TW: Blood, gore, death, mentions of past SA. Twisted things ahead, including sweet nasty revenge that's not for the faint of heart. I refuse to be liable for your therapy bill, dudes. Shit is about to get gnarly.

It's astounding, how quickly things change for the worst. How things can be unstable but okay, and then plummet so dismally into complete horror. How things had been good just nights ago with Marcus, and now it was all so different.

...And it's also astounding how fast red can stain things, multiply like a virus, eat up anything with its hellish vibrancy. Completely cover any traces of innocence. Nora thought there must be a symbolism with that and the current state she was in, but she couldn't be bothered to make it.

No.

She was much too busy rubbing her hands frantically together until they were aching, scrubbing at her skin under the cold water that was running the prettiest pink, turning her stomach and leaving a salty taste in her mouth.

Bending over her hands, a soft stifled sob hitched in her throat, shoulders shaking with the force of concealed cries, and she lied to herself, "You're okay."

It had to be karma, that the red hue on every pristine white crack and surface of the bathroom, the sticky cold rouge that stained her trembling hands...it just seemed to get stronger. More vibrant, more angry, more power begging the shaky stability of her conscience to fall. Her mind, a flower in fall: touch one petal and it all collapses and unwinds.

Leftover adrenaline was something she'd only experienced once before, and it had her shaking like she'd just trudged through the worst storm in history, scantily clothed. So much so it seemed to rattle the tears and any vestibules of guilt from her, wringing them loose to spill down her blotchy face. The sluggish drops carved a path through even more ruby stains, speckled over her cheeks like the constellations in the sky, but instead of the beauty of the celestial they were a grim map of her sins burning into her flesh.

A teary snarl warps her reflection for the way her body tremors and jolts, a leaf in the wind one wrong breeze from blowing away...or was that her sanity?

"Is everything alright? What's happened?"

In that once spotless bathroom, Nora tilted her head and tried to listen over the thrum of chaos her brain had become, never looking away from the reflection of herself in the mirror, flecked in blood; scared it would take on its own sentience and move, proving her insanity.

"It's commendable you let us here so late, and with Nora in the condition she is. But it is really none of your business, Carlisle. Refrain from sticking your nose where it does not belong."

"...Of course. I apologize for overstepping my boundaries."

Some stuffy moments of silence ensued.

"Evidently you're happy overstepping to astronomical bounds." A bothered sigh escaped the other speaker, Marcus, poor Carlisle's curiosity yet to be sated, lingering outside the door Marcus was guarding while Aro and Caius remained missing. Taking care of what had caused her to be this way, the task she'd set for them.

"I don't need to know what happened," Carlisle amicably attempted to diffuse Marcus's irritation, thinking his next statement probably did the trick, "But despite transgressions between us all, Nora is Bella's sister and Bella remains like a daughter to me. She's downstairs worrying, Marcus."

"Do not forget yourself." Even Nora, in her delirium, recoiled. Marcus had never sounded so dangerous, on the edge of action. One wrong word would entice him to be violent. "I am not Aro, we are not friends, and my sole responsibility lies in protecting my mate. You are not a necessity to me, Carlisle. You have done your duty and helped us in an hour of need. Leave it there."

Nora was hardly paying attention now.

Bella.

God, had Bella seen her like this?

All Nora had wanted after...what she'd done...was her sister. And now, looking at her reflection, she suffered in her selfishness, severely hoping Bella hadn't managed a glimpse of her as Marcus had escorted her upstairs and straight to the bathroom. Clearly the vampires had with their super sight, and what they glimpsed sickened and intrigued them.

She blinked, and more tears streamed, a knot of dread tightening in her chest, squeezing so tightly she couldn't breathe.

Carlisle spoke again when Nora sniffled, intonation burdened with worry. "I understand you hold no great respect for me and normally your word is gospel, but I am afraid that I must be stubborn. I need to know if Nora, w...will she be alright?" His stuttering implied that from what he'd seen of her, he didn't think so.

Maybe Marcus rended Carlisle's head from his shoulders. Maybe he calmly answered. Maybe he didn't do anything. Nora wasn't sure.

What she did know, focusing back in on herself as the droning of the tap ran and only worsened the hum-drum chaos of her consciousness, was that no. She wasn't going to be alright.

Not until she got it off.

The sore flesh of her cheek pulled lazily as she dragged her numb hand over and over, messily swiping the wet back of it along her face. It did nothing to clear the evidence of her misdeeds and she wished someone would've told her that blood can stick, stain, cling and remain–wished they'd tell her more things, reassurances, a pretty lie that feeling this way after what she'd done wouldn't last forever, like she feared.

From someone, callous or compassionate, she needed the truth. That this heaviness doesn't stick. Because one day she'll have eternity, and she's not sure she can take it if it will be like this after every bad thing she'll be made to do. Not sure that, even when washed away, the blood on her now won't leave a scorched mark on her soul. A grim reminder of justice served that night, but a soul doomed all the same.

The fear she was bound in the shackles of her own actions, that even now she was unfettered from the last clinging demon dragging her down, she'll never escape, it hurt her; the thing she despised most was gone, she'd seen to that tonight...and yet that can't even subsume her of the terror that ghosts of the past will linger and she'll be driven mad.

Maybe she already was. After all, the reflection staring back at her was someone foreign. Her face. Her smile. Her eyes. But tainted by sickness and joy, a crazed edge in her stare, more tears cutting through insanity. Such emotions to house all at once, and Nora felt seconds from collapsing to ruin, trapped eying her madness.

And too late, she realized she'd missed Marcus knocking, registered too slowly that the handle was turning down, the door beginning to push open apprehensively.

"Nora?"

