Four years later.

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I STAYED UNTIL THE LIGHTS WERE OUT. The loungers had all already shuffled out an hour earlier, but the workers spared me an extra hour before they closed down the bar. A few men remained outside by the door, perching like hungry hawks until I finished my sixth glass.

It was too quiet on the streets. I remained in the bar, headphones in, and then I heard the door open and footsteps echoing on the creaky tile floor. My eyes narrowed slightly before me as I took the wine bottle and poured myself a seventh glass.

The hooded figure came to a gradual stop from behind. It took a seat beside me, reached over for a different flavored bottle behind the counter, and poured itself a glass in silence. Not interested in small talk and someone who seemed like they couldn't hold their liquor, I took my bottle and swung my legs off the high-end stool. I didn't look back for who it was, or what it was. Maybe I had one too many shots and I was hallucinating a man.

As soon as I reached outside, I was barricaded by a ring of male drunks, some with paralyzed and drugged girls slugging off their arms. I turned down the music from my phone and waited for them to move. One grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the door, shouting aggressive German.

I inclined my head and a foreign response echoed from my mouth into the streets, but that invited a brawl that I didn't sign up for. All behind an alleyway. What they didn't know was this was my alleyway. I've lived here for 23 years. In the past, I received my tasks right in this damn spot. Inhumane howls echoed into the night as the unconscious body counts rose from one, to six, to nine. I emerged out of the narrow passage not too long later, heading home.

My phone rang coincidentally with the first drizzles of rain. I opened the umbrella in my possession and placed it over my head while picking up the call. After a moment of silence for the lines to connect, my eyes softened.

"Похоже, там идет дождь. Есть ли у вас зонтик?" [seems like it's raining over there. you have an umbrella?]

A sigh of relief escaped my lips before I transferred the phone to my other ear, the one that wasn't burning up. "Да, у меня есть это." [yeah, I have it.]

I could picture him smiling on the other end. In a few seconds, his voice turned clearer and lower as he switched languages. "That's my girl. Being an escort interpreter does pay off, huh."

I playfully rolled my eyes as I mentally took note that we had just passed our fiftieth round of him testing me on my language skills each time that we called. "Are you off work?" I queried back in English. "Why are you calling me during office hours?"

"Because I'm getting my daily dose of vitamin D from you. Not like you're preoccupied with something at this time of night, are you? Unless you went out of your way to beat people up."

I scoffed at the spot-on irony. "I know you meant it as a joke, but why did it hit bullseye with that one?"

"Risa." I could hear him automatically switch to his concerned demeanor. Usually, I'd voluntarily share with him my experiences, but there was something about tonight that told me it wouldn't be as significant. He was probably worn out from being rushed into the operation tables late into the night. That was inevitable when your man was taking cover as an emergency medicine specialist.

I stuck my tongue out. "I'm joking. I just hung out with Cody. We ended up drinking for a while so that's why I'm heading home only now."

There was silence on his end before he started, "Has he been doing okay? The soggy cracker doesn't even call. I get that we're not that close but I mean, I still exist."

I shook my head with a smile, quickening my pace. The rain began falling with more intensity, and with that came the downside of it being harder to distinguish different sounds at night. "You know him. He's still the same Cody who can't hold his liquor. Next time that I see him, I'll try to convince him to call you once in a while."

.. I was at the bar alone. There was no Cody here.

It all started a year ago. Cody, all of a sudden, sat me down one day and informed me ecstatically that he wanted to become an aircraft fighter pilot— told me that he'd show our incapable K2 how it was really done. Of course, I supported everything that he wanted to do. Our activities were on halt anyway.

He went to training for a couple of months, flew over the Atlantic.. and that was where my knowledge ended. They never reported a body, just reported him missing. I searched everywhere. I took the path of an escort interpreter so that I could travel far away and possibly find him somewhere outside the states. Today, I came back to this country to search one more time before I would finally let my mind rest.

Now for the five other errors across the world. Asao still kept in frequent touch. The only setback for the sixteen year old boy was that he had reverted back to hard-core Japanese, so only Pierce and I still regularly check up on him.

