"Can you carry him?" Ethan asked Kate. "We've got incomings."

Kate grabbed her brother under the shoulder and took him in a fireman carry. She was somewhat smaller than him but didn't show any struggle as she began to walk. "Lead the way."

Ethan led them into the corridor. Going back the way he came and dropping the man from the first floor, would be too dangerous for him. So, Ethan went straight at the stairs he hadn't yet explored. He reached the stairwell and paused, listening. The room above was silent, but he could hear muted voices from the lobby. At least eight people were talking.

"It leads to the kitchens and cellars," Kate said, stopping next to Ethan. "I picked the door leading outside and left it open."

They climbed. At the top, Ethan eased a door open a fraction, peering into the next room. Stainless steel counters, hanging pots, a walk-in freezer, and shelves of canned food lay beyond. A man was sitting on a counter, eating tamarillo from a bowl, his rifle beside him.

Ethan pushed the door open just enough to slip through. He checked the corners he hadn't seen and shot the man through the hand and into the mouth as he ate his last fruit.

Kate pushed the door with her foot and slipped in with Keith over her back.

Ethan raised a fist, stopping her to listen. He heard no shouted alarm or anyone else in the surroundings. He opened his hand and signaled to move towards the next door. He opened it slightly, checking the house's backside before going through.

Hot noon air hit them. They moved to the right, towards the east and Kate's entry point. There was no need to move all the way south to use Ethan's entry.

"Reaper Two," Cypher called on Lucian and Ethan's channel. The audio quality was horrendous, indicating she was far away. There was a pause, as if she thought of not continuing her sentence. "Specter Nine triggered his emergency signal. It didn't go through until just now, at your target. We also received confirmation from Three that the attack on their lab has begun."

"Copy," Lucian said. It was unlikely that Cypher could hear him; most likely she used a strong emitter to reach them.

Ethan motioned for Kate to stop and lower herself and Keith behind cover. He placed himself to see the convoy. Specter Nine's face had been in the files he had read on the way to Bolivia to avoid fratricide.

The cars stopped, and their front passengers disembarked first, followed by the driver. Both opened the back doors and ordered the back passengers to descend at gunpoint. Three captives descended from each car and were ordered towards the mansion. They were all cartel members, making it hard to discern captor from captive.

Ethan scanned the faces, searching for Specter Nine amongst the captors and then the captives. He found the face he saw in the files right before Specter Nine was forced inside. Moving behind cover next to Kate, Ethan talked into his radio. "I had eyes on him; he's amongst the captives."

"Alpha team saw them disembark," Lucian said. He left the channel open as he thought. "In normal circumstances, I'd expect a Specter to get out of any maul hunt. But if they receive news of the ongoing attack, they might clean up and flee. We are cleaning this place up and rescuing him. Get your target to stay put and clear the exterior."

The thrill crawled out to focus Ethan's vision on the sentries and loitering guards. He was finally going to fight. The doors to the mansion were slammed closed, dragging him out of the thrill long enough to turn to Kate. He took her gun out of his drop pouch and spun it in his hand to offer it to her. "Stay here. Things have changed, and I need to get someone else out. But my colleagues won't allow you to disappear again, is that clear?"

Cypher's message repeated, making it clear that she was only hoping it would reach them.

Kate took the pistol and racked the slide to eject the bullet Ethan had jammed. "Go."

"You take the opener," Lucian said while running. Ethan could hear the branches cracking in Lucian's path; he was coming. Anger flooded Ethan's mind as the thrill loathed the idea. Once Lucian arrived, there wouldn't be a fight to enjoy; everything would be over before the thrill was satisfied.

Ethan moved out of cover. A sentry was watching the east road from a tower, with nobody watching him. Ethan's shot snapped the man's head sideways as blood misted the tower's sheet metal interior. He moved his aim down to two smoking by a pickup's hood. They looked up as they heard the thud of the first body, and both received a round in the head.

Another sentry fell, struck from the outside, followed by the closest guard. Alpha Five was hitting heads with his Scar-H from half a kilometer away.

Ethan switched his rifle to left handling as he checked the mansion's corner. Three guards were playing cards on a picnic table, their rifles hanging from their chairs. The thrill was focusing Ethan's mind, but he felt the heat rising in his muscles shaking his aim. He switched to auto and doused the three in bullets before reloading.

Coming out of a warehouse, a guard exploded in a wet thud. The fifty caliber round only detonated once in the dirt, casting a cloud of dust.

Two more mirador sentries fell as they turned towards the noise. The courtyard devolved into confusion; men were shouting to each other without knowing where the shots came from. One of the cartel soldiers broke from a group near the gate and sprinted for the main building.

Ethan tracked him by the sound of his steps and put a round through his spine the moment he appeared.

The mansion's balcony door flung open, and a cartel soldier ran to the edge, aiming his rifle at the yard.

