A/N: Hello again! After episode 8, I freaked out for 7 hours, then wrote this. I have a feeling Tarrlok is gonne say Korra is dead. I just know it. And dread it. So yeah- here's some angst for you guys. Just warning you now. ;3;

Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Korra.

Mako's head was the first to snap up when he heard the key jingle. His sleepless eyes widened as his chin left his rigid forearms, folded tightly atop his knees. Bolin and Asami perked up beside him, rising from their uneasy sleep on the chilled metal floor. They'd been in the cell since 9 pm that night—dawn glowed dimly outside the cell's barred window. Tenzin pried the door open slowly, his face grave. The trio all rose hastily, a strange, creeping sense of dread beginning to slither into their pounding hearts. Tenzin met their gazes quietly before staring at the ground.

"I managed to…convince the Chief of your being let out," Tenzin said, his voice hoarse. The trio stayed silent as Mako examined the man's condition. Tenzin, although usually serious and proper, always carried himself with a sense of righteousness, confidence, even. The airbender had a fiery spirit underneath his calm exterior, one always burning beneath the coolness of his gray eyes—it was hard to ignore and difficult to challenge. But the man standing in front of him now was not the man that had rivaled even the Avatar's ferocity. This man had gone out like a smoldered candle. His brilliant eyes had dulled, and his shoulders seemed to sag underneath incomprehensible weight. The three of them exchanged panicked glances—he looked like he had aged a hundred years in the span of a few hours.

"Mako. Bolin. Asami." They cut their eyes to Tenzin, whose own were still downwards. He paused. Mako shivered as Tenzin took a deep breath—the airbending master had been trembling slightly, evident in the way the air in his lungs caught slightly as he exhaled. The silence was suffocating.

"It's Korra."

They waited. The dread thickened, pooled in their guts. Mako felt his heart beat in his ears, a horrible sense of familiarity reminding him that he had heard this tone of voice before, what followed—

"She's gone."

Silence. Fragile silence for the few seconds their minds struggled to comprehend these words, review them, realize their connotations. There was almost a shift in the air, the turning of the gears in their head, the plummet of their stomachs, as if they were free-falling—

Scattering the silence first was Asami's shuddering breaths as she clasped a hand to her mouth from her place beside Mako. "She can't be," she whispered, her tears beginning to drown her voice. "She was just… she was…!"

"Gone?" Bolin took a few brisk steps towards Tenzin, his voice disbelieving, trembling. "What do you mean, gone?" When Tenzin didn't answer him, Bolin clutched his fists, his own tears threatening to spill over in hot streaks. "Answer me!"

Mako only sat frozen, unstirred. He could only listen to the ringing in his ears, stare at Tenzin blankly, feel his fingers and arms and torso and legs and feet go numb.

Tenzin's knuckles turned white as his grasp on the cell door tightened. His voice was solemn as he explained, his face twisted in pain as he finally met shaky stares. "There were reports of loud crashes and explosions last night. It was in the councilroom. I was called for assistance in the dead of night. When I went looking for Korra, she wasn't in her room. I assumed the worst and thought she had snuck out with every intention of breaking you all out." He put his hand to his forehead as he closed his eyes, remembering. "It turns out she had gone to face Tarrlok and demand the release of you and the innocent nonbenders." He looked at them again, looked at Mako with his eyes, eyes no longer the color of fading dusk, but of a dying fire, of ashes.

"The councilroom is in absolute ruin."

Bolin and Asami gasped. Mako stared into the ashes.

"Tarrlok himself was bruised and battered severely. He says there was a huge Equalist attack on the councilroom, probably as revenge for those arrested last night. He…he says Korra was defeated. Then taken. Taken somewhere we don't know."

"How could you not know where?" Bolin shrieked, tears now freely falling down his face. "She was here! She was just here with us! Dead… She can't be dead! She—" A shudder shook Bolin as he struggled to maintain his composure. "Tarrlok…Tarrlok is lying! You're lying!"

"I'm not. I'm not, Bolin." Tenzin covered his face with his hand, his voice weak and muffled and utterly defeated. "I'm not."

