"It's… him."
"I see," Zatch replied shortly after Yonar pointed and forced the words out.
At once, Magnus, the elder brother, buried his face into the table as though the strength had drained from his body in a single breath.
"Out of curiosity," Zatch continued as he approached the one who had been chosen, lowering himself to meet his eyes with an even, composed gaze, "I would like to know why you made such a decision. I pay you handsomely, and you made it quite clear your motivation stemmed from a concealed disdain for me. So tell me, why did you attempt to sell me out?"
Klein answered with a crooked grin, making a futile attempt to wrench himself free from the hands restraining him.
"Erin…"
The name escaped him.
"Am I meant to know who that is?" Zatch asked flatly.
"You don't even have the decency to remember her?!" Klein snarled, his teeth grinding as the table rattled beneath the force of his rage. "She was content with the life she had. She didn't wrong anyone. So why did you have to–"
"Quit while you're ahead," Zatch cut in, a trace of disappointment seeping into his voice. "No matter what you say, I cannot be expected to remember every mistake I've cleaned up and stepped over. You've exhausted my curiosity. I don't know your relationship with the woman you speak of, nor do I care. But is this truly the best reason you could find to throw your life away?"
Klein laughed at that.
"I never valued my life much to begin with when I decided to do this. Truth be told, she barely even knew me. And even though I only recently learned it all traced back to you, I chose, in that moment, to leave a mark you wouldn't be able to ignore, even if it was a small one."
Zatch clicked his tongue, then seized Klein by the hair, forcing his head back and his neck taut.
"To me, it sounds like you were searching for a theatrical death," he said evenly. "If you truly wanted to help her secure a place in my memory, meeting me head-on would have been far more effective."
"Maybe, but I ain't making excuses for something like that. What's done is done, and you sure as hell can't bounce back from this one so easily now can you?"
With that, Zatch retrieved his unforgettable companion. The only one that carried out its purpose without hesitation, and guided its barrel beneath Klein's chin.
"Anything else?"
"Go screw yourself."
"No, sir! Please, wait–!"
Magnus thrashed against the hands pinning him down, pouring every shred of strength he had into pleading on his brother's behalf.
At the same time–
'You've done well, Cadet. Now close your eyes for me. Don't ask questions. That's an order.'
Yonar's attention drifted, pulled back to the words Klein had spoken.
'Cadet! Are you listening to me, or have you gone deaf?!'
What could possibly be worth going this far, just to gain so little?
'You blithering imbecile! Follow my orders, or you'll be discharged!'
No.
Klein hadn't lied.
He said exactly as he felt.
"Sir, I'm begging you, don't do this!"
'Yonar! Shut your eyes, now!'
"Zatch!"
The trigger was pulled swiftly, its sound swallowed beneath Magnus's cry. And in that instant, the lights Yonar had been watching. searching through for even the faintest clue of meaning, went out.
The world lost Klein.
…
His hand itched.
He was never explicitly told to stay away from the stairway that led one level beneath the building, yet the restriction felt quietly understood.
At a moment when every guard happened to be elsewhere, he found himself moving through the lower hallway, uncertain of what he sought.
He knew Magnus had been taken down those stairs without resistance, that much was understandable. After watching his only family die before him, Magnus also had to learn it was all meaningless.
"Fortunately, it only served to pass the time. Why would I tamper with Sky without first planting a few moles of my own? The facility was emptied long before any of that."
That was what Zatch had said, calmly wiping blood from his hands.
Magnus had been spared since he was truly innocent in the matter.
Still, attempting to shoulder blame that was not his could not go unanswered, so imprisonment was deemed sufficient, until his fate was decided.
Even without intending it, coming here alone was reckless. Yet, no one stopped him. Colonel Blanchard was still ignoring him, and both Zatch and Anne were occupied elsewhere.
In hindsight, it marked the first time Yonar had moved without being directed beforehand.
Not because he wasn't allowed to.
In fact, his movements were never restricted, never monitored. Zatch's men neither barred his entry nor questioned his presence. He could usually enter, leave, or remain anywhere as he chose.
He passed nearly a dozen cells, ignoring the eyes that followed him through the bars, until he noticed a familiar configuration of lights.
Using a master key card he had conveniently found atop a bar counter along the way, he opened the door to Magnus's cell.
"So… what's this supposed to be, huh?"
Magnus lifted his head toward the child who had stepped into his cell.
"And where's that creepy-ass doll you're always dragging around?"
The child had no answer for either question. He only stared at Magnus, the words he meant to speak refusing to surface.
"Is this some act of pity after getting my brother killed?" Magnus asked. "If so, don't worry about it. I don't blame you."
He rose to his feet.
"You were just following your old man's orders, right? Still, it'd be damn ironic for the seed of that gutless bastard to grow a conscience."
Yonar looked up at him as the man's shadow swallowed his small frame whole. His right hand still itched.