Ethan gunned the man down from below, avoiding his corpse as he fell over the barrier. He edged the doors as he heard movement inside. Before he could think the situation through, he kicked open the door and threw a flashbang inside.

Screams erupted as the grenade blinded the occupants. They fired their guns at where they thought the door was, emptying their magazines onto the walls.

Ethan swept the lobby as he entered, gunning down six staggering, blind guards. He checked the staircase now on his right and edged to the next door. Guided by the thrill, he began to repeat his breaching technique but stopped. The enemy now had had time to overcome the shock of being attacked and should be readying themselves to gun him down.

Ethan looked around and saw the building's electric breakers. He shot the cable sheath leading into it, plunging the building into darkness.

A storm of gunfire shattered the doors from inside the next room, turning them into a mist of splinters.

Ethan pulled out his smoke and tear-gas grenades and threw them inside. As they drew more gunfire, he threw his last two flash grenades into the billowing smoke. It bulged outward, as if exhaling into the lobby. He rushed in, finding a blur of coughing, thrashing silhouettes. His eyes adjusted faster than theirs, and the thrill drowned out the pain in his eyes and lungs.

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Ethan's rifle thudded as he moved through his enemies, gunning down the opponents carrying rifles. He moved too fast for them, and they shot where he wasn't anymore. His senses focused on them, as they were the greatest threat amongst the assembly of cartel members.

The nearest rifleman came into focus, his silhouette outlined by the muzzle flashes of his gun as he fired wildly at anything that moved. Ethan saw the barrel swing his way and put three rounds in his chest, feeling the recoil more than he heard it.

Ethan crashed his shoulder into another man he'd only seen as a flicker at the edge of his vision. As they collided, Ethan slammed the butt of his rifle into the man's throat, then fired at a rifleman at the opposite side of the room.

The room devolved fully into chaos. Men shouted conflicting orders and curses. Many fired at the wrong silhouettes, tearing into each other. Others cowered in the corners or behind overturned tables, whatever weapon they could find in hand.

A machete flashed near Ethan's head. He caught the attacker's wrist with both hands, twisted hard enough to snap it, and tore the blade free. The man shrieked; Ethan buried the machete into his chest and booted him off the blade. The thrill roared approval, thundering up his spine.

Something grabbed Ethan from behind – a choke attempt. Ethan slammed his head backward, breaking the man's nose. He seized the man's forearm, wrenched him to the side, and rammed the blade up his rib cage. The blade shuddered as it grated against bone.

Four men grabbed rifles from the dead and aimed them at the smoke, waiting for shapes to emerge.

Ethan yanked a dead guard's body by the bulletproof vest and shoved it forward. The cartel soldiers panicked and fired, shredding their own comrade's corpse. Ethan emptied what remained of his magazine at them, sending them to the ground.

A figure lunged from the smoke, trying to grab the rifle from Ethan's hand. He let go of the empty gun, chopping down at the man who took it from him. He held his hand, seeing Specter Nine looking back at him. Ethan grabbed the man by the collar and threw him through the doorframe.

There was no one else who needed rescue in this room. The thrill exploded as Ethan let go to it, letting it rage out all the strength it held back so many times for so long. It felt like deranged music beating through his veins and mind as he saw himself rip and tear through the mass of struggling enemies.

Ethan barely felt the resistance anymore. His blade struck bone, tore free, and struck again. The air grew thick with powder and blood, but the thrill translated it all into bliss.

The face of the target, the cartel's leader, flashed in Ethan's mind as he beheaded the man in a backhanded swing. As the fight went on, the struggling enemies became petrified by fear until they were no more. Gang members littered the ground, their faces frozen, their bodies in desperate poses. The blade Ethan stole was chipped from the countless bones it struck.

The thrill died down, taking with it every pain Ethan would have felt and the memories of all that haunted him. For a time, the death of these hundred men satisfied it.

Ethan bowed down and grabbed the head of the cartel's leader by the hair. He let go of the machete and unholstered his pistol. He was expecting more enemies in the lobby or outside, but the vanishing of the thrill had left his mind sluggish.

He crossed the ruined door to find the Specter. Lucian entered the building at the same time, looking behind Ethan at the carnage.

Ethan's sight tilted down. Before he realized it, he was on the ground, his own body failing him as it suffered afflictions Ethan didn't feel.

A rhythmic beeping dragged Ethan out of his sleep. He opened his tired eyes to see an overhead fan and a heart rate monitor at his side. The windows let through some moonlight, and the humid heat told Ethan he was still in Bolivia. He looked down at his own body, finding cuts and gashes around his exposed chest from bullets that grazed him. They had all been cleaned, sutured, and bandaged.

Tombstone was sleeping on a chair close to the bed. She stirred as the heart monitor hastened, signaling that Ethan was awake. Her eyes slowly opened, and she glanced at Ethan, visibly annoyed.

