TRANSLATION: Heart, Heart  TW: Violence, blood, gore, and swearing.

The stench of burning corpses was invading my nostrils, my eyes stinging as I saw charred flesh slipping off bone. I drew my hands out mimicking the same spell of wind as I saw a previous warlock do. The flames lowered gently but not enough I could still be burned. I gathered my tattered and soaked dress and jumped over the line of fire. My ankle slightly twisting, another pang.

I released a shaky breath and pulled myself together as I limped down the corridor until I heard a certain rat talking.

"Whatever House you belong to, I'll personally destroy it. I'll wipe your entire bloodline as we did with the De Luna family!" Richard Mondt fumed.

Este no se me va vivo. (This one doesn't leave alive.)

The last remaining followers of the Mondt's were trapped in this highly decorated ballroom, the same room where Grimm couldn't decide what sweet to eat. Except now, he was grasping a warlock by the neck and looked unfazed by his disgruntled chokes. Grimm held a bored expression as his gaze was set on Richard's bleeding face. "Raven, what a perfect time for you to join us." He then snaps the warlock's neck and drops his limp body to the ground. He leaves his eyes open, glassy and panicked. "My hand was getting tired." Death said, as his crimson lips lazily curved upwards.

He soothes his wrist.

The Mondt's took a step back, holding onto each other. A witch stepped forward ready to attack, but a fellow warlock grabbed her arm before she could summon anything. She struggles against his hold as she meets Death's gaze. "Why do you support the Del Luna family? What is she to you? What are you? Her whore?" She spits out.

Death released a hollowed laugh. "I prefer 'lover' but I'll be anything she wants me to be. Her whore. Her fool." He draws his scythe once more, the shadows encircling around him. "Her executioner." His eyes are grim and menacing.

Her nostrils flare, and she shoves her friend sprinting toward me with open arms. Everyone quickly follows after her. I took three strides, muttering to Grimm before he did anything. "No more heads." And I scream my unforgivable wrath. 

I won't stop until I see them lower their hands as they hopelessly press them against their ears. I won't stop until I see their bodies bending and their knees collapse to the ground. I don't stop as I see them trembling as if it were a winter night and their ears burst. Oh, to be the last thing they'll ever hear. What a gift. What a curse. Blood runs thick down the slope of their ears.

I then stop, and short and rapid breaths come out. The spirits murmur as if their lips brush my hair, kill or be killed. They say it like a mantra. I press my hand over my chest. I inhaled sharply, then slowly exhaled. Reality set in again. Pieces of shattered glass surround the entire room with a few fluttering light bulbs and a tilting chandelier. I couldn't miss the six dead witches and warlocks lying on the floor.

My gaze drifted to Grimm as he flicked a shard of glass off his shoulder. "They're alive, just as you asked." I frowned as the sudden sound of crunching glass caught my attention. I turned to the noise seeing Richard and Marlene Mondt were crawling still trying to escape. How?

But I didn't have time to ask my question. I walked over to a near-fallen curtain and pulled out the metal rod. I marched over to them with Grimm walking closely behind. "Get Mrs. Mondt," I said, as I got closer, raising the metal rod over Richard's balding head. He turns his eyes stricken with horror. "Wait, please—" I struck him with the metal rod. Marlene sobs as she tries to reach for him but Grimm places the end of his scythe on top of her ankle, something pops and she yelps.

I lift Richard from the back of his collar shirt but not before I tell Marlene, "Remember what I told you?" Tears rolled down her cheeks. "Blood is not pure and your husband is next." I show her my middle finger, coated in a dark ruby. I drag Richard out of the ballroom into the hallway, groaning and profusely bleeding. I shut the door behind me leaving Grimm alone with Marlene.

This will be quick.

I tap Richard's stomach with the metal rod. He slugs away and curls himself away from me. "What—what are you?" He lays flat, his eyes moving fervently. "How—how did you do it? Your magic...I can feel it now. I can feel you—" Richard wheezes. "You're not just a wi—witch, are you? You're something dark. Some kind of monstrosity." A raspy laugh claws my throat.

"You have a lot of nerve for a dying man." I bend my knees to meet his gaze, despite the ache in my ankle. "My mother warned me about men like you. Do you want to know what she said?" I toss the metal rod and try to get closer to him but he scoots away. I lunged for his thick neck, wrapping my hand around it and uttering an immobilizing spell. His eyes became wide and his body froze.