Osias occasionally showed up on the news. I figured there wasn't much to discuss in detail after four whole years of us not seeing each other. Everything that he did was open for the public anyways, so I could just do a quick online search if I really wanted to know how his Tuesday went.

Kenya's whereabouts were sketchy, especially since she's reverted back to her performing name, Ruby. It was getting harder to track where she was and what she'd been doing in Europe, even though I was sure I should've crossed path with her several times when I was on business with the higher officials.

Pierce, on the other hand.. he made an effort to keep in touch everyday. There wasn't a day that passed by where we didn't communicate in some sort of way. May it be a quick picture, a simple text, a short FaceTime, or a late call like tonight. The fact that he was making an effort for us was why I still felt the same butterflies that I had for him four years ago.

Pierce had picked up the counterintelligence career again after two years of leaving my apartment that day, and we've discussed everything so I was aware of his decision. K2 and I were still in touch since I became a forensics intelligence analyst along with being a translator.

When I was in training for the job, the inseparable pair crammed me intensely till even late at night so that I'd pass my qualifications. I was always amazed at the fact that while the three of us were thousands of miles apart, I still felt like choking them whenever my man continuously tested me on twelve languages at once or when K2 would send me test simulations that he wanted me to find solutions to in an impossible time span.

Pierce cleared his throat before he announced, "Alright Sunny, I have good news and bad news. Which would we like to hear first?"

I raised my eyebrows, which was simultaneous to hearing a strange noise in the background. I cautiously slowed down my pace to focus my ears. After perceiving only the metallic platter of rain, I furrowed my brows and gave him my answer. "Let's start with good? I've had a tough day."

"Then the good news is.. I'm here."

My smile faltered as I glanced confusedly ahead of me into the pitch black of the night. "Um, that's lovely.. I guess. Talking to you is.. nice."

"Am I hearing doubt?" He mocked. "Are you belittling me?"

"Oh never," I fixed myself with a fake cough. "I wouldn't dream of it, Commander."

I heard it. A swift movement, legs and cloak, passing by the corner of my eyes. I didn't stop walking however. Whatever or whoever was there could take me on. No one was going to interrupt my time with him, even if that meant I had to pull a trigger while on call.

"Who in the name of.." I muttered the words under my breath. My head turned to survey the remaining alleyways before reaching my neighborhood.

"Who's there?"

I didn't realize he was also paying attention to the shuffling on my line. Taken aback, I made sure to view my surroundings before I shook my head. "Nothing, I thought I heard something in the rain. It's probably just the hail hitting the umbrella."

"You say that, then a second later the boogieman's going to gobble you up. And then when I call your name, you'd be silent."

After hearing the playful tone of his voice, the little seed of fear in my chest vanished instantly and I allowed myself to loosen up with a laugh. My fingers tightened over the handle of the umbrella as I took a breath in and grinned. "You know, you'd make a great father."

I waited with a small smile on my face as I let the words sink in for him on the other end. When it did, he suddenly presented something that I'd never expect, "Are you giving me permission to become one now that I'm coming back?"

I skidded to an abrupt stop as my fingers tightened over the phone. It took two seconds for me to process his words. When I did, I began breathing again. "What did you just say? You're coming back?"

I could picture him smirking right about now. Our compatibility worked wonders. "Did you forget how many years it's been already?"

"I haven't been keeping track," I confessed as I laced a hand through my hair. "Just like I don't bother answering people who ask about my ring anymore. It gets harder to keep re-explaining that my loyalty belongs to someone who wasn't my significant other, who I haven't seen in years, and who I don't even know the whereabouts of."

He fell silent, because he and I both knew that I wasn't going to make my life any harder than it had to be. Of course I'd wait for him, and I'd wait for him in a heartbeat again if something was to come up. But I didn't need strangers to continuously test me if I could wait or not every time they saw my ring with no man to accompany me.

"That'll change. I promise, Risa. I'll make it official the moment I see you."

I smiled softly as I checked the watch on my wrist. It was stuck at 12:59. "How, Pierce?" I uttered his name softly for the first time tonight. "Who will see? For something like that, you'd have to declare your love in front of the world."

