Making our way back from Mak's apartment was a little more involved than our trip there. Mostly on account of how Mela was half-starved, tired, and not in the best physical shape.

She seemed oddly embarrassed about that last qualifier. When I teased her about 'neglecting her guns', I expected her to take it on the chin and turn the joke on me. Instead, she mumbled something inaudible and changed the subject.

I immediately felt like an absolute asshole. It finally occurred to me what kind of mood she'd likely been stuck in since the attack on the Cattery. I had been able to keep going thanks to inertia, a desire for revenge, and Amelia. Mela, on the other hand, had been trapped in a jail of an apartment with the perpetrator of the Kittens' destruction.

Thankfully, it wasn't difficult to find a solution to our transportation problem. Amelia made one call, and fifteen minutes later, two drones showed up at the apartment door to escort us to the car she'd ordered.

"Ya weren't kidding. This is just… creepy, I'll be honest with ya." Mela shuddered a little at her first encounter with the drones. I didn't blame her. Their blank eyes and expression still sent a few slight creeps down my spine.

"Yes, well… didn't do that to your brother, so no worries!" Amelia chirped, affecting endless optimism. I could tell she still wasn't sure how to act around Mela.

"Right. Yay. That's good," the redhead muttered, looking away. The next bit she probably didn't mean me to hear, but I caught it anyway, since I was playing the role of her crutches. "Least you ripped his limbs off."

I got the distinct impression that Mela might have preferred it if we'd either killed or brainwashed her brother into a vegetable, rather than having to deal with him being fully lucid.

Which… I actually couldn't guarantee that he was.

I still had no idea what I'd done to him. And while Amelia had ordered the mercs to clean him up and watch over him, neither of us had cared enough to call again and ask about his condition. We had both silently agreed that we would deal with that only when we had to.

"So… what room would you like?" I asked when we were finally packed into the car and on our way to the merc HQ.

"What room?" Mela repeated, confused.

"Yeah. We technically own the mercs now, on account of the brainwashing, so their HQ is ours. Including the top-of-the line fancy rooms their leadership used. Want the captain's quarters? Cause he's definitely not using them at the moment."

We might have spared Patch's life, but we weren't letting him keep his luxuries. Not that he could get any use out of them, seeing as he was missing most of his limbs.

Amelia and I had briefly considered moving into the HQ ourselves, for the higher security and the merc backup we'd have access to on demand, but that just felt wrong. On so many levels. Mostly because we didn't want to sleep in a literal den of evil built out of blood money.

Mela nodded. "Heh, that sounds fun, yeah. Let's go with that."

She smirked, she projected confidence, she acted like the Mela I remembered. In spite of that, everything was underscored by an exhaustion and grief I had no idea what to do about.

"Hokay! We'll order the mercs to obey you implicitly, so you can have them do whatever you want. Food orders, fetching you stuff, you name it!"

I continued trying to sell the HQ as some kind of resort, filling the short ride with awkward, slightly stilted chatter.

After arriving, Amelia and I spent the next thirty minutes or so helping Mela settle in. Then we left her to shower and collapse in her new (and thoroughly cleaned, mind you; that was one of our first orders for the drones) bed.

Sneaking out of the mercs' building, we walked back to our comfy abode in silence. Both of us were a little too caught up in our thoughts to talk. Our hands found each other the second we were on our own, though. I relished the warmth of her fingers and the support I found in them, even if my mind was a billion kilometers away.

Finally, just as we were slipping through the doors to our shared living space, Amelia slumped against me.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not, you know, inviting her to stay here." She waved a hand vaguely at our secondary home, and I felt a flush sneak onto my cheeks. "I mean, I'd love to get to know her! Really! It's —"

"Amelia, you don't need to explain." I cut her off gently, letting go of her hand only so I could wrap my arms around her and squish her against me. Since I was only slightly taller than her, that conveniently placed my lips very close to hers.

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I only spoke up again when we came up for air.

"I love Mela like a sister, and I feel all sorts of guilty and broken up about what I might have caused, but… this place is ours. I can't just invite her over. I don't want to just invite her over. I don't really want to invite anyone over, to be honest."

The apartments, both the one above the ripper shop and the one where we'd hidden originally, felt distinctly ours. Like they were spaces reserved for the two of us and no one else. Letting someone else in felt like an invasion of privacy, even if it really wasn't.

And while I was pretty sure I was acting all sorts of weird, Amelia didn't seem to mind. Not if her giggle and smile were anything to go by.

"Yeah, I get that. This is where we can just be us. No sneaking about. No complications. Just the two of us." Her fingers lightly traced over my cheek in a way that made me shiver. "Mmm, I kind of feel like I should reward you for catching onto that, though…"

"Oh really? What do you have in mind?"

