The boy woke with a start; blood on his hands and sweat on his brow but a second glance revealed no crimson dribbling down his fingers—only a blurred vision, obscured by the tears that had welled up in his eyes from the awful scare.

Io sat up, drying his eyes with the back of his sleeve before taking in his surroundings. He recalled going to sleep before sundown, having insisted on taking a nap at a resting point and slowing down the general pace of the group. All he had to do was wait for someone to follow his trail, but now that he had, indeed, seen someone follow his trail and fall in the process of doing so...he wasn't too certain of any course of action at all.

Luna?

Yes? Her whisper came almost at once, as though she had been waiting for him to ask. She anticipated his question of reality; of the fearful sight that they, together, had seen.

Why do I have these dreams? He asked quietly, surprising, even, his Avian herself. Dreams of the future and now, the past. Is that what I have? Fore and hindsight of magnitudes greater than anyone else? The greater heights that Luna had awakened within him overwhelmed his fragile soul, and drowned the rampant mind that he never could control.

Even so, what is the use of sight when there is a lack of an ability to act? He cried softly, knees to his chest, head bowed and alone. Perhaps that is the point. Perhaps no one will ever see what I see, and I shall remain alone in this knowledge—bear its responsibility and burden alone. Do you think I was supposed to see that? If I never did, would Slayne have died? Does one require perception to exist?

Did Slayne die alone? What was he thinking as he closed his eyes?

Luna landed by the creak, watching her reflection in the water as it splashed over rock and sediment.

Did he think about the people he'd left behind? Did he struggle? Was it short? What do I DO WHEN SOMEONE IS DEAD? WHO SHOULD I TELL? WHAT DO I DO?

The final question weighed on his cage and all that was within but there was one—one sole question that weighed even more than he could conceive. It was loud and frightening, and the night felt to him, screaming.

Was it because of me?

*

The raven woke to the quiet sound of sobbing.

Her eyes squinted in the dark as she grabbed the handle of the kerosene lamp to her right and held it over Iolani Tori's sleeping bag on the left. By accident, the lamp hit his head with a dull thump.

"Oh fuck," she let slip, placing it aside; not knowing what to do. She hadn't expected to see him—out of every other prey she'd known—shed a tear, let alone cry while hugging his knees. To her, the boy was thick-skinned, stubborn, naively full of himself and blindly idealistic, which explained every bit of her opinion when it came to him.

The raven nudged his arm; and when she received no response, shook his shoulder.

His head rose. Something weighed on his mind and it made his neck sore from the unwieldiness of it all. Being light-headed was one thing, but heavy-headed was an entirely different matter. His eyes were slow to focus.

Yes?

She jumped, several inches backward, and whipped around to see if there was anyone else who could invade her Link. There wasn't. She turned back to the sparrow before her eyes. The sparrow; he did not look himself.

What originally appeared to her as a pair of boring brown eyes had turned awry and disturbing. Although the boy's left eye remained the shade she was familiar with, his right was drained of colour—or perhaps more accurately put, filled with what seemed like liquid moon.

The colour frightened her briefly, leaving her mouth agape and eyes affixed on the sparrow's oddity. He returned her stare.

Skies, what happened to your eye? She thought unconsciously, not at all expecting him to hear; let alone, reply.

Why? Is it white? He laughed shortly, almost breathless. The boy sounded tired in her mind and for a moment, she could not seem to associate the voice and its owner. They seemed to her entirely apart, unrelated and of a different body completely.

Yes, it...it is. She swallowed, unzipping her sleeping bag and turning to hold the lamp closer to Io's face. How are you in my mind? I didn't let you in and that aside, you're...prey. She left the word hanging, brows furrowed in confusion.

Io looked away, gazing through the slit in the tent's entrance that flapped every now and then. Somehow, he was aware of what lay beyond. He wondered if having just one of the Hearts remain in the tent was a form of belittlement. Shifting now would make for a timely escape.

I remember you, he tilted his head to look at the raven, observing her confusion and appreciating the emotion. You were attracted by my scent when I was in heat, he recalled with a smile. Luka was there, too. And now that I'm thinking about it, I should be thanking you.

Her frown deepened for a fraction of a second before she shook her head and narrowed her eyes. No one would be in the right mind to thank—

If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have seen that side of someone important to me, or realized what I thought of him. If it wasn't for you, I would have let him take me. I would regret that, I would. Oddly enough, I can imagine Luka and I having sex. Do you think it's because he was around, back then? Why is it that imagining people having sex seems easier than imagining them dead? Is it because humans are more aware of their sexuality than their mortality?

