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Edge tore my spine to pieces with his bare hands, so you can imagine my surprise when I woke up to see his snarling face staring down at me. "Mornin', pup." My brain hardly had time to register that something was wrong before he snatched me up by the throat and tossed me across the room. This felt awfully familiar.

Okay not so familiar. The last time this happened, I didn't feel it when I hit the wall. This time I abso-fucking-lutely felt it and holy gods, that hurt. I almost blacked out, but managed to find my way to my feet as the Cheron woman again scrambled away under my feet.

Just like before. Had I...?

I died, didn't I?

Yeah, I definitely died. It had felt so real. Except...

Except it hadn't. It hadn't felt like anything.

It had been a dream. But now that meant the dream was coming true, and Rika and Arthur and I were going to die in the next few seconds. I looked up to see Edge hobbling forward. He had me in his grip already. It was too late. Now Arthur would run at Edge and the Vithis would clothesline him--yep. Arthur cried out and landed with a gasping thud on his back.

Rika launched herself at Edge. He removed one hand to grab her head. If he did that, she was dead. I had to stop him. I had to do something. Gods damn it! WHY SHOW ME MY DEATH IF I COULDN'T oh yeah the pinkie thing.

It just popped into my head out of nowhere, Van's lesson about getting choked out. Break the pinkie and it was almost impossible to maintain a choke on someone. I reached up, wriggled my fingers under his pinkie, and wrenched back with all my might.

I didn't think I broke it, but he sure as Hells felt it. Edge let go of me with a yowl of pain. He also stopped reaching for Rika so he could hold his swelling pinkie. I decided his knee needed to go oh-for-two and round-housed it with all my strength. I felt something give, and with a thundercrack that dwarfed the one my sister had done last week, a bloody, jagged spike of white tore itself out of the flesh of his leg. Edge collapsed, absolutely shrieking in agony, as Rika came down on top of him, clawing and biting his face. I saw her tear a bloody strip off his cheek with her teeth, and something changed in her eyes. Something scary. I'd thought her horny grins had looked predatory--now I could see how fucking naïve that was. Her face in this moment was unabashedly terrifying.

I forced myself to tear my eyes away. The Vithis, unaware of what happened to his alpha, was pounding Arthur in the face. He reared up to plunge his fangs into the Equus's neck, and I dove down to put the Vithis in a chokehold. Though startled, he stood up and struggled against my arm, but I locked my grip on my wrist and squeezed. He backed up and tripped over Rika and Edge on the ground, toppling onto his back and crushing me under his weight. I wheezed and lost my grip.

The Vithis twisted sinuously in place and launched his fangs at my neck this time, but I wasn't freezing in place now. I was already moving and damned if I wasn't going to stay that way. My hands shot up to meet his incoming face. I meant to gouge his eyes, but I aimed too low and found my hands in his mouth. It was wet, slimy, and hot in there. Gross. He gagged and reared back a little to clear his esophagus. As he did, I grasped at his fangs. I missed at first, cutting the sides of my wrists open on them, but finally grabbed hold. That sent him into an absolute frenzy, bucking and flailing at my arms in a panic, but I brought my knee up hard into his groin and he toppled to the side. I didn't let go.

Once he was down, I scrambled to my feet, stayed bent over him, planted both flat pads on his chest, and yanked with all my might. Both fangs came loose with a crack and a squelch that made my stomach turn. The defanged Vithis absolutely thrummed with his agonized screams. Even Rika stopped shredding Edge's face to scramble away, clamping her hands down on her ears. I had no such option; I had to take the sound in. My bowels liquefied and sloshed around in my stomach as the noise continued unabated.

The guards finally came in, weapons at the ready, and saw what must have been a Hell of a sight.

All but four Anthropa were huddled against the far wall, clutching each other and cowering. One Equus unconscious on the floor, face a swollen mess. One Rottweiler with a dislocated pinkie and a face that looked like shredded beef. One Lepid covered in blood and bruises, holding two Vithis fangs. And one Vithis writhing on the ground in a tangled ball, clawing madly at his face. I had the presence of mind to realize I was holding two sharp, bloody objects in front of heavily armed guards, and dropped them, collapsing to the ground in the process.

It took several minutes to sort the mess out. The guards had to coax answers out of the cowering witnesses, who eventually explained that Edge and his crony had tried to kill us and been spectacularly unsuccessful. They didn't question any further. They dragged the semiconscious Canid and Vithis to the edge of the Maw and just tossed them in. We all huddled at the doorway and watched. Edge never made a sound, but the Vithis was still writhing and screaming as he vanished into the darkness of the chasm. I ran to a slop bucket and threw up.

They bandaged up Arthur's face and handed me a couple pills. "Watch him," one of the Scrofa said. "When he wakes up, make sure he takes these."

Everyone else shuffled out for breakfast, but Rika and I sat with Arthur and waited for him to wake up.

