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“ Boo! ” the cameraman yelled, and Elliott jumped violently. Niko had never been so infuriated at anyone in his life. Not even his family’s killers. Not even Uru Taal.

Elliott recovered quickly though, lining up his shot again. Niko could read the determination in him, the willful, meditative calm in spite of everything happening around him. He stayed like that a long while in silence, then pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Both Duuru and the Heenva howled in laughter.

“Safety’s on, you dumb idiot,” Duuru said.

“Hah, yeah, Honeybliss’ll love this shit,” the Heenva said.

Cleo let out a soft sob, her slim shoulders shaking. “I love you, Ellie,” she said. Her voice broke on the words.

Elliott was trembling so badly now that he seemed barely able to hold himself together.

It was quite apparent he’d never utilized—nor even been near—a gun before this.

He examined the thing in silence until he found the safety selector and switched it off.

Then he readied himself again, lining up his single, pivotal shot that would send his sister home—if Uru Taal and his piece of shit friends were to be believed.

He stayed like that, everyone around him silent now as the seconds ticked by.

Elliott fired.

The ring hung, untouched, on the wall.

A spot of deep crimson bloomed quickly across Cleo’s chest. She discharged a choking cough and wet gasp, blood dribbling down her chin. Then she slumped forward slowly into herself, head hanging, her entire tattered shirt stained red now.

It was too much. It was all too much. Niko’s body was numb with horror, with agony.

The sounds that came from Elliott were animalistic.

He lost himself. He turned the gun on Uru Taal and fired, but it was empty, as he’d been warned.

Then he flipped it in his hands and struck the Toliai with the stock as hard as he could, driving the metal down against Uru’s scaled hide.

If Uru had been a human, it would have been hard enough to kill him instantly, hard enough to crush bone.

But he wasn’t, and it did nothing.

Uru easily wrenched the rifle from the hysterical man hard enough to spin him, then knocked him clean to the ground with it, the blow landing hard on his right shoulder blade. Exactly where that single, deep old scar still was.

All the while, Duuru Orkan and the Heenva laughed. They were having the time of their lives.

The video ended.

Niko found him in their bedroom, lying on his side, eyes closed and earbuds in.

Even from across the room, he could hear the glittering pop music and lilting voices.

He wheeled to the open side of the bed and pulled himself onto it from the chair, then laid down beside Elliott.

Niko reached out to touch him on the back and he flinched.

He pulled his hand back, a caustic mixture of barely controlled rage and sorrow flooding him.

Niko wanted to destroy everyone responsible, everyone involved.

To know how much they’d hurt Elliott was unbearable.

It had taken everything within him to force himself to calm down enough to seek Elliott out to talk.

The other man’s well-being trumped any sort of violent penchant Niko had for exacting revenge on his tormentors.

Niko merely stayed with him, lying on his side as he stared at Elliott’s slender back. He watched the rise and fall of his breathing and found he’d begun to time his own breaths to match Elliott’s.

After several moments, Elliott stopped the music, the gentle, tinny sound of it abruptly falling silent. Then he pulled the earbuds out and set them on the bedside table. He lay there, still not turning to face Niko.

“Hey,” Niko said, voice quieted to barely a murmur.

Elliott was reticent a moment before speaking, his silence heavy and deep and full of swimming, restless behemoths. “I thought you knew. All this time. I thought you knew. I thought you’d watched it.”

Niko ached. “I’m sorry, babe. I watched everything else. I didn’t want to see that happen to her, though. Knowing what she’d meant to you. I thought I had an idea of how it went. I’m so sorry. I've seen it now.”

“Now you know,” Elliott said simply. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Do?” Niko asked, shifting on the bed. It creaked beneath his weight.

Elliott said nothing, so Niko spoke again. “I’d really like to hand those utter shitstains their own assholes, if you’re asking.”

“No,” Elliott said. “Are you going to leave?”

Niko blinked. “What? Why would I leave?”

“Liam left.”

Niko remembered the subtle downturn of Elliott’s mouth upon reaching his ex-boyfriend's interview in Zann’s files, the way it had been the only thing to crack his carefully blank veneer.