"No." She felt her stomach roll, and she flew at the door, the shock of her throwing all her weight against it allowing her to close it and shakily twist the lock closed with her scrambling, wet fingers. "Get out!"

"Dearest..." He sounded so wounded. As if he'd cry if he could, and he was defeated, too. He knew this would happen. That the thing that had brought them here, to there once enemies home in the dead of night, would do this to her.

"Just leave me alone. Please." She whimpered croakily, "Stay out."

It hurt she'd done that to him. Hurt so deeply inside all she could do was collapse under the torrential pull of it, slide to sit on the floor, failing to swallow back her tears any longer. She allowed herself to sob, adamant that no one could see her like this. No one. Because she was so not okay, and she was used to suffering that in solitude.

Fuck.

How had it come to this?

The answer wasn't a simple one. And it wasn't to say her hand had been forced.

People tried to make decisions for her, despite how much she abhorred that. But this was one that had been left up to her. A hurdle only she could jump.

Her days before this night were filled with strategizing, planning, awaiting the army of their enemy biding her time. In short, a monotonous nightmare she couldn't wait to escape. But her wishes were soon to be answered. The air grew colder, crisper, sharper in the wait like a mounting storm that would soon become real, and Alice had seen the tidal wave of newborns encroaching onto their land: a devastating plague. It would be any day now.

Nora had faith they could overcome it. All of them, survive, unscathed. Well, at least her boys would. They were seasoned in battle. Were nuanced in fights and were destroyers of armies. They were political diplomats–dictators to some–but many were incorrect in thinking that was the only part of their job. The fights, the battles, it was a bigger section than any could imagine and they apparently loved a good scuffle.

Apart from maybe sweet, motherly Esme who awakened a pining deep in Nora's soul for a mother like her, the Cullens and their possible demise were inconsequential.

Perhaps more liable to fret over were the ones who were still fleshy and open for damage like she was. But her confidence in her little troop of headaches to keep her and Bella and her father safe? It was unwavering.

And it meant she had to think about after.

The army would be gone. The Cullens out of her hair. She and Bella had patched things up. Her dad was on board with her venture abroad. So all that was left was leaving. Her future and eternity, her time as a humans expiration date was approaching.

But there was still something stopping her that she dreaded more than she'd ever dreaded anything.

Revenge.

She had reasons to move on and not stall any longer...and to really do that, things had to be severed. How can you wish to thrive, or survive, if there's something weighing you down? Leaving problems to fester and rot until they evolve like a cancerous tumour only drags you back into the sea of torture you're trying to escape. Better to remove it, sever its tie to you before you drown. That's the only way to live. Or at least, better the odds in a galaxy of a thousand problems gunning to consume you.

And Nora's tumor, the leftover thorn in her side, the only human thing remaining that tormented her and would go on tormenting her lest she eradicate it...was Joshua Goodman.

For her to leave and thrive, he needed to be gone. Not from memory, because no matter every wish or every prayer at night as she closed her eyes and saw his face, or felt his hands, or cried herself to sleep begging the universe for the ability to forget, she realistically gleaned that she probably never would.

But there was hoping, for she had the ability now to wipe the stain of his existence off the face of the Earth and she was going to take it; no matter the consequence on herself after the fact, no matter what anyone would think of her, it would be done. By her. This was a monster only she could vanquish–and she had to, hoping if he perished then some of the mark of his deeds upon her being would perish with him.

She couldn't let Aro keep dealing with the brunt of it. It needed to be carried out, and it was her to be the executioner.

So she'd set the ball rolling.

The moon beamed down like a stage light, and she was surrounded by dense forests that were her audience, silent with apprehension. It seemed beyond that, animals and any living thing understood the misery lurking within the dilapidated structure before her, the misery yet to come, and had fled to safer pastures to be free of bearing witness to such righteous wickedness.

In fairness to Aro for all her anger at him in regards to this issue, he really had been treating him like the animal he was. The place, illuminated by nothing but that eerily tranquil moonlight, was downright dingy and rotten like the vile creature it imprisoned within. It looked to be some sort of abandoned power plant, and she hoped any leftover toxic waste was seeping into every pore that shit-bag possessed, poisoning every breath he was taking.

Inside was no better. Mold laden walls, sprinkled with damp and decay, cracks in the floors and rubble from years of desolation and devastation.
And to top it all off the basement was where he was being held.

Aro, meters in front of her in the hall that looked as if it could've jumped right out of one of the horror movies she so loved, had waited while she hovered, unsure, sending contemptuous looks around her as if to say 'really?'

He simply shrugged a shoulder and grinned to disguise his worry for her. No better place for such filth, then to be closest to the place he's bound to end up, he'd said.

Who could argue with that?

Time is in abundance for vampires. For humans, not so much. It felt like there was a clock ticking down, and yet she couldn't bring herself to move.

The one to understand this the most was Marcus, remaining dutifully by her side as she mithered over whether this was the right choice. The right idea. Whether she'd regret it if she asked them to kill him in her place and just get it over with.

The other two would've been happy enough to do just that, and while Nora made a spectacle to herself about which path in the crossroads was the wisest, Aro disappeared inside that room, too eager to wait to torment and to use his words as a warm up to her inbound act of torture.

Caius was itching to follow, but trying to exercise his threadbare patience for her.

She appreciated them too, of course. Marcus protected. But they nurtured the sprouting of her dark, encouraging it to grow, but not out of control. There was always an out. If she decided she couldn't do it, Marcus would whisk her away like she knew he was aching to do, they'd complete the act in her place and it would never be spoken about again.

But she couldn't do that. She might not think she was a killer, despite the fates meaning for her to be a vampire–a creature that murdered to live. She'd never know until she went into that room and confronted the source of all of her turmoil.

