Here we are, Heroes 13.

AzulaTano: Exactly. No witnesses.

Eternally Lachambers: Cool it. You should know to trust me by now.

Warning: The end of the chapter gets quite suggestive. I think it's mild, but it's more on-the-nose than I've been before, so good luck with that.

Bree?

"Zara doesn't own Lab Rats or anything you recognize. If you don't recognize it, it's probably hers."

"The mistake is thinking that there can be an antidote to the uncertainty."

David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary

"Risk means 'shit happens' or 'good luck.'"

Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza

Bree

"Bree, stay away from him."

Bree glared at Chase as she polished a cup. This wasn't the first time he had started this conversation. "I don't need your input."

Chase pinned his ears. "He's going to get you killed. This is a suicide mission you're on, anyways. There's nothing you can do with your little sword that is going to save us."

Bree rolled her eyes, refusing to look at Apollyon, who was simply using Chase as his mouthpiece. "I know what I'm doing, Chase. Don't get involved."

"You're my sister," he hissed. "I'll get involved if I want." He rested a hand on her shoulder. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

She shrugged him off. "I won't get hurt."

He picked up a small coin, rubbing it with his cloth while his half-tail lashed. "You're attempting to take on the most powerful demon in history with nothing more than a stupid little sword. How far did you think you'd get?"

Bree set her jaw. "Who said I was going to fight anybody with the sword?"

"You aren't practicing for nothing," Chase growled. "It's going to culminate in a battle. You're just a human. A lowly mortal. You stand no chance."

Bree scowled. "I'm not planning on fighting anybody. Get that through your head."

Chase sighed, some smoke starting to rise from his fingers. "Like I said, you're not training for fun."

Bree frowned, glancing at his hand. "Chase-"

"Mors is going to get you killed," he continued casually, small flames licking around his hand now. "He just wants to pick a fight with Apollyon, and he's using you as his pawn."

"He's not-"

The coin started to glow red. "You're caught between two titans, and you don't even know it."

Bree wanted to slap the coin out of Chase's hand. He had to be getting burned. "Chase-"

"You'll never win," Chase growled. The coin started to melt in his hand, molten gold dripping onto the floor of the cave. "Stop trying."

Bree watched as he shook his hand off, the fire disappearing and the gold droplets flicking off of his skin haphazardly. She was startled – and relieved – to see that his hand was perfectly fine. No burns, no blisters, nothing. She had no idea that his control of fire extended to an extreme resistance to the heat. He stalked off, his half-tail lashing.

Bree suppressed a shudder. Mors couldn't possibly be trying to kill her in this whole thing, right? What would that accomplish? Unless….

Unless he really was a demon, and was only lying to her. Maybe he wanted to take a stab at Apollyon without putting himself at risk, so he was using her to do it. Bree glared at the dragon-demon that plagued her and her brother for who-knew-how-long. Maybe he was just trying to fill her head with lies. He had to be good at it. It was many millennia old, after all.

Bree sighed, glancing at the sword. She hoped learning how to use it would help, even if she had to wield it against both her enemy and her teacher.

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."

Jane Austen

"Beware the fury of a patient man."

John Dryden

Tasha

"Douglas? Wake up, please."

Against her back, Douglas shifted a bit, muttering. "I'm sleeping. Leave me alone."

Tasha whimpered a bit, straining against the rope that bound her wrists behind her back. She didn't look at him. She couldn't take her eyes off the gun in her face. "Douglas-"

"Tasha, shut up. My head hurts."

A headache wouldn't matter if they were dead. Tasha met the eyes of whoever the man pointing his gun at her was. Not to mention that they were in a disgusting sewer. Nothing about the situation made her want to be left alone. Her captor actually smiled a bit, as if that would help her feel better about the situation. "But they have guns, Douglas."

Douglas shifted again, muttering a few drowsy cuss words. Maybe he got a bigger dose than she did. "I have guns."

"But you don't point them at me."

After a second of silence, Douglas moved a bit more. Why they had tied them together, she would never know. "Fine. I'm up. What dead fucker is pointing a gun at you?"

"You're not exactly in a position to be making threats," a man behind her answered. "We're aiming at you, too."

"Fun," Douglas grumbled sarcastically before yawning loudly. Tasha felt the binds move a bit as Douglas tried to stretch, but he didn't get far. "Oh, tied up, too. Kinky. What's this? Some kind of R-rated boy scout club?"

Tasha rolled her eyes, forgetting the situation for a split second. "That's disgusting."

"Don't kink-shame me," Douglas hissed. "It's fun mixing things up. You and Don should-ow!"

A dull cracking sound silenced Douglas' rant. Tasha sucked in her breath as she was forced to remember the danger they were in. After a second of silence, Douglas spoke again. "Why the hell did you do that? And you used the wrong end. You're supposed to shoot guns, not club people with them."

"You annoyed me," the fourth man explained.

"I annoy a lot of people," Douglas responded. "Get the hell over it."

"It's like you want to be shot," the man responded, very clearly becoming angry.

Tasha tugged a bit on the rope that bound her hands to Douglas' own when the guard she could see moved his gun to point at Douglas. "Stop antagonizing them!"

Douglas ignored her. "Oh, yes, I do!" His voice dropped a few octaves as he challenged them. "You won't do it, though. You don't have the balls."

Tasha winced when her guard tensed a bit. "Douglas-"

"Enough!"

