Time moved differently in Hell, of that I was certain. During my sessions with Alastair, I slowly figured out that what I thought was just hours- was actually days. Well- Hell's version of days.

Over time, the lessons shifted like gears clicking into a new, colder machine. Endurance had been the furnace; precision was the blade. Where before, Alastair had made me translate my pain into steadiness, now he showed me how to turn that steadiness outward- to take apart another body the same way he'd taken apart mine.

He started small and clinical: nerves and pressure points mapped onto a body like a geography lesson. Where to press so a demon's fingers unclench without cutting; where a tendon will snap clean if you know the angle; how heat can be an instrument of persuasion if you let it singe a memory loose rather than simply burn. He taught me how to read flesh- how it tensed before it lied, where a scream hid a secret, which groans meant bargaining and which meant a lie. His voice was always too calm, like some tutor describing algebra, and that was the worst of it: the lesson was monstrous, delivered with the tone of a man explaining how to mend a clock.

Practice was always hands-on and never pretty. At first it was on limp, captured things that had more hunger than fight left. He made me hold a blade until my fingers stopped trembling, made me find purchase on a wrist and feel for the point that would unmake a strike. Each time I practiced I could feel my own edges harden: not the soft, brittle hardness of someone who's defensive, but a dense, worked steel that held an edge.

The first time I used it on a living thing that could talk, my hands shook so badly I thought I'd fail. It was a small thing, a low-ranked cross roads demon caught double crossing some of Crowley's deals. Alastair set the terms and watched like a professor grading an exam. The creature's eyes went glazzy, then pleading, then fascinated in a way that made bile rise in my throat at the first cut. I did what Alastair had shown me- precise pressure, a whisper of iron- and it crumpled with less noise than I expected. I thought I'd feel triumph. What I felt was raw, a terrible new calm settling into my limbs. I had traded a part of myself for an instrument.

The silence after it crumpled was almost worse than the noise. No roaring pit crowd, no jeering audience- just the sound of my own breathing, ragged and uneven, and the faint metallic drip of blood hitting the floor in a rhythm that felt too deliberate. My hand tightened on the blade, knuckles bone-white, because letting go meant admitting what I'd just done.

Alastair broke the silence with a quiet hum, as though he were considering a painting, not a corpse.

"Messy," he said at last, stepping closer, his eyes flicking from the torn flesh to my trembling grip. "But not sloppy." He gestured at the air near my hand. "Your cut was true. You just haven't learned to trust it yet."

My stomach rolled. I wanted to drop the blade, spit, scream at him- but the words locked in my throat. The creature's face lingered in my vision, eyes wide with something that wasn't just pain. It had looked interested in me- right up until the light left its gaze.

"I-" My voice cracked, and I hated it. I swallowed, forcing steel into it. "I don't want to get good at this."

Alastair's smile was faint, almost pitying. "You don't get to want down here, Ash. You get to survive. And survival demands fluency in every language Hell speaks." He leaned closer, lowering his voice until it brushed the edges of something intimate. "And right now, love, Hell is teaching you its native tongue."

He gestured again, and the broken demon on the rack sloughed into ash, leaving only the smell- burnt copper and rot. The lesson wasn't about the body. It was about me. My pulse still hammered, but I forced my hands to steady, lowering the blade with a slowness that felt deliberate, not defeated.

Alastair's gaze tracked the movement, unreadable. Then, softly: "Again."

I blinked, my throat tightening. "Again?"

He snapped his fingers, and another figure was dragged forward by chains- this one snarling, spitting curses, fighting against the pull of unseen hands. Its rage filled the chamber where the first had left silence.

My blood chilled. "I'm not-"

"You are." Alastair's tone didn't rise. It didn't need to. Authority coiled through it like barbed wire. "The first time, you cut through mercy. That was easy. Now, you'll cut through defiance." He angled his head, his expression almost soft again, like a teacher coaxing a hesitant pupil. "Precision. Or you'll never last long enough to walk out of this place alive."

