It's caught up to me.

If he does this, if he reveals my identity and takes me to prison, I'll lose it all. Nobody will be there to take care of my fish, nobody to run the shop. I'll go out of business. The kids will no longer have incentive to help the birds and the birds will get hurt. My plants will die.

I'll lose it all.

I'll have to go back.

I can't let that happen.

"Alright, everyone's out!" Delta shouts over the comms. "Wait—Where the hell is Ex?!"

I need to get out of here. I need to catch up to them.

I begin to look for a loophole. It appears as though Clover's ability's primary limitation is specificity and phrasing. He has to account for everything, every possibility. He has to predict me on some level.

For example, he protected himself from death but not my ability specifically, so I still rotted him when we touched the first time—then he adapted. He updated it.

My best bet at exploiting that is loopholes. Technicalities. I need to key in on his phrasing and figure out a plan B.

I can't kill him. I can't use my power.

So does that mean... everything else is on the table?

It hits me: my arm position. Crossed in my normal defensive pose, arms out in front of me in an X formation with my blades pointed straight at his chest. He's aware of this, too, he just doesn't care. He thinks I'm cornered. He thinks I don't have the room. Or maybe he thinks it wouldn't affect him at all, like they're a part of my ability. Maybe he hasn't noticed the blades to begin with, though that would be difficult.

Or maybe Clover thinks they're already accounted for. Maybe he didn't catch it. Either way, he thinks he covered his bases. He thinks I'm defenseless.

He said he made it so I can't use my ability on him. I can't kill him. As far as I know, that doesn't apply to injury. Only my death touch, only my tactile biological termination.

Clover can still bleed.

He protected himself from death and from my power, not from me.

I don't hesitate any more. When the man is just over halfway through cutting off my mesh, I jerk forward, blades already pointed right at him. I don't waste any time as I bring them down with perfect timing, relying almost entirely on the element of surprise to get it just right, digging the blades across his chest and slashing with as much pressure as possible.

The sharp metal cuts into the fabric and armor and skin there. Deep. Like, really deep. Deeper than I mean to. His chest plate didn't stand a chance, guess it was decorative.

I cut a massive X across the entirety of Clover's torso.

A beat passes of absolutely nothing.

He stills.

Clover's body tenses, hands twitching a bit. They fall away from my face unevenly as the man freezes. His eyes go briefly unfocused. He even lets out a shaky breath, then a low, slightly choked out noise of pain—wet with blood. He hisses through his teeth in and out a couple times, wincing, arms shaking as he loses the strength to hold himself up. It only grows worse and worse, until he begins to crumble.

And Solace International's number 1 hero falls to his knees.

Clover lets out a weak noise that somehow still gets his excruciating pain across. He even doubles over a bit, reaching up to hold his horrifically mangled chest as blood pours from the wound in concerning amounts, soaking the front of his hero suit. The bright yellow and green are rapidly turning a deep, dark rose red. Each gash goes from near his armpit to above his hip bone. And they are deep. If he's going to survive this, I really hope he specified that I can't kill him at all. Because if he only covered my ability, that wound is fatal. I practically disemboweled him.

I don't like it. I hate how much pain he's in, I hate what I had to do him, but he was warned. He was insulting me. He didn't listen.

What did Delta say? Undefeated?

After another couple seconds, Clover trying not to wheeze, the man finally looks up at me, eyes watery from pain and jaw trembling. I can hear the blood in his breathing. It fills the room.

What a contrast to how he entered, this is almost comically different from all his pictures. Well, it would be comical if he wasn't so... hurt.

I hate the strange feeling in my chest the sight of him causes. The way I instantly wish I could go back ten seconds and just not.

And I realize, in all the commotion, my hood has come down. He succeeded. Right as I ended it, he finally revealed my face.

Once I notice this, I try not to look affected. I try to clear the guilt from my face. Try not to look as panicked and exposed as I feel. For some reason, it doesn't even cross my mind to cover myself back up—at least not as a priority.

I meet Clover's gaze, my red colliding with his bright purple. My pastel hair falls in my eyes, face and neck splattered heavily with his blood. I feel it drip down my cheek. Each of my blades are also drenched in the substance, and since they angle up, the blood pours from the scythes and onto my fingers. Then, it hits the floor in growing puddles.

I'm absolutely covered in his blood. He's not moving, eyes on me, though there is a sway to him. He's barely keeping himself upright. He's not speaking. Maybe he can't.

Clover's just... looking at me. He doesn't even blink, breath coming out shakily as he stares up at me with wide eyes. I purse my lips, scanning his gravely injured form up and down. I genuinely messed this guy up. I can't believe he's not screaming in agony. I would be. To be fair, though, he seems to be struggling to so much as breathe. Real sound is out of the question.

