“Lucas? Tell me I'm not completely insane and hallucinating. Is that really you?”

“Well it's nice to know you haven't forgotten me entirely.”

I clapped eyes on him for the first time in so long and the wave of relief that washed over me was indescribable. For too long I'd been running, fearing what was on my tail, trying to claw my way out of the hole I'd dug myself in to, only to fall deeper as I brought the earth down on top of me. Now I could almost dare to hope I might have someone on my side again.

“Hell, Lucas, you're a sight for sore eyes.” I ran to his side and threw my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly just to make sure he was real. “I never thought I'd get to see you again.”

“You do realise it has only been a few weeks since we last saw each other, right?” he said, patting me awkwardly on the back, we weren't really the hugging kind of creatures but I just couldn't help myself. “I mean, granted it's been longer than usual but still...”

“It feels like years, Lucas, seriously. Besides I'm hardly going to be the most welcome face back in Hell now, am I?”

“Well, after this little stunt you've pulled here, they're certainly not going to be too happy. I mean, I'm pretty impressed with your nerve but it's a clerical mess, and you know how Malick hates those. What were you thinking Rayne, seriously, why didn't you just come back home like they wanted you to?”

“What was I thinking? Really, Lucas, do you actually have no idea what's been happening to me up here? It's been a nightmare, not to mention a huge set up. They're out to get me...and now you're here.” I frowned, stepping back and away from him as I asked probably the most pressing of questions for the first time. “Why are you here?”

“Isn't that obvious? They sent me here to talk some sense into you, snap you out of this insanity before you cause any more chaos.” He made a wide sweeping gesture to the scene surrounding us: the two dead bodies, the remnants of my raid on the till.

I could practically smell my own desperation in the air and it sickened me. How twisted and contorted had my perception of things become? The two halves of myself were battling endlessly for control, so much so that I could barely even feel it any more. The constant torment of feeling split in two had faded until it started to feel so normal it was hard to know which part of myself I was listening to. I even had to wonder whether, in all of my warring personality, I had managed to completely lose all sense of myself – or maybe I'd just never had the chance to know who I really was.

Deep down, under all of those layers of demonic nurturing and training, all the ingrained sense of purpose and duty that had been drilled into my head from a tender age, and its conflict with my human blood's desperate need to be accepted and find companionship, where did I really fit in?

Was this really the reason I was doing all of this? Was it possible I had cooked up the whole idea of a set up in my own head and sabotaged my own work all along? It might explain how I managed to keep digging myself into ever deeper holes. But no, even spirally as I was I knew there had been things happen that I couldn't just explain away like that. There was more to everything, there always was, and I would make it my one last aim to figure out the bigger picture, even if it really was the last thing I ever did.

However glad I was to see Lucas, his presence might prove to be much more of a problem than a help. As much as I might long for it, I really didn't think he was going to be quick to help me in my own endeavour. Friends or not, we'd both been raised to put ourselves first, and if he'd come to find me to bring me home it was on their orders.

“Your trial?” I asked, piecing two and two together as the hopeful feeling that had been building up inside of me plummeted, leaving me feeling sick to my stomach.

“Yes, that wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. Though I'm surprised you even remembered, given everything that's been going on with you,” he said, casting me one of his characteristic smirks – though knowing him as well as I did, I managed to see the force he had to put behind the expression. Maybe he liked all of this as little as I did.

“So...what was the verdict? How did they sentence you?”

I knew he wouldn't have been acquitted, that wasn't how things worked in Hell. The trial would have been to determine the gravity of his crime and to sentence him with an appropriate punishment. There was no guilty or not guilty, it was all about how highly you ranked on the guilt scale. I had a funny feeling my own ever growing list of crimes would blow through the top.

Lucas shrugged, his smile fading as he let out a sigh, all bravado leaking away as we got down to the bare bones of the situation. “I think you can probably figure that out for yourself, Rayne.”

I let out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding and found myself sinking down onto the nearest barstool. “Yeah, I suppose I can.”

I'd known that truth would be coming, but it had been such a relief to see my old friend again. It was like a little taste of home I thought I'd never get to experience again, some comfort. I'd been a fool to think, even for a moment, that he might have been there to help me. Every man for himself, was ultimately the motto in Hell, and friends or not he'd been given a task to turn me in. There was no way he would choose me over himself.

“You can't be expecting me to just come with you without at least an argument.”

He had the grace to at least smile at me for those words, a genuine, warm smile that I had missed so much. It almost hurt to see such a familiar, joyful expression on his face when in reality we were at odds with each other.

“No, I know you much to well for that. But, if we are going to hash this out, Rayne, we should probably go somewhere else. I might have been able to freeze time when I got here, but I don't really know how long it's going to last for.”

