I left The Penthouse and started walking, down the street, through a garden, past a checkpoint. I wondered the city, looking for solitude and seeking human company for comfort at the same time. I finally ended up at my house, the one Ares and I shared.

It was destroyed. My front door was off the hinges, clawed to pieces, and immovable. The inside was worse. Bullet holes, more claw marks, and upturned furniture lie everywhere. I sighed and walked through the house, going out the back door. I continued walking through the open field behind my house that led to the wall surrounding the citie's perimeter. A few hundred feet down my right side, a guard strolled casually in his tower. To my left was a tall tree, one that easily allowed access over the wall. I climbed the tree stealthily, avoiding catching the guards attention. When I reached the top, I wedged myself in a 'V' made by a branch. In one leap, I could make it to the wall's top, but instead, I sat in the tree and watched the sun set in the distance. It reminded me of watching a video thousands of years ago about the sun setting in the Serengeti, one place I never tried to go to in all my lives.

In fact, I never went anywhere or did anything truly noteworthy with all the lives I had been granted. There had been people out there my age curing cancer and building living settlements in space who died because they ran out of lives and couldn't afford new pods and there I was, jumping out of planes without parachutes and drinking myself into oblivion at parties.

I had so many 'friends' back then that I thought I would have died for, and then they all died on me. And my parents. And then I made new acquaintances... who killed me. And then I made an animal friend, who turned out to be the one who killed me from before.

I was and always have been better off alone.

"You gonna kill yourself or runaway?"

"Both" I muttered.

"I was just kidding" Gerry said as he began climbing up my tree. "Damn, this is high" he continued with a nervous tremor in his tone.

"Is it?"

"Yeah, sorry I forget you have no fears" he grumbled, heaving himself onto a brunch level with mine.

"I have many fears"

"I don't believe that for a second. It's almost impossible for you to die"

"Just because I'm not afraid of heights or guns doesn't mean I'm not scared of other things" I explained as light dwindled in front of me.

"In this world, that's the only thing worth being afraid of" he said.

I looked at Gerry, realizing he was capable of philosophical discussions.

"So why didn't you leave? You could jump over the wall, hit the ground, heal, and taken off" he said, eyeballing the distance from our spot to the wall.

"I thought about it"

"But?..."

"But then I decided not to" I shrugged.

"Ah... Boss"

"Excuse me?" I snapped, pinning me with a glare.

"Hey, whoa, don't attack me" Gerry threw his hands up in the air, "I'm just saying, if you stayed, you stayed for him".

"The only reason I would stay for him is so that I could take pleasure in killing him" I said neutrally.

"Hell hath no fury..." Gerry muttered before turning to look at the sunset. When I said nothing, he continued. "Sometimes we forget to look at the beauty before us because things that are ugly are immensely more fascinating to focus on". Gerry's comment immediately made me compare the dry, heinous desertland before me to the multitude of vibrant colors created by the blazing orb in front of us. However, I knew his metaphor was not meant to be applied so literally.

"I decided to stay so I could look Lunkfield in the face and ask him why" I finally said, looking at him.

"Well then let's go ask. He's awake"

___________________

"What's wrong with him?" I whispered.

'We do not know' Mina signed. We were on another sub level I had not been to, one that had a padded glass cell. Through a one way observation window, I saw Rodney Lunkfield, sitting in the corner of the white wash room, covering his head.

"He won't respond to anyone and he lashes out at anyone who tries to get close to him" a soldier informed me.

I looked at Brock, who stood toward the back of the observation room, in the shadows.

I couldn't see his face but I felt his eyes return my glance.

"I want to go in there" I said.

"Absolutely not, when I say he lashes out, I mean he attacks. Like he is still a mountain lion" the soldier continued.

"Then that's perfect" I said, walking to the door and grasping the handle.

The soldier reached out, grasping my elbow, but his touch was brief. I turned and saw Brock's hand on the soldiers shoulder, causing the man to cease his contact.

