Katara used to be afraid of gunshots. She used to fear the noise, jump as bullets whizzed past her head. She used to be afraid of what the gunshots would entail: despair, fear, death. Now she held a gun in her hands, breathing in and out slowly to keep her heart from racing. Her back was against a brick wall shattered from previous fights during Silver Vain’s rise to power.

“Never liked school anyway,” Jeremy muttered beside her, holding a rifle and glancing over to her. “But to you, it was sort of like home, wasn’t it?”

“Shut up.” Katara replied briefly, peeking her gun over the side of the wall, aiming with her senses, and firing. One-handed shooting caused her pistol to jerk her wrist back uncomfortably, but the bullet shot through the air rather straight, slicing the side of their opponent’s cheek. She pulled her hand back down.

“Stun bullets, right?”

“Of course. How would it look if we killed our own citizens?” Silver Vain’s voice came from behind a broken piece of the school wall, smiling over at her.

“Silver.”

“We were kidding. We don’t want to hurt them.” He peeked over the edge of the wall only to duck back under, sighing as bullets bombarded his small wall of protection.

“Do we have the girl?” Katara inquired, sending her senses over to the shooters. There were four of them, reloading their magazines before taking aim once again.

“No,” Silver answered over the gunfire. “We don’t.”

“What? But these people could hurt her! Silver, where on earth is she?”

“We fear she may still be at home. We couldn’t get to her because of men like these.”

“I’ll get her. She’ll be safe.”

“It’s not safe for you to go alone. Jeremy—”

“No, I’ll go alone. It’ll be faster that way. Get these guys stunned then meet me at the caravan, all right? I’m sure our guys are still holding out there.”

“Of course.” Jeremy grunted, motioning for her to leave. She quickly reloaded to be sure she had a full magazine, then tucked what was left into her waistband. She waited for the men across from her to stop shooting momentarily, then she stood and darted off towards the trees down the hill. Silver Vain and Jeremy fired shots to cover her, forcing whatever attackers were above their cover to duck behind it.

She slammed into the forest, shoving past branches and twigs while she slipped around obstacles that could slow her. She was doing her best to be quiet as she ran, but it wasn’t all that successful. Twigs snapped underfoot as she rushed through to the small house within the woods. She came across charred spots of land and burnt trees; she had to be getting close to the Fire Lily.

She charged into the clearing, her senses making a quick sweep. There was no one home. She stopped alongside the house wall to catch her breath, her senses trying to track which way the Fire Lily would’ve gone. Her senses spread out from her, scanning the areas where footprints had dented the ground. Silver Vain had Jerry teach her about tracking and from the steps pressed into the ground, she could tell the person was a child. A young child, barely over fifty-seven pounds. Katara’s brows furrowed beneath her sash; wasn’t the girl supposed to be older than that?

With her distracted mind, she didn’t feel the woman walk up behind her. Not until the gun cocked as a twig snapped under her foot. Katara whirled around and raised her gun to the woman. Pregnant by about seven months, a wedding ring, long hair, a terror dripped from ever muscle from this taller female. The two hesitated and did not fire.

“Who are you?” Katara demanded.

“Who are you?” The lady retorted.

“Katara Baneswing, soldier and trainer under Silver Vain. Drop your weapon, I’m not here to hurt you.”

“I’m not worried about me. Stay away from my daughter.”

“Your daughter?”

The woman’s finger twitched against the shot, Katara’s stomach falling. Her vines would save her, she knew that, but with all the animosity against mutants she couldn’t dare have someone see she wasn’t entirely human. She released a slow breath.

“Please, Miss, I’m trying to find a woman named the Fire Lily. I’m here to bring her in so she isn’t hurt by the people against mutants. We’ll train her so she can control her powers and use them for good.”

“Bull.” The woman spat, a snarl pulling at her lips. Katara paused and tilted her head to the side.

“Excuse me?”

“I won’t let you take my daughter from me.”

“Your daughter? The Fire Lily? Listen, please—”

“No, you listen! None of the mutants ever make it to the city! I won’t let you kill my daughter!”

“What? Madam, please, we don’t harm the mutants at all. We just want to protect them. It’s people like you who delay us long enough that our convey gets attacked and we have to walk back! You know how dangerous that is for mutants?”

“I don’t believe you!” Her muscles tensed in her arms, rippling down to her wrist and fingers. Clearly she had never shot a gun before. Katara jerked to the side, hitting the ground as the bullet dug into the wall of the home. From the facial features of the woman, the shot had hurt her wrist. This gave Katara enough of a delay to fire one stun bullet into the woman’s chest near the heart, where the sedative would get into the stream faster.

Except her gun didn’t have stun shots, but regular bullets. And blood gurgled up in her throat and stained her shirt. Katara’s jaw dropped.

“No! They said we had stun shots!” She jumped to her feet, rushing to the woman who was on her knees, holding her chest where the shot was fired. She twitched the gun back up to position, pointing at Katara. Kat dropped her gun and put her hands up in surrender.

“Please, let me help you. I didn’t know—I didn’t think—”

“I would expect nothing less from people like you.” She grumbled through the blood in her mouth as she fell to her side, her heart slowly fading into silence. Katara fell on her knees beside her, her hands on her chest.

“No—no—no—no!” She pressed against her chest, trying to revive her heart. She leaned down, clogged her nose, and tried to breathe breath into the woman’s lungs. She put her hands against her chest, pressed four times, then tried again to give her life. Eventually she stopped, pulled away, and wiped the blood from her mouth.

“They said I had stun bullets. Who gave us regular bullets?” She reminded herself that she had reloaded before she came with a new magazine. She wondered if that had held bullets for a last-ditch effort. She silently cursed herself and closed the eyes of the mother.

“I’m sorry.” Katara said softly before standing to follow the steps of the child into the forest. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, her head bowed and her gun left for the others to collect.