"Is that what you want?"

I bit back a grin as I shook my head. "No, I don't need validation from the world. Just us is enough."

He stayed silent for a moment as his attention went back to where he was. "I'll be at your apartment tomorrow morning. We're all on the plane right now."

"All?" I furrowed my brows. "You mean..?"

"The old team, yeah. I thought it'd be a nice surprise. Of course, nothing beats me, but I thought you'd like to see the rest too."

I found it hard to decide whether or not I wanted to smile, laugh, or cry at the moment. Then, something resurfaced to my memory. It was probably a useless question— and a tricky one if I wasn't careful— but I asked nonetheless.

"And Cody? Is Cody with you?" Only when I asked it did I realize that there was no way he wouldn't have picked up what was going on. But I forced myself not to care. Cody's safety was more important than being afraid to reveal to him I had been keeping certain things from his knowledge.

It took a delayed moment before he answered. "I thought you said he was with you?" It seemed like a test when he said it. There was one person telling the truth, and there was one person telling the lie. And he and I both knew who really had Cody.

"Now here's the bad news.. you lied again, didn't you?"

I fell silent. The soles of my feet were now in a mid-flood, soaked. The problem was that once you were far away from the people you used to see everyday, the mentality of telling them everything that was wrong on your end seemed like a burden with time. "I didn't want you to worry," I sighed sincerely. "That's all. I hesitated and it just became an issue I was dealing with myself."

"He's a friend and a teammate, Risa. I would've helped voluntarily."

"I see that you did, then?" I forced a smile. "You always figure out when something's wrong, huh?"

"Not everything," His tone became lighter. "But I try as any man would for his woman."

"I find it interesting how you can't use girlfriend or boyfriend because of our situation. Which seems fair," I cocked my head back with sly smirk. "You need to be on the waiting end of something too."

"Or we could skip that stage."

My eyes widened, and I almost didn't recognize foreign feet shuffling in a thirty feet radius of my location. My hands dropped the phone so I could look at it as my mouth hung open. "Pierce Damien Easton, don't joke about stuff like that. You almost made me think you were serious.."

His tone seemed concealing as he continued our previous topic, and I could envision a conniving smirk on his lips. "Who said I wasn't? By the way, Cody's doing fine. We found him a few weeks back. Someone wasn't careful with a loose screw and it malfunctioned across the Atlantic. He's been unconscious for a while, and the team's been looking after him. They just fell asleep. I knew you were looking for him, but I decided to punish you a little for keeping it from me."

I scrunched up my face, but my muscles had relaxed at hearing that Cody was safe. "I hate you. Don't bother coming back, I'll be hopping into the Pacific next."

"So our return-kiss is through an intense session of CPR?" He mused. "How erotic."

I busted a snort. "I'd secretly load my mouth with water and watch you suffer."

"Did our Risa turn into a water fountain while I was away?"

"A fountain-glass body? I must've worked out like crazy—"

My voice cut off as I twisted my body a 180 and came eye-to-eye with an inky haired man sporting a sleek, leather mask. The arm holding the phone with Pierce on the line fell slightly to my sides as I focused on the outline of the strange man. Though surreal as it seemed, I saw an eerie smile forming behind the fabric of his mask.

Pierce seemed to have interpreted the mood without delay. "There's something wrong."

The mysterious man began reaching deep into one sleeve of his draggy garment. My eyes narrowed questioningly as I saw the reflective glint of a blade protruding from the cuffs of his vesture.

"Pierce, where is Casey?" I kept my voice drowned into the thundering of the rain so that whoever was in my presence couldn't pick up my conversation.

There was a brief stillness, then he responded, "The psycho's in the R.U. confinement quarters. He's sharing a cell with one of W's ill-acquaintances, Chestin. You're safe, but what's going on over there?"

"I—" My body jumped back as a blade passed too close underneath my lower earlobe for comfort, and I was forced to abandon the umbrella limply on the ground. My weight skidded on the ground and immediately rebounded forward for a incomprehensible tussle.