The chains screeched as the next body was dragged forward, and I braced myself for another nameless demon. But when the figure hit the rack, thrashing against the iron, my breath froze in my chest.

Nick.

For a heartbeat, I thought I was seeing things. But then his eyes cut to me, bloodshot and burning with something feral. His mouth twisted into a sneer I'd seen before- in Eve's stories, in her nightmares.

"You've got to be kidding me," I whispered.

Alastair's smile was faint, amused at my reaction. "Ah. You know this one."

Nick spat blood, glaring at me through the haze of sulfur. "So this is where she keeps her little shadow. Thought you were Eve's stray, not Alastair's." His laugh cracked, ugly and raw. "Figures."

My grip on the blade faltered. "Why him?"

"Why not?" Alastair countered, circling the rack like a predator. "He's already broken in all the boring ways. His pain is cheap. But his defiance?" He glanced at me, sharp as a hood. "That will test you."

Nick growled, straining against the chains, his voice scraping liek gravel. "You don't have the stomach for this, girl. You play soldier, you play tough-but you're just like her. Too soft to finish the job."

My stomach twisted. I thought of Eve, of the way her voice cracked when his name came up, the way she carried his ghost like a wound she couldn't let heal. Part of me wanted to carve into him just to erase him from her. But another part of me recoiled, bile burning the back of my throat.

Alastair leaned in close, his voice silken. "This is no stranger, ash. No mercy left to cloud your hand. No excuses. Only precision." His eyes narrowed. "You want to survive? Make him bleed."

The blade shook in my hand. Nick's laughter was jagged, like nails dragging across glass. "Oh," he rasped, his lips curling back from his teeth in somethat that wasn't quite a smile, "this is rich. Her little friend came to finish what she never could." His gaze darted upward, past me, to where Alastair leaned against the wall like this was all theater. "You're recycling your toys now?"

The blade trembled in my grip, not from fear this time, but from the heat crawling under my skin. Eve's face flickered across my mind- every tear, every bruise she'd tried to hide because of him- and I pressed the iron to his chest harder than I meant to. The hiss of burned flesh filled the chamber.

He grunted, then sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes widened when I didn't flinch. "So she taught you nothing, and you learned from him instead," Nick said, his voice ragged with both pain and disdain. "Fitting."

"Shut up," I spat, driving the edge of the blade along his collarbone. My movements lacked the clinical polish Alastair was teaching. They were jagged, erratic, born from the kind of fury I hid. Nick's skin split open in brutal lines, and he arched against the restraints with a strangled cry.

"Careful," Alastair murmured, his voice too soft for comfort. He was at my shoulder now, one pale hand hovering just out of reach, not yet stopping me but ready. "Precision, ash. You're letting your emotions control you."

I slashed again, a little deeper this time. Nick bucked against the Rack, cursing Eve's name through clenched teeth, and the sound only pushed me harder. My arm shook with the force I was putting into it, the cuts messy, the work uneven.

"Enough."

Alastair's hand closed around my wrist, firm and cold, halting the next strike mid-swong. The blade hovered just over Nick's throat, and for one suspended heartbeat, I wanted to wrench free and finish it anyway.

Alastair pulled me back, slowly, deliberately, peeling the iron from my grip with a lover's patience. His voice was a silk thread drawn tight. "Don't squander your gift on frenzy. Cruelty is easy. Art is restraint."

I froze, chest heaving, staring at the ruin I'd made of him. The bile was back in my throat, sour and burning, but beneath it was something darker- an ugly satisfaction, quiet and terrible.

Alastair tilted his head, eyes glinting with approval that felt worse than condemnation. "Again," he said, guiding the knife back into my palm.

I hated what the approval did to me- the way it sank under my skin and warmed like poison. For a second I thought I could wash it off, that a basin of water and a curse would scrub the taste from my mouth. Instead, I took the knife back with hands that felt like someone else's.

