Red hair plasters to her face. Her body sticks to the bloody leather fabric beneath her broken back. Creatures scurry around, stabbing her belly full of liquids and vials of brackish blood. She can't remember how many times they poked and prodded her. Twice, the syringes glowed gold. The creatures are cautious with those. While her baby dances in her womb, she floats in and out of delirium. "Why is he doing this to me?" she cries. Finally, a face with menacing eyes appears from the shadows. She cries harder, edging as far as her paralyses will allow. "Don't hurt my baby!"

Feline teeth glisten beneath the lights. "That is no baby. It is our weapon."

*

Nyx woke gasping, her face wet with salty tears and snot. "Oh God." she rushed to the bathroom, a hand clutched across her abdomen and the other over her mouth before she released her stomach contents into the porcelain throne.

The nightmares had become more vivid as the nights went on, and there was still no sign of Micah. She thought about calling him, but a strange niggling in her chest stopped her. After the woodland encounter with Neo, though, she couldn't stop thinking about him. She wanted to know what he had to say as much as she tried to curse him for everything he had done. To her mother. To Iris. To her.

Nyx washed her face and rinsed her mouth before settling her grey eyes on her reflection. "I can't do this anymore," she whispered, watching her rosy lips recite the words. I can't keep looking over my shoulder. Poking her head out the door, she saw the time was three in the morning. She could hear the gentle snores of her parents and Selene from the other rooms.

Her bed was the last place Nyx wanted to be. Instead, she put on jeans, shoes and a thick jacket and pocketed her house keys tiptoeing out the door to the parking garage. Wherever she did this, it needed to be private and secluded. She had to confront him.

The little voice in her head screamed at her to stop as she pulled out of the garage and onto the dark, slick roads. Rain drizzled across the windscreen, and she lowered her window, letting the water flecks wake her up.

This is a terrible idea.

The images of her birth mother struggling and suffering were too much to bear. Nyx gritted her teeth, so hard her jaw ached, and she stuck her head out the window, letting the sting of needle rain distract her.

After twenty minutes of driving, she had left the city borders where trees sprouted around the gravel roads beside dim streetlights. When she hadn't passed another car for ten minutes, she pulled over and killed the engine, keeping the headlights on for visibility. Her panting breaths and strangling grip on the wheel almost brought her back to her senses. No! We're doing this now. I'm done hiding. Nyx flung the seatbelt and shoved open the door, letting herself feel the sky's tears mingle with her own. The downpour grew heavier, and her copper hair quickly plastered to her face.

Before embarrassing herself, she pulled out her phone and dialled the number she had saved. It shot through to voicemail immediately. "Alright. That didn't work." Pocketing the phone, she turned in a circle ensuring she was alone and took a breath of resolve. "You can do this," she whispered.

She let her anger bubble from her lips as she summoned him with a ragged shout. "Aidoneus Mephistopheles. I need to talk to you." When nothing happened immediately, she felt a flush of embarrassment. "Neo!"

"What do you want, soul stealer?" The familiar feminine voice bit out from behind. Nyx spun and blinked the rain from her lashes. "Maeze? Where is he? I need to speak to him."

"No. You need to stay away from him." Maeze prowled forward, covered in leather head to toe. She seemed unbothered by the rain as she sneered down at Nyx. "As soon as we found out what you could do, we should have disposed of you. You can cause nothing but harm. You shouldn't even exist!"

Fury blossomed in Nyx's chest. "Tell him that then! Why would he experiment on me if you believe that? Why would he want me to be a weapon?"

"What the Vekai are you speaking of, Ime?"

"I saw him. Micah showed me my birth. He was there, Maeze. And I keep seeing her in my dreams. He made me like this!" Her eyes streamed as she screamed above the wind. She couldn't even see who she was yelling at anymore. "He did this to me! He killed Iris.'" Sobs spilt from her lips, and her shoulders shook. "Why would he do that? Why? She was good. Hadn't she suffered enough? Why, Maeze!"

She looked up as Maeze approached, her form illuminated by the headlights. Nyx saw her shadow swirling and drifting from its boundary. She straightened. "Oh yeah. It's 'cause you're all monsters."

Maeze raised her hand, but her expression was a strange muddle of anger and confusion.

"Get back, Maezikeen."

Nyx's shoulders slumped as Neo appeared from the shadows. Maeze went to argue when he growled low in his throat, "Leave us."

Maeze disappeared in a blink, and Neo took her place. "What are you doing out here, Miss Knight?"

Nyx looked around with her hands gesturing sarcastically, water droplets flying in all directions. "What does it look like, Aidoneus? Or should I say, Master?"

He growled and stepped closer. Almost close enough to touch. He read her mind. "Don't try anything. I've stored my soul away again."

A humourless laugh passed Nyx's lips. "Of course you have."

"Why did you summon me? You seem to have already made your mind up about everything I have or have not done. What do you want?"

It was Nyx's turn to growl. "I want to know why. I saw you in that room with my birth mother, telling your demons to cut me from her womb. I saw you with my own eyes! And then you kill Iris? I - I don't understand."

"No, you don't understand." His next step had him close enough to feel his body heat radiating between them. She craned her neck to see the endless windows to his missing soul. "Did he lay with you?"

"What?" Nyx sputtered. "Who?" She knew exactly who and what she spoke of; it just felt so unbelievably irrelevant cause no, of course not. Micah would lead her on for days but always pull away whenever things threatened to get more heated.

Neo's posture relaxed slightly, and he placed his finger beneath her chin. "Things are not what they seem, Miss Knight. I am not who you think I am."

Her breath quickened as his face approached hers. Slowly and with calculation. The whites of his eyes returned as he shifted his gaze to her lips. "Don't forget how you felt about me. It was all real. But there is no time to explain. He's coming."

His breath tickled her moist lips, and she whispered. "Who?"

"Stay away from her Hellspawn." Micah swooped in and wrapped his frozen limb around Nyx's stomach, pulling her against his rigid torso. The speed at which he pulled her away from Neo left her breathless, and his scowl made her stomach flutter.

No. Stop you, idiot. He didn't explain anything. For all I know, he still did all those things...

Neo's brow rose, and a smirk tugged at his lips. "Hellspawn? Well, where have you been for the last month? Leaving her alone to fight off the big bad monsters."

Micah flashed his teeth. "Trying to find a way to save her."

"You mean, use her."

"I won't let you poison her of me. You aren't innocent. She knows the truth now."

"Your truth, Angel."

Nyx fought for breath as Micah's grip around her ribs tightened. "Enough of this," Micah hissed, beating his wings against the earth. Nyx closed her eyes as the miles from the ground beneath grew, and her car looked like a flashlight in the endless darkness.

Dad's gonna kill me.

After five stomach-churning minutes, they landed softly on her parent's apartment roof.

"What were you thinking?" Micah rounded on her, shrugging his ruffled wings against his back. "He would say or do anything to manipulate you. You do know that, right? You saw what he did. You saw with your own eyes." His green eyes were luminous in the dark.

Nyx nodded lamely and swallowed. "I'm sorry. I just - It's been a really rough few weeks."

Micah's hand curled in his hair, and frustration seemed to drip from him with the rain. "Yes, well, it seems it can only get worse."

"What? What do you mean?" A terrible fear pierced her heart, and her voice trembled.

Micah stepped closer and took her shaking hands in his. "In order to stop the demons from coming for you and the people you love..."

"Yes? What do I need to do, Micah?"

"You need to die."

A/N

And now we are almost full circle to the prologue... dun, dun, dun...