Why is it that I cannot imagine myself dying when the prospect of that is equally likely?

He closed his eyes and rested his chin on his knees, cold. Why is it so hard to accept that humans are so fleeting?

The raven looked at him with eyes that regarded a foreign entity unbeknownst to the rest of the island. This person was abnormal. This sparrow was...unlike the many other sparrows she had seen.

And if I were to tell you that every other sparrow is just as odd and different as I am? That they were not who you thought they were? He smiled sadly upon listening to her thoughts. That everyone, in this world, is unlike what you think of them?

She could not bear listening to him any longer. In fact, the raven could not bear sitting beside him, in the same tent, in the same space, on the same ground, same island—even in the same world, she could not accept the possibility of such a character's existence.

Who are you?

*

The eagle soared altitudes above the treetops, surveying every movement he witnessed and feeling quite as though he was part of a hunt. He'd once thought nothing mattered except the hunt. Sinking his claws into a rabbit or a snake—feeding on its flesh for survival—was of greatest importance. The first time he'd done it with Victoria, he could not conceive himself going beyond basic survival.

But now, he was wrought with Purpose. There was a reason for his existence that guided every decision.

Everything boiled down to a single purpose. Revealing what it was in the form of words was not necessary for knowledge; that everyone around him knew his reason for being alive, beyond formal survival of merely scraping past, Luka could be deemed as relatively easy to figure out once this was clear.

He could hear the wings of the creature in his cage, urgent. It was how Iolani Tori always made him feel—unless he was around. When he was around, the creature was quiet. It was silent; refusing to make a sound that would interrupt the other only to realize that in the absence of its restlessness, the creature was loud.

Luka, his Avian interrupted, taking control for an instant. It was like driving a plane, flight in the Avian form was, and Victoria was the co-pilot. Do you smell it?

Their field of vision narrowed to a select area, identifying a strange scent that came from its general direction. He knew, perfectly, what sort of scent it was—more precisely put, it was a stench.

Flesh.

Diving down, they headed for a clearing that would easily act as a starting point of their search but it was upon landing that Luka discovered there was no need for one. He turned his head in the direction of the smell. The still body lay atop a bed of undergrowth.

"Castor?"

Victoria urged him to close the distance. Is this real? He looks...

Dead.

_______________________

You're strangely mindful of the little things. Weaker than I imagined you to be. It had been nearly an hour since they've started walking away from the body and while Vaughn had always believed that turning one's back on something that they did not wish to look at would relieve his burden and allow him to lighten his load, this one did not.

Every step was heavier than the last and the words of his companion weighed on his mind.

You're strangely mindful of the little things. Vaughn could not bring himself to understand what this statement meant. Was he? He broke the sentence apart to make things easier. What were the little things? Had Reux really meant to say that Slayne's death was insignificant? Or that a predator's death was insignificant? Or could he have meant, instead, that death itself was not a very big deal at all? Was it strange for everyone to care about this? Or was it just strange for him to do so? Which was Reux referring to?

He posed the question.

"Just now, when you—"

"Death is a stage that we all go through, Alekseyev." The shrike threw a flippant smirk over his shoulder. "It can be used as a tool to further the cause that we seek as we live here, which is, if you haven't noticed, yet another stage. The death of a predator or prey, it doesn't matter. All of it does not matter."

Vaughn swallowed the disgust that rose from chest. "You were listening?"

"I was forced to," he snickered. "With you thinking so loudly."

"My guard was lowered. I am not surprised," the vulture admitted with a snap. "The words you speak, they don't make any sense. In fact, your values go against that of the Order's and...and, now that I'm beginning to see what you are, you and Iolani are strangely alike."

Both of them sparked forms of disgust, each unique, in his cage and the disorder within the two was somehow similar. Yet, they stood apart.

"Really? How sweet. Makes me want him even more than I should," Reux laughed, leaving the vulture thoroughly disturbed.

"That was not what I was referring to, Yvone."

"Then what is it?"

Vaughn shook his head, wishing that his mind would stop working for once. It was painful to think. "If you say that the death of a predator or prey does not matter at all, Iolani would have argued that the death, of everything, of anything at all, matters."

"It isn't so much that both of you believe in the opposites, it's only that your logic works differently, but both of you think the same," he searched for a conclusion that would erase the smirk on Reux's face. It was hard. "Superficial identities do not matter to you and him when it comes to determining the value of a human."