Only then did it strike him. At the moment that mattered most, he had forgotten what he came down here for. The question that had gnawed at him the entire way.
He tried to grasp it again, even as Magnus's hand closed around his neck and lifted him against the iron bars of the cell.
"It's nothing personal, kid. I just need to be a little petty, just this once. A life for a life, you know?"
The act wasn't strong enough to kill him outright, nor to instantly cause significant damage. Magnus's body no longer had the strength to do what his intent demanded. Still, it was enough to cut off Yonar's breath.
"I'm sorry. Maybe, with more time, you could've fallen far from the tree. But I can't let my chance to pay him back slip away."
He tried to explain himself, but with his thoughts blurring, Yonar couldn't grasp a single word. He couldn't even notice that the lights before him remained stagnant.
Then, just as before, It happened.
A click sounded from beyond the bars.
The lights went out instantly.
Annabeth's timing was almost laughable.
"Sorry about that," she said. "But for the sake of your father's lesson, I had to take my sweet time."
She stepped into the cell without urgency, even as Yonar collapsed to the floor, gasping and clawing air back into his lungs.
"I had my doubts you'd genuinely attempt something like this," she continued, crouching down. "And I'd very much like to know why. Still, he asked me to tell you that he isn't angry. This was foreseen. And you're expected to have learned how to weigh the margin between net gain and loss in your decisions from now on."
The child did not answer. He didn't look at her.
He sat there, blood-stained, head lowered, eyes fixed on the lifeless body before him, and scratching the palm off his hand.
"With that settled," Annabeth added, "from me, personally… how about a bath?"
…
She wasn't particularly gentle, and as he sat before her while she scrubbed his hair clean, he could feel a few strands being pulled free from his scalp.
"This is frustrating," Anne muttered. "Come to think of it, you've been doing this on your own all this time. You're a pretty clever child, aren't you?"
She rinsed the soap from Yonar's hair with little care, angling the shower head over him.
"By the way, aren't you supposed to be able to talk now?" she added. "Or was that only for daddy dearest–ah, sorry…"
She noticed too late that the stream was drowning his face.
After that, she abandoned the task entirely and left the rest to him.
"So… is something bothering you?" she asked. "You haven't been staring like you usually do. Or are you just being polite for once?"
"..."
"Oh. If you're wondering why I'm still wearing my glasses in the bath, it's because my vision gets even worse than usual when I take them off." She paused. "Probably because the prescription's too strong. Or something like that."
"..."
"Well, how about you tell me something about yourself?"
"..."
"Like… those yellow streaks in your hair. Are they natural? If they are, what kind of genetics even cause that?"
"..."
"Maybe Zatch got struck by lightning down there or something," she snickered. "Ah–but don't tell him I said that–"
"Killing… dying…"
She was cut off.
"...what does it mean?"
The question left a long, unsettling silence in its wake. She didn't answer. She found herself unable to, especially as she noticed his shoulders beginning to tremble at uneven intervals.
"It's just raining," she said suddenly.
The abruptness made him lift his head.
"That's what I used to say whenever I wanted to cry as a kid," she continued, pulling him closer and guiding his head against her chest.
"I don't know what they mean either. At least… not on their own."
She took his right hand and rested it in her palm.
"But for some of us, they're tools," she said. "Tools tied to survival. To what we pursue."
"Tools…"
Scratch marks, redness, and raw patches lined the skin of his hand. She traced over them gently with her fingers.
"All I know for certain," she went on, "is that ideas like good and evil tend to fall apart the moment our peace comes from another person's absence."
There was no clear tone behind her words. And even as she spoke, it didn't feel like she was trying to shape his thoughts.
"Besides," she added, "death never shows its true face while you're still sheltered by living. So really… is there much use in dwelling on it?"
…
On the floor of his room, he clutched the Colonel, staring into nothing but the endless depths of his mind.
His hand itched still, but eventually, he managed to ignore it.
Then, without expecting any response, he asked another question.
"It was our fault, wasn't it? We are the reason those people… died."
'…yes.'
A reply finally came from the Colonel.
"If we had tried, we could have stopped them from dying."
'…I don't know.'
For the first time, the Colonel admitted ignorance.
"Mom… is dead, isn't she? Just like them." Yonar pressed. "She's never coming back."
'…yes…'
"And it was… because of me, wasn't it?" he concluded.
'…'
The Colonel remained silent.
"It was! Wasn't it?!" Yonar demanded "Mom died because I was alive, right?"
'…I don't know…'
Finally, the Colonel answered.
The rain continued through the night, hammering the room, swallowed by questions no child should be able to form, yet they spilled from him in bulk.
Of course they did.
Afterall, Yonar "...is a genius…".
But with no one to answer him, almost nothing about his life changed.
Almost nothing, except that night marked the last time he heard from the Colonel, until he turned twelve.
It was a sunny day outside when a single tear fractured the air of the office, and through it stepped a man, a four-clawed hook for a hand.