Aimee's thoughts and questions drifted away, along with her once powerful hatred for her mother. She was not curious anymore. All she could think about was getting out of that cage, of seeing Stefan again. She did not know whether he'd made it out of AIM, and she was fighting to believe he had, that Gavin had, too. She needed to see them again, and for the moment, that was all she cared about.

The door at the head of the passageway creaked open, almost tantalisingly, as three agents brought in another hostage.

"Get off of me!" she blasted, her French accent leaking into her English for the first time. "I am not chipped, you assholes, you are not putting me in a cage."

It was Celeste, and she was stirring and tugging forcefully to escape the agents' holds, but when she was rid of the grip of one, she was greeted by the grip of another. They pushed her into the jail marked Williams C. and left the room again, without a word or a trace of emotion.

"What a reunion," she muttered, knowing that Aimee was next to her and Abba across from Aimee.

"No kidding."

"Why did they bring you here?" queried Abba.

"Probably something to do with working for you, and then GINM, etc. etc. I'm not a very trustworthy subject. Your building is down, by the way. I saw it collapse with my own eyes."

Abba's face was void of surprise, but laced with woe.

"You actually saw it?" asked Aimee.

She nodded, "I was grabbed just after you and the others, but I got away, at least for a while. I was being shoved into a chopper when the building fell into the sea."

"Enough!"

Abba spoke so quickly it seemed instinctive, like an irrepressible reflex. Aimee glimpsed at her with an emotion that wasn't quite pity, but that she could not label as anything else. It only lasted a second. She turned to the wall that bordered her jail and Celeste's, watching it as if it were not there, as if she could see her.

"What about Gavin and Stefan?"

She could not answer; the words were deafening. A buzzing sound circled in Celeste's head, like the high-pitched aftershock of a grenade's detonation. Aimee crawled to the other end of her cell, closer to Celeste, desperate for an answer – any answer. But she didn't know; she hadn't seen either of them escape AIM. Even when she had tried searching for them, airborne from within the helicopter, she had been scolded and chided by an agent, pulled away from the window.

"We can only hope they're okay, right?" whispered Aimee.

They were used to this: hoping, waiting.

"No, they have to be okay!" Celeste exclaimed.

She threw her head back against the wall, pulled her knees into her chest. Then, she sighted something out the corner of her eye – a hand. Aimee was sitting with her back pressed to her cell wall and her right arm extended through the bars, just lengthy enough for Celeste to reach. At first, Celeste was hesitant, thinking that accepting the gesture was a sign of weakness, but she soon forgot to care. She scooted over to the gate, weaved her arm through it and took Aimee's thoughtful hand.

She repeated, "They have to be okay."

There was little Aimee knew about her, but she knew enough. She knew that she was kind, gentle and sensitive, she knew that she was strong and independent, and she knew that there were many things of which she was afraid, all of this hidden behind a vail of hardness and pseudo apathy. Finally, she let loose the swollen ache within her, her tears. Celeste did not cry – ever – at least, not until then.

With a free hand, Aimee felt into her pants pocket and found her phone. Were Gavin and Stefan alive or dead? Were the rest of their friends still safe? Her parents, had they made it to England? All these questions flourished in her mind and there was a way to have them answered. But she feared the bad news, the possibility that Gavin and Stefan were dead, that her friends would not make it home, that her parents had been discovered before they could catch their flight, or had been in some tragic plane accident. Yes, she truly had the mind of an optimist. She did not want to find out, not over a phone call, but as she listened to Celeste's aching, suffering sobs, felt her hand tremble in hers, she put herself aside.

"I could c–"

The door again: more prisoners. One of them screamed like someone who was facing execution, begging the GINMA to let him go, in broken English, promising to leave AIM and the villainous life it entailed. Aimee could have sworn she saw Abba roll her eyes. Just don't take out my microchip, he said. He understood what was happening. The other man, who was silent and calm, waited for his captor to imprison him.

"Where should I put this one?" his captor queried in a masculine voice; there were four more agents with him.

"I don't know, at the end, maybe," one of them replied, locking away the other prisoner, who was flailing his arms between the bars of his cage, desperate to escape.

"You look so uncivilised," the calm one said, and the other quieted down.

"Who is this guy?" the agent asked his friend.

The agents laughed, but there was something discomforting about him. He was a raven-haired man, of thirty years at most, donned in black and loosely fitted clothes. He had caramel skin and his eyes were deep brown, deep enough to compare to his clothing, however, his eyelashes were an unnatural, bright blonde. He was unlike any man the GINMA had seen, let alone any AIM soldier.

"I found him in the basement."

"Must be one of Abba's pets."

He was locked away in his jail; it was two gates from Celeste and the one furthest from the door. His jailor twirled his keys.

"Shame about Buckley, though, and his son," he uttered on his way back to the group of GINMAs waiting at the exit.

Aimee let go of Celeste's hand and stood up slowly, although, her mind was quick to register his words and they triggered her. And his son, like Stefan was an afterthought.

Aimee and Celeste watched him with undiluted hostility as he walked on, but before he could pass Celeste, she held onto his ankle and tripped him. His face slammed onto the ground and his keys spun into Aimee's cell. She grabbed them hastily and let herself out, throwing the gate into his head so he fell unconscious. The other agents were taken aback, stunned for seconds as they fumbled for their guns. Aimee disarmed the guard on the ground, pointing his gun at his comrades. No one moved, no one fired, as they were under strict orders not to harm her. They were also worried for their own lives. Once Aimee was sure that they would not shoot, she freed Celeste and gave her the gun, which she focused on the agents. Meanwhile, Aimee thought over her next move; she could not leave Abba and the other prisoners there, it was inhumane, at least in her mind. Eventually, she let Eyelashes out, who showed gratitude in a smile, and then Abba – Celeste was too preoccupied to protest.