"Let's see if I can figure something out, shall we?"

The day had both sucked and turned out much better than I anticipated. But I found that all the negative aspects of it melted away as I let myself drown in Amelia's presence.

—

The next day was a remarkably ordinary one at the clinic. Amelia wanted to get back into the swing of things at work, and I was fully in support of that.

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I was getting used to seeing her operate on people. She had even started guiding me through what she was doing, pointing out the differences between her approach and a regular ripper.

Obviously, she outperformed most of the rippers who didn't have top-shelf corpo support. But the fact that she didn't think she'd risen high above all rippers alarmed me. How was anyone supposed to match the ability to manipulate the flesh and (with a ton of practice) blood of their patients?

With bleeding edge tech, apparently.

The things she told me were possible with highly restricted nanites, technology, and drugs both impressed me and made my skin crawl. And this was coming from a guy who had an alarming tendency to transform people into eldritch creatures and then eat them.

Our two staff members were also grateful for our return. Melania was great, but her skills as a ripper actually weren't all that impressive. Some of the trickier operations strained her ability to manage, and she took a lot longer than Amelia did to handle even easier surgeries.

You know, on account of the eldritch cheating Amelia had access to.

So, with the boss lady back where she belonged, the clinic could once more spread its wings, increase its patient intake, and soar! Which amused me, considering the fact that we had originally opened up the clinic only because Amelia wanted to be conveniently close to the mercs.

Somehow, though, I didn't think the clinic was just a means to an end anymore. I could see that much from the shine in Amelia's eyes while she was working all that next day.

She genuinely liked helping people. The fact that her low prices gave the less fortunate some much-needed access to a ripper was a source of deep satisfaction. For someone who'd spent years catering to the obscenely rich, it must have felt like she was actually doing something for her patients for the first time in her life.

And the more people she helped, the more lives she saved, the more Amelia seemed to relish operating the clinic.

I also had to admit that the people seemed worth helping. Just because the local crowd was 'tougher' than normal for the inner districts didn't mean they were bad. From what I could see and hear through the cameras, most of the people who came into the clinic were very polite. The same applied to the glimpses of everyday life we caught through our windows.

"You know, when all of this is over and we take your father out of the equation, do you want to continue doing this?" I asked during surgery that afternoon. "Working as a ripper, I mean. I'd have to figure out a job for me, but I honestly wouldn't mind living here. With Patch's crew out of the way, it's a surprisingly nice neighborhood."

Amelia paused and stared at me, despite the fact that her patient was wide open on the table. Then a small smile found its way onto her lips.

"I'd… like that, yes. But don't you want to live on the top floor of some fancy megabuilding, in the lap of luxury? Cause we'd be able to do that, you know. And what do you mean, 'figure out a job'? You're already working as my bodyguard, no? I certainly cover your living expenses."

I chuckled at that, both the accusation and her offer. "Nah. I don't think excessive luxury's really for me. Also, if that's the case, where's my salary? Boo, I say, boo! Have you no shame to exploit me like this?"

"Oi, you have access to my credits! All of them! And you definitely weren't complaining last night when I —"

"Shouldn't you focus?" I cut in with flushed cheeks, motioning at the guy she was working on.

"This is a basic operation," she scoffed. "I'm just helping him install a new heart implant 'cause the old one is malfunctioning. No surprise there, by the way. I get that his heart was failing him and he didn't have a ton of money, but this garbage? I literally found him this replacement for the same credits he originally paid, and this is a way newer model."

"Well, that's just because you like to help people. Aren't rippers supposed to overcharge people when they're selling them cybernetics directly?"

"Oh, I will. The second some remotely posh asshole walks through my doors, he's getting fucking skinned. Don't wanna scalp some poor shmuck who can barely afford a functioning heart, though."

She grumbled briefly before focusing entirely on her work, and I couldn't keep a smile off my face.

That right there was Amelia. She had every right to turn out far worse, on account of her father. But instead… there we were.

Of course, not all of our day was nice and relaxing. Once work was done, neither of us could find much excuse to ignore Mela. So, I called and asked if she wanted to have dinner with us, or if she'd rather rest more.

Her answer was expected. We found ourselves in the merc HQ cafeteria a couple hours later, takeout boxes piled high on the table. Mela had insisted we didn't need to wait on her or force her to eat in bed.

The food was delicious. The conversation was less stilted than the day before. Even Mela seemed to be in a much better mood. That's probably why the question she hit me with right after we were done eating caught me so off-guard.

"So, Adrian. You said you stole more cyber-stuff from the mystery doc, right? Stuff like you two have?"

I glanced at Amelia, then back at Mela. "Yeah… why?"

"Where's it at?" She leaned forward across the table, staring me right in the eye. "Because I want some of it."

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