Caius soon couldn't contain himself, pivoting impatiently to face her. And who could blame his petulant impatience? Of them all, he was the most supportive of this endeavor and she understood his incessant behavior.

When she'd turned to them after another countlessly taxing day formulating plans to beat the army, stay safe from the army, and admitted her darkest desire that had been plaguing her in almost prophetic dreams that begged her to act on them, he'd been the one to essentially jump for joy. Perhaps he saw himself in her then. Or perhaps, despite Aro's talents, Caius just understood her the best. Maybe that was why he didn't fight her for once.

Aro and Marcus? Not so much.

Aro hadn't liked it at all when she had expressed her wishes, that she should be the one to actually, physically do the deed. He had been in her mind, and never underestimated her—a meanness he envied, tenacity, courage, honor, loyalty, a willingness to be vengeful for those she loved. All the tools for a Queen.

But this was so much more than that. This would be murder. Just murder.

But Nora was no vampire yet. Human, she remained. Still possessing purity in her soul, she had tendencies for empathy. Guilt. Even when this justice was rightful–and her brilliant but damaged mind had him believe that this would stick with her forever. As she did with everything, her shaky mental health would twist this. Paint her the villain to herself when it would be a villain she was vanquishing.

In the end, though, there was no fighting or refusing her. There was trying, but he never succeeded. Anything she could want in this lifetime and all the others she would live were hers. That was a credo he'd adopted by now. This was no different.

Marcus, though, was not on the same wavelength. If it was redemption she required, he would happily see Joshua suffer a thousand lifetimes worth of torture. But by their hands, not hers. His were already doused in blood, what was another smatter of rouge?

But Nora, she was still clean of that. Even for what she dreamed, the taster of pain she'd inflected upon Edward, she knew nothing of the true devastation it could be to torture and take a life, and he feared this would break her.

It was rightful concern. But Nora had already been broken, had already stitched herself back together. She was an artist at it by now; and she could take a few more chips to her flimsily crafted armour...If this did harm her so severely, she would simply fix herself again. She would have eternity too.

This had to be done. He couldn't sway her. So that brought her back to the only one of them advocating like a cheerleader: her platinum crowned, merciless Caius.

Still with that sinfully delighted grin, he bounced from foot to foot impatiently in front of her as she dithered, looking particularly ethereal in the dilapidated place her abuser unwillingly called home. Impatience was second nature to him, even in this, and his delicacy for her human nature remained missing. He was an age-old creature at heart, and he mistook her stalling as simply cold feet, or worry she wouldn't be able to make that bastard hurt enough.

He tutted, caressed her cheeks with gentle thumbs to soothe her reluctance, "There's no need to worry. I've got all the nastiest toys for you to play with, sweetheart." He'd said, and practically skipped off, apparently completely unaware her hesitation was because she didn't wish to lose her mind, her morals and her humanity like he had.

"Elenora."

Of course there was one who never forgot who she was. What she was. Why she felt cemented to the ground, unable to move.

How she could've quivered in comfort as Marcus's deep voice washed over her, sunk into her skin like the warmth from a relaxing bath after grueling hours of labor. She felt as if she was finally standing under the sun after decades being deprived of it.

Managing to peer up at him, she saw what his tone elicited: a no nonsense expression, just pushing at being a frown of dismay. He stayed holding her hand, and said nothing. It was his eyes that did all the pleading left out of his inflection.

Please don't go through with this.

A shuddering breath escaped her parted, dry lips. One bordering on defeat.

"It's not what you want to happen." Nora's clammy hand squeezed his while her haunted, detached stare drifted over him: from his wine dark eyes crinkled with worry by his frowning, his messy dark curls made wild from the amount of times he'd stressfully fussed them, to the skewed Volturi crest laying against his toned chest. Despite lifting a hand to straighten it, she seemed to stare right through him, on a complete other plane, far away.

"No. I do not." Was all he said, and for all his unease he still basked in the warm lingering touch of her fingers leaking warmth through his maroon shirt. He didn't say anymore, for he was afraid in his worry that his tongue would run away from him and try to manipulate her mind with pretty words.

"But I do." The truth she uttered was resolute and hardened by all the things he could imagine playing through her mind regarding the beast behind that door standing three feet away, her assurances sharp: A steel blade slicing through his doubt. She insisted, "I need to, Marcus. Because all of you can't protect me forever. From the future, the supernatural while I remain human, sure. But not from the past. There's a time where you have to let go of the idea I'm fragile. I existed before I met you, I had a life and problems I had to face. I can handle things on my own."

He allowed a last fleeting second to soak in her words, indulge in who she was now before he knew something in her would change either for the better or worse—though he'd love her and support her either way, whatever the path they'd soon be travelling down together—and he caved with a smile that softened his restlessness, "Then I will stand with you in this. Let revenge be yours, my beauty."

Nora allowed him to start closing the gap between her and the threshold hiding horrors beyond. Each step was heavy. Monumental. She felt the significance, felt the closer she came to her demon, the closer she came to that almost freedom she had been searching for for years...and it was nearly a reality.

"Brace yourself, amore," Marcus warned gravely, hand breached upon the chipped, slanted wooden door. In the form of a nod she complied, and it was all the incentive he needed to push it open.

Marcus's heralding had been for the memories he knew would break down her barriers she'd crafted, come bursting back into her mind like a mighty flood as soon as she set her gaze upon the sad, bested monster tied to that chair...but also just for the physical sight that was Joshua Goodman.

A warning was needed indeed.

It took all her will to withhold a gag. While it would have stung the beast to see her aversion, Nora was sure if she did gag she'd actually be sick. That wouldn't do. The goal here was to look strong.