Alastair didn't smile. He only watched, clinical and patient, as if he were reading the grain in the wood and deciding where the next cut should go. "Breath," he reminded me. "Find the place behind the pain where you can think. Not the anger- thats useless. The place after it. That's where your hand lives."

I forced my breath long and slow, counting in my head the way he'd taught me when the slab first shook under me: In for four, hold for two, out for six. The edges of the world steadied. Nick's curses became a distant whisper that I ignored.

"Now," Alastair murmured, "do it again. But less storm- more line."

I moved like someone learning to use a new tool- awkward at first, then deliberately, as muscle memory replaced hatred. I let the blade speak in single, precise touches instead of the ragged, greedy slashes from before. The sound it made on skin was different: a clean whisper instead of a wet, desperate gasp. Nick's face flickered- surprised, then raw pain.

"Good," Alastair said after the first few. His approval was quieter this time, but it landed harder. "Control the arc. Your wrist- less elbow. Let the blade do the work, not your fury."

I listened. I adjusted. I felt something shift- less the monstrous satisfaction I'd tasted on the first round, and more a cold, efficient competence. It didn't make the ache go away, it only gave me a shape to hold it in.

Nick's voice thinned into ragged breathing. He tried to spit a curse and only managed a gurgle. Somewhere in the chamber the ash of the first demon hissed like a reminder. I kept going, each motion measured, each mark a small, terrible calculated move.

When Alastair finally took the knife from me, he did it with the same gentle exactness he'd used to hand it over. He wiped the blade clean as if he were polishing a fine instrument. "You'll be messy sometimes," he said. "Everyone is. But mess doesn't mean failure. It means you're learning where the line is."

Nick lay still, a mess of chain and blood, and stunned hatred. he looked at me, something bitter and small in his gaze. "You could've been better than this," he rasped.

"You could've been kinder," I answered, voice flat.

Alastair gathered his tools with the same clinical unhurried motion he used on the Rack, and for a second his face was unreadable. Then he snapped his fingers and Nick disappeared, the sound like a page turning. "Tomorrow," he murmured, "you learn how to keep the ledger clean."

And so I did.

Days- Hell days, which were not days at all- blurred into one another. The Rack's unused chamber became my world: its stone mouth swallowed warmth and time, and I kept walking back through that door. Alastair set new problems in front of me and watched me solve them with surgical disdain. How to silence a scream so that it didn't echo and spill mercy into the room. He taught me the anatomy of pride, the geometry of fear. Each lesson left a mark on my soul, entries I paid for with blood and a small part of whatever softness I'd brought with me.

Alastair's lessons stretched me thinner and sharper with each session, until I could almost feel where my old edges used to be. But the chamber never cared-it ate the days, it ate the softness, and what it spat back was something harder, something closer to him.

This time, when Nick broke, it wasn't a scream that echoed, but silence. I had learned to place the pressure just so, to let their voice die in their throat like a flame cut from air. Alastair didn't interrupt, didn't correct. He just watched, hands clasped behind his back, as I worked.

When it was finished, he moved closer, stepping through the shadows until the scent of Iron and smoke seemed to fold tighter around us. His gaze, pale and glinting, swept over the ruin I'd made, then over me.

And then he smiled. Not cruel. Not soft. Just final.

"That's it." His voice was quiet, but it filled the chamber. "I can't teach you anymore."

The words rooted me to the spot. My hands still trembled faintly from the blade, from the fight to keep them steady- but beneath it was a cold, coiled steadiness I hadn't noticed until now.

Alastair tilted his head,s tudying me with something dangerously close to pride. "You've learned what pain is. You've learned how to make it sing, how to silence it, how to shape it into obedience. The rest?" He spread his hands as though dismissing the notion of limits. "The rest only comes from practice."

