His seconds were ticking away. Heavy wet tears flooded his eyes, he stepped forward, and collapsed his head against her shoulder. He cried into her as she wrapped her arms around him. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry you've seen me like this. I'm sorry that I'm not like I was. That I'm ugly again! I sor-"
"Stop it," she choked back her own tears. "You're scaring me!" His knees were weakening beneath him. He was falling, but she held him up by the shoulders. "Do you remember what Baine told us in the watchtower?" she asked. She searched through his hair for his eyes. "He said that we're special. We're weapons, Iggy. You and me. I figured it out. And us, together, we can beat anything!"
The tears evaporated and he suddenly was numb. "I'm dying."
She forced a laugh and shook her head side to side. "That's not possible. You'll be fine!"
He straightened his spine and held the two panels of the black-out blanket apart. "I'm dying."
She glanced down at his bandages. "No. You're not. I won't let that happen."
"This can't be fixed." He wiped the tears from under his eyes, rounded her, and continued on the path back to Aster's house. "I have to go back."
Takeshi followed at a distance. "Iggy," he called to him, dryly, but Iggy paid not a speck of attention to him. "If you could just tell us what you've left… I can help you find whatever you've lost. It's my specialty."
"That's right!" Emi joined. "I have a specialty, too! I found out that I take electricity and use it with my hands! You have an ability, too. I saw it yesterday. How did it come about?"
Iggy marched on.
Emi felt the rejection, but she kept trying. "Aren't you at least a little bit excited? I have so much good news! We have a home to go back to now, Iggy. Did you know that? That there are others looking for us? We're not alone. This man's name is Takeshi-" she grinned appreciatively "-He found me. He's sent from Revpora to find you and me. He's not the only one, either. There's Pater, and-"
"I don't care," Iggy continued on.
She huffed, "at least tell us where we're going!"
Aster and Lot's home towered over the three of them as they stood at the base of the hill. The wind carried the sound of screams. Agony. Screams that were raw and broken as if they had been roaring on since sunset. Panic burned inside of Iggy. He kicked his legs forward with all of his strength and ran up the driveway. He passed Lot's crooked car and noticed the front door was wide open, sharing light with the night, but the screams weren't coming from inside.
Emi darted after him, but Takeshi grabbed her arm and skidded her to a stop before she got out of reach. Consumed with fear, Takeshi's shoulders rattled like jelly. "Please, no," he wished. "Please don't go up there. Please stay here so I can at least cover one of you. Something terrible is happening there."
She glared at Iggy's back as he gained distance. "No," she said, pretending to be brave. "We're all staying together, and since we couldn't stop him, we'll go, too."
Iggy stopped at the edge of the house where the windowed wall met the front wall, and he peeked around the corner. Soft firelight burned behind the house. The logs in the fire pit were big and thick, and the smoke was pouring off of them in the midst of a full fire. Flames lapped at the sky and sent sparks up toward the stars. The smell of ash, smoke, and burning meat was strong in the air. Along the other edge of the house was a garden with a big apple tree and herbs that Becca used on summer and autumn days. Now, someone laid thrashing, kicking, and screaming there, strapped to the tree itself in layers and layers of duct tape.
Lying helplessly beat and bound, Aster spotted Iggy from the distance. Her screams morphed into sobs. "Robert! Let me out, Robert! Bobby boy! My friend. Please, help!"
Iggy tipped toed over the grass and knelt before her. "Where is she?" he whispered.
Aster's face was sopping wet in tears, bruises, and cuts. "Get me out of here. She's crazy! We'll leave her, and we'll make millions of dollars together. You and me. I'll show you how! And I'll be much better of a manager than Lot. I promise! Just get me out of here!"
"Where is she?" he repeated.
"You want her?! She'll kill you!" Aster glared past him into the burning fire. "She'll burn you alive, too!"
Fearing the worst, Iggy traced Aster's line of vision. The fire hadn't been stacked logs set ablaze. He recognized Lot's bald oval head lying on top of his fried thighs, folded in half. The majority of his skin and muscle had been burnt away, but the gnaws and slashes all over his body were so deep that his flesh would have to burn to the bone in order to be hidden.
Weakness devoured Iggy. He fell forward. He caught himself with his palms and dropped his head. "She-" he gasped "-she's OK? She's… alive."
As a witness, Takeshi couldn't bear it. His knees weakened and he covered his eyes. "This is murder," he said mournfully. "Murder!"
A rough dragging noise sounded from the darkness beneath the towering trees. Iggy lifted his chin. He stared through the tall flames. "Becca?" He picked himself up and stepped forward. "Becca?"
Through the fire he saw her. She was still naked and covered in filth. Her breasts were larger, her belly was softer, her hips were finally padded, her body was no longer skin and bones, but soft, curvy, and full, but she was still in filth and uncared for. Thick spirals of dark brown hair hung down to the edge of her blood stained chin. Over her dainty cheeks, there was a bright twinkle of happiness glistening in her eyes that could've been seen from a million miles away. Her eyes were crystal blue gems with a black ring around them, like two symmetrical targets fixated back on him. "Robert!" she called joyously through the fire. Aside from her front teeth, her smile seemed empty. "Do you see who I got here? Do you see what I did?!" Her voice was velvety.
Becca rolled a five foot long branch playfully in her hands. She whipped the branch over her head, swung it through the air loudly, and then crashed it onto Lot's drying corpse, splicing it right down the middle and sending ashes and sparks further around onto the grass following a massive cloud of smoke. The hot yellow flames glowed in her crystal eyes like orange glass. She tilted her head back and howled with laughter.
"One day he's a raging asshole, and the next he's firewood! I wish I could do it all over again!" She retracted and lifted the branch and struck down on the hot burning hill again, splashing hot glowing cinders further out onto the grass. She turned her head and looked at Aster. "Not so much fun just watching anymore, is it?!"
Aster's vengeful squinting eyes widened to full capacity. Silently, she was trembling in terror. "It was your fault that he turned into the man that he was!" Aster screamed. "It has always been your fault! Your smell! Your taste! You were easy!"
Becca's eyes became placid. She released the branch into the fire and slowly shuffled toward Aster. She was extremely weak and still stiff from the change, but nothing, not even herself, could have stopped her. Uneasily, she knelt into the soft earth right in front of her prisoner, and looked into her wet sobbing face. "Tell me, does it hurt to watch, Aster?"
Aster shook her head. "I refuse-"
"Of course it doesn't hurt. That's all you ever did. Just. Watch. It's second nature to you. This time, you'll watch until everything is gone. Pray that the son of a bitch is ashes before sunrise, because I'm doubting he will be."