CW:

I was alone in the parking garage near my dad's apartment and fighting hordes of zombies. Their faces were distorted facsimiles of people I knew, mostly friends and family.

I struggled to keep fighting knowing everyone I've ever cared about were undead shells trying to kill me. I kept throwing lightning charged punches left and right, but there were too many. 

No matter how many I killed there were always more. They quickly overwhelmed me and a zombie version of Keira dragged me to the ground.

A nauseating stench unlike anything I'd witnessed before permeated the air and right before the undead started to rip me apart I saw the blurry silhouette of a massive person on a horse just as large watching me from the shadows.

The Keira zombie screamed in victory and bared its yellowing teeth in a twisted smile, then went in for the kill.

Suddenly something grabbed me and began to shake me. I sat up bolt upright and my skull collided with something hard. I saw stars and was temporarily stunned by the blow.

After recovering I realized the thing I'd headbutted was Keira's face as she rubbed her forehead in pain.

"For fuck's sake, girl! Is your first reaction upon waking always sitting bolt upright?" she groaned in pain.

"I was having a nightmare," I answered sheepishly.

"Ah, sorry to hear that. Anything in particular?" 

"Can't remember," I frowned, straining to remember any details.

Whatever it had been, it had been utterly terrifying, since I was covered in a cold sweat and my heart was racing a mile a minute, but we had bigger things to worry about than some bad dream.

"How long have we got?" I asked.

"About two hours at best, but we need to talk about something before-" whatever Keira was going to say was interrupted by a loud screech of an antique intercom system that turned into a buzzing static when a voice spoke to address the bunker's occupants.

"Emergency Co-op meeting in the dining room in five minutes. Everyone must be there, no exceptions."

The words echoed throughout the complex and reminded me of the dire situation we were in. The Order's thugs were tearing through the Co-op's defenses and would soon be upon us.

"Come on, we should go," Keira sighed. 

"Hey Keira, it's going to be-" I stopped myself from telling the comforting lie that everyone eventually tells a loved one, that things would work out and everything would be fine. 

Of course, I didn't believe for a second this fight with the Order's Sentinels would go well. The best we could do was try and mitigate the worse case scenario of all of us being murdered by those bastards.

Keira gave me a sad smile and planted a kiss on my cheek, then we made our way to the dining hall in relative silence, the only sound of our shoes on the hard tile floor marked our march to our probable doom. 

When we arrived at the dining room the mood was as bleak as could be. There were scattered murmurs between a few of the occupants, mostly people I didn't know, but the majority were silently waiting. Daniel tapped his old wooden staff on the floor to get everyone's attention. 

"As you all know seven mages from the Order of Eternity will break through our defenses soon. All non-combatants will retreat to the panic room-" 

"There's a panic room?" Cynthia interrupted nervously.

"Yes, Are there any other questions with obvious answers?" No one made a noise and Daniel continued. "If you lower the hand of the Baphomet statue in the east wing a door will open behind it. Everyone else will be meeting the attackers in the foyer. In the event we lose the fight the Order will no doubt capture any survivors among our defenders, then move on taking the Co-op-"

"Why would they do that if they have Keira? Wouldn’t they just leave?" Cynthia interjected again.

"Since you have forgotten Willowwisp is on Leyline Convergence and the Order would love to get their hands on such a valuable resource."

"But-" Cynthia began.

"I would ask you to shut up unless your next words are actually productive to the defense effort," snapped the increasingly annoyed Daniel. She didn't respond and he resumed, "There is a secret exit that will lead to a safe place in the panic room, the system is automatic so don't go about futzing with anything in there."

"Where does the exit go?" asked Vincent.

"Somewhere safe," Daniel answered unhelpfully.

"That's rather vague, Mr. Stewart. Is that really all you're going to tell us?" Cynthia asked. 

"Don't panic," he advised. 

"Gee, thanks. What the hell are we supposed to do while we're there?" she scowled.

"Be quiet and don't interact with anything or anybody you see while you're there!" Daniel ordered.

"So you just want us to do nothing while you risk your lives?"

"Yes, goddamnit!"

"Take solace in the fact you can do nothing to improve the situation, as you need not worry about failing," Ventusa interjected out of nowhere, drawing the attention of the room to the sidhe bodyguard. 

I hadn't noticed she was even in the room as her statue impression was still as uncanny as ever. 

Cynthia looked like she was going to protest further, but several stern looks from around the room kept her mouth shut.

"Now, I ain't one for speeches, but stay quiet and don't use any magic and they shouldn't be able to find you. In the unlikely event they prevent your escape, deny all knowledge of our guest's presence. The Order will lie to you about other folks confessing to trick you into spilling the beans. Stick together and trust each other and we'll make it through this. Now get, we've got to finish readying the welcome wagon and don’t need y’all in the way."