I twist his face to the side with my other hand and lean over to the shell of his soaking-red ear. "She said, mo stόr, they're bad men who like to hurt little girls. They'll break you, humiliate you, and silence you. But you will survive all of that because after you wipe your tears, something will awaken in you." I choke him harder, digging my fingernails into his sweaty skin. The spirits hum as they await. "The anger—the feeling of wanting to set the entire world on fire. But she taught me resilience and what I can do to men like you. Oh, Richard, did you think this is my first time killing a man like you? Don't worry, you won't be the last." I unleashed a high-pitched scream for him, a vicious suffering only he could hear and feel.

Small strangled puffs of breath come out of him until I am welcomed by his silence. 

I remembered a man named Frank Higgins, Grimm knew him too. He also knew I killed him. I remove my hand from his neck and see Richard Mondt's pale corpse, his mouth agape spilling blood matching his coated ears. Huh, they looked alike in this state.

I stand up confronting a splinter oval mirror hung in the hallway. My hair was disheveled and matted in dark red. My beautiful glittering dress was torn and drenched, at the very least my jewelry clung to my skin. I was dripping from head to toe, my blood and theirs.

Then, an abrupt loud crash came from the ballroom behind me.

I swiftly turned, bursting through the doors only to be met with a sudden crushing force all over my body. My back slammed against a wall, my lungs clenching. "What have you done with my husband!" Marlene Mondt stood weakly as she raised her hand pushing her magic onto me. My eyes were frantically searching for—

"Looking for your little dark prince?" Marlene moves out of my view, and I see him.

Grimm was kneeling under the chandelier, his poisonous veins were pulsing and pumping. His head tilted back staring deep into the light as if he was entranced by it. His lips were moving, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. He looked like a sinner asking for forgiveness.

Marlene exerted more of her magic, and a gaping slash ran down my forearm. I gasped loudly. "He is special, isn't he? I've never met someone so powerful and heavily tied to the world. But he is weak. Wounded. Incurable. He is dying." My fingers start to quiver just as Marlene catches the movement, she draws her hand toward the chandelier rocking it back and forth. "If I were you I would be very careful." She threatened.

Grimm could survive the toppling of a chandelier since he was an immortal being and it seemed Marlene didn't know that. But the image of him being crushed and severely injured stirred my heart and enraged me more than it should have.

I lowered my chin. "I'm sorry," she looked a little surprised as I said hoarsely, "I'm sorry you couldn't watch your rat fuck of a husband die. I should've kept my promise." She tried to squeeze the air out of my lungs further but this time, I lifted my hand, raising it higher with tenacity as power surged through my veins. "But I can keep my other promise to you." I rasped out.

Marlene was losing control over my body. She couldn't keep holding me against the wall and keep having Grimm under her control. She finally dropped me, and my knees hit the marble floor. Quickly, I drew my hands further to keep the chandelier from falling. Marlene retreats as she gives her last bit of strength reverberating the chandelier. "Grimm, get up." But my voice is too small and cracked.

She speaks harshly. "He can't hear you. He is reminiscing a memory, and he can't leave it until I say so. You took away the life of the man I love now, watch me take yours!" In one thrust, Marlene breaks the chain holding the chandelier. "Grimm, GET UP!" I said as I conjured all that I had letting my fury and magic entwine, the chandelier was hurled directly at Marlene Mondt.

The resounding glass and light bulbs explode throughout the room, leaving it dim.

My hands fall on the cold floor, my chest heaves.

"Nora..." I lift my head, seeing Marlene's body tangled with the chandelier. Her neck was brutally twisted at a gruesome angle and open wounds. She looked like a broken porcelain doll. "Nora Del Luna, you—" She opens her mouth to say something else but blood pours out taking her last breath. A short wave of relief washes over me.

My arm continuously bleeds and I clasp my hand around the cut and limp toward a kneeling Grimm.

"Grimm," I whispered. He doesn't look at me, his eyes drawn to the bare ceiling. "Grimm, you don't have to kneel anymore. Get up. You look ridiculous." The moment I get close to him, his shadows swirl around like a cloud of armor shifting into a hundred little spears. I halt my steps. "Grimm." I snapped. His brows are pushed together and his jaw clenched. I notice his fingers are shaking like—like he is afraid.

My knees buckled in front of him. The shadows pull their spears back, an inch away. I place my hand over his chest. I feel his heart pulsing at an abnormal rate. Grimm mutters something in a different language. I can't understand him. I can't understand him. 

