Percy's POV:

I don't know who fires first. I don't know why or where or how and I don't really care that much because I may be about to die and the who what where when why suddenly seems crazy unimportant.

Three people firing weapons shouldn't be this loud, this chaotic. Somehow though it is. Metal on metal I can handle, but this is different. This is a fight like I've never seen before. So I do the only thing I can- I run. I run towards Joselyn, not to hurt her, certainly not to help her. But to make sure she doesn't die. Because even if she is evil she's eighteen. I'm eighteen. And if I suddenly started running around trying to murder people I'd want someone to stop me.

The ground is hard concrete, echoes richache. Stark is shooting stuff out of his hands, Remix is firing her weapon again and again. Peter has a gun too, but he doesn't seem comfortable with it. For a moment I wonder where he got it, it wasn't there when he was talking to Joselyn. And no offense but the whole spandex thing doesn't leave many pocket options. But I see where the gun is pointed and I see that this isn't about saving Joselyn anymore. This is about saving Peter. This is about things I've done that I can't get over. Guilt. Guilt that I never want anyone else to have to feel. 

I practically lunge forward, tackling Joselyn. Pushing her out of the way. Pushing her before the bullet flies into her. Pushing her before Peter makes a choice he can't undo. 

But the bullet still flies, practically in slow motion. Maybe it's my imagination, but I swear my eyes follow that tiny piece of metal hurtling through the air at a thousand miles and hour, faster than the eye could possibly track. And I'd swear I could see the exact moment when I knew. Knew where the bullet would land. What the bullet would do.

It's just one tiny piece of metal. One itty bitty piece of metal tearing through space. One itsy bitsy, teeny tiny piece of metal. 

And then red. The sun setting over a broken city. The color that everything turns when the world hurts to much and is to cruel and to unkind for anything else. A carnation blooming from where lungs used to be. Tomatoes and cherries and strawberries and regret. What used to be and what wasn't but should've been. What was but shouldn't have been. The tomorrow that never got to be. The moment when everything really is lost, when hope really is gone, when it really is too late.  To little too late. The bravery that left and the flag that came home. That shield that exists only to hide the truth. Looking at the sky so the tears don't fall. The tears that fall because you cared to much. Cracked vinyl booths where only the desperate go. Head on the window: every jolt of the bus. Yeah but that's not who's going to be seeing it. That's unbelievably lame. It's not okay to cry. You're lucky. You've got it good. There's nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. Wrong. 

Because that little piece of metal can do more than tear empty space. It can create empty spaces where there used to be lives, souls, people. Do people ever stop being people? When do people stop being people and start being bodies? When their life is leaving them in a scarlet puddle, brighter than it has any right to be? When warm palms grow cold? When that little light behind their eyes turn off? When it's too late? When's there's nothing more you can do? When something else becomes more important than a person who used to be but isn't anymore? 

That concret floor is closer than it used to be. But I have to push it away. I have to get Remix. I have to make this not for nothing. Except it is for nothing. Because what's the point of a rescue mission with no one left to save?

There's copper in the air, floating through my nose straight to my brain. There's pain too. I don't know whose it is, the dying or the ones left. Maybe it's mine. Maybe it isn't pain at all, maybe it's just shock and screams and something that might just be regret. Maybe it's a gun clattering to the ground, feet pounding on the ground, prayers for this all to be a dream.

This is wishing. This is a plea. This is what hope looks like as it dies. This is a person breaking into a million pieces. Except they've found that to many of those pieces belonged to a person that isn't a person anymore. This is knowing that there is no going back, this is too much, this is twisting a knife in a wound that already hurt more than anyone should have to endure.

This is hands covered in crimson, diluted just a little by a million tears. This is watching to many people die. This is watching grief, knowing you caused it, knowing you were just trying to help. Knowing this is all your fault. This is watching grief turn into pain.

This is pain standing up. This is pain hoisting a gun. This is pain aiming, firing, shooting, not missing. This is me not stopping him. 

This is two bodies. This is too late. This is all the pain in the universe, shoved into one room. 

This is a gun being dropped to the floor, this is regret. 

This is shock running to pain. This is trying to save something that is already gone. This is hurt, hurt hurt hurt. Everything is hurt. This is blood under nails, shaking death, shaking the dead. This was somebody, now just some body. This is trying to console shock. This is shock dying. Not like they did, but dying nonetheless. This is the little light behind shocks eyes going out, even though his heart doesn't stop beating. This is shock wishing it had stopped. 

This is guilt staring death in the face, looking at loss and hopelessness and everything that is wrong is the world straight in the eye. This is me looking away.

This isn't the end. But it should be.

A/N

Only one chapter to go.

ARG I PUBLISHED THIS A FEW HOURS AGO BUT EVERYONE IS SO CONFUSED I AM CLARIFYING...

Alright, people are dead. Like multiple people (duh, two bullets, two bodies). Now I'm not going to tell you who's dead, because where'd be the fun in that? But think about it, whose POV is this from? Now do you really think I'd kill someone as I was writing from their POV? Also, whose death would most devastat Peter (remembering that only Joselyn, Stark, Aunt May, and Percy are in the room)? Pretty easy, right? So we can rule out the person whose POV this is told from. And we say for sure that the person whose death we've been saying for CHAPTERS would ruin Peter's life is dead.  Now, if you'd just accidentally killed the person who means most to you in the world what would you do? Go kill the person who'd killed them! Now other than the character's whose POV this chapter is told from who could be blamed for the death of that very important to Peter character? Well who's the antagonist? 

There. I haven't technically told you what happened but please stop asking if Peter committed suicide or killed the person who is currently TELLING THE STORY! 

(sorry if it sounds like I'm ranting, I sort of am. However, I'm just proud I finally managed to write this)