"Yeah that's not going to help." He lied through his teeth.
He pulled the trigger once more.
The smell of iron filled the air.
Smoke rose from the tip of the barrel.
Seraphina tried to scream.
But her mouth refused to move.
Her jaw felt too heavy.
Nothing happened.
No shift in his eyes.. Just Dominic, trembling, furious, his hands still shaking, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Huh?" Seraphina whispered. Her voice cracked on the words. "You didn't shoot me?"
Hoshimi looked at her. At the tears streaming down her face, the red marks on her wrists where he'd held her, the terror still bright in her eyes.
"My apologies," he said, holding her wounded hand. "Vitae Core."
Seraphina laughed. It was a broken sound, half-sob, half-hysteria. "Apologies? You put a gun to my head. You made me-you made him think-" She stopped. Pressed her hands over her face. "I thought- I thought I was really going to die."
"I wasn't going to kill you," Hoshimi said quietly. He stepped back, putting distance between them. The gun was already hidden away, tucked somewhere she couldn't see. "I needed to see if he would come out. If the reincarnation would surface to protect you."
"And if it had?" Dominic's voice was raw. "What then? You would have just, what? Shot her for real?"
"No." Hoshimi met his eyes. "Then I would have known. And I would have stopped."
"Stopped." Dominic laughed. It was an ugly sound. "You put a gun to her head. You made her bleed. You made me watch. And you think 'sorry' fixes anything?"
"No." Hoshimi's voice was flat. "It doesn't."
He looked at Seraphina. She was still sitting in the chair, her hands now pressed flat against her thighs, her chest rising and falling too fast. There were tears on her cheeks, and her pink hair was a tangled mess, and she was looking at him like she'd never seen him before.
"I needed to know. I needed to see if he would come out. And he didn't. Which means either you're telling the truth, or your reincarnation is too deep to surface even for her." He paused. "I'm leaning toward the first."
Dominic crossed the room in three long strides, putting himself between Hoshimi and Seraphina. His hands were still shaking, but his voice was steady when he spoke.
"You're done," he said. "You got what you wanted. Now get out."
Hoshimi looked at him. At the rage in his eyes, the terror still lurking behind it. At the way his hands had curled into fists again, ready to fight, ready to defend.
"I'll find whoever killed Audrey," Hoshimi said. "With or without your help."
He turned and walked toward the door.
"Wait."
Seraphina's voice stopped him. He looked back.
She was standing now, her hands still pressed to her face, her shoulders shaking. But she'd pulled herself together enough to look at him, really look, with those amber eyes that had gone hard and bright with something he couldn't name.
"Even Audrey would hate you for this," she said, "I can't believe that you had the nerve to ever go this far."
Dominic was still standing in the center of the room, still shaking, still staring at Hoshimi with something that might have been hatred or might have been understanding.
"There's nothing wrong with me," Hoshimi said. "Audrey made a mistake in trusting me. I've always been like this."
Hoshimi studied his face. The lines of tension, the way his hands wouldn't stop trembling, the shadows beneath his eyes that hadn't been there before the Mirlo estate.
"When I pulled the trigger. Your mana signature flickered."
Dominic's hands clenched at his sides. "Shut up already."
"You were going to catch it. Before it could touch her." Hoshimi stepped closer, his eyes fixed on Dominic's face.
"Hoshimi," he said finally. "What do you want from me?"
"The truth. Just the truth." Hoshimi tossed the empty gun onto the couch. "I'll do anything to solve Audrey's murder."
[Perhaps its guilt or revenge, or maybe even persistence. I would do anything to solve her muder, even if I didn't have the power, I would kill everyone here]
Seraphina's head became hazy, blinking rapidly to check if she was still alive.
[I can see it, the emptiness in his eyes. I don't hate him, I can understand it, the feeling that's been eating away at him]
The door closed
Seraphina sat in the chair by the window, her hands flat against her thighs, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm that was almost, but not quite, normal. The sunrise had shifted while Hoshimi was in the room, the light now falling across her face in long amber stripes that made her look older, harder, something carved from stone.
Dominic was still standing where Hoshimi had left him, in the center of the room, his hands at his sides, his eyes fixed on the door.
[What am I supposed to say?]
The silence stretched between them, thin and fragile, and Dominic found himself thinking about the aquarium.
"You moved before the click." She turned to look at him, and her eyes were dry now, the tears wiped away somewhere in the minutes he hadn't been watching. "You were about to catch it."
Dominic's hands curled at his sides.
"That's not possible," he said. "Not for someone my level. Not for anyone except Sophia."
"Then how did you know you could do it?"
The question hung in the air between them. Dominic stared at her, at the way the light caught her amber eyes, at the way her hands were still pressed flat against her thighs, holding something down that wanted to escape.
"I don't know," he said. The words came out wrong, too honest, too raw. "I didn't care, I just wanted to save you."
Seraphina held his gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay."
"Okay." She turned back to the window, watching the light shift across the ruined courtyard. "I'm not going to pretend I understand what's happening to you. I'm not going to pretend I'm not scared." A pause. "But you tried to save me. And that's... that's enough. For now."
Dominic stood in the center of the room, his hands at his sides, his chest tight with something he couldn't name.
"Seraphina-"
"Don't." Her voice was soft, but final. "What Hoshimi said, I'm scared- I'm scared that he might be right, no matter how much I hope."
He closed his mouth. Nodded. Even though she wasn't looking.
"I should go," he said.
"Yes."
He walked toward the door. His footsteps were too loud in the silence, too heavy, too final. His hand found the handle, cold chrome, smooth and featureless.
"Dominic."
He stopped. Didn't turn.
"When you figure out what's happening to you," she said, "come find me. Okay?"
He stood there for a moment, his hand on the door, his eyes fixed on the painted metal.
"Okay," he said.
And he left.
Hoshimi sat alone in his room, the curtains drawn against the morning light, the black box from Audrey still hidden in the drawer where he'd left it.
His hands were steady.
They were always steady.
He looked at them for a long time, at the calluses and the scars, at the shape that training had given them, at the things they could do that no normal person's hands could. He'd held a gun to Seraphina's head with these hands. He'd pulled the trigger. He'd watched her bleed.
And he'd felt nothing.
[Sometimes things like this bother me, guilt. Things like that would usually bother a human, maybe Audrey was wrong. Maybe I really am just a puppet. What I want doesn't matter, nothing matters, maybe Camus was right]
Instead, he pulled out his phone. The screen glowed in the darkness, the time blinking in the corner.
[Sarah's technique is telekinesis using orbs that her body produces, Dominic's technique is blood manipulation, but Audrey suddenly exploded from the inside out. Jack the Ripper's victims were gutted out and had their organs removed. I might be grasping at straws but I can feel it in my gut, there's no way it's not him.]
He typed a message to Reina: The killer is Dominic.
[Sarah's not completely off the hook either]
11 days before Seraphina's death