But god, when the stench hit her it was hard to follow through.

He smelled like a rotting corpse, and she could see why: vomit, what looked like urine, blood, sweat, tears. It all accumulated into a smell so heavy she was thankful she wasn't yet a vampire, for its effects were lessened for her. Even Caius looked queasy, wrinkling his perfect nose as he circled the filthy animal covered in his own squaller and looked wholly unimpressed with his find.

Clothes ripped. Torn. Barely hanging onto his willowy body, the colors indistinguishable. Marred with so much blood, so much...something, crusted along his front. Joshua Goodman looked like a bag of dog shit that had been trod in countless times and then lit aflame.

There was no reaction to their presence. He was stagnant, heavy head hung low, chin digging into the filthy material of what was once a shirt. Nora swallowed, assessingly sweeping her glare over him. And, well...there was no denying he'd been begrudgingly taken care of and was being fed and watered like some sad house plant no one wanted but had been lumbered with.

His quivering and spasming every few seconds had to be the result of rounds and rounds of Jane and Alec's gifts. Never mind the added bonus of physical and mental warfare from Aro.

Oh. Aro.

Heart palpitating like a fist was squeezing it, pushing it into her throat to clog her airways so all she could manage were shallow panicky breaths, Nora set her tumultuous gaze on her joyful mate.

"Aro, honey?" She grit out, and when he happily turned his gaze toward hers she practically saw the panic alarm itself through him, screaming WARNING. DANGER.

Her glare was withering, not what he'd expected, and she calmly seethed, displeased, "Is he dying already?"

Fuking hell she felt dumb, because obviously he was. He was still breathing, if she looked close enough, but it was clear the reaper was darkening his doorstep. But her mind was a mile a minute, a whirling top, a paroxysm of dissociation to be before the creature who'd swooped in on her drugged self. A vulture to a dying, defenceless animal.

It wasn't that she was angry at his state of near death. More overjoyed. He really had been drowning in misery and he had only more to come. But she remained remiss of supernatural hearing, and she couldn't pick up on the slack drumming beat of his heart like the others, sluggish and failing as it was.

He just...looked like the finish line was approaching, and if he would cross it, if he would perish prematurely before she could possibly enact her fill of justice upon him, she would've never forgiven Aro for the grief that would have caused her.

The ebony haired leader, at first, shrank away from her lethal tone. The stoicness to her. The way, as if possessed by something else, her face was blank; as if that alternate being had taken hold of her as soon as she stepped into the room, so she might deal with this.

It was instinct, the wish he harbored to touch her, to know what was going on in her mind, but he refrained. Both for her and for himself. Now was not the time she would want to be invaded when she was going to make someone pay for that very same courtesy, and he was not sure, for all his evil deeds done, he wanted to truly view what the mind of someone as hurt as she was could conjure. He was already schooled on what justice looked like for her. Once was enough.

Instead, he barely concealed an ecstatic grin for what he was about to do. "No, my darling, he's just docile. Jane has been taking great pleasure in wearing him thin whenever the fancy befell her. Which I'm sure you can imagine is often."

Well that explained it...and that girl had a mean streak as wide as the Mariana Trench. If Josh were anyone else less deserving, Nora might've felt pity.

"Demitri has even taken a turn or two to defend your honor." Marcus tacked on.

Her heart squeezed again, but with adoration this time.

"Here. Watch, dear one." Aro acted as if Joshua was no more than cattle and stepped in front of him, flashing her a wink over his shoulder to lighten the situation, "Allow me to elicit a wake up call."

And then he slapped him. Hard. Enough to split his cheek wide open, the wound weeping fresh blood. It was a wonder he had any left to give.

Joshua yelped like a puppy whose tail Aro had stepped on and righted himself from his slumped position. When he did, blurrily examining his surroundings, his puffy, bruised eyes finally settled on her. And he immediately became afraid enough to whimper.

He remembered Aro's warning. What he'd said.

The only reason you are still living is because of her. Because I want her to have peace before your inevitable end when she decides she wants to take it.

So to see Nora here, in front of him, wearing a pretty white dress like an Angel—no. She was more an Angel of death. An Angel here to collect.

Caius broke out in malefic and unruly manic giggles when Josh...started crying. Like a big, blubbery, awful baby. The sadistic man had a riot of a time as Josh choked on his own tears like some snotty little toddler. He laughed uproariously at the physical damage that had the boy wobbling around, had him babbling nonsense equivalent to some poor mental patient.

"N-Nora."

But that had him stopping. His smile slid away. No. Now there was a dangerous scowl, wild scarlet eyes, terrible rage sweeping through him like a devastating storm. The air even seemed to grow colder. Because that thing had spoken to her.

"Nora. I'm sorry." Josh said again and tried to ignore the waves of nauseating anger he could practically feel coming off the white haired man; too busy equal parts begging for mercy to appeal to her kind nature, and dismayed that her appearance meant his end. "Please...god, please don't do this to me."

Nora sucked in a sharp, shaky inhale. And in that simple breath, all the years of anguish were heard. All the times she was forced in her subconscious to relive what he'd done, all the times that was exactly what she'd thought.

When she flinched like she might turn and run, heart dancing a terrified tune now that the boy who had caused her so much agony had spoken to her, danger was exhumed from Caius, enough to set the world ablaze.

"Don't do this to you?" He snarled, venom pooling and eager to destroy, teeth bared and aching to rip out his jugular. "Filthy boy. How dare you even presume to address her before she allows it. I should rip your tongue from your mouth and shove it down your throat so you can stifle your own incompetence!"

He burst forth, and quite unceremoniously punched the pleas right from Josh's lips and savagely made him pay for his insolence.

