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"You're right, Vanya," I concede. "I need to get my head back in the game."

"One might say you need to get your head out of the game. Stop killing people for a second and interrogate them. Remember what Oleg said?"

Her question gives me pause, and I replay the events of the day, wincing as I do because those memories contain her… But Vanya's right. Oleg had intimated that I'd upset some important people.

"You think they have something to do with Project Humanitas?"

"Maybe." Vanya shrugs, urging me to pick up a bandage. "But it's worth looking into it."

"You're right," I agree.

Taking some of the gauze, I start wiping the blood from the wound, noting it's not as shallow as I'd previously thought. I clean and disinfect it, but I'll likely need stitches.

"Call Sasha," Vanya tells me, but I just shake my head.

"I got this," I answer, taking a surgical needle and thread. I pull the needle through my skin, stitching the two sides together. My stitches may not be as clean as Sasha's, but they work. After all, who cares if my body becomes even more disfigured than it already is? I'd only cared what one person thought of it and…

I close my eyes, taking a deep breath.

I'd tried so hard not to think of her during this time, but the downsides of having a close to perfect memory is that I can recall in detail all our interactions… the way her skin felt on mine, or how her simple presence calmed me.

This isn't working.

I jab the needle harder into my skin, wishing I could hurt the same way I hurt her. But still nothing. The most I feel is a light caress.

"Vlad?" Vanya calls out to me, and it takes me a moment to react. "Vlad!"

"Yes," I mumble, raising my head to look at her.

"What's wrong with you?" she asks, narrowing her eyes at me.

"I don't know what you mean." I say, quickly finishing up sewing myself back together and putting everything back into its place. Turning my back to Vanya, I concentrate my attention on the pile of bodies at the end of the room.

"You're different," she notes, "there's something different about you."

"V, come on," I feign a chuckle, "I'm the same maniac bastard I was before," I joke, but she doesn't reply. She's just watching me closely, the scrutiny in her gaze a little unnerving.

"I should probably burn the bodies," I say out loud, steering the discussion into comfortable territory.

"It's her, isn't it?" Vanya shrewdly points out, coming to my side and forcing me to answer.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Itisher," she affirms. But just then Maxim enters the room with a cart. He starts piling the bodies inside before going to the furnace to burn them.

"You're not getting rid of me." Vanya follows me around to my room.

"Don't I know that?" I mutter, the irony oddly amusing.

"It's her. That's why you're different."

"Let it go, V. I don't want to talk about it." My voice is weary, and as I open my drawer to take out the sedative, all I can think of is forgetting.

Jabbing the needle in my veins, I can hear Vanya saying more things, calling me out for my behavior, yet as I slowly succumb to peace,herface starts appearing in front of me.

And I finally feel light again.

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