I swallowed hard, bile rising with the bitter satisfaction curdling in my chest. "So that's it? You just-stop?"

A chuckle, low and almost fond. "Stop?" He stepped closer, lowering his voice to something silken. "No, Ash. I don't stop. I invite." His eyes caught the firelight, and for the first time I felt the weight of standing not as his student, but as something else entirely.

He gestured to the Rack, the chains still humming with the last echos of agony. "Work beside me. Not as my pupil. As my equal."

The air in the chamber seemed to tilt, heavy with choice. His gaze pinned me, patient but relentless, as though he already knew which way I'd lean.

"Hell has no shortage of souls to carve," Alastair murmured. "Stand with me at the Rack, Brianna. Earn your place in its ledger."

I stared at the Rack, the iron gleaming like a promise in the flickering firelight. The lessons Alastair had carved into me were no longer abstract- they were muscle, reflex, instinct. Every nerve, every strike, every cut had sharpened me. I could feel the calm precision of it in my bones, the terrible patience he had drilled into me.

Finally, I nodded. "Fine," I said, voice low but firm. "I'll work with you."

Alastair's pale eyes flicked over me, glinting with approval. "Good," he said. "No hesitation. No mercy wasted. "Your presence at the Rack will not be ornamental. You'll work alongside me, or not at all."

I stepped closer, letting the iron hum under my fingers as I considered his offer. This was a partnership- my hands, my skill, my control was now my own. And yet...

I couldn't stop thinking about the Pit. About Eve. About the chaos, the raw hunger, the fire and teeth and blood. The Rack had taught me precision, patience, calculation- but the Pit demanded something else: instinct, strategy, presence.

Alastair tilted his head, sensing the plan before I spoke it. "You think yourself ready to straddle both worlds," he said softly, a note of warning in his tone.

"I have to," I whispered. "You've taught me how to be strong mentally, how to inflict the pain. Now I have to be physically strong."

Alastair studied me, pale eyes unblinking, calculating. "Physical strength without control is recklessness," he said, voice low, deliberate. "But you already know that. You've learned restraint, precision. You've seen the edge of what a body can do when a mind is sharp enough to wield it."

I nodded, the weight of the truth settling in my chest. "Then I'll split my time. Here, with you. But I need to spend some time in the Pit. There's basically no one- nowhere better to learn how to fight better."

His gaze sharpened, the faintest crease forming between his brows. "The Pit is chaos incarnate. No rules, no structure- just teeth, fire, and raw hunger. You think you can impose order on that?"

"Eve did," I murmured, squaring my shoulders.

"She did," he said slowly, voice measured, "but she's Eve. You... are not her. You are a student of precision. A sculptor of pain. Chaos will test you in ways I never can."

I swallowed, letting the words settle. "I can balance it. The Rack taught me control. The Pit- will probably kick my ass but I can learn."

He tilted his head again, studying me as if weighing the truth in my tone against the fire in my eyes. "You may survive this," he said finally, almost grudgingly, "or you may break. But if you succeed, Brianna... you'll be more dangerous than anything Hell has seen in centuries."

"Lucy said I had to learn. So, I will."

Alastair's mouth curved, not quite a smile, not quite a threat, "Don't die stupid."

"Not my plan," I shot back, though my throat was tight, and turned into the searing dark.

The pit shifted as soon as my foot crossed the threshold. The ground heaved, slick with ash and blood, and the air was a wall of heat that clawed at my lungs. I kept moving, refusing to let the hesitation show. Walking in with Eve was one thing- walking in by myself was another.

From the smoke, a figure pulled free. Another demon, taller than most that I had come across, its frame warped with muscle. Broad shoulders, a grin cut too wide across its face, and eyes blacker than the Pit itself. He was easily Sam's height- maybe taller- and the way he grinned made my skin crawl.

