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“Meet me at the docks.”

Every didn’t like making phone calls. She hadn’t for a while, preferring conversations in person rather than over technology. It had become something that, according to Fate, had been something that Mercy did. To the shadow, it further confirmed that she wasn’t entirely by herself in her head, but to those that knew the twins, was a reminder of what hadn’t changed. As she stepped off the gunwale of Gladiator, Every landed on the deck with ease and secured her boat properly before checking the position of the firearm she kept on her hip. Across the way, she could hear the sound of a few engines rumbling, a reminder of the shipping crews that still used the routes in an otherwise derelict area aside from those whom refused to give up their home and businesses.

From where she was positioned, the smell of dead fish downwind. Her usual boots had been replaced with black Converse and her black jacket abandoned, giving her a more casual appearance. The unfamiliar soldiers tended not to deal with her, the regular ones she dealt with had long since learned to give the petite shadow distance when she wasn’t helping them. “If he makes one crack about my lateness…” The murmur fell from her lips as she slipped down an alleyway into the direction of the meeting place. It wasn’t something that she expected. Luca had known Every for some time. A friend of the family, although he fell closer to be one of Zach and Michael’s rather than her own.

She supposed if it hadn’t been for him, Every would have been in jail before she’d died.

Again.

“You’ve made a lot of interesting decisions these days.”

Her footsteps picked up as she drew closer, removing an elastic band she kept around her wrist while she tied her hair onto the top of her head. She could hear the sound of a conversation up again. Had he brought someone along? If he had, who? Every furrowed her eyebrows. Luca had always been a loyal confidante, someone she knew that would have her back. Zachary had always been one to encourage her to contact him, but she had always brushed it off until she’d found herself in a tight spot. Micah had been one she could have called, but explaining her trip further north would have been awkward. Caligrace and Jayden wouldn’t have given the intimidation tactic she’d needed.

And so, she’d swallowed her pride and reached out.

“I need a favor and don’t ask questions.” It had said. Explaining that she was Every Leighton, revealing what she was. It hadn’t been something she’d done lightly. She hadn’t known it would seal his fate. She hadn’t known it would be the beginning of the end. And as Every made her way towards their meeting place, she didn’t know that the clock was ticking. And Luca’s time was almost out.

Checking his watch, Luca gave an unamused grunt at the time and shook his head, reaching to pull his phone from his pocket. "Late again. No surprise there, I suppose. I should start showing up a half hour late, then neither of us will be left waiting." With a sigh, he assured himself for the third time that the phone was off, that it wasn't tracking his location. Satisfied, he squeezed it in his hand, flexing his fingers around its frame and rubbed at the back of his neck with the other hand as he looked around the spot he had been waiting.

When Every came to him asking for a favor, he always made a point of it to be there for her, even if she sincerely needed to work on her punctuality. She was the little sister of the guys that had been some of his best friends after his NATO service, so, in a sort of way, she was like his little sister, too, and he did everything he could after their passing to look out for her. She had sounded like the favor was terribly important this time, that what she needed him for was big, and while he almost never held these favors of his over her head, this one she made sound like was going to be one he was going to have to request something a little more for, even if it just be that, just for five minutes, she behaved so he wouldn't have to look so suspicious digging around in the evidence lockup, or having a field day with the secretary's computer. That one had almost ended badly.

He lifted an arm up over his head and stretched, pacing in the spot they'd discussed, before he dropped his arms and let them swing loosely as he relieved some of the tension in his frame. He'd spent a long day at the range, and had been looking forward to crashing for the night when he had gotten her call. Now, instead of lounging in a recliner with a nice tall beer, he was hanging out on the docks waiting in the middle of the night, while one of the few crews that still operated out of this shithole of a marina worked at loading their cargo onto the ship they had docked. Most of the night's sounds were lost on the growl and grind of those pieces of equipment, a company name painted across the wall of one of the containers caught his attention, and his dark brows furrowed.

"Why is that familiar..." he murmured to himself as he tried to dig at the back of his mind at the lettering he'd seen, and why it made him want to duck out of there, when he started to see several figures moving in the shadows of the shipping containers around him, the silhouettes of their frames giving away that they were in full tactical gear. The name came rushing to him, then, and he dropped the phone where he stood, reaching for his badge that was tucked inside of his jacket.