A frown furrowed my brow at those words. I knew I had felt an unusual sensation when he'd appeared, something more than just The Void opening in the near vicinity, but I'd not known what he'd actually done; nor had I thought much more of it when the actual sight of him cast the thought from my mind. Now though I realised it certainly explained why no paramedics or police officers had come knocking at the door yet.

“You froze time?” I asked, humour raising my voice in my amusement. If we could just keep talking like this, our old usual comfortable banter, I could almost forget what might soon be coming. “Who'd you steal that power from?”

“Just a little something they let me borrow to come and fetch you. They said with all of the trouble you'd been landing yourself in just lately it might be useful. I have to say it is a pretty nifty little power, almost a shame they're going to take it away just as soon as I get back.”

“Oh yes, you're so hard done by, Lucas. You get put on trial for fucking up and they just gift you new powers and send you out on another job. How exactly is any of this a punishment?”

“You know the answer to that one as well, Rayne.” His voice turned quickly sombre and I immediately regretted my choice of words, they'd sent us crashing back to reality much too soon.

“Yes. I get it, I do. Don't think I don't know what's waiting for me back there, especially after all of this.” A rasping sigh escaped my lips and another prickle of tears grazed my eyes as I took in the stricken sight of Alan's terrified body, his eyes still wide with accusation and fear.

Unable to resist the urge, I knealt by the man's side and eased his eyelids gently closed; the dead should at least be allowed to look peaceful. I sniffed back the sobs I wanted to let over me and looked back up at Lucas.

“Why don't you just drag me back to Hell, kicking and screaming? Why bother talking it out with me, you know what you've got to do.”

“And therein we have the punishment.” He took my hands and dragged me up off of the floor. I expected the blackness of The Void to open under my feet at the touch of his flesh on mine, and I braced myself for the fall but it never came.

“I'm not going to just drag you back, Rayne. You at least deserve to go with more dignity than that. Plus, I know that they only told me what they wanted me to hear, and I suppose I want to hear it from you as well. You listened to me go on about my fuck ups often enough, it's what we do for each other, and I want to at least give you that much. Besides, who else do you know that will actually listen to you prattle on.”

I punched him playfully on the shoulder. A few tears had escaped my eyes and I scrubbed them away, this was not a time for falling apart.

“Thanks. It might never count for anything, but at least I'll have been able to tell someone what really happened to me.”

Another depressing thought, telling my story might be the last thing I ever achieved. I didn't know what good it might do, but at least I could ease the leaden weight it had set upon my chest, and I could tell it to someone with knowledge of both sides who would genuinely understand the whole picture and not just parts of it.

“Well, come on then. You know if we take too long about this they're going to start thinking I've defected...that's not your plan is it? To recruit yourself a demon army and take control of Hell?”

I cast Lucas a sideways glance at his lame attempt at a joke – though I couldn't deny it was a much more appeal idea than the alternative, just entirely unachievable.

“No? Oh, well, I did have to wonder.”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes at him, but I couldn't deny that it was nice to have him back, poking fun at me once again. “No big plans, I promise. But we really should get out of here, I'm more worried about your last of adeptness with this freezing power and having an army of police and paramedics barging in on us.”

“Or perhaps we could just fuck on the bar, y'know distract and disgust them, scare them away. Then we could drink this place dry.”

Even I couldn't quite believe his suggestion. I knew he was joking, I'd heard the same a hundred times before, but was this really the time and place for it? The laughter was on my lips without warning, and I had to admit it felt good to let out some of the tension I'd been holding.

“Yeah, as distracting as that might be, I still think they'll be more concerned with the dead bodies. And y'know I'm not really in the mood, I just killed two people and I'm not sure I like the thought of their corpses watching.”

Admitting out loud what I had done didn't help any, in fact I hated the way it sounded, but I brushed off the pang of emotion. Being around Lucas helped to tone down my human side and it made denying my emotions that bit easier.

“Damn, and I've always wanted to do it on a bar.” He ran his hand suggestively over the glossy surface that Frances had polished for the last time. Though a few of his words had given me an idea and I ducked behind the bar one last time. “Whoa, you know I was joking, right?” he asked as I rummaged amongst the liquor bottles.

“Please, Lucas. How long has I known you now? I don't consider us to have had a proper conversation unless you've made some lewd proposition at one point.”

My hands found the whiskey bottle and I turned back around; it would not have been my first choice of a drink, but it would be more for him than for me. I turned back around and set the bottle down on the bar. “I just thought we could use a little something to ease us into this conversation.”

“Ahh, now I like your thinking.”

I'd not touched a drop of alcohol since the night I got trashed with Jesse, but I would make a small exception for this night. Besides, plying a man with drink had been a method that had proven profitable for me before, might be I could talk Lucas around to my side if he swallowed enough the amber nectar. A long shot, probably, but well worth a try, I had nothing left to lose.