“He knows you’re here.”

Cush let out a string of curses in his native language as Elora looked at him with wide eyes.

“You can’t blame that on your dark side, buddy,” she told him dryly.

Cush shook his head at her as he grabbed her hand and began pulling her towards the door. “Thank you for your help, Tony,” he told the human. They were out in the hall banging on Lisa’s door when Rin and Oakley came out of the room they were sharing.

“What’s going on, Cush?” Rin asked.

“We need to go. Tarron knows we are here,” Cush explained.

Rin let out some similar sounding words as he dashed back into their room. Oakley hurried down the hall towards them, frowning as he looked from Cush to Elora to Tony.

“I take it this Tarron character is bad news?” Oakly asked.

“Apparently, he’s worthy of elvish cursing,” Elora told him.

The door to Lisa’s room finally opened and she stood there disheveled, obviously having just awoken. “What wrong?” she asked Cush.

“We need to leave,” Cush told her without elaborating further.

Lisa nodded, not questioning him. She hurried to put her shoes back on and ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame her bedhead.

In a matter of minutes they were in the parking deck following after Tony. Though it was nearly ten o’clock at night, the lights of Vegas rendered it as bright as day. Elora turned to look out at those lights and she soaked up the noise and life of the city. She felt the itch under her skin to run. To where? She didn’t know; she just knew that the night called to her. Cush, sensing her restlessness, wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

“I have no idea how much Tarron knows,” Tony admitted. “I was stupid not to consider that they were watching me. They probably have video cameras in my office and the conference rooms and definitely out on the floor. I’m going to give you a vehicle that’s clean so it will be safe.”

“What does it matter if it’s dirty?” Elora asked.

Tony smiled at her. “Not clean like that. I mean clean as in free of any bugs or GPS so they can’t track you.”

“Oh, gotchya.” Elora nodded.

“I wish I could tell you that she would be safe if she stayed here,” Tony said, speaking to Cush. “But I’m not too proud to admit that their power is too great for me.”

“I understand, and I would not put you in that position. She belongs by my side anyways.”

“Well at least then you know what sort of trouble she’s getting into,” Tony pointed out.

“She is standing right here,” Elora grated out.

Tony led them to a black, generic, albeit very official looking, SUV. They loaded up with Cush taking the driver seat and Elora next to him in the passenger seat. Cush rolled down the window as he started the vehicle. Tony stood several feet away watching them. His eyes were narrowed and the skin around his mouth was tight with stress.

“Will you be alright?” Cush asked him.

Tony shrugged. “Worst case scenario, they torture me; best case, they only kill me.”

Elora’s mouth dropped open at his words. “He’s joking right?”

Cush began to back up and as he put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking deck he looked one last time at Tony. Then he glanced over at Elora and shook his head. “No, unfortunately he’s very serious.”

“Torture? Really? I mean, who does that?” Elora asked incredulously.

“Apparently, dark elves,” Oakley replied and then added, “and truthfully now knowing that we are half dark elves, it explains a lot.”

Tarron watched from the shadows as the black SUV pulled out of the parking deck. He had expected that the human who was in charge of running Iniquity would have ran with the light-elf warriors. But he stayed. Whether that made him brave, or foolish, he couldn’t yet say. He did know that it made him dead. Tarron had no way of contacting Lorsan in the dark elf realm since the king had closed the portals. So he couldn’t get a confirmation that his king would indeed want Tony the human removed. But the human had betrayed them. In Tarron’s book, betrayal was an automatic death sentence.

He stepped out from the shadows. Tarron could see by the tightening of Tony’s shoulders that the human knew that he had company. Tarron prepared himself to have to run after the human. Humans are prey and, after all, that is what prey do; they run from anything deadlier than themselves and the elf was definitely much deadlier. But, once again, the human surprised him. Tony turned slowly to face him. His jaw was tense and his eyes darted around the parking deck before finally landing back on Tarron.

“Your family has worked for the dark elves for many generations,” Tarron said as he took a step towards the human. “You know the cost of disloyalty, yet you are still here?”

“I know the cost,” Tony agreed. “But I also know that the cost of Rapture being given to my race is more than I’m willing to stand for.”

Tarron chuckled. “Suddenly you’ve grown a conscience?”

“Something like that,” Tony quipped.

“I think it’s a little late for regret, human,” Tarron purred. “You’ve made your bed, and you invited the enemy to lie down with you in it. What is it you humans always say? You reap what you sow?” He smiled as he took another step closer.

Tony knew he was staring at death. There was no other way to put it. The sadistic dark elf standing not twenty feet from him was going to kill him. He realized that he was having one of those moments that you see happen to people in the movies, where their life sort of flashes before their eyes. For him it was more that everything up until that point was staring him in the face and it was screaming at him, this is what you did with your life? This is how you spent the few years given to you, in the service of evil? The crappy thing about having reality stare you in the face is that there is no turning from it. There is no hiding from what has already happened. It is done and it cannot be undone. And now as he stood there, staring at the man who would end his pathetic version of a life, he realized just how badly he wanted to do something good with his life.