There are only two rules that truly govern the lunar colony of Pestas, and the first follows as this: that which is paid in full becomes owned in full.

The border planets are no place for discrimination, for refusal, for division amongst the peoples. If one provides the payment, the service is legally obligated.

The second is that to kill somone is to forfeit your life in payment for your actions.

You have taken ownership of someone's life by ending it, and payment must be given. Nothing here on Pestas is freely given or taken, there is a consequence to every action.

And now, Dawson had a gun aimed squarely on the smiling man, and I could see it in his eyes. The intent to harm, to kill and it was painted so clearly across his face.

"Let her go," he growled, taking a step closer to us.

I was pinned beside the smiling man, a knife stinging at my throat. I sought out the sight of the girls, crowded inside the doorway of the Hents House, watching with horrified eyes.

Others were watching too. People peering out from windows of their homes, men stopped on the street, their women tucked behind them, as if this could protect them in a moment where only two were in danger.

The smiling man and I.

"Dawson," I gasped, digging my fingers into the smiling man's arm as my feet scrabbled for purchase. The knife at my neck shifted, and I winced, feeling hot blood begin to bead up from the cut of it. "Dawson, please."

I couldn't run from him now. Not truly. He owned me and it was everything I had ever feared.

No. No, this was worse.

The smiling man took a step back with me, towards his clanker parked just paces behind us, the back hatch already yawning wide open. "I ain't ever lettin this one go. She's mone now, you hear me? Mine!" He dragged the tip of the knife up to under my jaw and I had to stifle the sudden lurch of pain that came from it. "I bought her, legal and in full. She's my property now!"

Dawson advanced forward, the gun still pointed at the man, though I could see it begin to tremble now. "Let the girl go. I'll pay for her, whatever you want and I'll do it. Just let her go." He took another step, panicking growing in his green eyes. "I don't want to have to use this."

He was only ten paces away now, and with the clang of a boot, we had made it to the hatch of the smiling man's clanker.

His grip on me tightened. "But I'm more than willing to use mine."

I had no time to react. The knife sang across my neck and he threw me to the side. There was the deafening sound of gunshots as Dawson fired twice. I hit the ground with a rough impact, metal reverberating at the collision. The smiling man grunted from the impact of a bullet and flipped the knife to his other hand. The gun kicked again in Dawson's grip as he ran. The smiling man threw the knife.

Somone screamed.

It was me.

I didn't stop screaming as the smiling man dropped, this third bullet doing enough to knock him down. And then I saw Dawson. The knife protruded from his shoulder, blood already seeping through his shirt and blooming out in a terrible scarlet cloud. The gun dropped from his hand, clattering on the ground.

I sat up and pressed a hand to my throat, the terrible feeling of red-hot blood coating my fingers, sticky and wet. Tears soaked down my face as I wobbled to my feet, the world spinning as I watched.

Dawson and the smiling man lunged for each other, and there was the sound of fist connecting on bone. A pained grunt—the fight continued. The smiling man ducked and spun past Dawson, his hand wrapping around the knife still in Dawson's shoulder, pulling it out in one, swift movement. A rough, groaning scream came from Dawson and he kneed the man in the chest.

It was blurring before me, and I dropped to one knee, drops of blood spilling out from between my fingers. "Dawson," I croaked, the word painful in my throat.

His attention snapped to me, and a fist snapped against his face.

A gasp caught in my chest as Dawson dropped. He stumbled backwards, and the smiling man hit him again. The two fell to the ground, a tangled, urgent desperation in their movements. Then the sound a gunshot cracked through the air.

"Dawson!" I lurched off the ramp of the of the clanker, trying to get to them, my ankle twisting on the impact as I fell. I swallowed back the pain, pushing myself forward toward the fight.

There was laughter.