I opened the door and walked in, shutting it with a click behind me. The room was dead quiet, an odd noise I had not heard in decades.

"Lunkfield?" I said hesitantly. He stilled his shifting and shaking.

"Rodney?" I tried again. Scar crawled into the corner further, but changed the position of his arms so he could see between a crack in his arms.

I slowly reached out and tried to touch his arm, at which he reached out and clawed my arm with rather sharp finger nails.

"Ouch" I murmured, watching the bloody lines heal quickly.

I squatted down and crawled my way to his side. He lashed out again, hitting my left cheek. This time, he made prolonged eye contact with me, trying to withdraw deeper into himself while still looking at me.

"Stop" I said in a neutral tone. When he slashed at me again, I gently grabbed his wrist, making him panic and attempt to scratch me with the other hand. Grabbing that one too, I pinned him to the corner.

"Quit your shit" I said loudly as he began struggling with his full body, "Ares."

The instantaneous stillness of his body made me nervous until I realized he was not just looking at my face, but actually seeing me.

Slowly, he perused my face with his eyes, smelling the air gently. He brought my hand to his nose slowly, then opened his mouth, baring canines slightly sharper than the average human. With a decisive expression, he bit down on my hand, letting a few droplets of my blood fall onto his tongue. The realization that dawned his eyes was encouraging to say the least.

With trusting, knowing eyes, he reached out, touching first my upper arms, then shoulders, and finally the sides of my face.

"Ares" I whispered, feeling so confused.

"Get up Lunkfield" Brock's voice said after the door banged open.

He imediately recoiled into the corner, away from me.

"Seriously?" I snapped. Brock pinned me down with an intense glare.

"What" I recoiled, caught off guard by his intensity.

"This is the man who ruined your life" as if he was chastizing me... like a child.

"Yes he is but..."

"There is no but" he said, grabbing Ares and jamming a syringe into his neck, knocking him out.

___________________

After five hours of fluids, cleaning, and questions, Ares, or now Rodney Lunkfield, began to surface slowly. Brock was being brutal, but Rodney insisted on speaking to me.

Eventually, Brock caved, slamming the door behind him as he placed his body in the darkness.

I opened the door and watched as Rodney's eyes lit up with recognition.

"Katherine" he huffed.

"Rodney" I nodded as I sat down opposite him.

"Don't call me that" he frowned.

"That's your name"

"That's not what you call me" he said, reaching out to me.

"Stop. This is weird" I said, retracting my hand.

He pulled back, obviously hurt.

"You killed me... twice technically. I forgave you for killing me and eating me as a mountain lion, but killing me as a human..." I trailed off, not understanding how he could be wounded when I was the victim here.

"I-I remember that... but almost like I had watched it happen... not that I did it" he said slowly, seeming confused.

Things about him were different than I remember. His eyes were a sharper green, his teeth more pointed, and his movements graceful.

"You lied to me. To Brock. To-"

"Who?" he asked. I could almost imagine his ears twitching curiously, as if he were still my friendly cat.

"Brock... Brittock" I said, correcting myself.

It had been years since I had said it.

"Oh. Yes. I lied. I did. I wanted power and... and... and control. But now I just want to go back. Back to being a mountain lion" he was almost pleading.

"Rodney... how many lives do you have?" I asked, realizing how unstable he was.

He rolled the sleeve of his shirt up to show a '4' printed on his forearm.

"You can't afford to waste another life Rodney" I whispered.

"I can't afford to stay human. When I changed my appearance to a mountain lion, I was a human with all the pluses of being an elite killer. I was vindictive, evil, and powerful. But over time, my human brain started to fade. Things got fuzzier, and soon it was like I had watched all the evil I had done, not committed it. I can't be human. I'm a bad human. Turn me back. Please" he said, grabbing my hand.

"You killed me" I whispered again.

"And then I killed my human soul" he whispered back, slowly lowering his head to our joined hand on the table.
___________________

"Don't touch him" I snarled.