"Well, well," he drawled, voice thick with rot. "Little Alastair's pet, wandering in here all alone. Brave. Or stupid." His gaze roamed openly, shameless, and bile rose in my throat. "Maybe you came for me. Wouldn't blame you."

"Back off," I warned, drawing my blade but keeping it low.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "You're not scaring anyone, sweetheart. Not with those trembling hands. No wonder Winchester keeps losing his women- none of them are strong enough. They all end up in the dirt."

The words hit, sharp at the blow he delivered when he lunged. His fist cracked against my ribs and knocked the air from my lungs. I stumbled, sucking breath through clenched teeth.

He followed, pressing close, his breath rancid. "Tell me, what'll it be for you? A grave like the rest of his bed warmers? Or a body broken down here in the Pit? Either way, you're just another notch on the curse he carries."

Rage spiked. My blade flashed upward, cutting deep across his chest. He roared, grabbing for me, but I twisted free, my fury boiling hotter than the air around me.

"You don't get to say his name," I hissed, voice low and venomous.

"Oh, I'll say it all I want," he spat, blood on his teeth. "Sam Winchester. The black hole. Every woman he touches him dies screaming. And you-" he lunged again, lips peeling back in a snarl, "-you'll be next."

He closed the distance like a promise gone wrong, breath hot and rancid against my neck. His hand lashed out, rough and fast, closed on my hip first-then sliding, intrusive and greedy- like he thought the Pit owed him purchase on anything that moved. Fingers dug under fabric, thumb rough across skin where it shouldn't be. He pulled me forward until my face was inches from his, the smell of smoke and old blood filling my mouth.

"Easy, sweetheart," he crooned, voice slick with insult. "You come down here, alone- what did you expect?" His grin split too wide. "Maybe you wanted a real demon's touch."

My stomach flipped. Rage hit first, pure and white and hot; something feral in me answered the violation with the only language I'd been learning in Hell. I didn't wait for him to repeat it.

My elbow drove upward into his ribs hard enough to snap a breath out of him. He snarled and tightened his hold, fingers closing like a hook at the small of my back, one rough palm seizing my throat in a grip that wasn't meant to kill, but to own. He leaned in, lips brushing my ear as if it were the last courtesy he planned to afford me. "Say his name," he whispered, cruel and soft. "Say it-"

The world narrowed. The blade came up almost without me thinking- fast, clean, the motion Alastair had beaten into me until it lived under my skin. I slammed the iron up under his arm and into the soft hollow beneath his collarbone. He reeled with a sound that wasn't quite a roar, more a wet ripping noise that set the stones ringing. Blood, hot and sudden, slicked my palm. He tried to wrench free, but I twisted, drove in again, the second strike angrier, more intent.

He gurgled, hand still clamping uselessly at my shirt, face going slack with shock. For a blink, he went quiet, then his throat worked and he started to fall. I should have stepped back. I should have let the corpse drop and walked away.

Alastair's grip stopped the next strike mid-arc, his fingers locking around my wrist like a vice. His voice was low, sharp, cutting through the din of the Pit like a bell.

"Enough."

The word hit harder than a blow. The demon sagged against the ground, a ruin of muscle and ash, still clutching at my shirt with fingers that no longer had strength. His eyes were glazed, unseeing, but his mouth still twitched faintly like it wanted to shape another taunt.

I wrenched at my arm, snarling through clenched teeth. "Let me go!" The knife vibrated in my grip, my whole body coiled with the desperate need to finish it. The demon wasn't enough of a ruin yet. His words weren't buried deep enough in blood.

Alastair didn't flinch. His grip was iron, his gaze pale and unyielding. "Fight me if you want," he said, voice quiet, yet cutting through the roar of the crowd. "But you won't win. Not against me. Not against yourself."

I shoved against him, teeth bared, a raw sound tearing out of my throat that had nothing of words left in it. For a heartbeat, I thought I could break free, thought rage would lend me the strength to tear out of his hold and drive the blade down, again and again until the silence swallowed me whole.

