❝how do you kill a monster without becoming one?❞
In the last city ruled by man, fish soar in the skies above and monsters lurk in the alleys below. Ten years ago, Jase lost both his legs and his mother to one such monster. However, tragedy couldn't...
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The night's mission had resulted in only five of the fifteen Agents coming back alive. Kova and Jase had been forced to give a verbal report, where Jase did most of the talking. Of the ten Agents killed that night, three were reported missing. Kova knew they were dead. He'd killed them. To save... Jase.
The reports went passed two hundred hours. Kova managed to drive both him and Huraira back home afterward, where he was met by two hysterical sisters. It was also then that Kova was first informed that Parthēna had been shot.
He'd needed to amputate two of Parthēna's fingers. They'd been basically destroyed by the shot. Parthēna was in a lot of pain and could very well die if she lost any more blood or the wound got infected. Her condition was hardly stable, but there was nothing more Kova could do.
Huraira had also suffered an injury, but the human doctors had taken care of it. The cut was deep, across her right cheek. It would probably scar.
Now, the four of them were sitting at the table. Kova had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, still shivering from the loss of magic. If Kova did something like this again... he might die. He didn't know exactly how much time he had left, but he could feel it slipping away.
Why had he saved Jase?
Closing his eyes, Kova tried to clear his head. Everything was so messed up.
Tamīka slammed her fist down on the table. "How did Red know where we were tonight?" she spat. "Which one of you two told her?"
"I didn't!" Kova cried. Why was it always his fault whenever a plan fell apart because of Red? He hadn't even spoken to Red since she snuck into his room and it wasn't like they were talking about missions.
Tamīka growled, her hands curled into fists. "Whatever. Whatever! Let's just pretend it was just a coincidence that Red knew that we were going to attack that exact location tonight."
"Which it was," Lilja said.
"It most likely was," Huraira said, shifting in her seat. "She was wearing a Stingray uniform which suggests she was pretending to be an Agent. Wasn't there something about how she has weird shape-shifting powers like your stupid cat-rabbit-whatever Sabiya is?"
"Juup!" Kova said. "Exactly!"
"Fine!" Tamīka snapped. "Well, I'm still going to kill both her and Octavious for what they did to Parthēna!"
"We all knew the risks," Lilja said with a sigh. "Octavius didn't know it was her and it's not like Red hasn't done this kind of thing before."
"She has?" Huraira asked.
"Yeah," Lilja said. "Red will grab Smiles whenever humans are around and let them do her dirty work for her." She shook her head. "Red sees humans as monsters so it's like she has something to prove. And since humans will always see us as monsters, they will always shoot."