Vincent went to help the other residents get to the panic room, leaving Keira, Leon, Ashe, Daniel, Ventusa, and myself to make our way to the entranceway where we would mount our defense.

We all knew that the odds were against us that we'd all survive this fight. We were seriously outmatched by the seven mages assaulting the wards above us.

The foyer had been turned into a proper fortification complete with three chest high walls of sandbags arranged into a semicircle atop interlocking magic circles.

"Alright, so here's the plan," Daniel said when we arrived, "Ventusa and I are the only ones with any real experience in combat so we'll be their main targets. I'll be holding our shield up and Ventusa will be our primary offense. The five of you need to distract them as much as you can without putting yourselves in the line of fire."

"We've all been in fights before, Daniel. We're not a bunch of little kids that need to be babysat," Leon insisted.

"You're the oldest of y'all, am I right?" Daniel asked. 

"I think so, I'm twenty-eight," Leon sighed, likely because he realized where this lecture was going.

"Every one of the Sentinels are over a hundred years old and have had at least ten years of military service. Now don't get me wrong, for your age you're some damn talented folk, but not much of a threat to these people."

"What a rallying speech, Daniel. I almost forgot how fucked we are," Leon grimaced. 

"You got any other snark for me or can we get on with it?

"Nah, let's just get this over with."

"Good. Now since I'll be too busy to give orders keeping the barriers up, Ventusa will be in charge."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me! You expect us, expect me to follow her orders! She literally tried to kill me!" Ashe exploded.

"As much as I loathe to say it, I must attempt to keep all of you alive and fighting if we wish to live. Even you, whelp. As unnatural as it is, you're far too useful to my mission to let you die, even if I did not have the order not to harm you," Ventusa grimaced with disgust.

Ashe spat a presumably vulgar string of Old Irish at Ventusa. She calmly replied in English, "and I know your sins as well, son of Greenteeth."

"Keira and Leon, draw any more circles you need for the fight. Vincent and Ashe, you two set up the cannon. and the girl who really needs a name do whatever you need to do, just stay behind the sandbags," Daniel instructed.

"Did you say cannon?!" I exclaimed, starting to panic about them planning shoot a fucking cannon indoors.

"Don't worry, I spent the last few hours on making a sonic wave redirect circle on it that will keep anyone behind the sandbags safe," Keira reassured me.

"Okay…," I said, not entirely convinced that I'd still have eardrums after they fired it. "Why do you have a cannon?" I asked, still baffled by the idea.

"Stole it from the Confederates back in the day. Didn't see a reason to replace it since it's just been collecting dust since the war ended," Daniel explained.

Not really having much else I could do I decided to check over my Red 9 to make sure it was ready for combat and began loading the few empty clips I had. 

"You really need some ranged magic, most mages use barrier spells that can easily block bullets," Keira pointed out, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I figured as much, but if my basic understanding of magic is right, ranged magic is probably more energy intensive than a melee spell, right?" I deduced.

"I see you're really taking to magic theory quite well," Ashe congratulated, unsuccessfully trying to force a smile.

"Thanks, but with that being the case, since I'm barely able to throw more than a few lightning punches before I'm out, I feel like trying to fling spells like I'm Merlin or something is going to get my ass handed to me."

"True, but you're going to need to learn how to do it anyway, and now would be a really convenient time to figure it out," Keria agreed.

Maybe if literally anyone had told me magic existed I'd actually know how to use magic properly, I thought, still somewhat bitter about it all, if only because I couldn't be more useful in the upcoming fight.

There was a lull in the conversation when I didn't respond while trying to fix a bent clip. "I wish I could get my hands on some more of these damn things, a lot of these got fucked up over the last century," I grumbled.

"Why not switch to a more modern pistol with parts that are still being made? At some point you'll probably have to order custom parts if you stick with that one," Keira asked.

"Can't really do anything about that now, besides this one is mine," I scowled.

I really didn't feel like explaining how it reminded me of a simpler time in my life when Mom was alive, I didn't resent Dad so much, and the most I had to worry about was homework. 

As I whacked a screwdriver into the groove the round went in, hoping I could save the clip, I thought of something wildly dangerous that might help us have a chance in hell at winning.

Making a new part is more difficult than using what's already available. It's the same thing with magic! Why didn't I think of this before?!

"You have a spare extension cord around here?" I asked Daniel.

He directed me to a side room and I found a cord and a couple other useful items for my plan. and ran it past our defenses, then I took some wire cutters and cut off the unplugged end and began to fray the entire wire that came just past the sandbags.

"The hell are you doing?!" Keira gawked.

"Giving my magic a jump start," I grinned in a manner that might have been a tad maniacal to an outside observer.

"Are you planning on surviving your first spell?" Leon raised an eyebrow.

