Zac whirled and dropped into a defensive crouch, expecting to see the Slasher. Instead, all he saw was Skye standing quietly beside the door.

The man, Bob, babbled something incoherent. Zac caught the words “arm,” “chest,” and “all gonna die.”

Bob staggered away from Skye until his back was pressed against the opposite wall. He slid down it to crouch, sobbing, on the floor.

“Do I know you?” Skye asked. Her tone was genuinely baffled.

Zac glanced around at the other men, hoping one of them could explain their comrade's sudden hysterics. They looked as confused as he felt.

“She... it... the arm... she... all those men!” Bob continued to whimper.

Zac looked around to see if maybe there was a paper bag or something for the man to breathe into in case he started hyperventilating. Skye shifted so she was a little bit behind Zac, out of the man's direct line of sight.

That seemed to help, some. Bob started breathing more steadily.

“Can you, maybe, make sense?” Mike asked. “It's just a little girl!”

“Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die,” Bob moaned.

A sharp odor and darkening of the front of his pants displayed the fact that the man had wet himself. It had been a long, long time since Zac saw someone literally wet themselves from fear.

“She's a monster!” Bob shouted, pointing. “You don't know what she can do! It... she... ripped...” he retched, “ripped a man's arm off and... and,” he wrapped his arms around himself, “and beat another man to death with it!”

All eyes turned to Skye, who tilted her head slightly. “I might've done, yeah,” she said. “I thought I killed everyone. Did you hide?”

That all too casual question was met with whimpers from Bob and a chorus of disbelief from the surrounding men.

“Skye?” Zac questioned. “Are you... serious?”

He was afraid she was.

Skye nodded. “I don't remember... much. I was thirteen. I was scared. I had to escape. They were gonna... I had to get out. If they got in my way, I removed them. There was a lot of blood.” Skye tilted her head and looked down at the still sobbing Bob. “I don't remember this one.”

“I was... was in the... security room. I watched... everything.”

“That explains it,” Skye said, nodding to herself. “I didn't touch anyone who didn't try to stop me.”

“But... but those men...” Bob whimpered. "You killed them all!"

Skye shrugged. “Yeah. Well. If they hadn't tried to dissect me, I wouldn't have had to kill them all to escape, huh? Did you watch that part? Did you?”

“What?” Zac could barely recognize his own voice.

The other men in the room were suspiciously silent.

“Are you gonna... finish the job?” Bob asked.

Skye did something odd, then. She reached up, and tugged at the zipper running along the right side of her chest. She pulled her jumpsuit aside, to reveal a soft, white undershirt and a vivid, long healed scar. It ran from her clavicle to somewhere under the covering. It was a jagged mess of a line, showing that whoever wielded the knife had to try several times to make the cut. Because she had struggled. Because she had been awake, when they cut into her.

“I'd be justified, wouldn't I?” she asked, voice remarkably soft.

She looked from Bob, to Alex, to Mike, to Bill, to Jacob. None of them could meet her eyes. Skye closed her jumpsuit back, hiding the evidence. Zac wondered why he was having so much trouble breathing.

“I should go find the rest of your men,” Skye said to Alex. “Before the Slasher kills them. You might as well stay here, it's probably safe enough. Well, it's equally as safe as anyplace else.”

No, this room was not safe. Not while Zac was here. Not now that he knew.

She was only a child! It was one thing, taking him. He was a warrior grown, and alien to them. She was a little girl of their own species! They should be protecting her, not... not...

“I, uh.” Alex swallowed. “You shouldn't go alone.”

Skye looked to Zac. “I'm not. I don't trust y'all not to hurt him again. Let's go.”

They left a remarkably silent room.

“I guess you must have questions,” Skye said.

Zac nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

“It's okay to ask. I don't mind telling you anything you need to know; I just didn't want them to hear.”

“How...” Zac let his voice trail off.

“How what?” Skye asked.

“How did you make yourself come in here. With them? How?” Zac shook his head. He could barely imagine the terror she must have gone through.

Skye studied her fingernails for a moment. “I don't really have a choice? If that thing gets loose... just because the Initiative are monsters doesn't mean this whole city deserves to die. My parents live here, you know.”

