As soon as I'm back at the mansion, I feel like I'm already dead. Gunshots are ringing out from inside the house and I wonder who might be receiving those bullets.

I sneak round the back like Chelsea had told me to, feeling my pulse in every part of my body. Every gunshot kills me a little bit more and I don't dare breathe as I round the corner to the back. I bottle up a scream when I see someone else pressed against the wall, only to see Zavier there with guns strapped to him.

"Zavier?" I whisper, approaching him.

He's quick to wrap me in his embrace, as if to tell me that he's relieved that I'm here. Then he pulls away with his hands remaining on my shoulders, and he explains. "The Drakan Thieves have sent a number of their cadets to save Sara, kill us all and take over our group so that they will be invincible. We did offer Sara back in return for a truce, but they just started shooting. Our cadets will be arriving as soon as possible, but for now we need to protect ourselves and hold them back as best as we can." He unstraps a gun from him and hands it to me, and the weight feels unsettlingly familiar in my arms. "I don't know who's dead, or what's going on, or where everybody is, but right now you don't worry about them. You worry about yourself, and you shoot anyone dressed in red."

My breathing is shaky and pressure builds behind my eyes. "But I've never killed anyone before," I say frantically.

Zavier looks exasperated. "Aurora, you have the skill, you have the aim. Now is not the time to think of these as people. They are nothing but animals who have been planning to kill us for weeks and who won't show any ounce of mercy. So you're not going to either."

I'm transported back to when Colby was on the floor and I couldn't kill his attacker. I feel like I'm looking all of the people I care about in the eye and betraying them with my fear. There's no way I'm going to be able to kill anyone. As soon as I look someone in the eyes, they're going to have shot me dead already.

Today's the day I'm going to die.

Zavier disappears before I can say anything else, and I'm left standing with the gun in my hands and my limbs feeling detached from my body. I realise then that I have the chance to run. There's fields upon fields ahead of me and if I kept running and running then I would be far enough from here to survive.

But I can't just leave them. I need to do something, even if that's just shooting someone in the leg before they can plant a bullet through Blake or slicing someone's arm so that Colby has time to run to safety. I've done it before, I can do it again.

I just need to stay numb.

I gulp in as much fresh air as possible, giving myself a few seconds to absorb an infinity of sunlight and the warmth on my face before I never see any of it again. I then duck past the window that looks into a living room, before I'm entering the house.

The gunshots aren't constant. They happen every few seconds, two or three or maybe four of them at a time. It's only moments into stalking through the house that I come across my first dead body and my heart almost sets on fire until I realise that it's a man dressed in red. Not one of ours.

I approach him carefully, keeping the barrel of the gun on his head in case he's playing dead and will soon wake up to ambush me. Though, the amount of blood spreading across the floor around him suggests that that won't be happening, and when I crouch down to take a knife from his harness and my hand accidently brushes against his, the skin is ice cold. He must've been the first one to go.

Stay numb.

I step over his body as if he's simply a rock in the way of my path, and keep moving through the house. A few more gunshots go off and I instinctively duck, but they sound distant. Like they're on the other side of the house. Maybe even in the basement.

Between the gunshots, the house is deafeningly silent. There's nothing. No shouts. No talking. But I'm so caught up in the silence that I don't even realise the person in red standing in front of me until he's shot on the spot, chunks of him splattering onto the floor and walls and his face not resembling a face anymore.

Numb. Stay numb.

Maeve appears from the kitchen, the gun still held up. We make eye contact and nod, before she points back into the kitchen. Making sure there's no one following me, I run in after her. The relief of seeing her alive and intact is almost overwhelming.

"We're fucking screwed, Aurora," she says, breathing heavily. "These guys are everywhere and our cadets are taking their sweet fucking time. Danielle's too busy calling for help to give us any orders, Blake is literally nowhere to be found, and Chelsea's locked and barricaded herself and Posie into her bedroom but there's no one there to help her out. She doesn't even have a gun."

I feels like she's personally tore my heart out at the mention of Blake's absence. He must be dead. I couldn't... he... Blake...

Stay numb.

"Look, the cadets will be here soon enough," I say, my voice not sounding like my voice. "Why don't you stay down here while I go and help with Chelsea? Make sure that no one gets up the stairs and keep them busy until the cadets show up."

I think I see her eyes brighten with tears, before they're gone as soon as I saw them. "Stay safe, Aurora," she whispers. "These people are fucking crazy."

I flinch away my own tears. "I love you, Maeve."

She nods, swallowing the nothing in her throat. "I love you too."

