Carl's angry at you, boy. You are way over your goddamned head," he said.

I raised my eyebrow.

"You don't know who he is, but I do, and you killed a lot of his men. It's only a matter of time before he guts you like a fish, and I'm going to watch you die, and I'm going to enjoy it." He spat, but his saliva only managed to land an inch off my foot.

I glanced at the drop of spit and then looked up to him again. I had my hand wrapped around my knife at my side, but he didn't see that.

He started licking his front teeth, and he seethed, "You son of a bitch. You knocked two of my teeth off. I'm gonna knock one