* * *

Rika sat next to me, head leaning against my chest with my arm around her, for what felt like days, but in reality I knew it was about four hours because the whistles of the guards marked a rotation shift. I was beginning to think the Vithis's beating had permanently damaged his brain and Arthur would remain in a coma, but he finally stirred. He couldn't open one eye, and the other one only opened a slit. For all that, Arthur smiled. His lips were split and one of his large, flat teeth was just gone entirely, but he smiled. "Hi."

Rika managed a trembling smile. "Hey, kid. Thought we lost you."

He swallowed, then hissed in pain. "S... sorry, guys. I was pretty useless."

I picked up his hand and squeezed it. "You were great, man."

Even through his thin, glossy coat, I could see Arthur's cheeks redden. "Thanks. I hurt a lot."

I handed him the pills. "Let's get you some water so you can take these."

Even as gangly as he was, Arthur was a lot taller and heavier than me, and about twice Rika's size. Helping him to the trough so he could drink was a pain in the ass. Not as much as swallowing seemed to be for him, though. After he choked down the pills and a few gulps of water, we helped him back into the Den. I was scared the guards would stop us and make us go back to work now that he was awake, but no one bothered us. I propped Arthur against the wall and snuggled up against him, draping his arm over me. Rika crawled into my lap and mimicked it. We must have been quite a sight.

We stayed like that in silence for a good while. Even though I was battered and bruised, and Arthur was on a whole other level of damaged, I could feel our heartbeats. I didn't think about Nola, or almost dying, or actually dying in... well in the dream, I guess it was, or the Pit, or the Vithis's death screams. I just rested. I rested like I hadn't done in my entire gods-cursed life in the Pit. I dozed a little, but I didn't sleep. I was enjoying the company too much.

"Rika," I whispered, finally breaking the silence. "I'm sorry."

She didn't ask about what, but she took her time replying. "Why?" she asked. I knew what she meant, and it wasn't "why are you sorry?"

"I freeze," I said. The shame of the statement made my nose go crazy twitching. "Instinct. When it happens, it's basically impossible for me to unfreeze until the danger passes. I hate it. I hate that it happened then. I should have protected you."

Rika huffed. "I ain't some damsel in distress, Leon."

"No," I agreed, "but you are about a third the size of Edge."

She stroked her fluffy tail thoughtfully. "Okay. Fair. But that don't mean helpless."

I chuckled and immediately winced. "Ow. Yeah. His torn-up face can attest to that."

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Really? Damn. You go, girl." Rika preened slightly at the comment.

"But you were mad at me," I pressed. "I saw it."

Rika looked down bashfully. "I was. I shouldn't have been. You couldn't have done anything there any more than me." She looked up and cocked her head curiously. "Could you?"

I felt heat rise in my cheeks. "Ah. I mean. I've been trained, a little. But I didn't get to finish my training. And I'm... not a very good student. Honestly the fact that I was able to fight back at all, even with the dream, was a miracle. I'm a coward, Rika. Always will be. I'm sorry." Saying it aloud was both depressing and liberating at the same time.

"You ain't a coward, dummy," Rika said, swatting my nose. "You fought 'em off, didn't you?" I shrugged noncommittally, and she sighed in obvious frustration. She turned to Arthur and stroked her tail. "I should have gone to help you, Arthur. I'm sorry. But when I saw him lay hands on Leon, I just..."

Arthur lifted his hand from my shoulder to stroke Rika's head. "Hey, you're preaching to the choir here. If I hadn't been so blinded by Leon being in trouble, maybe I would have seen Katro with the clothesline."

"Don't beat yourself up, sweetie," she said, stroking his thigh. "Think your friend did enough of that already--wait." She turned in alarm back to me. "What did you say?"

I blinked. "Uh. When?"

She gripped my shoulders. "Dream. You said something about 'even with the dream'?"

I nodded. "I, uh... sorta... dreamed the fight would happen. In the dream, the Vithis killed Arthur. Edge killed you. And then--" I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory and swallowed, haunted by the noise of my vertebrae separating. "I died. Bad."

When I opened my eyes, Rika stared at me in shock. Arthur looked dubious, but she didn't. I knew right away she believed me. "Holy shit, Leon, you're a Seer."

"Uh?"

Arthur snorted. "He can't be. I've never heard of a Lepid being a Seer. No offense," he added quickly.

"None taken. What's a Seer?"

Rika gave the Equus an annoyed glance. "Seers aren't all Lontramars, Arthur." She turned back to me. "Seers are those who can pierce the veil of time. Seeing the past is the most common, but a rare few can see the future--or possible futures, anyway. Clearly it's not set in stone, or you'd be dead no matter what you did to intervene."

That was crazy. I wasn't a Seer, that couldn't be. I'm not special--

I swallowed hard, suddenly remembering Van's words.

I _was_special. That's what he'd said. He'd said you're special, Leon, but it doesn't matter. Until...

"Until it does matter," I whispered.

Holy shit.