Elliott was a piece of shit, yeah, Liam had gladly offered up.

Another asshole to add to the list of people Niko wanted to feed their own teeth. Everyone in Elliott's life had truly forsaken him. Everyone except the fiercely loving sister who he'd been forced to kill.

And Niko.

“Well, I’m not Liam. And I’m not going anywhere, Elliott.”

Niko watched his shoulders and back untense, sagging as he let out a long breath. Elliott turned over in bed to face him, finally. The unspoken pain in his eyes drove Niko wild with the need to try and fix it for him, to take all his suffering away.

“Hey there,” Niko said again instead, giving him a sad smile. He tentatively reached out and brushed his hand against Elliott’s pale brow, and the other man closed his eyes again, though only briefly.

"You told me you thought I killed her, back on Uula," Elliott said. "You asked why I'd kill my sister." His voice sounded hollow, far away.

Niko winced. He looked away instinctively, shame thick as molten lead searing through him now. He'd taunted Elliott with it all once, trying to goad him out of hiding. He’d intentionally tried to injure him with it.

He had to look this in the eyes. He had to look Elliott in the eyes. He forced himself to meet his gaze again, to meet and accept the pain he'd caused that hung deep and wounded in Elliott's sea of green.

"I know, " Niko said, swallowing. "I did. And I'm sorry. It was different then and I—I thought you were someone you're not."

"But you were right, " Elliott said. "I k—" He choked on the word.

"You don't have to say it, Elliott," Niko said gently.

It only seemed to summon a renewed, spiteful fight within the other man. Niko could see as he wrestled himself to work the words out. "I killed my sister."

“It wasn’t you,” Niko said. “They—”

“It was ,” Elliott spat, cutting him off. He drew sharply into himself, wrapping an arm around his own waist. Niko could see he was rapidly descending down into the inwardly destructive self-hatred he had seen take over before.

He needed to stop it before it got worse.

Niko reached out and gently took his hands.

Elliott flinched again at the touch, but Niko held on firmly now, rubbing his thumbs into Elliott’s palms. His hands were cool and clammy, a reflection of the agonizing anxiety he must have been enduring. They shook in Niko’s grip.

“Listen to me, Elliott. It wasn’t you. It was them. You may have had to pull the trigger, but it was their game all along that they’d forced you both into. They knew what they were doing from the start. They knew how it would end, too.”

He seemed to be getting through. Elliott closed his eyes for a moment. Niko saw him draw in a deep breath, and then another, before opening them again. When he spoke, it was without the icy edge that had begun to creep in. He sounded, now, worn down. “I know. I know that. I tell myself that a lot.”

“It’s not your fault, Elliott,” Niko said again. “And I know Cleo wouldn’t think so, either. The last thing she ever said was that she loved you.”

A brief, wounded sound escaped Elliott’s throat, before he clamped down tightly on that lid again.

“You were just as much a victim as she was,” Niko continued.

“As anyone in those files was.” The heavy, horrific realization of it made Niko nauseous and enraged.

He couldn’t handle it. It was too much, knowing all along Elliott had suffered just as all the lost souls captured in those haunted videos and images did.

All this time, he’d been among their ranks, had suffered directly at the hands of Honeybliss.

Every video he'd had to collect and see must have been a special kind of hell, reliving his own trauma again and again through them. It hadn’t ever just been Cleo.

It had been both of them there, together.

But Elliott had been the only one to make it back out alive.

Niko’s heart began racing at the mere thought of it.

All along, Elliott had championed the victims of Honeybliss. He’d compiled meticulous files, had researched and organized. He’d named every victim and every tormentor. He’d said he was doing this for them. For his sister.

But he’d quietly erased himself, passing over the misery that he had undoubtedly endured. There were no files labeled Elliott Kestrel . His presence was merely a recorded accessory to show the fate of Cleo. It made Niko ache in a way he’d never encountered before.

Every other person who had been taken by Honeybliss had died—or had been destroyed inside, ground down into ruin. Elliott was the sole survivor, a revenant out to avenge the silenced.

“Elliott,” Niko began haltingly. He reached up and stroked at Elliott’s cheek. “How did you get away from them? Everyone else—”