I seized the arm that threw the assault weapon, twisted it with a dark flicker in my eyes, then stabbed a keen elbow to his throat. The clout fazed him and slowed down his agility, but he made up for it with his second artillery. He became a gunslinger in a blink of an eye and I was forced to bring it down a notch as the gun barrel pressed against my forehead.

With a sharp breath in, I saw it in the assaulter's eyes that he wanted me to drop the phone. I sensed something else that was to come too, and I figured it was best on my end that I followed his demand for now. I slowly raised my arms as I maintained eye contact with him, and then I said through the phone, "When did you say you were coming again?"

I heard Pierce's steady breathing on the other side and I mentally thanked the rain for hiding how unsteady mine was. "Tomorrow morning. Why?"

"Don't come any sooner, okay?" I made sure the man heard exactly what I said without a side remark to a third party that I was being held at gunpoint. "I need to clean up."

"Clean up what?"

"A dead body."

There was a vile glint in my eyes that had been hungry for mischief ever since I'd given up that aspect of my life to become an adult. Already predicting that I was quicker than the assaulter, I managed with ease in disarming the gun once I had dropped my phone on the ground.

I dislodged the magazine before I was snatched roughly by the leg. I caught myself from slipping and redirected my leg into a rapid swing to his head, knocking him unconscious to the rocky gravel. Red blood mixed with the rain's flood waters and traveled down the street drain as it stained my shoes.

I bent down to rest on my knees as I regained my breathing. I was soaking, cold, and my phone was drenched in blood that wasn't mine. I turned to the side and realized that the screen of my mobile was bright, and I realized it must be Pierce trying to call again.

My eyes traveled back to the dead body, but the longer I gazed at it, the clearer I realized that he was still breathing. It was fine, that gave me time to assess the situation. Then without warning, something unforeseen clawed my luck away, and I was faced with a harsh reality that would haunt me to my end.

As my eyes trained on the blood staining the floor and the body irregularly laying face-down, it triggered a memory of Pierce being in the same situation. My mind throbbed like my head had been forced underwater and just had a chance to resurface. All sounds became a lot softer, a lot quieter as if there was a filter that only applied to me.

Eventually, my ears stopped hearing the rain, my eyes stopped recognizing the body and the scenery, and I became more unmindful whereas just a few seconds ago, I had been on high alert. It must be because of the pills.

The doctor that had prescribed me my pills, the one that K2 informed me about, had disappeared around the same time that Cody did. I didn't trust local doctors so I haven't been keeping up with my medication.

Of course, add that to the list of things that I kept from Pierce, but this was the last one. I felt my body slowly panicking. The little seed of fear that I had sensed earlier began blossoming like an invasive plant in my chest. I breathed with more difficulty, shaking my head to wake up.

I didn't even notice the dead body on the ground had fully stood up by now. A curse flew out of my mouth as I was losing my senses. It was transferring to someone I haven't let out in a long time— whichever one they were I wouldn't have figured out in time.

"No, Risa. Work with me, please." I ran to pick up the dagger that had passed behind me a while ago. I did my best to stay alert, but my steps became heavier as I lost my speed and goal.

The moment I grabbed the dagger, I had forgotten why I picked it up. A few seconds passed after that, and I just felt stone cold. My eyes traveled to an umbrella close by and I dropped the unknown blade shakily, crawling on the ground through the pool of blood for it.

As soon as my fingers grazed the handle, I heard a trigger going off. I waited. Was that thunder? A moment later and I finally realized what it was as my mouth threw up warm blood, and the remnants dripped down my lips. My insides were on fire. There was something poisonous in my body. I wanted to claw out the bullet now lodged deeply in my flesh.

"This is the end of the chase," I heard a tweaked voice amplifying from a voice changer. "His last order was to make sure you disappeared."

I coughed out a mixture of spit and blood while I breathed heavily close to the ground, eyes and mind clouded from numbness. Through overly-clenched teeth, I spat out, "Are there more of you?"