Superficial identities do not matter to you and him when it comes to determining the value of a human. This, Vaughn did not favour. After all, how was he to brush aside the values that he had ben brought up with? He was no miracle. He was a scavenger—a sickly, disgusting, unworthy scavenger and a lowly excuse of a human being.

But the idea was now lodged in his mind like a bullet. Why did he believe in what he believed?

A series of questions ensued, emerging from a corner of his cage as though it had been waiting for a time to surface.

Was the death of a sparrow any less significant than the death of an eagle? Does population alone justify the significance of death? Was the death of a king any more important than that of a pauper? How was the value of a human being determined? After all, there should be but one king and a thousand paupers—but then the question would then be...was the killing of an ant any more right than the killing of a butterfly?

Vaughn knew that the latter was a harder act to commit.

For many humans, it was. Something more rare and beautiful was always of greater value to a person—but was it right?

All of a sudden, he felt as though he had missed the train that Io had taken long before he did, alone in a carriage and far ahead of the rest of the world.

He was a step behind. More than a step, he was miles—altitudes behind Iolani Tori who lived on an entirely different planet in space, alone in the sky.

So this was what Io had been trying to show him.

This was what he had not seen.

"Looks like you understand that I'm unlike the rest of the Order," Reux stopped in his tracks to turn and face the vulture. "Fantastic. I suppose now there wouldn't be a need for me to explain every single thing I do, then. How about you help me with the plan?"

"Help you?" Vaughn looked at him as though he was absurd. "What, you'd like me to act as a distraction again? No thank you."

Reux dismissed his opinion with a wave.

"That? Oh no that one's over. We're killing them one by one over the course of a week," the shrike explained as though he was narrating the procedures of a fire drill. "We've completed what we set out to do today, so. No rush. One down—oh, I forgot to tell you, it grows exponentially. Two tomorrow, then four, then eight—then before you know, Iolani Tori's..."

He laughed. "All alone."

The creature pacing in his cage raised its gaze. Vaughn saw in Reux an element of himself; the vulture once obsessed with isolating the sparrow and cloaking him in darkness. It was after months of resentment and bitterness that he finally realized the absurdity of his attempt to teach Iolani what, he came to realize, the latter already knew.

"What a pleasant coincidence," Vaughn smiled wryly. "I, too, wish for his suffering!"

"But you know what, Yvone? I doubt you're going to succeed," he drew closer with his Avian, getting into the other's face. "Don't come crying after you've wasted your time trying to cloud Iolani's sky. He's the most stubborn and foolish thing I've ever met."

Reux remained fairly unfazed. "And you speak from personal experience of course, having failed yourself." The shrike sighed with a shrug, smiling with ease. "You tried to put out a candle flame like a boy on his birthday, but I have the East Wind."

His smile stretched, turning uncanny within an instant before he turned on his heel and proceeded onwards to the goal he had in mind. It was the smile that struck a chord in the vulture's cage and he could not stop his arm from reaching out.

"You're mistaken. You're very, very mistaken, Reux. Stop now. Turn back while you can—"

"No," he laughed, shaking his head as though Vaughn was suggesting the absurd. "Why should we? We're this close to the ideal. It's all part of a bigger plan and Iolani showed up at the perfect time."

We? Vaughn was disgusted. Who? He found Reux awfully twisted and deranged, at a level completely different from his own. He couldn't believe there existed someone more disgusting than Iolani Tori, let alone himself.

Reux had the gall to continue with a spark in his eye. "In fact, Iolani is so convenient, you know what I mean?" He laughed, fantasizing already. "I'd love to see fear and despair on that naïve, clueless, adorably inexperienced face of his."

A step was enough to close the distance and grab the collar of his shirt.

"IO IS NOT THAT KIND OF PERSON!" The trigger was pulled and he fired in response. Vaughn heaved, releasing his grip on the shrike and shoving him away. "He's not who you think he is. You're picking a fight with the wrong person—or if you already have, then I suppose you're fighting a lost battle," the vulture seethed, shifting on impulse before taking to the skies and leaving his companion behind.

The nightmare was only just beginning

but Vaughn was determined to write its end.

______________________________

A/N: I apologize for the short chapter! ;-; I have an exam tomorrow and after that I can update more often and regularlyyy ^0^/ Hope you liked this chapter although it was short ;-; will do my best!! hehe. 

I don't think Vaughn ever stepped out of his role as a (part) antagonist even after the first book when the protagonist supposedly 'defeats' the villain as it always is in the common narrative. Vaughn took an awfully long time to realize things and come out of his corner, but here he is now. 

-Cuppie