Grandpa let go of my hair and moved over to Hope.

"This guy is an exception. He was scared of you, and yet he went against us during that discussion. Hope's the only one in the group willing to do such a thing. Don't you think he's contradicting himself?" continued Grandpa.

Hope gritted his teeth and glared at grandpa. I had never seen Hope so angry before.

I felt a tug at my chest.

My wound was healing. I retracted the makes.h.i.+ft clog of crystal I'd applied into my flesh immediately, and the wound healed.

I wasn't sure how much time had pa.s.sed when Inghild shot me, but it didn't pa.s.s the two-minute mark. Perhaps the plasma couldn't withstand my regeneration completely and was overwhelmed by it. If I had not sealed the wound, it could've been worse.

Grandpa had not noticed my condition yet as he was focused on Hope.

"I-I was scared of her. But, I envied her bravery. I understood her pain of losing her parents, and the desperation of looking for them, not knowing whether they are alive or not," Hope said.

He got on his feet and grandpa kicked him back to the ground. His grey T-s.h.i.+rt was smeared in blood, and without me noticing, I'd hold onto my breath.

His blue eyes were still glaring at grandpa.

"Jeremy, we're bringing Hope with us. Put him in the back," shouted grandpa.

He was open for me to attack.

Swiftly, I sent one narrow spike from my right palm towards him.

However, Jeremy blocked it, his hands prevented my spike from moving with both hands. I saw pale blue wires softly radiating from his arms the moment he grabbed it.

"Oh?" Granda grinned. "You're amazing, Ava. Trying to kill me, are you? You're not the reserved girl like I thought you were. You're brave, like your father," said grandpa.

"Why are you doing this? Aren't you worried about them at all? My parents?" I said.

His mouth curved downwards. "No, Ava. Useless people or dead people means nothing to me. As an Aegis User, you were useful. Very valuable." His face turned sour. "And yet, they are the very thing I despise the most."

With one hand, I adjusted my blue scarf to cover my mouth. A red blade replaced my spike as it danced in the air. Without warning, it swung at Jeremy in a downwards arching motion, but he grabbed at it with his hands.

"Trust me. You're not going to beat Jeremy. At least, with how you're using that weapon," said grandpa. His expression was that of sheer confidence.

At the flat side of the blade, smaller ones sprouted, damaging Jeremy's metal hand.

"I made it sharp just for you," I said.

My mind was figuring out all sorts of solutions to the problem at hand. I realized if I desired the Aegis to be the sharpest blade it could be, even the strongest metal was no match for it.

'Why I didn't think of this earlier?' I thought.

It would be very useful against the previous Vasquez, but that idea came into my mind too little too late.

I swung the blade a few times at grandpa and Jeremy, and they dodged it easily. When both of them were a few meters away from Hope, I charged towards that boy and covered us with a large, crystal-like dome appearing from my back.

"Are you trying to protect Hope? Hah!" Grandpa's voice could barely be heard from the inside of the dome.

"Is it. . . Bad?" I asked Hope, my eyes were on his wound.

"Uurgh, no. It hurts, but the bullet went through clean." He coughed. "I just need to bandage it. Yeah. . . I'm okay."

The blood poured out as time pa.s.sed. Clearly, he had lost a good amount of it.

"Hmm, maybe. . . " I cut a long piece of fabric from my blue scarf with my blade and handed it to him.

"Thanks."

He carefully bandaged his wound and struggled to stand up. He stopped suddenly and frowned at me. "Ava, why are you crying?"

"Eh?" I touched my cheek. Indeed, it was wet from the streaks of tears pouring out of my eyes. A strange feeling hit me when I was there with Hope. I felt the urge to tell him everything.

My hands tugged at Hope's s.h.i.+rt and he came closer. I lowered my head for some reason, refusing to meet his stare. "I don't know Hope. . . People died because of me. . . And I hurt a lot of them too. Their faces just keep popping inside my head. . . This must be what a killer feels all the time."

"Ava. . . " said Hope.

"And grandpa hurt me. I never intended to harm him in any way. I don't want to lose him either."

"He shot at you without hesitation," said Hope. His voice was soft as if he sympathized my condition.

"I was angry at him. I hated him so much after that. . . but somehow, I can't seem to have the courage to hurt him. When I swung my blade at him, my body directed the blade the other way around purposely."

I rubbed my cheeks hastily, trying to get rid of the tears I didn't want him to see.

Hope was silent. He proceeded to pat me in the back and smiled.

"You're one brave girl, do you know that? I don't know how many times I've said that already. For me, if that Aegis weapon or whatever is inside me, I would have killed myself. Or tried to. I don't know if it's appropriate to tell someone your age that kind of thing. Basically, the weapon would make me feel lonely. People feel fear when they don't know something, whether your Aegis would lash out at them at any time. Everyone is tested with the different circ.u.mstances in their lives, Ava."