"You are. You have to be." Bolin faltered, fell back onto the metal wall behind him. "You have to be lying…" Bolin had stopped crying now, now sliding down the cell's wall, his eyes tiny dots of trembling disbelief.

Only heavy breathing and intermittent sobs were heard, a thick silence suffocating them once again as the team fought to break the surface of the water that was drowning them. After a full minute, Mako broke his stare, his eyes focusing in and out as he looked to the inhospitable expanse of the cell. Slowly he walked up to Tenzin before looking up. Tenzin's eyes widened—Mako was calm. No—he was empty. His eyes were dangerously hollow as they burned like molten gold.

"Where is he?"

Mako's feet pounded against the pavement in a steady rhythm as he sprinted into the terrace outside the councilroom building. Unsuspecting officers idly chatting and yawning in the first rays of the morning jumped as he broke through the yellow police tape webbed along the outskirts of the building. Mako ignored their indignant shouts and warnings and simply tore through the layers of the flimsy tape, striding towards the grand doors. With a swift kick, the doors bursted open, a thunderous thud echoing throughout the wide open space. Heads swiveled in his direction, astonished eyes boring holes into Mako. Vaguely he thought about his appearance. His very essence seethed anger, vengeance, hate—his heavy breathing only added to the idea that he looked positively feral. But he didn't care. All he could concentrate on was his shifting eyes, quickly moving from one person to the other in a crazed attempt to find their target. The representatives of the nations, the Chief, a crowd of metalbenders inspecting the rocky carnage, flashing lights and the reporters behind them, and—

Tarrlok.

Perfectly collected, calm, and polished, save for the obvious cuts marring his cheeks and forehead. The man met Mako's stare coolly, his mouth a straight line. He looked at this boy, cheeks flustered and an angry red, breathing heavily, leaning against the threshold of the door with his arm as his body exhausted the adrenaline coursing through his veins. For many seconds no one did anything. It was only Mako and him. It was ice and magma, chilling tranquility against a fervent rage barely kept in check. Silence was beginning to frustrate Mako and he wouldn't have any more of it; he'd had enough in that accursed cell, enough of the wordless exchanges of grief and pain and disbelief and cold truth. But then something happened, and it was still silent, and it was still wordless, but in that instance Mako's stomach dropped to the ground when Tarrlok's lips curled at the edges. Smiling. He was smiling at Mako. He was hanging his twisted, sick victory in Mako's face, making no attempt to conceal his pleasure.

Then something snapped.

"Korra, listen to him."

Mako charged.

He faintly registered frightened yelps from the innocents and approaching voices yelling rushed orders from behind him. He made some wild noise, all his anger beginning to bubble up and spill over. He watched red fill his eyes, dye the room in crimson as he ran, and felt familiar heat climb up his body, smelled burning flesh, his parent's burning flesh—

"It's not worth it."

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?" he boomed. He never stopped running towards that hideously pleasant smile, taunting him, enraging him to a point he had never reached. He never stopped, not even when the metalbenders seized his arms, not even when they twisted them behind his back, not even when he was suffocated by tightly coiled metal constraints that bruised his ribs. Fighting back groans of pain, he yelled again. "Tell me what you did to her! You dirty bastard!" Tarrlok hadn't even bothered to move. He only grinned wider, widened his eyes, and laughed. Then falling flames blocked Mako's vision.

An inferno burned brightly in Mako's molten eyes as he felt a fanatical heat rise from his stomach. He roared, spewing out great flames from his mouth towards the high ceiling of the councilroom, lighting up the faces of the cowering crowd and that smile. Glowing in swirling tendrils of orange and red and yellow,it was still there.

"Don't worry, Korra."

He recoiled against a jab to his temple as he was knocked out. As black engulfed him, he was surprised by the blue in the sea of vengeful red and smoky black, two beautiful cerulean beacons. Korra's eyes, worried eyes that shone just last night as they watched him be loaded into the truck. Slowly they grew smaller, out into the distance, away from his reach, until they were only a dot of bright light. Then they were swallowed by the darkness. Her eyes were gone. Korra was gone.

"We'll be alright."

He surrendered to the darkness.