But the harder I pulled, the more the world spun. My arms trembled with exhaustion, my breath caught in a sharp, broken rhythm. The knife felt heavier with every second.

Then his fingers- cold, deliberate- peeled mine from the hilt, and the blade clattered to the ground with a sound that made the whole Pit lean forward. I staggered, fury still searing my chest, but it cracked under the weight of his words, under the press of disappointment in his eyes.

"You're not in control," he murmured again, closer now, like the words were meant for me alone. "And if you lose control in here, you're meat. Nothing more."

The fight bled out of me all at once, leaving nothing but shaking limbs and a hollow ache in my chest. My knees buckled before I could stop them, and I sagged against him. Alastair shifted before I could crumple fully, one arm bracing under mine, the other steady at my back. Not gentle- he would never be gentle- but his hold kept me from hitting the floor, from collapsing in front of the Pit like carrion. His breath brushed against my hair as he steadied me, low and even, almost- unnervingly- like reassurance.

"You stand or you don't," he murmured, words for me alone. "But you don't crawl. Not here."

I wanted to spit, to tell him I didn't need his damned kindness, but the truth was heavier than the knife I'd dropped. My chest heaved against his grip, sweat and blood slicking my skin, and if he let go, I knew I'd fold.

The crowd's howls built into a fever pitch- hungry, furious, unsatisfied. But Alastair didn't spare them a glance. He straightened me with that same iron patience, his arm locked around me in a way that dared anyone to challenge him.

And then-

"Brianna!"

Her voice split the air, sharp and ragged. Eve pushed through the ring of demons like fire through brush, her presence scattering some, scorching others into silence. Her eyes fixed on me- no, on us.

On me half-sagging, held steady in Alastair's arms.

Her expression was a storm I couldn't read-fear, fury, betrayal, maybe all of it at once. The Pit seemed to pause, holding its breath, waiting to see what she'd do.

Alastair's gaze flicked to her, utterly unbothered. His lips curved just barely, a ghost of a smile as he adjusted his grip to keep me upright. "She's not ready to fall yet," he said, calm and certain. "And I don't waste what's mine to sharpen."

Eve's jaw clenched, and for the first time since arriving in Hell, I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.

"Put her down," she bit out, low and dangerous, a command wrapped in a threat.

Alastair didn't flinch. He angled his head slightly, looking at her the way a predator sizes up another. "If I let go, she folds into the dirt," he said simply. "And then your precious little crowd here tears her apart. That's a spectacle I'm willing to allow, but you-" his gaze flicked over her, assessing- "I think you'd object."

Eve's eyes flickered to me, the fury softening for a split second. "Bri-" she started, her voice sharp. "What the hell are you doing here, alone?"

I tried to stand straighter, to shake Alastair's arm off me, but my legs betrayed me again, buckling just enough that his grip tightened. Humiliation scorched hotten than the Pit's heat. "I was... learning."

Her jaw set, her fury snapping back into place as she rounded on Alastair. "Learning? From him?"

Alastair chuckled low in his chest, the sound too smooth, too at ease. "Don't project your chains onto her, Doll. She asked for this. She walked into the fire." He dipped his head just slightly toward me, pale eyes glittering. "And she didn't crawl out."

The ever present crowd hissed and stirred, demons leaning forward to catch every word like carrion birds waiting for scraps. Eve took another step closer, her hand twitching at her side like she wanted to draw the blade sheathed there.

Alastair leaned down just enough for his words to brush my ear alone. "Stand now, Ash, or she'll rip me apart for daring to touch you. And you'll look like a child instead of what you've proven yourself to be."

Every muscle screamed in protest, but I forced myself upright, shaking, bloodied, but on my own feet. Alastair let me go without hesitation, stepping back with that same infuriating calm, his hands loose at his sides like he'd planned the moment all along.

I swayed for a moment, but I didn't fall.