“I know,” Zac said. Then, because he had to ask. “Your parents... truly think you are dead?”

“How could I face them, after what I'd done?” Skye wrapped her arms around herself.

Zac looked down at her. “Skye, your parents...” Zac remembered the broken man Professor Rowan had become these past months. The man continued to teach, yes, but his normal spark was gone. He went through the motions, nothing more. His eyes were empty. Grief did that. “Your parents love you. They miss you.”

Skye shook her head. “It's better like this.”

“How? How in the wild world can it be better to grieve a child?” Zac caught her shoulders, stared into wide, gray eyes. “Who let you convince yourself of such a thing?”

“I, uh, I made them...” Skye twisted out of his grip.

“Tell me their names!” Zac demanded.

“There isn't time for this,” Skye mumbled.

“There will be,” Zac promised. “When this is over, when these... men... are safe and the creature gone? We will talk.”

“Sure.” Skye's agreement was too quick, too easy. She was placating him, nothing more.

Zac took a deep breath. His rage was useless right now. Giving in to it would only harm Skye, and probably get everyone killed. He needed to maintain control.

He wanted to turn around and slaughter every man in that room.

“They weren't involved,” Skye said suddenly.

“What?” Zac asked.

“Those men. Those specific ones. I don't recognize anyone.” Skye shrugged. “Bob, apparently, was there but no one who actually hurt me is here.” She glanced up, met his eyes for one second, and then looked down. “No one who hurt me is alive to be here.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” Skye paused. “I know some of them did hurt you, though.”

Zac nodded once.

“I... it wouldn't bother me, much. If you prefer just to kill them all and escape." Skye shrugged. "I understand why you'd want to do that. I mean, I did. So. I get it.”

“No. Child, no,” Zac reached out, put a hand on Skye's shoulder. “No, I would never ask such a thing. It is... that is no burden for a child.”

“Yeah, well, I stopped being a kid when some jackasses in brown shirts dragged me out of my bedroom at gunpoint.” Skye sighed. “Not the first time that's happened to an Aspect wielder, for the record.”

Zac wondered how much she remembered of her Aspect's previous wielder's lives, and deaths. He didn't think this was the moment to ask.

“I thought...” Skye shook her head. “I really thought they'd killed my family, you know? And then I found out they didn't. But I couldn't go back. Because I'm not who I was, before. I let myself turn into, into this... killing thing... and I'm not sure I can ever be just Skye again. I try, sometimes, but it never lasts. Something startles me or there's a mission or, or whatever and I'm the Reaper, and there's more blood, and-”

Zac probably should have asked before he tried to hug her. Luckily, she seemed amenable to the gesture, only relaxing in his hold for a brief second before pushing away.

“I just tell you any little thing can trigger me into a killing machine,” Skye said, “and you hug me?”

“Well. Yes.” Zac shrugged. “I am sorry, I should have asked but...” Zac sighed. “There were so many times, when I triggered, and I came back to myself, and all I wanted...”

“Was a hug.” Skye finished, voice terribly gentle.

“Yes.”

“You're like me.” Skye looked up at him. “Not the Death thing. The other thing. The going away and coming back surrounded by corpses thing. The fighting.”

Zac nodded. “The term I use is Crimson Dancer.” The words were one of the few things he allowed himself to remember from before.

“Oh.” Skye looked at her hands. “I thought it was just that I was born wrong. A broken Reaper. Death tells me I'm not, or it tries to, but it doesn't understand things the way a person does. The Aspect I mean. It's not like us. It sees me as just another Reaper. My... problem... is only a useful quirk, to it.”

“You're not. Broken. We exist for a reason,” Zac insisted. “I've never known what that reason is but I'm sure.”

“How?” Skye asked. Plaintive. Lost.

A child.

“I just know.”

Skye chewed on her lip. “Could I... could we try that hug thing? One more time? I... it's been... a while.”

Zac wrapped his arms carefully around her shoulders. She leaned in, buried her face against his shoulder. She was so small. So young. None of this was right. She should not be here, Reaper or not.

He had to get her home. She belonged with her family, with people who loved her, not out fighting monsters on behalf of men who would torture even a child because they were different. He would get her home. Whatever it took.