Blood sprayed across the concrete.

That hit.

So powerful Nora actually flinched, the crunch of Josh's mandibular fracturing echoing in her ears, though his scream that followed felt like a soothing balm on her soul.

Marcus held her hand tighter, pressing into her back in silent support.

I will stand with you.

Slowly, the cool of him reached to her heated, rushing blood thrumming through her ears, and the echo of his promise had her panic that had stilled her abating.

"Caius, that's quite enough! Stay your hand." She felt the power of Marcus's bellowing at his irate brother who'd gripped Josh by the jaw and angled his hand as if he'd tear it off.

The volatile man stilled, sending a scathing sneer over his shoulder for the interruption. But then he spied why Marcus was warning him. Nora was hyperventilating, wincing in anticipation. But there was sorrow. Fear that he was going to do more damage then she ever could.

"Forgive me," He breathed when his senses came back to him, releasing the pest from his grip. His now fury-free and honed gaze implored her understanding, contradictingly soft and gentle and filled with love. It always stunned her speechless. His diversity. He was pleading, like he'd done something unforgivable, "Forgive me, Nora. I meant not to undermine you, sweetheart. I am a fool for letting myself get carried away and stealing the limelight—"

"Stop. It's okay." She shushed him and his panicked rambling, and he blinked in fascination when she merely leased a small, barely genuine smile lacking warmth that tried to convey she wasn't mad. But...it was so hollow, as detached as her attitude and stare that none of them were convinced she was fine. Not mad at Caius. But not fine at all.

But they were distracted and a little shocked when she granted him what he so sought.

"Have your fun, darling. Just make sure to leave him competent enough that he won't miss a second of what I have planned."

And entirely starstruck and his stagnant heart undergoing a ghostly thumping with love, he sent her a grin and got straight back to his torment now she'd given her stamp of approval.

Josh grunted, sputtering on snot and blood as Caius punched him in the gut. The mortal wheezed like a deflating air bag and Caius giggled so joyfully it worked to even disturb her.

Watching the show...Nora had a reaction she wasn't truly expecting. Her roaming eyes blanketed with tears found Aro again while Caius chuckled in the weak boys face, mocking his puny whines.

It was slightly messed up, that she felt such gratitude to look at someone so broken. But in Joshua's tarnished form she saw all the times his actions had made her feel that way. Saw herself that night it had happened, scrubbing viciously at her skin in the scolding shower. Saw all the nights after that were sleepless, filled with either numbness or tears or a plea to the universe to feel something other than that. Saw the way she'd never escape it. The way the reminder of him would make her feel for ions to come.

"You did this for me?"

It was a silly question. Of course Aro had delivered her this disgusting present that would turn anyone else's stomach who hadn't endured what she had.

To survivors like her, though, this was the lottery.

They were bonded, part of each other's soul, and she only felt subtle delight like Aro inevitably knew she would to see what he presented for her. Relief. Felt redemption for herself from the past who thought this would only stay a fanciful thought, as so many women and men dreamed.

How many got to enact their innermost visions of vengeance upon those that had wronged them in this way? How many had the chance to semi-right such an egregious wrong?

Just as with Caius, it was fascinating that Aro could go from staring at Josh with wicked delight as he suffered under Caius's torment, and then glance at her and it all melted away into such an open, vulnerable expression. His smile barely there, a weak imitation of his manic one. It was force of habit, that Cheshire grin, used as a tool for terror. But there was no audience to petrify now. There was only her. And he loved her, the potency of it bleeding into his quiet, content cadence. "Of course I did, darling. I would do anything you ask of me."

He stepped closer, hand drifting to hover just near the tears on her skin that strengthened his ire with the beast in the chair, multiplied his want to give her anything she could ask for that had him pledge a vow, "And if you choose not to go through with this,"–Caius snickered in the background as Josh perked up and became hopeful, knowing his lovely mate better–" He will remain in this state. Barely alive. Barely hanging on, just as you felt. For as long as you should want him to be."

The sentiment was nice. Truly. But there was no more waiting.

"No."

Caius backed off from playing, eagerly regarding her.

She inhaled deeply, and sighed out, "This ends today."

A death sentence.

Her blond maniac smirked giddily, seeming to have embodied Aro's stifling delight in his bloodlust. He clapped his hands in excitement. "Excellent, sweetheart."

"But you will all leave."

Once again, his joy fell right off his face like a bright star cast from the sky. He searched for the words through his racing thoughts and finally settled on a spluttered, incredulous, "I'm sorry?"

It wasn't at all eloquent, but he was about to be deprived of something he'd longed to see since he'd discovered what that coglione had done.

"Nora," There was a patient lilt to him, speaking like she was an unruly toddler, "Sweetling, I was promised redemption. I have a right–"

If he'd been watching, he would have been quiet at once, because fury so common to her now sparked to life in her and she ruptured like Vesuvius, "–No, you have no right!"

It echoed and left him shocked and silent, because he'd known she'd had it in her to project so authoritatively, but perhaps quite vainly, he hadn't expected it ever at himself.

Even Aro, the connoisseur of her mind and its complexities, blinked dumbly.

Nora reined herself in, and such a task it was to find patience.

"Regardless of what you think is owed to you, what I promised in a moment of weakness, this debt to be repaid belongs to me and me alone. Understand that."

Caius, after seconds contemplating her, looked away and dropped his head in submission, jaw clenched.

Marcus never thought he'd see the day his brother was so easily bested, but unlike him he held his tongue and stayed latched to Nora's hand as she addressed the room in the same, grave way.

"Letting you into my heart, telling you the things that have happened, it wasn't so you could go and solve it for me or carry it in you like this is yours. Aro?"