Eve caught me by the arm immediately, her grip firm. Her glare stayed locked on Alastair as she snarled, "This isn't over."

His faint smile never wavered. "Oh, I hope not."

The pit roared back to life around us, the crowd howling again as though they'd just witness something worth retelling.

Eve pulled me tight against her side, her voice fierce in my ear. "Let's go."

The moment the Pit walls faded behind us, the air outside felt too cold, too quiet. Eve's grip on my arm didn't loosen, but the tension in her shoulders shifted, coiled like a spring ready to snap. We stopped in a shadowed alcove, just the two of us, and finally- the dam broke.

"What the fuck, Bri?" Eve's voice was low, jagged, trembling with rage. "You think walking into that chaos alone, letting him... use you- that this is how you survive?!"

I flinched, then met her eyes, steel in mine. "He has nothing to do with this!"

Eve's eyes flashed, something half-feral burning behind them. "Don't you dare," she hissed, shoving me back against the stone wall hard enough that the breath jolted from my lungs. "Don't you dare stand there and tell me this isn't about him. I saw the way you looked at him. I saw the way he looked at you."

"That's not-"

"Don't lie to me!" she snapped, the sound reverberating like a slap. Her hands were fists at her sides, trembling, nails biting into her palms. "You disappear for hours-days on end. You told me Urzin was giving you deeper tours of Hell- Yet he's been watching the Pit."

Her words landed like blows, each one sharper than the last. The stone at my back was cold and unyielding, grounding me even as my pulse clawed at my throat.

"That's not what-" I started, but Eve's hand shot up, pressing against my collarbone to pin me there.

"Who even is that guy? Cause you've gotten real cozy with him," she snarled.

The air between us crackled-Hell's heat, rage, heartbreak. I felt my pulse hammer under her palm. "Alastair. We're not cozy, he's teaching me."

Eve's voice echoed off the stone walls, sharp and furious, the kind of sound that made the air itself tighten. "He's not teaching you anything, Bri- he's using you."

I shoved her hand away, harder than I meant to. "You don't get to talk about using people."

Her lips curled into something between disgust and heartbreak, her voice a razor blade across the silence. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You disappear for hours at a time, come back smelling like him, and think I don't notice?" I snapped, stepping forward until we were nearly chest to chest. "You think Kaelen's some kind of therapy session? How long have you been sneaking off with him, Eve?"

The name hit her like a blade. Eve Froze. Then, slow and deadly, "Watch your mouth."

"Oh, I am," I hissed. "Someone has to. You spend half your nights crawling out of his chambers, and I'm just supposed to pretend I don't see it? What happened to Dean?"

Her shoulders locked. "Careful."

"No," I snapped. "What would Dean think about you crawling into that demons bed, night after night?"

The words came out before I could stop them- and I knew it was too far.

Eve's face went blank-too blank. Then her hand moved.

The shove came fast, fueled by something deeper than rage. I hit the wall hard enough for the stone to crack, the breath slamming out of my lungs. The shock flared hot in my ribs, but it wasn't enough to stop me.

I came right back at her.

The impact was violent, raw with too many feelings. Eve snarled, teeth flashing, and the world narrowed to movement and heat. We weren't careful. We weren't pulling punches. My fist connected with her jaw; she staggered but didn't fall. Her claws raked across my shoulder, searing lines into flesh.

"You think you're better than me?" She shouted, swinging again.

"I think you're losing yourself," I snapped back, blocking the next strike and slamming her into the wall. Dust rained down around us.

She kneed me in the stomach, hard, sending me sprawling back. My vision blurred.

"You don't know what I've lost!" she screamed. "You don't know what I had to do!"

"Don't lie to yourself," I spat, blood in my mouth. "You like it here! You like him!"

Eve lunged, faster than I could brace. We crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and fury, claws and fists finding purchase. Hellfire roared somewehre above, echoing the sound of our fury.

