No. 8 ; THE SIREN

Öga for Öga

TW: a dead body, throwing up

Serena was sitting down on the couch, staring ahead vacantly as she desperately tried to erase the horrible image from her head. It wasn't working yet.

Diego carefully pulled out the knife that was stuck in Elliott's chest, and Luther covered the body with a white blanket they found in one of the cupboards.

"I can't believe Elliott's dead," Luther muttered quietly, not wanting Serena to overhear.

Diego nodded in agreement, staring down at the now covered body. "He was a good guy. Deserved better than this. This must be really hard for Serene. They were pretty close."

They both glanced back at the ominous red writing on the floor. "Elliott must've been getting too close to the truth. It smells like the feds."

Luther blinked. "What? Are you out of your mind? Diego, if this was the federal government, they would take him somewhere and question him. They wouldn't..." he trailed off, not knowing how to describe the horror that lay under the blanket.

It seemed they had forgotten to lower their voices, because Serena's voice called out, "It wasn't the feds. It must have been those three assassins that have been following Five around."

She stood up to join them but Diego held her back. "You don't have to be near the body," he said, gently sitting her back down on the couch. He let himself fall onto the couch next to her.

Serena's eyes drifted to the white cloth and filled with tears. "It's my fault he's dead," she said blankly.

Luther was already opening his mouth to protest, but she wouldn't let him get a word in. "If I hadn't accepted his offer, if I had just stayed out of his life, then he would never have gotten dragged into this mess."

Diego tilted her face to him and regarded her with a soft look in his eyes. "If you hadn't become his friend, he would have had a very boring life," he said with a certain finality.

Serena wiped away a tear that had trailed down her cheek and took a deep breath. "We have to bury him," she said. It was impossible to keep the tremor from her voice.

"Let us worry about that," Luther said soothingly.

"He liked the open air. Will you bury him somewhere nice? A field, maybe, somewhere with flowers?"

Luther nodded mutely, and it gave her a great deal of comfort to know that her friend would be buried in a place to his liking.

"I suppose I'll go and write the eulogy now," Serena said. She stood up on shaky legs and went to find a pencil and some paper. It was the least she could do for the man who had been there for her when she had no one and nothing.

"Oga Foroga," Diego muttered while she settled in another room. "That a name?"

"I'll look her up."

***

Five had just completed his end of the deal with the Handler. His clothes and skin were covered in the blood of the members of the board of directors, but it was alright, he told himself, because in his left hand he was gripping the handle of a briefcase. Their ticket home.

He spatial jumped to the top of the stairs of the apartment, and stopped short when he saw the white blanket. The briefcase hit the floor with a quiet thud as Five peeled back the fabric. It was Elliott's face that stared up at him through unseeing eyes, and he exhaled deeply. "Damn," he muttered underneath his breath.

A thought passed through his mind fleetingly - he hoped that Serena hadn't seen the body yet, and never had to. Perhaps it was wishful thinking.

His (in his opinion) idiotic pair of brothers were on the phone with someone. It seemed like they were harassing some poor old, innocent woman.