"It'll be fine," I dismissed his incredibly reasonable concern that I was literally planning on touching with a live wire.

"What's she up to?" Daniel asked. 

"She's exposing the bare wire of the cord," Keira frowned.

"I got tased earlier and it didn't hurt, so this will probably be fine," I assured her.

"Ooooo, very clever!" Ashe praised, figuring out what my plan was.

"Really, Ashe, you're going to encourage her to electrocute herself?" Keira scowled.

"You've got to remember she's half-sidhe, Keira. Some things that would kill a human might not even hurt her," Ashe pointed out, then added, "not that I'd recommend touching high voltage power lines, but this is probably safe. It's similar to how since I'm Winter I'm fairly comfortable in a blizzard wearing a sundress."

"Do you ever get tired of being a know-it-all?" Keira snapped.

"Keira!" I exclaimed, surprised by her outburst. 

She's usually not one to lash out like that, but it became clear to me then that the stress of all this was getting to her far more than she let on.

Leon stifled a guilty chuckle, Ventusa gave Ashe a satisfied smirk, but Vincent and Ashe were much less amused.

"That was really uncalled for, Ashe was just trying to help," Vincent rebuked.

"Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry, Ashe," Keira apologized sincerely, but then added, "I'm a bit upset right now and my girlfriend is doing something that could badly injure her and probablys and maybes are the only guarantee it won't."

"I'm glad you care, but trust me on this, I think it'll work," I promised.

"We're going to be out-matched in this fight so we need any edge we can get. If she thinks this will help just let her do it," Daniel chimed in.

"Fine, sorry all," Keira sighed, then resumed her adding any finishing touches to her work without further comment.

I wanted to comfort her, but we needed every second of preparation we could get and I didn't know if there was actually something I could say without lying so I gave her a quick hug and turned back to the exposed copper coursing with invisible electricity. 

As sure as I was that this wouldn't hurt me, years of being taught that electricity isn't something to be messing around with made me hesitant to go through with it.

This is fucking insane! You're about to shock yourself, dumbass! my brain shouted at me.

Once again I listened to instinct above logic and I grabbed hold of the copper wire. To my delight I didn't immediately get fried and instead felt the unsettling buzzing I had felt when I was tasered, but much weaker.

It was like holding on to a warm vibrating game controller, but it was also comforting in a strange way that I couldn't begin to explain. 

"Holy shit," I murmured in awe.

A hand touched my shoulder suddenly and I jumped about a foot off the ground. Ventusa of all people was behind me looking down at me with what could have been a touch of pride, but her usual stony expression quickly replaced it.

"I have seen many scions in my time, but few would have been brave enough to do that so soon after discovering their powers."

She didn't give me time to figure out how to respond to the sudden praise before she turned and went back to the corner of the room where she was sharpening her weapons.

That woman has some serious issues.

I sighed and began dragging the wire to the trapdoor with the intention of wrapping it around the metal ladder, but Vincent stopped me before I could climb over the sandbags.

"Woah there, it's not safe over there. We set up a bunch of traps while you slept. So stay behind the sandbags if you like being in one piece," he said. 

"Well shit, there goes my plan of shocking the ladder while they climbed down."

"Hmm, allow me."

Making sure the cord was unplugged first he tied it around the wire cutters and with inhuman precision he chucked it in between the rungs of the ladder in such a fashion that it wrapped around the ladder. 

"There you go," he grinned and walked back to the area he was setting up at.

I watched him in shock that anyone could be that precise, even a vampire. Admittedly, I knew next to nothing about them, but it was still incredibly impressive that he managed it.

It wasn't long after that that I ran out of things to prepare and I was left with my thoughts. I desperately wanted a distraction and there was only one thing I could think of, my name.

"Umm, so, I've been wanting to talk about name stuff and now seems as good as time as any. I realized I've had a name picked out since I was a little kid, but never figured out why it stuck with me until earlier," I said.

"Feels nice to know your real name, right?" Leon turned and briefly grinned at me.

"It does, but it bugs me that I can't actually tell anyone what it is. How am I supposed to let people know my real name without giving them my name?" I lamented.

Keira shot me an unreadable look, then turned back to her the circle she was drawing in front of the sandbag wall. 

Fucking great going Sarah, alienate Keira right after you can start imagining yourself having a future with her, or a future at all for that matter. Of course that's assuming we actually survive this, I thought darkly.

Completely trusting someone had become a struggle of epic proportions after all that had happened and telling someone my name would give them great power over me, so other options needed to be explored. 

Ashe not noticing the exchange answered my question. "It's dangerous, but not overly complicated and it is extremely time consuming depending on how you do it. To play it as safe as possible, most sidhe tell one person something vaguely related to their name without giving any context that it is related to their new name. Hun, could you tell them what I said to you?"