"I know, I know," Ethan pleaded. He lifted his back up against the bed's head to sit. He didn't feel his wounds; the blessing of the thrill, an absolute numbness to everything, was still there. "Thank you for stitching me up … again."

"Why do you do that?" Tombstone asked, her voice low.

"Do what?" Ethan asked.

"In Yemen, you fought on a truck transporting cesium and almost crashed it. In Germany, with no gun or backup, you went after five terrorists. In Russia, you took out an entire bar of gangsters with your hands," Tombstone said. She curled up a little, hiding. "These three alone were less than six months apart. And every time you came back injured."

"But I came back every time," Ethan retorted, not seeing her point.

"And today you killed a hundred men and exhausted yourself so much you fell unconscious," Tombstone said. "You are willfully rushing into higher and higher danger; I don't think you'll make it next time. Lucian was minutes away; you could have waited, but you decided to go without him. Why do you try to get yourself killed?"

"I'm not," Ethan denied.

"Are you?" she spat, showing a spark of anger. "None of the others came back with wounds like yours. Even when there are clear, tactically sound, safe alternatives, you always choose whatever puts you in the most danger! You didn't have to rush in there! So why did you do it?!"

Ethan thought of lying, of telling her that it was to save the Specter's life. But he didn't believe a word of it himself. "I… When… Ever since we met, I… When real danger comes, I feel like a rush that narrows the world. I know exactly what to do, who to hit, and where to move. But most of all, all the noise in my head, everything I don't want to think about, just disappears."

Tombstone stiffened.

"And when that hits, it feels like I'm finally alive again," Ethan continued. He swallowed hard, embarrassed by the truth. "And once it is over, like now, I can finally rest without a worry in the world. So yes, I want more. I need more to feel it. … I went without Lucian because I knew he would rob it from me."

"What will you do when real danger is throwing yourself at an army?" Tombstone asked. "All it takes is one bullet; you almost took seven today."

"I don't know," Ethan admitted.

"We've both made enough money to get away from this," Tombstone said. She brought her hand over Ethan's arm, fighting some invisible resistance before placing it against his skin. "I know what we are doing is important, but not enough to get you killed."

"Every time I try to abstain, it just gets worse," Ethan admitted. "Last night, she didn't escape because of her skills but because I sensed a challenge. Had I restrained it for longer, I might not have been able to stop before attacking Lucian. There is no version of this where you'll be safe with me. Nor the people around me."

"What then? Are you going to continue trying to get yourself killed?" Tombstone asked, anger rising.

"Yes," Ethan admitted, fatalistically. Anger infiltrated his mind as the solution became clear. "The only way I see this ending is when the murderer who hunts my dream dies by my hand."

Tombstone stopped herself from speaking.

Ethan knew what she was going to say. That that man was a ghost, gone from the face of the Earth, never to be found again. But to him, it was a certainty that they would meet again. He placed his hand over Tombstone's, understanding that even though she was scared of him, she was still worried.

Tombstone's hand trembled, and her eyes widened as her expression shifted to pain and fear.

Ethan removed his hand as she did hers. He shifted on the bed to get farther from her. "I'm sorry I scare you. You don't have to pretend to worry about me. I'd understand if you –" Ethan stopped himself before finishing the sentence.

"That's not –" Tombstone's voice cracked. She pressed her lips together and placed her hand on his shoulder with the same hesitation. "Every time a man touches me, I see and hear things I want to forget. That it be a stranger or the person I trust most."

Ethan glanced back at her, everything finally clicking in place. "I guess we both had demons we hid from one another. I'm sorry."

"Just promise we won't hide anything from each other again," Tombstone proposed. "If you need to talk about anything, I'll always be there for you."

"No more secrets," Ethan said, making and breaking that promise in the same sentence.

'The next time I dream, I want to remember that I am dreaming.' Ethan appears in the room as the scene freezes. He looks at the two for a moment, feeling sorry for all the times Olivia had yet to worry about him. 'I should make sure I don't call her Olivia next time we meet; these dreams are playing tricks on my mind.'

He opens the door, and it dissolves at his touch, like a painting held in the air. The corridor beyond is a hall of darkness absent from Ethan's memory. Only the room next to his remains, where Kate watches over her brother. He remembers having heard the rapid beeping of his monitor.

'Let's try something simple,' Ethan thinks. He summons a ball of light in his hand and illuminates the corridor, recreating it from other memories. It morphs, and the colors move, like oil paints shifting. He tries to fix everything in place but feels the dream weakening as his eyes sting.

Ethan gives up on maintaining the dream and shifts his attention to the sea of souls. In moments, he senses and sees his own soul and Russ', half-asleep and alert. But as expected, he cannot feel Azriah's. This last experiment ends as he's dragged out of his sleep.

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