He irritated me earlier. Killing is the one constant in my life, and he insulted my worthiness of The Executioner title. The only real place I've ever been given in society, even if it is as a villain. I wonder if I'm living up to the name now, if he's happy that he finally succeeded in forcing me to become this yet again.

When I finally talk, I speak in monotone, the first time he's hearing my real voice without the changer. My eyes scan up and down his face. The man is slowly crumpling more and more to the ground.

"Does that meet expectations?" Really, it's a genuine question.

The longer Clover stares at me in dead silence, losing alarming amounts of blood, the more his eyes widen and his body begins to glow.

This doesn't make sense regarding bioluminescence. Shouldn't his light be fading? He's quite literally dying. But nope, it's growing brighter by the second, lighting up more of me with every minute that passes. The glow looks almost pink, too, not the typical gold he's had this whole time. That's strange.

Still, blood leaks from his mouth, not slowing down and running down his neck. His body shakes, his hands tremble, and he can't cover the wet wheeze to his choked breathing. The pain on his face. The way blood pours over his hand as he holds it over the wound. Trying to stop the blood to no avail.

"Sunny! Can you hear us?! Shit!"

Oh, right. My team.

I look at him a couple seconds longer. I want to apologize.

I don't, for obvious reasons. Instead, I take an uneven step backward. I need to get out of here. I don't think he's getting up anytime soon, but still.

Clover's eyelashes flutter. He's done. Seconds from falling, maybe a minute before he's unconscious.

I turn around before I have to witness it, sprinting toward the door.

I hear an unsettling THUD as Clover's large frame collapses to the ground behind me, his previously bright glow fading, which I notice through my peripheral surroundings. I wonder why he doesn't just give himself a 100 percent chance of healing immediately or something. Unless he's just not strong enough? Or maybe there's some sort of stamina limitation?

Or maybe he's just too far gone to use his ability at all.

Whatever, he already said I couldn't kill him. I choose to believe that included methods aside from my ability. I need to, if I'm going to escape. If I'm going to leave him there. Bleeding out on the floor.

As I exit the control/storage room, for my own sanity, I don't look back. I do notice that the glow has faded almost entirely, though. That's not a good sign.

I'm not looking forward to telling Delta that my death touch doesn't work on him. What if it makes me useless? What if something changes? She'll be disappointed in the very least that we don't have that as a backup option.

I pull my hood back over my head and secure it the best I can before sprinting in a random direction. The place is very similar to a prison, so I'm able to find my way out through one of the back entrances. Then, I turn on my comms.

"I'm out, where are you?"

"For fuck's sake, Ex!" I hear Delta's exasperated but relieved voice instantly. I bite my cheek, feeling mildly guilty. I probably should've told her I was okay sooner. I mean, I was up against the number 1 hero in the country.

It doesn't take me long to regroup with everyone, and I'm immediately met with a barrage of questions.

"Holy shit, did you kill him?"

"Whose blood is that?"

"No way. What the hell happened?"

I can't even be surprised. I glance around as Delta pulls out of the spot and heads down the road, removing the invisibility cloaking the vigil with. She glances at me in the rear view mirror, giving me the idea that she's also curious.

"No, I didn't have to," I notify them, feeling the atmosphere of the vehicle shift instantly. "Cut him up pretty bad, though."

"Damn," Vec remarks under his breath, and I take note that everyone still appears impressed, despite the fact I didn't kill him.

Well, maybe I don't have to tell them. They already seem satisfied with my work, Delta giving me an approving nod and a proud grin. Maybe I won't tell her about Clover being the exception to my power. At least not yet. I mean, if I can't kill him, what if she goes out and finds someone who can?

Back at HQ, things are tense.

"Alright, so that was a fucking bust," Delta complains like everyone didn't tell her it was a bad idea to begin with.

Doesn't matter.

I can't focus.

I can feel tingles everywhere in my hand where his skin touched mine. I can't stop thinking about that feeling in the moment, the warmth, the shock, the fact that he even let me to begin with.

I can't believe I've finally found someone I can touch. Too bad it had to be the least touchable person on the planet. Whatever, it's probably better I don't have to deal with distractions. I just need to ignore it. Sure, it's the first time someone has survived my touch in the amount of time it takes to be driving age, but he's not that special. It's whatever. He's a hero. I can't stand heroes.

I can't get his face out of my head. Two expressions in particular: his grin and his excruciating pain.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

Why was he so glowy?

I need to go home.

With that I stand up, and if anybody talks to me or scolds me about leaving the meeting early then I don't hear it. My mind is nothing but white noise and the image of my hand on Clover's face.

I don't remember the drive home. I don't look at the time. I don't eat.

I hope he was able to fix it. I hope he made it to a hospital.

I hope I can still get some sleep tonight.

I don't.

Instead, I stay up until the early hours of the morning crocheting something green. I don't realize it's a four-leaf clover until I'm nearly done.

But I still finish it.