"He said 'tree with a silent E', then gave me the silent treatment and only responded when I called him Ashe," Vincent provided.

"At first he guessed Tre, which, while understandable, if I had chosen Tre as my name, saying that phrase would have been the same as telling him my name outright," Ashe explained.

"So I had to guess his name."

"It took him three hours before he actually started listing off species of trees," Ashe smiled nostalgically.

"You know I'm not good with word games," Vincent huffed indignantly carrying a cannonball in each hand to a stack he'd started.

"Where's the line between telling someone your name and giving them a clue?" I wondered.

"They're a few theories, the most popular one being the idea that the person saying the phrase can not think of the phrase as a hint to their name and the person observing it must not think the answer is obvious."

"It's fucking wild if that's actually how it works," Leon commented.

"It's kinda terrifying how vague that is," I blanched. 

"The truth of it is that we don't really know for sure, very few have been willing to risk it and many of those that have accidentally given their name away," Ashe continued. 

"I don't know if I can force myself to not consider the hint a hint. It sounds fucking impossible to not overthink the entire thing," I frowned.

"Yeah, I don't know how the hell you managed that, Ashe," Leon agreed.

"Mental training is a mandatory part of an upbringing in the supernatural world. Unfortunately, it's not something you can learn in a couple hours, it takes years to get the type of  discipline needed for this kind of thing," Ashe responded. 

"Fuck," I sighed.

"Look, it's okay, we can figure out-" Keira started.

"We only got a few minutes before they breach the trapdoor, wrap up your yammering," Daniel interrupted. 

I noticed Vincent was sitting over in the area he'd been setting up with a duffel bag at his feet and some kind of polearm with a curved blade at the end of it. He then pulled out a sword with a similar blade and a freaking MP5 submachine gun, then screwed the suppressor on the muzzle.

Seeing him preparing an automatic weapon for the fight put into perspective a few things I'd been trying not to think about. We had all this firepower at our disposal, but even so we didn't stand much of a chance in this fight. 

No matter what I did now, it didn't really matter anymore. All I'd accomplished the last several days, everything I've learned about the world and myself would all be for not. I'd already failed Keira and now we would all pay the cost, but I'd known I would die before I let the Order get Keira and it was then that I realized it was inevitable.

My only regret was not being able to do more to help her and maybe even prevent this from happening at all. There had been precious time I'd wasted being emotionally and discovering myself that could have been spent gathering evidence to prove Keira innocent.

Of course, she wouldn't blame me for it, but deep down I knew I could have done more, but there's no changing the past. Suffering came for us like a tank while we waved sticks and threw rocks at it.

I watched her spin her drumstick ward nervously and it struck me that I'd trusted her with my life, but not my name, but I could still change that. 

This is possibly my last chance to tell her my name, my last chance to be called Sarah, the last time I could show her I truly trust her. I have to tell her. It's not like it's going to matter anyways, I told myself. 

Even in the face of certain doom, my trauma fought tooth and nail against me, pointing out all the lies she had had to tell to keep the existence of magic from me, but in the end I came to the only conclusion I could've; I have to tell her.

"Keira, come over here, please," I motioned her over to a side room and out of earshot. She followed me, trying not to look worried about our inevitable deaths.

Looking deep into her eyes I saw all that we had been through together, even before I knew about magic we had been there for each other hundreds of times.

From facing off against bullies in school to a troll trying to rip her limb from limb, we had always had each other's back. Whatever happened in the following minutes would happen, but no matter what we would defend each other to the death.

I hugged the love of my life close to me. I could smell the pleasant strawberry shampoo she favored, then tears began falling onto her shoulder.

"I trust you, Keira," I said then took a deep breath and whispered into her ear. "My name is Sarah Page."

My sidhe instinct told me I had made a grave mistake, but I ignored it. I made the choice to trust her and that was all there was to it. 

"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman," Keira smiled softly, "I love you, Sarah."

"I love you too, Keira."

There was a bittersweet calm as our embrace went on. The reality of what would come weighed heavily on the moment, no matter how much I tried to push it out of my mind.

We lingered in the hug as long as we could, enjoying what would likely be the last happy moment in our lives. 

There were tears in both of our eyes by the time we had to break apart and return to reality. As I stared into her deep brown eyes I knew she was thinking the same thing, if we had to die, we would do it together.

"Till the bitter end," she said.

"Till the end," I echoed with a nod.

The Order would have to kill me before I'd let Keira be captured and face certain execution to placate Winter's vengeance for the assassination of which she had been framed for.

This fight was a long time coming, and even if, by some divine intervention, we won, the situation would only grow worse from there if the Order decided to retaliate to any losses they took. 

As soon as we returned to the hallway there was a booming crash from across the foyer and the trapdoor burst open, shattering it into thousands of splinters and signaling that death approached, but we wouldn't go quietly into the night.