"Did you think every single one of K2's men are loyal to him?" There was a low, sinister cackle that filled the streets. "I'm one of the few dozens that are still here to carry out what we started. You six are the greatest errors we have ever encountered. And errors were meant to be disposed of. That plane will crash in a few hours, so don't fret Miss Venus, they'll join you soon."

I stayed quiet and my eyes flickered to the phone. It took everything I had in me to fight through the fire in my abdomen and the lack of air being blocked by my blood drying up in my throat, but I managed to pull the umbrella closer to me.

I closed it rapidly and lunged forward for one last thrust to impale the man with the uneven ferrule of the umbrella when it first broke off. It served its purpose just as well. A second later, his body dropped dead for good, eyes still horridly spaced wide apart.

I began to hear the rain again. I no longer felt cold, I didn't feel anything, because the only thing that I could do right now was think. I tossed the umbrella over the despicable body that was associated with my past before I crawled cautiously to my phone.

I dropped my head down to my arm and rested it there, finding it hard to breath with water and the smell of blood nullifying my senses. My lips parted with difficulty as I whispered next to the phone that had been on the entire time, "... You heard him, right?" I quieted down as I felt a gush of pain sting my sides. "Get everyone... off the... the plane. Tell K2 to..."

I sighed out in frustration because I couldn't even my breathing enough to hide my pain from him. "... To check his guards. Okay?"

"— Risa, what did he do to you? Don't lie to me or I'll kill you."

I stayed silent. The rain was hurting my eyes. Maybe if I just closed them for a few minutes, I could get up later and go safely inside to dry.

"He attacked me," I muttered with no sense of direction. "I'm... fine. I just... have a headache... don't come."

"I heard a gun. He shot you, didn't he? Risa, what did he do to you?"

"Don't... come," I begged, scared that my condition was worse than I had previously thought. "I want to see you when I'm okay."

"I'm coming. Get inside and close the door. You're going to be okay."

I saw myself getting up like an illusion, grabbing the phone, and then walking through those doors that he wanted me to. My eyes opened and I lifted my head exhaustedly. My body was burning, and the freezing rain sinking into the drenched hole on my back stung me as if I was being punished on an electric chair.

"Hey... Pierce?" I found my voice again.

"Risa? I'm here. Are you inside?"

I took one careful look at my apartment and managed a tight smile. "The door's.. closed." My breath heaved unevenly as my forehead hit the gravel, but I fought to stay conscious as I made my breathing harder.

"That's good. Go rest, don't move around. If I have to propel this plane with my own power then that's what I'm going to do. Don't worry, I'll be there."

"... Can I sleep?" My voice was muffled by the rain, as if those words weren't meant to be heard quite yet.

"What did you say? Try not to talk. You're hurting yourself."

"I want.. to sleep." It was plea that even I didn't know the deeper meaning to, but what I did know was that my whole consciousness was waiting at the brink of existence for his word.

"Sleep? Go ahead and rest your eyes a bit. When you wake up I'll be there, okay?"

The instant that his line fell silent while he waited for my reply, I turned my head to catch a glimpse of the ring that he gave me. It still rested securely around my bloodied finger.

Feeling reassured and a part of my fear leaving, my head slipped off of my arm and landed densely onto the gravel. In a few seconds, my chest had stopped rising and falling on the ground. In a few minutes, I was drowning in my own pool of blood.

"Risa? Risa, answer me."

Silence prolonged over two lifeless bodies that night. The rain had come to a stop within an hour, but so did all movement below. Light dispersed from the area as if fate understood its mistake. Time subsided to the pits of hell for a woman that had fought her last breath to keep it. The rain turned a blanket over her still form. Whether or not it would be uncovered again, that would lay in the hands of the dead.

Because tonight, an error had been erased.

•• the end ••

Minna: This is the last chapter of the story, but there will be an epilogue! On a more sincere note, I'm forever grateful to you guys for letting me experience the best group of readers that I could've ever imagined. I know that the special gems on Wattpad will continue to be discovered by your hands, because this story started from nothing as well. I'll dive more into everything in the A/N, but also if you're reading this chapter.. you've gone through a lot. Take a deep breath, and let's wait for the epilogue, okay?