She had me pinned, eyes wild, tears bright but unshed. "You think you're still human?" She hissed. "You think Sam would even recognize you now?"

That did it. I twisted, slammed her over, my forearm pressing into her throat. "You don't get to say his name."

We froze there, both shaking, bloodied, panting-caught between rage and heartbreak, neither willing to let go first.

Then the air split with power.

"Enough."

Crowley's voice rolled through the chamber, smooth as silk, cold as death. I was ripped back by an invisible force, slammed against the far wall and held there like a bug under glass. Eve was wrenched up too, pinned midair before being caught by Kaelen.

He had her caged against him, one arm locked tight around her waist, his jaw clenched, eyes burning. She thrashed once, then stilled, her breath shuddering.

Crowley's shoes clicked against the stone as he approached, surveying the wreckage with raised brows. "Well," he drawled, "isn't this cozy? My two favorite disasters redecorating the walls with each other's faces."

No one spoke. Eve's chest heaved in rhythm with my own. I was still trembling, not from fear- but from everything I said.

Crowley sighed dramatically, tilting his head. "Remind me to triple security next time you're both in the same room, darling."

He flicked his wrist, and the invisible grip vanished. I stumbled forward, catching myself on shaking knees. Across the hall, Kaelen loosened his hold on Eve, but didn't let her go. She looked wrecked-beautiful and furious and broken in the same breath.

Crowley's voice softened-just barely. "If you're going to tear each other apart," he said, "do it where it doesn't stain the floors."

He turned, coat sweeping, and was gone.

For a long moment, the only sound was the echo of our breathing.

Eve finally met my gaze. Blood streaked her cheek; my own blood was dripping down my arm. Neither of us said a word. There was too much between us- love, fury, loss- all tangled into something too heavy to speak.

Then she turned, and walked away, Kaelen at her side.

Four months later, my name carried weight in the Pit.

Not as Alastair's shadow, not as the girl playing with souls, but as something else entirely.

The Executioner.

Whispers trailed me through the corridors, low, fearful, sometimes reverent. The scent of scorched flesh clung to the air wherever I went. Demons moved when I passed, whether out of respect or fear, I didn't care. Both worked.

Alastair hadn't broken me; he'd honed me. Where once my blade shook, now it carved steady, efficient lines. I had learned the rhythm of agony and silence- the exact moment when a soul stopped being human and became a sound that would never fade.

Eve had carved her own empire in the meantime-where mine ran red, hers ran deep. She moved with Crowley and Urzin now, through corridors I didn't enter, into chambers where blood was replaced by bargains. We didn't talk about the fight. We didn't talk about anything.

But every time I wiped blood from my hands, every time Alastair's voice murmured quiet approval against my ear, I heard her words echo in the dark. "You think Sam would even recognize you now?"

Now, we stood side by side again, ringed by snarls and jeers, the air hot and wet with the stench of rot. The crowd pressed close, restless and hungry.

Eve stood tall, her presence cutting through the noise like a blade. She didn't wear a crown, but she didn't need one- her authority burned bright enough to make the Pit bow.

And me? Well- I was the weapon at her back.

The first demon lunged. My blade met his throat in a clean arc, a perfect line of red drawn across the air. Blood sprayed, sizzling when it hit the gorund. The crowd screamed for more.

Another came-a brute, all muscle and hate. I pivoted with his momentum, buried my knife in his gut, and dragged upwards until his roar broke into wet gurgles.

"Don't waste time showing off," Eve snapped beside me, her voice steady, her movements deadly. She didn't need a blade, her claws tore though her opponents with surgical precision.

We moved together, unnatural, perfect. Her fury was controlled, cold; mine burned, wild and consuming. Together, we were destruction made flesh, forged from the same fire that tried to devour us.

Demons fell. The ground slickened with crimson. The Pit roared its approval, a thousand throats demanding more blood.