I leave the kitchen with my gun raised. There's no one to be seen, only the dead body of the guy that Maeve had shot, so I decide to make a run for it. I run up the stairs, across corridors, up more stairs, until I'm on the floor where Chelsea's bedroom is located.

My head is spinning by the time I'm outside her door. I'm looking in every direction possible, keeping an eye out for those bright red uniforms, before my knees can barely support me anymore. My back slides down her door and I sit there for what feels like a lifetime.

I knock three times on the door. "Chelsea? It's Aurora," I say quietly. "You're going to be okay now."

I don't really know if any of us will be okay. I don't know when I will be ambushed and killed in seconds before they storm into the room and murder Chelsea and her baby. I don't know if she even hears me. I'm just trying to convince myself because I'm terrified.

I wait for ages, barely blinking as my eyes scan both ends of the corridor. The gunshots are less frequent, now, but they're still there. I don't break my concentration. I don't think about who might be gone. I don't think of my heart exploding or my skin turning to fire when I'm shivering as if I'm ice cold.

A blur of red storms into the corridor on my right. I freeze. I clutch my gun tighter in my hands, internally screaming as the fear eats away at everything. But I can't stay here. He hasn't noticed me but he's coming closer. Closer, closer.

I'm shooting before I even realise I'm shooting.

I'm killing before I even realise I'm killing.

I shoot one, two, three times. There are four gunshots.

Blood spurts out his body as he crumples to the floor, choking and spluttering and twitching.

I decide to put him out of his misery. I shoot a fourth time. He's gone now.

I slide back against the door, covering my hand with my mouth to stop the horrified screams that threaten to escape. My surroundings are a blur of tears.

I can't believe I did that. I can't...

I took away a life.

I need to stay numb... but... I killed someone.

Shit.

A few minutes later, I'm brought back to my horrifying reality when the top of my arm feels like its been set alight. I glance down at it, seeing red seeping through the rip of my dress, and wonder how on earth I didn't notice that the only bullet he had managed to let free had grazed through my skin. But now that I've acknowledged the wound, the flames become more prominent. I whimper in pain, not allowing myself to cry out instead, and, thinking quickly, I tear away a section of my dress and wrap it tightly around the graze. It hurts so much.

The knocking from behind startles me.

"Aurora?" I hear. "Please say you're okay."

I breathe. I need to breathe. "I'm okay," I whisper to Chelsea. "I'm here."

"You can give me the gun," she says, voice muffled by the barrier of the door. "I can take care of it from now on."

"No, it's fine," I lie. "I've got this."

I know she must be uncertain. I'm uncertain, too. But she doesn't say anything in reply, and I don't change my mind.

Besides, I've killed someone now. I can kill another. And another.

Just stay numb.

I'm sat here for so long, the dead body taunting me from only a few feet away, and eventually all my feelings and thoughts seep out of my body. I'm numb, now. It's nice.

I'm glad I am as more people dressed into red run into the corridor.

I kill them all with a round of gunshots before they even realise I'm there. Zavier was right, I have the aim.

More people come running down. They're probably hearing the gunshots. I stand up and I shoot at all of them, knocking them down like dominoes.

I notice that one isn't dead. He stands up, his gun on the floor, grabbing his mangled arm. He's facing away from me. He doesn't notice me stalking up to him like a predator tormenting it's pray. He tries to stay upright, but he's swaying on his feet.

I take the knife from a nearby dead body and use it to slit his throat and drag him to the floor. He chokes and tries to fight off my arms, the fountain of blood covering my hands and landing on my face, before he's dead as soon as I lay his head on the ground.

Numb.

When I'm sat back down outside the door, I count the dead bodies.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

And again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

And again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

I think that's when it hits me. I think that's when I realise what I've done, when I realise what monster I've become. Because the next thing I know, cadets dressed in black are climbing in the stairs with their guns raised, before they lower them when they see me sitting there. Some of them rush to me, a kind looking woman with a strong body and a man with painted fingernails. They talk to me, try to get through to me, but I'm distracted when I see Maeve appear over their shoulders. Then Danielle. Then Zavier and Colby and Jayden and... Blake.

They're alive. They're all alive.

The gunshots have stopped.

We're okay now.

Blake takes the place of the cadets, anchoring me back into the world with strong hands on my shoulders. He soon is helping me to my feet, along with Danielle who both start to guide me somewhere.

We're walking until I see more red enter the corridor.

I stop in my tracks and hold my gun up.

The barrel of the gun pointing directly between Enoch's eyes.