"Move" Brock growled, trying to physically remove me from his path.

"No. And if you try to man-handle me, I will kill you" I threatened.

He glared at me menacingly before grabbing my hand and dragging me out of the room.

"Don't hurt him! Gerry! Gerry!! Don't let them hurt him!" I yelled. I heard Gerry threatening every man in the room with dishonorable discharge if they went into the room. Thank goodness for that man.

"Why do you drag me around like a rag doll?" I snapped as the elevator sped upwards. Brock didn't answer me, only pulled me out of the elevator onto the roof of the building. A warm breeze was blowing, creating a calm scene. Completely opposite of the high strung tension between us.

"Look, he lied. He killed me. But he has also saved me multiple times. People fall prey to situations and fears, makes them act crazy. He's on his last lives, he's twitchy and irrational but as a mountain lion he was intelligent and protective and-"

"Shut... up..." Brock said, arms braced on the railing at the edge of the building, head hanging down.

"Shut up? Shut up?! You drag me all the way up here, don't say a word, treat me like crap, and expect me to be quiet, I-"

"Be quiet so I can speak" he snapped, turning his head partially toward me. I inhaled a deep breath and clamped my mouth shut.

One minute...

Two minutes...

Three minutes...

Right as I was about to say something, I heard the barely audible, deep timbre of his voice over the wind.

"I let you die" he said quietly, "because I believed the lies of that man over your character".

"I can forgive him. If I can, you can. Just let him go back to being a mountain lion. He really is -"

"You can forgive him. You can forgive him but you will not be able to ever forgive me. Why? Why is it so easy to forgive the man who lied and killed you but not me" he said, getting angrier by the second.

"I-" I stuttered, stumbling slightly over what I wanted to say.

"Say my name" he said suddenly, darkly.

"What? Why?" I asked, taking a step slightly to my left.

"Say my name" he repeated.

"... Brock" I answered slowly, remembering what Gerry had told me.

"That is not my name, Little Dove" he whispered angrily.

"Then I'm confused as to what it is" I shot back snidely, not liking his tone.

"Say my name" he growled, grabbing my upper arm.

"I did, it wasn't the answer you wanted" I whispered, afraid of the aura rolling off of him. My back met cold metal as I hit the elevator doors.

He punched the metal panels, leaving a large dent in the surface.

"Say my damn name!" he yelled in my face, eyes a fierce blue.

"Say mine then!" I yelled in return. He backed up a step, caught off guard by my statement. "Yeah, don't think I haven't noticed the fact that you haven't called me by name once since I arrived" I sneered.

"Why have you been calling me Brock?"

"Because you betrayed me, left me alone, then hunted me like an animal" I spat.

"I thought you betrayed me. You evaded me, taunted me, and killed my men, destroying their much needed lives" he said, scanning my face.

"How could you assume the worst of me" I asked, feeling my eyes burn.

"How could you try to starve yourself to death to get away from me?" A new hue of blue lit up in his eyes.

"Because you hate me enough to order a 'Wanted: Dead or Alive' warrant on me" I whispered. He stared at me for a few seconds before stepping toward me again.

"Why did you not defend yourself when I told you how I thought the situation happened?" he pushed, crowding me.

"Because I didn't care what Lunkfield said I did, I cared that you believed him. I cared that you were so easily persuaded to think I hated you and you continued hating me for fifty years after. The way I see it, there is-" but I stopped as he slowly brought his hand to my face.

"Say my name" he asked, almost... almost begging.

"The way I see it, Brittock, you wanted me to be evil and your mind can't be changed" I said quietly, pushing his arm away and turning around, pressing the button to call up the elevator.

The doors slid open shakily, haltingly, and all I could do was wait, hoping will power alone would open the doors faster.

As I stepped into the elevator, I felt the faint touch of finger tips on my elbow.

I turned, halfway in the elevator, halfway out.

"I am sorry, Katherine" he whispered before taking a step back. I backed into the elevator and looked away as the doors slid shut.