The fifth voice made Tasha flinch. She had expected the next thing she heard to be a gunshot, not a person.

"You heard the man," Douglas hissed. "Down. That's a good boy."

"Enough from you, too," the newcomer snapped. "Or you'll swallow lead."

Douglas snorted. "You didn't go through the effort to get us here just to kill us."

After a second of silence, Tasha's guard spoke. "There's nothing stopping us from shooting you both."

"Clearly, there is," Douglas countered. "We'd be dead already, if that was what you wanted. I've been in this situation too many times to be tricked into thinking otherwise. I wasn't the prisoner, usually, but-"

"The longer you talk, the worse your boyfriend's condition becomes."

Douglas fell silent at this. Tasha twisted her head around as much as she could, trying to memorize the details she could see. She couldn't get a good look at the two men by Douglas, but she could at least try. If they escaped, anything she remembered would help.

Finally, Douglas shifted a bit. "I've seen you a couple of times, but I don't remember your name."

"James," the fifth man - Tasha was quickly figuring out that he was the leader - answered. "What, did Kevin never get around to that little detail?"

"Where is he?" Douglas asked in a calm, quiet voice.

Tasha shivered. She had never heard him use that tone of voice, but she suddenly felt like she was tied to a snake that was coiling up to strike. Her guard shot another smile at her, but his reassuring expression did little to ease her fear.

"You learn when I do," James answered. "Sound fair? You answer my questions, then I'll answer yours. Deal?"

"Where is he?" Douglas repeated in the same dangerous tone. "What did you do to him?"

"I ask first," James insisted, impatience lacing his words. "What's Soad's weakness?"

"I don't know," Douglas responded. "Where's Kevin?"

"You know-"

"I know jack shit about Soad," Douglas snapped, finally letting his emotions take some control. "Where is Kevin?"

"One's as stubborn as the other," Tasha heard James mutter. "Get them separated so we can move them."

Tasha saw her guard nod before moving close by her. She leaned away a bit impulsively as he crouched down and started tugging lightly at her wrists. After a moment, she felt the ropes around her wrists fall away.

Instantly, Douglas was no longer against her. The guard she couldn't see yelped in surprise, but the sound was cut short by a sharp cracking noise. Tasha was hauled roughly to her feet a second later amid a flurry of disorienting sounds. She was whipped around to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun again while her guard held her arms behind her back. "Drop it, or I shoot," James snarled, flicking the thing Douglas called the safety. She didn't need to know about guns to know that it was now dangerous.

Tasha felt a wave of fear swell up in her. She swallowed down a sob, but a whimper still escaped as she glanced at Douglas, blood dripping down his forehead from where he had been hit, who was aiming a gun at James. On the ground beside him, the only remaining person she hadn't seen was lying still, his glossed eyes wide with surprise and his neck at an unnatural angle.

It hadn't ever occurred to her that Douglas could not only kill somebody with his bare hands, but that he still had enough agility and strength to do it in seconds.

Douglas took a step towards James when the guard pressed the barrel of his own gun to Tasha's head. "You shoot James, and she still dies."

Douglas' violently angry expression softened considerably as his eyes flicked between the two men and Tasha herself. For a wild second, she thought he would still attack. However, he finally crouched down, set the gun he took from the dead guard on the concrete at his feet, and stood up again, his hands raised in surrender. He locked eyes with her as he spoke. "She has nothing to do with this. She hates demons as much as the next guy. She even tried to ban them from the house." He narrowed his eyes slightly, as it trying to communicate something to her. "You know us Summoners, don't you? We do whatever we want. She couldn't stop me no matter how hard she tried. She was just left picking up the messes my demons made."

Tasha shuddered a bit, frightened and confused despite the fact that her guard wasn't pressing a gun to her head anymore. What could Douglas possibly be doing? He was making himself look worse to these men! It was insane! Why would he paint himself as a dangerous loose cannon and her as the helpless victim in all of this?

James didn't take his eyes off Douglas. "Is that so?"

Douglas nodded. "I even use demon energy to cast glamours on her sometimes, just to get my way." His eyes bored into hers intensely. "Especially to have my way when Kevin isn't around."

Tasha's jaw dropped open. He did not just imply-

"A summoning rapist?" James wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Douglas' eyes bored intensely into her, trying to get her to understand something. "Oh, please. She loves it."

"Only because of your demon spell," Tasha's guard practically growled over her shoulder. He loosened his restraining hold a bit.

It was this palpable shift from prisoner to victim that made Tasha understand what Douglas was doing. If he made her out to be his hostage, the two men would treat her quite a bit differently than if they thought she was Douglas' friend.

By the same token, he had just worsened the situation for himself. They would likely be much crueler to a man they thought was capable of something like that. Even to the point of murder, once Douglas came up with an answer to the Soad problem like they wanted.

Tasha felt tears well up in her eyes. An odd mixture of touched by the sacrifice and fear of the situation caused them to flow freely, forcing her to bite down a sob.

James nodded towards Douglas, his skeptical expression melting away at what he had to assume were tears born of her being overwhelmed by salvation after all the supposed torture Douglas put her through. "Get him tied up very tightly. We don't want him running away before we get to Mission Creek."

Douglas snorted as the guard let go of Tasha and scrambled over to Douglas, tying his hands behind his back again. "I'm going to be running towards Mission Creek, not away. Kevin's my favorite." With that, he glanced at Tasha again, the corner of his mouth twitching in a slight smile.

Tasha had to bite down another sob.