Harper Rock wasn't fair for everyone.

Every knew it.

She still didn’t understand entirely how she’d managed after so many years, the rise and fall of her life after death. She’d made a new family, she’d gathered friends and she’d developed her own home after being removed without notice from Tytonidae. The town was constantly pulsing, shifts of power, manipulations and new dangers hidden beneath the surface of a metropolitan slowly turning derelict. The government had come in with different forces, some less than favorable of vampires than the ones before. NADUMA didn’t mind them, but she supposed it likely had to do with their questionable desire for zombie ears.

As she rounded a corner, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. How long had it been since she’d last seen Luca?

She supposed she should have asked him to meet her somewhere public. Make it a little less… sketchy. But, they controlled the area. She’d come a long way in her hacking, really, since the last time she’d asked him for help. As long as she was in the same building… “Hm. He’s going to kick my ***, or try to.” She tightened her jacket around her form with a sigh escaping past her lips. She stepped out onto another dock, her pace increasing as she tried to shorten the chance of hearing about it. She could have teleported, but did she really want to startle Luca?

Probably.

She had just rounded the corner when she saw the swift movement. Soldiers. And they were heading towards the shipment container area where she’d agreed to meet Luca. “Can’t I have one normal meeting with an old friend?” The question fell from her lips as she fought the urge to slip into shadows and spotted her brother figure reaching for something. “Identify yourself before you reach into your jacket. They shoot vampires on sight and have been known to shoot humans here.” Every spoke telepathically, simultaneously deciding not to give a damn as she followed the second group as they split off. Reaching into her pocket, she removed a knockout bomb and activated it. A sharp whistle drew their attention. One raised his gun automatically and her arm went over her nose instinctively. Another looked down just as it exploded, and they began dropping.

There was a straggler, seemingly faster to hold his breath as he aimed for her, wavering slightly where he stood as he fought it. Every, though, was faster and stronger. Her fist connected with his helmet, shattering the mask before he dropped. Slipping in between shipping containers, she found herself behind him. They weren’t too far from a sewer entrance. She hissed out his name, “Unless you want a fight. This way, quick.”

As the small brunette moved to grab him, he gave a grunt as her voice came into his mind and he grimaced. That was still ******* weird, and it was always going to be, there was going to be no way around it. His fingers were curled around his badge as he watched the first group that had rushed from the darkness off to one side move on without so much as glancing his way, his presence the problem of the group that should have been coming straight at him from the wall of shipping containers. As Every took out the second group, the group that would have gunned him down without so much as a pause, thinking that he was a combatant, as she supposed, he shook his head, and, once the gas from her contraption had dissipated in the air in a flash, he moved to where her voice had hissed his name.

“I can’t shout that I’m police in a sting, that will get me shot sure as anything, soon as the chuckleheads they’re after hear,” he growled beneath his breath, his hand having left the badge where it was in his jacket, and instead, instinctively drew his sidearm. He kept it at the low-ready position, his trigger finger resting along the underside of the slide as he moved to the darkness as the dock erupted into a firefight. Muzzle flashes lit up the night and the bark of automatic fire ripped into the relative silence of the night. He sighed as he turned to her and tipped his head toward the fight. “I don’t know what the **** that’s all about, but what do you say we get the hell out of here before another unit finds those guys you put on the floor?”

He waved his hand into the dark, back the way she had come, though clearly someplace along the ground. He wasn’t a superman, and he wasn’t exactly up to snuff on his parkour, so he wasn’t going to be flying through the air like he knew she probably could. All around them, sounds bled into one another, and it was becoming difficult to tell what sound was coming from where. Boots pounded the pavement, bullets ripped through the air with explosive cracks and the metallic twang of impact against the boats and containers alike. Somewhere, a grenade erupted and filled the air with shouts of pain and surprise. If he hadn’t been ready before, that was certainly his cue to get out of Dodge.

He racked a round into the chamber of his G29 and nodded, letting her know that he was ready to move. “Keep your head down. Let’s get moving.” He moved in front of her, then, and rushed to cut to a corner of a container to peek into the passage between two rows before he let her take the lead, she being much more familiar with where they were than he was, currently.