How could he ever have thought he could turn Benji over to the Vanguard? The moment he looked Benji in the eyes and refused, said they didn’t have the ears, said they couldn’t afford the Vanguard’s help, it was a relief like drinking holy water. He wouldn’t have to be a monster. It was proof he still knew the value of a human life, no matter how much the Angels tried to beat that out of him.

Fuck them.

There are some people awake in the lobby when Nick passes through. Sarmat is on guard duty, face smushed into his hand. Probably waiting for Calvin to come back. Nick will offer to let Salvador and Aisha decide if Calvin is allowed to step foot within the group again; it’s only fitting.

“Have you seen Benji?” Nick asks Sarmat.

“Benji?” Sarmat holds up a hand to his chest. “Brown hair, yea big?”

“Yes.”

“I think so?” Sarmat points in the direction Nick just came from. The window to the courtyard, as suspected. “Didn’t look like he was in a good mood, though. Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Nick lies. “Thank you.”

But the courtyard is empty. He checks the shadows by the grave, ducks inside the ALC, even stops by the Grace corpse. Benji isn’t there.

That’s how Nick finds himself on the sidewalk just beyond the broken fence, rolling his beads between his hands. Maybe Benji’s just going to the bathroom. It’s no big deal. Benji’s not a little kid. Well, he’s little, but he’s not a kid, not really. He’s practically grown in the grand scheme of things. Benji is allowed to do what he wants.

God. He deserved it when Benji yelled at him. What kind of person is he anyway, keeping a sick boy tucked away as a possible sacrifice, a living backup plan? Pretending Benji isn’t a person when so many people have done the same to him? Erin was right, like she always is. Hadn’t he spent years begging to be seen as anything but a horrific collection of fuckups? That he wasn’t just the mistakes he was made of and his parents’ condescending pity and God, I’m a person, I’m a person too?

Nick almost laughs. He doesn’t laugh much, because it comes out weird, but he does because there’s no one around to listen. What the fuck is wrong with him? What the fuck is wrong with him—

In the distance, at the far end of the street, right where his vision ends: movement.

Nick stops. Every nerve narrows to that single pinprick.

A dark form stumbling away.

Nick runs back to the bank for exactly the amount of time it takes to grab a pistol, an extra mask, and some bobby pins.