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Bangkok, Spring 2018

When he's brought up to his knees, the movement combined with the shake of nerves makes his stomach lurch. He does what he can to lean away to empty his stomach of what's left of his lunch until he's dry heaving. Throat raw, and eyes burning, he takes the pen they hand him, and looks down at the blank pages.

Autumn's begging him to shut up, and he's realizing what exactly he's doing and stepping into and part of him wants to take it back, take it back. Oh god, his dad. His dad. They're going to - He feels stomach acid and bile in the back of his throat, and looks down at the pages, watches the water hit the page and bloom outward.

The writing is going to be hard to read with his shaking, but he tries his best.

It's the Spring Festival. She's standing in front of Daniella, telling her she'd die for people like Morgan, Kevin, for friends like Jude.

"And who's going to take care of you?" Daniella had asked that day.

He's right fucking there.

She's at a flea market, meeting her sister for the first time, learning through roundabout inference that everything she knows is built on a lie made to protect, what? Her feelings? To hide from her that she's been getting the people close to her killed from day one.

It's a trend.

It's last fall. She's still a human. She's across from a cop telling her that her friend Olivier's dead. She's wondering if she might have been able to change... anything.

“Don’t be sorry," the officer had said, "It happens, people fall outta touch. You can’t go blamin’ yourself for what you did or didn’t do."

She could get up now, force their hand, but she's fucking scared. She doesn't want to die. She's afraid. She's a fucking coward. "Please. Stop." she says, but its so light a whisper, surely nobody hears it.

Say it with your whole chest, coward.

She can't breathe, she feels like her brain is going to split in half. "Don't do it." Still barely a whisper.

Louder, why not be loud when it'll count. Stand up and take as many of them down with you as you can. You'll die, he'll live. That's what you want here, right? Aria's going to lose you eventually, either way. Better now than later, right?

Autumn's eyes flash gold. She screams out after them, sends a flurry of threats. Somebody moves to silence her and she jerks, pulling somebody in the way of the blow and using the surprise to scramble free, just for a moment, before they dogpile her.

"You're gonna have to kill me or I'm gon-"

Something heavy and hard strikes her, and the world goes blurry and white and red and black for a second. She feels something searing and cool, all at once, dig into her neck as they slip a silver loop around her neck. She's staring at Jude, face going red, teeth bared as she fights a losing battle with unconsciousness.

I'll fucking kill you, she says. It's a whisper again, just angry air shuffling through her vocal chords.

As gentle as a silver bullet through the heart can be. It leaves behind a cleaner corpse for the casket, more opportunity for an honorable memorial to follow.

Shiv sets the gun aside and follows Jude as he collapses to the side with a whisper. "Shhh, Shhhh. It hurts. I know, I know. It's okay. It's okay...." This is not Shiv's first time comforting someone on their deathbed, no less thanks to their hand. One hand is placed over his wounded chest. It won't stop the bleeding; it won't prevent death but the warm touch brings comfort to the dying. "You are brave. You are noble. You have done well. Go with honor. Rest in peace."

The life leaves Jude's body. Kanta's clean hand closes his eyes for good. That's one wolf taken care of.

The other is conscious but not for long. Autumn is quickly fading after a particular blow to the head. Shiv turns to Autumn, on one knee once again as they meet her eye. "Grieve, mourn, but remember tonight. We will take care of the funerary processes and do our best to honor Jude's memory shortly. I suggest you do the same." Its only a matter of time before Autumn is out like a light. Neutralized.

The rest is just following protocol.

He didn't know about Tate. He'd known about her mother. Her shitty, abusive mother. Hot iron floods his mouth as he bites into his cheek - as he remembers his own kills, his own mistakes, right at the beginning. He and Autumn both were monstrous things, but.. He turns his head to look at her - to study the tear-streaked features, the frustration settling itself in her jawline, the anger in her eyes, the desperation.

They both have family. He has.. some friends. He didn't have a life in Port Leiry anymore, wasted on pining and waiting for someone who didn't want him. She has love. That's enough for him. He looks up to the hunter.

Tears streak down his features, making tracks through the dirt and grime. Would he give up a beating heart and a chance at escape to protect a friend, even if she didn't have all of that and more? Absolutely. If it wasn't a sacrifice, it'd be a fight. She's a part of his pack, and that says more than enough.

Jude starts with a nod. He'll shoulder the burden so she can run free. He'll give up. It doesn't matter, he thinks, if she can feel good about herself or not - it matters that she lives. "Y-yeah. Yeah, I would. She's my friend."

It's easy to think of a random hiker as a write-off, but the names of his kids, of his wife, they make her think of Morgan and her husband and how her Earth had shattered.

It's whiplash then, when he brings up her old boss at the Bowling Alley. She'd convinced herself that she did the whole fucking city a favor with Tate - but had she? Was that right? What right had she had to decide that? "You don't know what you're talking about." If she growls it enough maybe it'll be true.

And then - Amanda Howell, loving mother. Autumn bucks at the accusation. "You don't know anything." Her heart skips.

Shiv, distracted, turns at Jude's bargaining. They try to move to gag her, to slip their stupid bag over her head, and she squirms. "Shut up Jude!" She can't hear what Shiv is saying to him. Can't hear what Jude is saying back, so she just keeps shouting for them to both shut up. She shakes her head, her thoughts racing, boiling in her skull. How dare he? Her mother wasn't loving. Her mother wasn't worth this. They're still talking and she knows what he's doing. She's not worth this, either. "No! Don't fucking listen to him, Jude stop fucking talking!"