"Grimm, I know you can hear me. Just follow the sound of my voice, and come back to me." His pitch-black eyes were glued to the ceiling, I grip his soaking shirt and try to think of a spell from my father's books. His heart was pumping faster, and I remember the spell of how to ease an anxious heart. The smell of lavender and followed by an incantation can calm the heart down. But I didn't have lavender.

Dammit.

Grimm continues to speak a different language. I placed both of my hands over his heart moving them in circular motions as if it were a wound, I bit down the harshness of my voice. "Cor quies cor quies cor quies..." My magic spilled over his heart as I tried to contain the destructive urge. I kept the chant going as I said, urgently. "It's me, Raven, Nora, and whatever else you like to call me. Come back or I swear I'll never give you your wings back."

Nothing changed. I sunk my fingernails into his skin, continuing the enchantment. "Cor quies cor quies cor quies—" A moment of weakness and fragility overtook my senses. With my other hand, I pull his chin down hard, meeting the depths of his night-sky eyes. His nose faintly brushed against mine. "Corazón, mírame," I murmur, achingly.

His heart stops beating for a second, and so does mine.

But a sudden pull wraps tightly around my waist, his hand pressing on my back. His lips casually brush my ear as I hear the change in his breath. Sharp, cool, and steady. My hand was still on his chest, I could feel his heart returning to some normalcy. "Raven," I close my eyes briefly.

"Raven," His voice is raw and thick. "You're here." There is relief too, in the both of us. Grimm speaks again, "You killed her." He is a little surprised but we both knew Marlene Mondt was going to die regardless of her stupidity for trying to hurt him. It was either going to be me or him. Grimm could've done it sooner but what stopped him? How did Marlene get inside his head?

Frustration began to seize my throat, he should've killed her. Why didn't he? I try to get out of his hold but he gently presses his other hand on the back of my head. "Wait, just a few more seconds. Just wait. Please." I stop fidgeting.

"Why did you let her get inside your head? You could've killed her." I finally asked.

He is quiet, but he then replies. "I didn't think she could. She wanted to know who I was. What I am. I told her I was nothing, and from nowhere. She said, someone like me isn't nothing and I must come from somewhere. I laughed at her and she proved me right." he swallows, "I'm nothing from nowhere. It's all darkness." There was a longing in his voice, soft and painful.

Weak. Wounded. Incurable. He was dying, is what Marlene said. But that's not what it was, it was exhaustion.

I slightly pulled away and met his starry eyes. I placed my slick red hands on the sides of his sunken cheeks. Grimm slightly flinches. "You're here with me, and I don't want you to go anywhere," I whispered. "But the darkness is a part of you, and I'm not afraid of it because I know you will show the light. You dispel the darkness because you can do it. Light is poured in until you allow it. And when you do, you reveal what has been hidden. It isn't light. It isn't darkness. It is only you."

His gaze became profound and intense. "I only ever hear you. Even in the wasteland of Hell, I heard you. It shouldn't surprise me that I heard you in the depths of my darkness. You're there now, and I don't want you to ever leave it."

Suddenly I wished we were dancing upstairs in the dusty abandoned room. I wish he spun me a bit more through moonlight's rays as his shadows embraced my body. I wish we could have laughed and smiled a bit longer. I wish I could have kissed him longer.

I wish we could have an eternity to dance with each other. Perhaps, our souls are dancing somewhere else in the dark.

We rose from the ground, and I stepped out of his touch. I clutched my arm, pressing my wound hard as a reminder of my reality. "We have to finish playing our parts. The souls are waiting for you, Capturer. And Rose Croft is going to need an explanation for her mother's death." I said, blankly.

I couldn't see his face. I simply turned around pushing my shoulders back as I walked out of the room but not before I heard a soft tear, accompanied by fast footsteps trailing behind me. A velvet material was placed over my shoulders. I halted my steps, looking over to Grimm as he stared me down. "Hold my arm." He simply said.

I tugged the velvet material and placed my other hand on his arm, and we walked together.

The souls slithered closely after us. They were not so different from their living selves, they cried and shouted and called us every terrible word they could say. Funnily enough, reminding the dead they are dead is my favorite part.

But then, they begged Grimm to take them home. I felt like I should've told Grimm when he was trapped by Marlene's magic he was speaking another language.

He, too, sounded like he wanted to go home.