Her name is Alena, and right now she and Natalie Trent are speeding far away from this place, to a house where she will be safe.

Leaving me, here, now, trying to decide who it is I will become.

Something gives me away. Oxford turns and the weapon in his hands finds me, and now I can add self-defense to my many reasons to cut him down. It isn't as if I've never killed before. People have decided to point guns at me in the past, and once or twice they've ended up dead as a result of my response. If there was ever a time to fire my weapon and kill this man, it is now. It is him or it is me, and still I can't manage it, and I think that perhaps it will be me.

Then his left knee evaporates in a cloud of blood and bone.

He staggers, losing his aim on me, searching for the muzzle flash, and I watch as his hip bursts, and the sound of the second shot barks through the darkness. He twists, falling to his last knee, and then the back of his head opens. The sound of the third shot chases him as he topples into the marsh water.

I'm up and running already, racing along the trail, knowing who it is I'm going to find, but not understanding why I'll find them. When I reach them, Natalie Trent is helping Alena down from her sniper's perch. Then Alena is hobbling towards me on her one good leg. I catch her before she can fall. She puts her arms around me, pressing harder, and I think it is because she wants to, rather than because she needs to.

"He would have killed you or you would have killed him, and I couldn't let it happen." Alena's voice is thick with her tears. "I couldn't let you die for me, you understand? I couldn't let you become me."

I think about all of the dead.

"It's too late," I say.