I threw the flamethrower to the ground as the last spurts of flame exited the tip and fell to my hands and knees, cursing that the idea had ever come to me as I watched the flames devour the building that was to be my brother's tomb.

My chest constricted, suffocating me. The sound of bullets ricocheting around me only added to the chaos as Finn's voice blasted through my comms, frantically asking someone to check on me.

A year, a whole fucking year, holding out hope that he was alive, that he would make his way to us, knowing it would be a miracle among miracles if he ever did - and then having that miracle answered? Only to have him torn away from us less than a year later. My chest heaved. Tears mixed with snot and drool flooded my visor, clouding my vision as I stared at the broken asphalt beneath me. My gut churned violently.

I pawed at the visor to open it but couldn't get the latch, finally ripping the helmet off my head entirely and flinging it away with a scream, which quickly turned into vomit.

Amanda yelped and dodged the torrent as she ran up to me. She knelt. "Kendall, baby, come on, we have to leave. We can't lose you too." She set a hand on my shoulder, but I grabbed it and threw it off.

Ignoring her cries of pain, I rocked back and forth on the ground, clutching at my chest in agony. But when she tried to comfort me again, I snapped - screaming that I didn't care about anything anymore. "I don't care! I don't fucking care! Get the FUCK away from me!"

With tears streaming down her face, Amanda retreated and muttered something into her comms. The word "inconsolable" floated through the air to my ears. Yeah, that was a word for it. I could never be consoled.

The word echoed in my mind like a maddening mantra. No one could ever console me for this. I didn't care about the empty reassurances of someday or somehow. All that mattered was the raw, burning pain of losing my brother. In that moment, all I wanted was to shatter into a million pieces alongside his remains.

But then I heard Lilly's laughter, high-pitched and maniacal. My eyes lifted to see her perched on top of a car, firing her guns with reckless abandon. A sinister glint flickered in her eye, an evil smile plastered across her face.

Rage consumed me as I watched her revel in the chaos. That fucking bitch. How dare she laugh when her husband, my brother, had just made the ultimate sacrifice to save us all? The tears streaming down my face turned to boiling-hot fury as I clenched my fists.

I stood, hate surging through me. Fury propelled me towards her as I reloaded my weapons, spitting obscenities under my breath.

Lilly didn't see me coming until it was too late. I hopped up on the car's hood and jumped onto the roof beside her. She gasped in shock as I grabbed her by the collar and tossed her off the roof and into the hood of the car, knocking the wind out of her lungs as she tumbled to the ground. "You think this is funny?!" I bellowed, as I jumped down and grabbed her again, dragging her to her feet.

Before I could do anything else, something heavy plowed into me, taking me to the pavement.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing," Finn screamed into my face. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"

"SHE'S LAUGHING!" I screamed back.

"I don't care what she's fuckin' doing as long as she's keeping those things from getting out! You're gonna fuck up your brother's last wish because you're pissy about how she handles it? Get the fuck ahold of yourself! SHE LOST HIM TOO!"

My chest heaved, my breath coming in ragged gasps. "Are you fucking done, soldier?" he screamed at me through his visor.

I nodded, and he released me from the bear hug he had me in and rolled off. I stood quickly, brushing myself.

Lilly stood in front of me, a strange look on her face. "No, I don't think this is funny. And you and I are gonna have a serious talk later."

In a flash of movement, she headbutted me with all her might, her helmet crashing into my unprotected face and sending me reeling, dazed and landing flat on my ass on the pavement.

Without another word, she turned and clambered back onto the hood of the car, sparing me a single glance of pity before returning to laying down fire towards the building's entrance. Screams echoed from inside as the Turned roasted alive.

Several other members had taken refuge atop the turned semi where we'd just hours earlier attempted to plan out killing these fucking things and were sniping at any movement they saw, be it Turned, shadow, or rubble.

I rubbed my nose as the hatred I'd felt only moments before ebbed away, flowing out of my face along with the blood Lilly had drawn with her rebuke.

I looked at her again, and even though she'd resumed laughing as she landed bullet after bullet on the stragglers attempting to flee the unholy temple of fire I had created, I could see the pain in her features. The tears at the corner of her eyes, and the way her shots missed from the blurriness in her vision.

Shame crept into my mind. She had loved him, too, and it wasn't my place to decide how she grieved for him.

I set my elbows on my knees and grasped the back of my head, pulling my head into my lap.

Memories pulled forth from my mind, unbidden. Camping trips, him teaching me how to get fresh water from a stream. Cleaning a deer with him and dad. Jumping on the trampoline in the backyard, seeing how high he could "pop" me. Climbing a tree. The first time I'd ever felt real terror as a branch snapped beneath him and he'd plummeted to the ground below. The weeks in the hospital after, discovering his health issues. The joy I'd felt when he finally was in remission and had received a new liver, could finally play with me the way he had done when I was little once more.

Talking about my first real crush. Him proudly dropping me off at prom night and handing me a beer and a condom with a wink and a giggle. Smoking my first bowl in his dorm room the first time I'd gone to visit him at college. Sitting at family dinner, laughing with Mom about politics... Mom... How was I going to...

A sudden explosion rocked the air around us.

I leaped to my feet, looking around. One side of the building had suddenly exploded outward, and for a moment, I felt sheer glee. "The egg, he had the egg!"

Lilly hopped off the car and stood beside me. I looked at her, exclaiming, "Lilly, he had the egg!"

Her face contorted in a grimace, and she shook her head silently. Reaching into her pocket, she opened her hand, palm up, to reveal the tiny alien device Alec had kept on him at all times.

"No. No no. He gave it to... That means."

The blow to my heart was almost as powerful as the headbutt Lilly had just delivered. "No..." I whispered again, a gust of hot wind snatching the words as quickly as the revelation of the egg had snatched away my hope.

"Fan out," Finn ordered. "Charlie team, you stay here and keep laying covering fire. Bravo, let's go check that out, make sure there aren't more coming out over there." He threw a look my way. "You fuckin' stable yet?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

He jerked his head. "Then pick up your weapon, and let's go."

I bent and grabbed my gun from the ground, straightening and pulling my final remaining clip from my vest. I slapped it in as I did so, and then fell in line behind Finn and Lilly as we all jogged over to the now rapidly crumbling wall.

A gruesome scene awaited us. Mutated body parts lay everywhere, and among the rubble, I could see twitching insectile legs and long cylindrical shapes. I shivered. Drillers. There had to be hundreds of them, damaged and leaking from the explosion, dragging themselves about, leaving iridescent pools of green and blue on the ground behind them.

"Fuckin' headhumpers. Clean up," Finn barked. Amanda calmly unstrapped her shotgun from her back and began walking from Driller to Driller and unloading a shell into their quivering forms, each one exploding a burst of blue-ish goo.

Lilly followed suit, pulling an old, weathered Mossberg from the duffel bag that Carter dropped by Finn. She paused and ran a hand along it fondly. A hand gripped my heart once more. Alec's favorite gun. She took out a small rag and polished a spot on the stock, then went the opposite direction of Amanda, walking about, dropping the hammer of God on any Driller casings she found and kicking over rocks and rubble, searching for more.

I walked over to the duffel bag and started lifting guns out, searching for another shotgun, as we'd discovered the little bastards were armored, and weren't alive at all. Instead, they were some kind of biomechanical suit. The actual alien was inside, small, squid-like in appearance, with sharply barbed tentacles and a gross, thin, wet webbing of neural tissue extending outward from where you'd expect their mouth to be. Shotguns were the easiest way to dispatch them - or fire.

As my fingers danced over the weapons, I heard a sudden shriek. "Alec!"