"Yes?"

She resisted an adoring smile as he stood, pinstraight when her gaze met his. As if he had now begun to understand exactly how his coven felt when he adopted this sort of no nonsense air about him.

"Thank you for doing that. For going this far for me. I'll remain eternally grateful that you gave me the chance to enact revenge now. But all of you need to understand that what comes next is my sole responsibility."

Then she turned to look over her shoulder at Marcus, aiming this last part at him. He was the one scared to lose the 'her' he knew like he'd evidently lost...something before. "There's nothing to save me from now. There's nothing to fear. This has been a long time coming, before I knew any of you. This has been woven into my life far before we'd even met. So don't grieve or fear for me. Rejoice that I'll soon have closure and a horrible chapter in my life can start to end."

"Cara mia," He sighed imploringly, "You've mistaken me to think I do not want that for you. Any version of you, I will love, Nora. I have confidence in you. Admiration so strong not even Cupid's arrow could have created it. But it all does nothing to stop my immense worry. It only enhances it."

"I'm not expecting it to." She returned his gentleness, cupping his jaw in her hand, stroking the marble skin of his cheek. He melted into her touch like butter in the Sun, a pained pinch between his dark brows. "All I ask is that the three of you don't put me in a box. Try to grasp the fact I can handle this and stop trying to take command of my agency. You love me?"

"Yes." Was all threes immediate response.

Another skip of her heartbeat.

"Then understand we were brought together for a reason and have faith enough to believe that even if this hurts me for some time to come, I can overcome it. That starts with this—cleansing myself of him. And it has to be done alone."

Marcus wanted to intervene, Caius wanted to argue. And yet...after that, it was something neither could dispute.

Caius because his honor for the art of revenge wouldn't let him. His honor for her. He'd promised himself he'd squash his selfishness to be the one to harm that little pest if she wished for it–and he'd be damned if he ruined her one chance of satisfaction after years of mental mayhem.

And Marcus because he would have to get over his trepidations, his delusions that remained. Remnants of grief for another took root in his soul, tried to convince him if this happened, it would lose him someone else.

But he did love her. And he did believe in her. More than anything in his life. She was his hope. His salvation.

So they exchanged a look, and Marcus sent Caius a glare as if to say 'behave,' as he himself had resigned to do, and Caius bottled his upset under the added stress of Aro's thousand yard stare. Changed now to be the only one of the three not fighting her in some way.

When Nora received only a nod from Marcus before he looked down morosely in resignation, she turned to Caius who nodded his assent, too, along with a scolded murmur, "Very well, Nora. But might I do something first?"

Curiosity sparked some life into her deadpan expression and he elaborated with dark, tangible elation. "It's something I have wanted to do since you let me into your heart and revealed its agonies. I'm happy to let you take vengeance alone, but I only request that you allow me to do one thing to help you mend them."

Her head tilted. A non-verbal inquiry that had him bursting with malicious excitement. She stayed like that, waiting as the others were in curiosity, and Caius took it as his sign to go on.

With ease, his long fingers wrapped around the chains binding Joshua and with a harsh yank, a loud clang, they were broken like twigs under hardly any pressure. The sack of shit that was her rapist plummeted face first into the hard ground, not strong enough after weeks of sitting to hold himself up.

There was another crack. His nose. Maybe a few teeth.

Caius had side stepped him so he'd make acquaintances with the floor. Tutting in disgust and throwing the chains to the side, he fisted his hand into Josh's matted mess of hair, exposing his battered face laden with bruises and scrapes and cuts and now a broken nose and busted lip to add to the score.

"It's not as if this is going to help your case, boy, but you should be thanking any God you believe in that I'm letting you do this. It is more than you deserve."

Josh was simply sniveling in confusion and pain, puny prey under that menacing glare. And when Caius looked at Nora for permission and she nodded, he became a wailing pitiful thing, dragged across the floor by his hair.

Thrown at her feet, the hand in his greasy locks that all but ripped them from his scalp shook him as he struggled to stand, and Caius ordered, teeming with rage, "Repent."

"W-what?"

The kings jaw ticked.

"Grovel, you pathetic swine. Here is where you meet your judgment. Not at the pearly gates, nor the fiery pits. You'll see no man in white and no dark mass with horns or hoof. Here is where it matters, before the strongest woman I have ever known, closer to any Heaven then you'll ever get to be. I told you to thank your God." He kicked him in the back of his knee so Joshua was fully kneeling, and chuckled darkly, "So thank them through divinity manifest. Her. Show gratitude that you get to serve a purpose in your last moments with the debt that is your agony."

Nails breaking as he clawed at Caius's hand for release, refusing to comply, Joshua soon learned that was a mistake. Learned the platinum haired God was even more terrifying than Aro. He flinched when the menacing man practically screamed down at him, "I said grovel! And understand that just as you suffered unto her, you will beg for mercy and know it is all worthless in the end. See the fear you instilled in her returned tenfold. Show her what she is owed."

"I'm sorry!" Joshua quaked and weeped when the demands and physical abuse became too much, words slurred and each painful to be said thanks to his jaw injury that would soon be the least of his problems. He was barely able to even look up at the woman before him who breathed heavily, adrenaline pumping through her system, and switched her wide eyes from him to Caius driven mad by his need for recompense.

"I'm sorry, please," He warbled on, "So so sorry, for what I did to you. And to all those other girls."

The others.

Shit.

Nora hadn't even had time to think, but now it was kindling eaten up by her wrath, tempestuously near to being out of control. All those other women, girls, children. The youngest only fourteen. All with no opportunity to hurt him like she could; and it was all the more incentive to make his fate a spectacle even the sweetest Angels would not weep over.

