(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN) ALL I KNOW IS PAIN II

Death was something Taylor knew intimately, and she wasn’t talking only about her own.

Her mum had died in a car crash, and even after a year and several months, the grief still had a way of catching her off guard. She had learned to live with it, though there were days when she could still remember those words and feel as though everything had happened yesterday.

But at least she hadn’t seen it happen. She hadn’t watched her mum’s final moments, hadn’t seen life leave her eyes, and hadn’t been left with an image that could return whenever she closed her own.

Her dad’s death was different.

Taylor knew she would remember it for the rest of her life, and there was nothing she could do about that. She remembered every part of it, from the blood covering her face to the sound of him screaming as the blades tore through the wall and then through them both.

The attack had seemed to last forever, but she knew it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Fear and anger had stretched every moment until it felt as though she had been trapped there for hours, forced to listen while her dad died beside her.

When the loop ended, however, Taylor had been left with more than the memory of her dad dying again. She had been left with answers, and the more she thought about what had happened, the more certain she became that the attack had not been as random as it had first seemed.

The wall of steel and blades that had torn through the alcove had been controlled by someone, and whoever was responsible had possessed enough control over the metal to send it through the wall and into the space where she and her dad had been hiding. There were only two capes in Brockton Bay who immediately came to mind, and one of them was far more likely than the other.

Hookwolf.

Taylor had seen enough of him to recognize the brutality behind the attack, while his ability to turn his own body into a mass of metal made him an obvious candidate for something like this. More importantly, he was a member of the Empire Eighty-Eight, and that meant Taylor had another problem to consider.

Where one member of the Empire appeared, the others were rarely far behind.

That brought her back to the sniper.

Victor was probably the one who had been watching them. Taylor hadn’t known much about him before joining the Wards, but she had been given enough information since then to know that he was a skill thief who sometimes relied on conventional weapons. Alabaster did the same, although his usual role was easier to recognize, since he preferred fighting on the front line and using his power to delay opponents.

Victor fit better.

The problem was what that meant for her next move.

Taylor could spend the next few loops figuring out where everyone was positioned. She could take different routes, watch for patterns, and intentionally expose herself to attacks until she understood exactly how the Empire was operating. Under any other circumstances, she would have done it without hesitation.

Her dad made that option harder.

Every loop she used to gather information would put him back on the street beside her, and every mistake would give her another memory of watching him die.

Taylor had already seen him die three times. The first time, she hadn’t understood what had happened quickly enough and had thrown herself into traffic afterward. The second time, she had tried to warn him, only for the sniper to kill him and then turn the shot on her. The third time, she had gotten him into cover and told him what was happening before the attack came through the wall.

None of it had been enough.

Taylor could endure dying. She had done it too many times for the act itself to frighten her anymore, and pain had become something she could push through when there was a reason to do so. Death was simply another part of the process, another way to learn what had gone wrong so she could make a different choice the next time.

Her dad didn’t have that option.

She could keep trying until she found the answer, but every attempt would put him back beside her and give the Empire another chance to kill him. The thought kept bringing her back to the look on his face when she had told him about the sniper, the fear he had tried to hide and the determination that had taken its place when he realized she wasn’t guessing.

“What should we do?”

Taylor had no answer.

The Empire had put her in a position where her greatest advantage required her to sacrifice the person she was trying to protect, and she couldn’t bring herself to accept that trade. For the first time since she had gained her power, Taylor didn’t know whether another attempt was worth the price.

She knew who she was dealing with. She knew they were watching her, she knew there were more of them nearby, and she knew exactly what would happen if she kept trying to learn the rest.

Her dad would die again.

Taylor stared at the floor for a long moment, letting the realization settle before she finally closed her eyes.

The E88 had won.