Pulling at the hunters pinning her, Autumn struggles as they push her deeper into the muddy, cold autumn soil and leaves littering the entrance to the trail. Knowing Cam won't help, and she doesn't know what the hunt is, and when Shiv turns his back to regard Jude, she manages to get a foot dug in enough to push herself up and throw off one of the assailants only for their backup to move in quickly and disarm her with a sharp set of kicks that knock the wind clean out of her.

When they go to slip the bag over her head again, though, she catches one of them on the hand with her teeth, digging in enough to draw blood and earn a strike that puts her more cleanly back to the ground, the tattoos of the hunters pinning her down gleaming with their fortifying magics. The junior hunter panics, the seniors reassuring her that it won't take. One of them moves and she hears a mechanical ratchet of sound and something press against her head.

Stars dance in her vision while the hunters re-assert their grip on her, the blind-bag forgotten for the moment while one of them tends the bitten hunter. She can't hear what they're talking about then. She feels her nose full of blood, running into her mouth as she snorts breathless into the ground where they hold her, smells the way it mingles with dirt. She should be terrified but she's only getting madder at the helplessness, at how small she feels. How will normal people like Morgan look at them, knowing what they've done? They already feel worlds apart - it can be an easy break if this hunter will just let them leave. They can just fade out. Aria can find her somewhere else, Jude can get out. She doesn't want to die, they don't have to die. "Please."

The anger fades, a pendulum swinging into fear, and she realizes how bad this is. Feels her guts knot. Not knowing what they're saying is making her want to throw up. She struggles again but feels the knee in her back, feels another between her shoulders, tensing and knotting at the muscle. She can't hear but she knows what Jude's trying to do. "I'm the one that did that, I told him to do it," she stammers out; is that even true? does she remember it right? does it matter? "...t-to fucking keep us a secret, he did it because of me, don't listen to what he's saying, he's fucking harmless. Don't do this, please, don't fucking do this. You want me, please don't fucking do this."

Shiv spins around with a look of concern, reaching out a hand as they assess rest of the hunting party. Their youngest is rattled but stable. They may proceed. Very well. "Please keep Ms. Howell restrained." They briefly address Autumn, pushing past the ever-changing looks or fear and rage as they meet her eye. "Close your eyes. Cover your ears. Grieve as you may but scream and we will render you unconcious."

"We hunt to protect and preserve humanity. Let it be on record that the Brotherhood now lends aid to Jude Grigsby and his expression of humanity to the inhumane. His hunt takes full responsibility of the deaths listed in Project Fallen Leaves. All associated parties are absolved following his sacrifice. Good hunting."

Don't scream. Don't scream.

Who would listen, anyways? The main one's fingers snap in his face, and he looks up at them, wide eyed and terrified. "H-hey - wait, wait." He doesn't struggle, but he tries to get their attention after their spiel about Autumn finishes. "Wait-"

No struggling, no screaming. His voice is quiet, shaking, stuttering.

"Hold on - hold on, please." Please listen, please. Give him a chance to speak. "She - she's good. She's a good person. She has - she has a lot of people who care about her, if you -- If you hurt her, that brings.. that brings so much to your door."

They probably don't care so much about that, really. So he tries for another angle as the seconds tick by and his body tells him that this is where he has to watch a friend die. He can't. He can't, he won't. "T-take me. I'll - I killed the hiker guy. I was, I did that, that was my choice. Take me. If you have to take one of us. I can, I can be the guy. The burden. The- the absolution or - or whatever." This isn't a video game, he thinks, this is his life. But what does he have to lose? There are a few friends that would miss him, sure. Not many. He's a blip. "Please."

They move towards Jude, take him up, and when they go to do the same to her, she wonders if this is the police before she recognizes the inks adorning some of them. Marks that make her think of Cameron, of Aria's friend Reid.

Something drops into her stomach like a stone into a pond, and she struggles, momentarily, before she realizes they're stronger than they ought to be, and one of them kicks the back of her knee to send her into a more compliant position.

They're barking things out, one of them, and when they lean down to look into her eyes, she recognizes them. Months back. The bookstore. "I know you," she says, but it's quiet, hushed. They make a demand, though, and Autumn shakes her head. They talk about Aria - the trip. Reads her to filth, and offers her space to talk. When she tries to struggle further, she feels a boot dig heavy into her back, sending her shoulder-first into the mud as more of them move to hold her down more firmly.

" 'The hiker guy.' " The disgust in Shiv's scoff is thick. "Do you even know his name? Or the names of the grieving family he left behind? Or did you forget that these are people? Not just walking meat. Not just inconveniences-- Oh, don't get me started on inconveniences." Now Shiv opens the evidence binder. Flipping through page after page of laminated documents, Shiv's eyes rapidly maneuver between the two wolves and referencing their material for accuracy. "Bosco Tafani. That is the name of our hiker killed on the trail. He is remembered by his wife and son, Francesca and Thomas 'Tommy' Tafani. They are lost without him. They will never be the same."

Shiv takes a step towards Jude, unblinking. "One can be written off as a grave error. Two, three times and counting is a pattern. Do you know the other lives Autumn Howell has snuffed out of inconvenience, Mr.Grigsby?"

"Bowling manager assistant, Tate Donnelly. Loving mother, Amanda Howell. Betrayal. Matricide. Just the tip of the iceberg." Shiv pauses, letting the weight of those names hang between the three of them.

"Think, Jude. Would you really want to carry this weight? Do you really want to die for her convenience? Be another name Autumn crosses off so she can walk home scot free and feel good about herself when she goes to sleep? Is that what you want?"