Her fury crackled like lightening in the air at the reminder, coursed heatedly through her, and she glanced down at herself, convinced she'd see burns along her skin it was that potent.

"Please," Joshua felt it and continued to plead, hoping despite the blonds vile taunts that the woman before him that he'd raped and defiled could ever find it in her heart to grant him clemency. "D-don't do this. Turn me in, let me serve my time, out and out kill me, I don't care. But don't do this. What y-you have planned. Please...spare me."

Aro scoffed a laugh, but the little mutter that resounded through the dismal space halted his incredulity.

"I suppose I could turn you in."

No one could believe she would even consider his request, stunned into silence.

"Really?" Joshua wrongfully let out a little relieved scoff of air.

The three kings were nearly insensate...but one look at her, one long seeking look, revealed the truth. Caius could've brimmed and overflowed with pride when he saw the smirk pulling at her lips.

It was just another means of torment.

And Gods, how it was working. Joshua had begun to look so hopeful, until the relief he'd adorned gave way to a tired grimace when noting the absolutely palpable enjoyment Nora could no longer hide.

She started to giggle at him, every word interspersed with her joy like a knife cutting away at his dignity, "You probably think they'll take one look at you and let you go. It happens all the time, after all. But I know I could hand you over to the police, and not have to worry about myself or any of my sisters, united in our pain, losing everything while you get to walk free and retain your privilege. Do you know why I'm so sure?"

"No." He didn't. And he was sure, he wasn't going to like this.

Especially because Nora looked like she could burst, so excited when she said what she did next.

"Because daddy dearest outed you."

"W-what?"

And she started to cackle joyfully, his heartbreak laid so bare he felt naked as the three men all laughed at him along with her. It felt like a rug had been yanked from under him. He hoped this was some humiliating dream he could wake from. But he blinked, felt all the pain that'd been inflicted on him, and knew it wasn't. He was still there, and what she'd said was still apparently the truth.

Josh wanted to combust in disbelief. He'd always known his father hated and despised the fact he'd ever created him, but grief still smacked into Joshua like a freight train. Because to be sold out by your own blood stung.

His world collapsing around him, now Josh realized. That as all mortal men are, he was a fool. A delusionist. A manifestation of mans underestimation of the power of women, as he'd done to the girls he'd hurt, considering them nothing. Here was the evidence of his foolishness: a woman he'd tried to ruin and had abused, standing strong. Because with this, Nora had turned his world upside down. She'd won.

"So now you see, Joshua, there's no sparing you. There's no way you walk out of this on top, because the world knows you're a predator, and living would be just as miserable as what comes next." Nora's smile was the combined mockery of every woman scorned, told to do so as they were hurt countless times over. He reeled at all of this, the devastating weight of his actions that turned to a ballast around his neck, and aimed to move back but found no reprieve. The white haired devil shrouded in black kept him in place so she could lean down to Josh, whispering soft as silk, and tighten the panicky noose around his neck. "All because you didn't spare me."

Her rage was so heady, so thick, that all three vampires shifted restlessly. Its chilling effect was inescapable, even for them.

And the target it was aimed at trembled as Nora's quiet, ghostly whispering continued. It was worse then if she'd have been shouting at him. "This regret and sorrow you have for yourself, did you feel it after you slipped that drug in my drink? After you dragged me to that room and ripped the clothes from my body and made me scream and bleed?"

Perhaps he thought if he answered truthfully, it would alleviate what was bound for him.

Steadfast, he peered down, and then he spoke so quietly she hardly heard. "...No."

She knew it. But to hear it...now that was a whole different kind of pain than anything she'd experienced. That someone could do the things he'd done and just not care. That in his eyes, they all meant so little.

"No?"

Her continuous, strained mile was shallow. A mask she refused to let fall. If only to abate that smug satisfaction she could see festering in him from reappearing. Even for all this, it seemed he still got some sort of joy from terrorizing women.

"And yet you think you've suffered here, but all of this will never even amount to matching what you have done to others. You know nothing of true pain. True suffering. But you will..." It was as if something settled in her. Something clicked, became certain. The treacherous churn of her guilt became still, and she nodded to herself, a newer, meaner glint to her eye, "You will. I can promise you that."

"Please–"

"–Silence! I tire of your sad whining!" Josh's scalp tore when Caius thrashed him around with a nasty scowl.

He bled for it. But it was his tears that drew Nora closer, that the blood enticing a shark.

"True pain, Joshua, is never being able to escape. Because in my dreams, I'm always at that party. In that room, with you. I see you when I close my eyes. I feel your disgusting hands on me every day. I–" Nora could do nothing to stop the quiet sob, disrupting her. Josh didn't want to look at her, but the anger and the sorrow she sounded burdened with made him feel drawn to peer up through his matted tresses. Her crying...that anguished expression he enjoyed causing, all it reflected back to him was insurmountable regret, worsened by what she revealed. "I see you, everywhere. In every man, even...the ones I love. My father. My friends. My lovers. Always scared one day they'll turn on me like you did."

To admit how deep the depth of his depravity had reached in her, had wrapped itself around her soul and made it so untrusting and scared and smothered by him, was bitter.

Caius and Marcus were hit hardest by the news. But Aro only nodded to her, pure reassurance, when she allowed herself a sneaking, desperate glimpse of him to remember they would still support her, even for exposing that.

She squeezed a sullen Marcus's hand as his tightened around hers and immediately banished those fears, and the mournful way she spoke to Josh was harrowing for him. It was almost educational; there was pain to come as penance. But this, her kind nature, was a last ditch effort to make him understand, so he might see the terrible gravity of what he'd done and pass on with some genuine guilt for it.