I nodded slowly. "I wouldn't even think about. . . killing myself. Just being able to possess a weapon this powerful maybe boasts my confidence a bit too much. It feels great as if I can do anything my heart desires. But right now, I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe I'm just being naive. I'm only a ten-year-old girl after all."

I chuckled, but it lasted for a moment. My heart was wrenched by all the things that I'd been through. If Mommy and Daddy were there, I could have endured it and faced anything in my path with a straight face.

"I don't know if it's a curse or a blessing to have this weapon inside me, to begin with," I said.

"I'll help you," suggested Hope.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll help you find out how you even have this power. Of course, finding your parents is something that I wanted to do from the start. Not trying to brag here, but I'm the only one who thinks that way back in the hideout."

"Hope. . ."

For some reason, I cried right then and there.

After the few days that I'd been separated from my parents, everyone treated me with unfairness and contempt. They hurt me, and I killed them. No one loved me, and I thought I'd accepted that fact. But that feeling was fake.

It was just to a.s.sure myself everything would be fine. I didn't know that having Hope there was capable of my emotions to pour out like that. Perhaps I was waiting for someone to say those exact words for a long time.

"Ava, I promise you, about everything that I said. I mean, Boss just shot me. Ha, there's no way I'm going back to that group."

Hope patted my head in a weird way. My only guess was that it was the first time he had done something like that. It was strange, but his hand felt warm, just like when my mother used to do the same thing. My long, straggly dark hair shuffled slightly under his right palm. After he stopped, I realized I was not crying anymore.

"Hey! Come out, come out!" Grandpa's voice echoed from outside my dome. However, something was different.

The dome was crimson in color instead of its usual red.

I heard someone kicking and hitting the dome. Despite that, it remained in its place proudly, refusing to budge.

"What if we run?" I told Hope.

He nodded. The piece of blue scarf that he used to wrap around his shoulder began to show blemishes of dark red.

I took a deep breath. I was glad my Aegis was capable to heal wounds, to begin with, even though I did not know how it was done.

"Yeah. I think that's the only way to go about this," concluded Hope.

I got rid of my tears using my dress's sleeve and desired the dome guarding us to disappear. It dissolved and seeped into my back in liquid form.

Grandpa and Jeremy were waiting for us when they came into view. Inghild stood beside the glossy, black supply vehicle with the same Plasma Radiant Gun he used to shoot me.

With only a thought in mind, red, slender blades from my back swirled around me and Hope.

We ran in the direction heading towards the town's center, away from the people that betrayed my trust. They were shooting at me but the blades deflected it perfectly.

We took a turn to the right when we arrived at the plaza. I ceased the blades back into me and looked over my shoulder.

They were not chasing us.

We kept running before we took shelter in an abandoned brick house.

Its walls were pale white both outside and in. The wooden door creaked when we entered. Inside of it, the furniture and belongings left were untouched. They appeared to be in a great state before I took a glance at the kitchen. The utensils were all over the cement, and the cupboards that I thought were supposed to be screwed into the wall were on the floor. It was shattered into different pieces. Other than that, the whole house was fine.

"We can stay here for the night. There's still about. . . seven more hours before dawn," said Hope, looking at a green, round clock hanging on the wall.

I was sitting on a single bed, contemplating whether it was appropriate to sleep on someone's bed without asking the owner's permission.

"Maybe this bed belongs to the son or daughter," I said under my breath.

Hope frowned at me. He had opened a cupboard in the bedroom. "It's a daughter all right. And these clothes looked like they would fit you well. I mean, if you don't mind oversized clothes."

He closed the cupboard. "You should sleep, Ava. I'll be tonight's lookout. Don't worry, I'll wake you up if the army or the group shows up." With just that, he left the bedroom.

I put down my tattered blue scarf on a small table at the side of the bed. The hole in my thin dress made me uncomfortable, so I changed into a plain, pink dress from inside the cupboard. 'I was only borrowing. I'll give it back after this,' I thought.

"I'm not sleepy."

I was convincing myself, but it was no good.

"Maybe I'll just. . . lie down for a bit."

I looked at the white ceiling. The family just loved the color white if they had painted their whole house with just that one color. The bed was soft. Too soft for my liking. The bed I had at home was a bit stiffer. I turned to one side and looked at the scarf.

"Mommy. . . Daddy."

I was reminiscing when Hope said all those things to me. It was the only happy memory in a while that I could play over and over in my head without having to feel bad.

It was nice.

Unknowingly, I grinned a couple of times.

'For the time being, maybe Hope can be my parent before I find Mommy and Daddy back.' I thought. Thinking about him becoming one actually allowed me to relax.

The memories of dead soldiers and people were shoved back into the far side of my head. I could only saw Mommy and Daddy in my mind right then.

I closed my eyes and the darkness embraced me in the cold night. There was no dream the whole time I was sleeping. It was indeed a good night's rest.