"After all this, I can't believe I'm letting you go."

"For now," Abba said in a weirdly dreadful and knowledgeable tone, like she knew GINM would hunt her down thereafter, and to the bitter end.

Aimee's face softened as she looked into Abba's forlorn eyes. It was Abba; she could not empathise with her, could she? Maybe she was too kind sometimes, too forgiving, if there was such a thing.

"Give me that," Eyelashes uttered, taking the gun from Celeste's hands.

Without flinching, he pulled the trigger, and the men fell.

Celeste was the only one not too stunned to speak, "What the heck?!"

"Darts," he explained, firing once at the ground. "They're only darts. Like the ones they used in AIM."

He still smiled. It was strange, but at the same time, it reminded Aimee of Finn – his undying ability to be cheerful and turn just about everything into a game. The reminder made her smile, too, but it was faint as with it followed dread, again. The guy could see it in her face.

"Don't worry," he whispered, placing his hand on her shoulder and causing her to jolt, "Summers is still alive. I heard the guards talking about him, and you. You are Aimee, right?"

"Yes. Stefan is alright?" she beamed euphorically and so did he, nodding like an excited toddler. "Then what were they talking about before?" she gestured to the bodies at the door.

Celeste interjected, "What about Gavin?"

The man looked nervous all of a sudden, "Well, I don't know, I'm really not sure, I'm sorry."

"Sylvain."

Abba quieted him down like a puppy. Celeste and Aimee decidedly thought nothing of it as they made their way to the door. The other prisoner started screaming again, begging, and Aimee thought it was only fair that she let him out, too, but before she could turn the cell key, another shot was fired from the gun in Sylvain's hands.

"Okay, and you did that because?" she asked.

"He's not trustworthy."

"Oh, and you are?"

"Please can we just get out of here?" Celeste implored.

Sylvain was not worth her trust either. She saw him as a distraction, a nuisance. She had to know Gavin was alive; there was no time for chitchat and standing around.

"Go, I'll stay with him," offered Abba, her hand on his shoulder.

Her words were almost too tempting – she was practically granting Celeste her wish, but a sudden and apparent fear coursed through Sylvain; the touch of Abba drenched him in it. However, he remained quiet, as if it was a practiced reaction, which led Aimee to believe that Abba was up to something.

"What do you want with him?" she hissed.

"Nothing, Aimee," she sighed, rolling her eyes in the falsely lit space. "He's one of my agents; I have to look out for him."

Somewhere around the middle of that sentence, Celeste began running down the first passage and towards the stairway out. Aimee pretended not to notice.

"You are lying. Since when do you care about anyone besides yourself? You even said they're nothing without their –"

And then it came to her; she eyed Sylvain up and down like he was a chameleon changing colour. Was it possible? Could she take his microchip?

Aimee could not let Abba have immortality again.

Abba snatched the gun from Sylvain's hand in seconds, but Aimee kicked her in the stomach and she fell back before she could pull the trigger. Aimee pulled at Sylvain's arm, trying to get him to leave the room, but his heart told him to stay. It was like he was glued to the floor, despite being fully aware that he probably should have left. When he saw Abba raise that gun, he stood in front of Aimee, shielding the girl he hardly knew, and the darts went rushing. It was a tranquiliser gun; Aimee knew that and she knew he would not die, but what if it wasn't? Would he have thought twice about defending her?

Abba did not stop; she could have emptied that gun at the rate she was going. Sylvain made Aimee hold to his arms, so that he would stay standing even in unconsciousness, which caught up to him in a stampede, dizzying him before taking him over completely.

As Abba got to her feet, Aimee drew towards the exit. It seemed to be further and further with each step. It did not matter to Abba who she shot; Aimee could read it in her dead eyes – all that mattered was the pea-sized chip somewhere in Sylvain's anatomy. She moved slowly, taunting Aimee, firing without pause and forgetting to blink, when suddenly, a new sound thundered over any other – over the squeak of Sylvain's boots dragging on the floor, over the whirr of tranquilising darts, over Aimee's thirsty breaths. And then silence.

This was what the end felt like: a lapse in time, a delayed heartbeat, a fallen breath. Blood slow danced down the bridge of Abba's nose, in a single, clean stream, before she was on the ground.

Gently, Aimee laid Sylvain against a wall, and knelt down beside her mother, barely heeding Celeste's return. There was sorrow in Aimee's eyes, but no tears, as she closed Abba's eyelids with unsteady fingertips. She forgave her.

Aimee forced herself onto her feet, grabbed Sylvain and followed Celeste out of there.

"Do you really have to bring him?" Celeste queried, her voice low and sympathetic for Aimee's sake, but still characteristically sarcastic.

Aimee smiled, throwing Sylvain's other arm over Celeste's shoulder as her answer.

"What made you decide to come back?"

"Well, I realised that leaving you was a pretty dick move."

She smiled again faintly, looked at the gun Celeste was carrying, "Where'd you get that?" They walked through the door, exposing a handful of incapacitated agents sprawled around the room.

"Oh."