I crouched, fear exploding inside my chest as my head lifted. The smiling man stood over Dawson,who was sprawled on the ground. I could see blood seeping out onto the dust, deep and dark and terrible. A crazed smile tore across the Smiling Man's battered face, his terrible laughter continued spilling out of him. Blood bubbled up on his lips as he staggered towards me, his left foot dragging along the ground, his eyes glittering with something terrible. "Enori," he sang, the sound all wrong and distorted by the gurgle of life dripping down his chin. "Purty girl. My girl."

My eyes flicked to the gun that had fallen from the scuffle, past the smiling man and left in the dirt.

The smiling man advanced toward me, the knife still gripped in his hand, dust puffing up at each step. "Enori, you have to come with me now." Three paces away. I heard a groan and knew Dawson was still alive.

I dove past the smiling man, heart hammering in my chest as I reached, both hands wrapping around the gun as I turned and pointed it up at his head.

"No, I dont."

I pulled the trigger.

The world dissolved into fleeting details around me. The smiling man stopped smiling, and instead blood dribbled down the new hole in his forehead. The gun in my hand dropped to the ground, and i fell limp against the ground. Uncontrollable shaking took over every sense in my body, before it all came crashing back into sharp reality.

People were screaming. People were yelling. There was the wailing alarm of the few security hovers that populated this moon. Dawson was groaning as i felt his blood spill into my hands, already soaked with the blood seeping down my throat.

I had shot a man. I had killed him.

This was the second rule of Pestas. To take a life was to owe a life. Whose life was owed here? Who, amid all this pain and chaos could come out of this moment alive? Was I merely avenging Dawson, or myself? Or had Dawson shot first and the smiling man only responded in retribution. But I had finished it all. I had killed a man.  Numbly my hands sought out the gun once more and I brought the barrel of it to my chest, the metal hot through the thin fabric of my dress.

Hands pulled feebly at the gun, trying to take it away from me, Dawson's frantic voice suddenly groaning at me, words slurred with blood and pain. "Enori, no." His voice seemed so very far away, as if speaking from another room. In fact, the whole world seemed to be growing strangely dim, as if fuzzing on the edges of my vision.

"My life is owed," I murmured, trying to fix my focus upon him. "I killed a man and my life is owed." I swallowed, and the flaming pain in my throat made me reach up to touch it once more. My fingers came away drowning in blood. "Or maybe… he has killed both you and I, and I have simply taken his life as payment?" I looked over at Dawson, startled. "Am I dying? This feels like dying."

I stared at him, at the holes bloom of blood that covered his stomach now. "I don't want you to die, Dawson."

"Dying is what the both of you will be doing if we don't get you in the house now."

Mam Dorce was there, a firm look in her face as she directed the girls to grab the both of us, someone pressing a cloth to my throat and a wad of bandages to Dawson's shoulder as they carried us into the Hents House.

We were laid out on the floor of the kitchen, atop a sky-blue sheet, the table shoved out of the way to make room for us.

I struggled to find Dawson, to reach out and grab him, but the distance was too far and my fingers strained against empty air.

"Dawson," I moaned, the word fire and pain as I spoke. "Rook."

He groaned, and then there was a stirring as he looked toward me. There was a touch, a brush against my fingertips as Dawson reached out toward me as well. The shouting and chaos continued, but the moment he touched his hand to mine, the whole of the world seemed to fade away. We hung, suspended in nothing but space and darkness and the only thing grounding me was his touch.

There was stillness as we lay there, our eyes caught up in each other and I clung to the sight of him, gathering up every detail of his presence and tethering myself to this moment, of his touch, of his roughness of his hands and the dying light of the sun in his eyes.

"Dawson," I croaked, pain flaming once more in my throat. "You came back."

His gaze softened, but his eyes seemed so very far away. "I'll always come back for you."

I strained to reach further, to take his hand fully in mine. "I love you." The words were desperate as my fingers pressed against his, trying to sustain our contact. I groaned and urged my whole body to move and finally, finally wrapped up my hand in his.

"I love you too," Dawson murmured, squeezing my hand. Then his eyes closed, an exhale shuddering out of him. The hand in mine went slack.

"Rook!"