Marcus admired the strength, the diplomacy of her. To talk to that thing, like there was anything human left in him. This was what he'd miss in her after this. Her ability to see the good in all, because after the events of today, he was afraid she'd never be able to find it even in herself.

Nora was on a cleanse now, and no one moved to stop her even when her fingers turned white and her nails bit into her palm from the way she clenched her spare hand so hard.

"You think we are the monsters for doing this to you, but how many girls scream at night when they're trapped in their dreams with the one you've become?" Here is where disgust and wrath swallowed up any clinging scraps of nicety, and Josh could've sworn her eyes were as black as the three demons she'd brought to his door, "You ask me to stop and seem not to understand that I can't. What I'll do to you is not just for me, because I carry the trauma of fifty one other women on my shoulders. I'm not just slaying my monster. I'm slaying all of theirs. So say stop, if it helps you imagine what's going to happen is some horrible nightmare you have any chance of getting away from."

"Nora-"

"Be quiet! And tell me," Joshua's head was yanked back the farthest it could go when Nora nodded for Caius to do so, and she stared into those dark, dead eyes that had tormented her dreams as if peering into the endless apathetic depths of them would ever reveal why, and demanded, "Did you listen when I asked you to stop? When any of us did?"

Caius grumbled dangerously when Joshua only trembled. "Answer her."

"No. I never did." Josh, for the first time, felt some remorse...but only because his actions had resulted to bite him in the ass. He weeped for this, his eyes lowering to the dirty ground despite the headlock he was in.

Anything to escape seeing the way Nora sneered. "Then there's my answer to your ridiculous demand. Never."

And they'd all wanted exactly this, to witness her ruthlessness. Exactly the sobs that croaked up Josh's throat as he realized he was screwed, exactly the crushing of his spirit.

"Say thank you." Caius wheedled, his voice sickly saccharine. "Say thank you to anything that you believe in, that you are to suffer instead of die peacefully. That you are getting exactly what you deserve."

And the thing Joshua now believed in was the terrible vengeance of a woman scorned, and the horrid reality of karma.

"Th...thank you." Joshua relented, steadfastly refusing to look at any of them, but even for that, it was evident he was serving his gratitude to Nora.

"For what?" She sadistically added onto his torment, never having looked so pleased before.

Josh swallowed, and it felt like there was an apple in his throat as he choked out what he could only hope would prolong his miserable life, "For ridding the world of scum like me"

Nora truly embodied her future: the malevolent Queen she was destined to become. She lifted her head as if a crown sat upon it, and smirked down at him. "You're welcome."

Satisfied and proud, Caius threw the pest back so he skittered across the floor, who sobbed and sobbed until his throat was raw.

And then a hand lifted, trepidation creasing his snowy brows. For all their being on the same page, Caius didn't know whether she wanted him to touch her. But Marcus released her hand so she could focus entirely on his brother, and she gave the smallest encouraging smile.

Caius sighed and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, cold black eyes burrowing their intensity into her own. "Make sure his gratitude is not undeserving. Make him pay, Nora."

"I planned on nothing less."

Still, he heard the shaking of her words, the staccato of her heart, and knew she was scared of what they'd think of her after. Despite all of her honest bravado.

He acknowledged her doubts, "You worry of our opinion of you."

"...Yes."

"Silly girl," He muttered ruefully but with such fondness, trying to keep her insecurity private from the weakling crying to himself on the floor. "We have committed our fair share of bloodshed when it wasn't even warranted, and yet you still love us."

The icy wall around her thawed and allowed a small glimpse of the bashful woman he was used to. Her cheeks heated. "I do."

And it never failed to astonish her. The way one moment he caused chaos, and the next he treated her like this. Like glass. Like something priceless, taking her in with so much reverence.

"Sometimes people have to do bad things because it is demanded of them. And this...it's a demand you never wanted. A demand you never anticipated facing. But you are more vicious then I could ever have dreamed and I, as well as my brothers, know you can do this. We have known for some time Nora. You are made for this life and the prices that come with it, and a majority of us have made peace with it."

She knew he meant to jab at Marcus, who shifted restlessly behind her like a child being scolded.

But Caius. He was so passionate about her revenge he floored her as he said with conviction, "You make this insignificant ingrate repay you with blood and screams like he deserves to. You are owed it, Nora. So take it with no regrets."

She managed a small little jerk of her lips into a smile. Despite its inherent sweetness, no mercy was found in it. Only hints of cruelty he always brought forth in her.

"Trust me. He's going to pay with much more than that."

"Then I'll stop you no longer." He released her from his hold, but not from his stare. A stare that sparkled beautifully with malice. "My advice?"

"Hm?"

"Leave what you desire to take the most until last. He'll die a lot more slowly that way."

Joshua clenched his legs, rolling too and fro on the floor, and blubbered in fright. It wasn't hard to guess what they were talking about.

Nora eyed his pathetic display and snorted, looking up to bear the same maleficence as her blond psychopathic mate. "Noted, Cai. Castration as the closing act."

Aro chuckled mirthfully to himself as Josh started to dry heave.

"That's my girl." Caius winked, knocked a finger under her chin in a gesture all too sweet given where they were, and then he called without looking away from her, "Alec. Bring them."

They waited, and she thought.

Caius had said they'd made peace she would change.

Aro had nothing to miss in her. Each time they touched he was sucked into her mind, and unlike Marcus he'd had time to prepare and know this would come. And he stood back and let it happen.

But Caius, more than likely if his pleased smirk was a clue, he was the only one to anticipate and actively desire who she would be after. There would be no mourning on his part for who she might leave behind. Who might emerge from the ashes after this was finished. He lingered...because he wanted that, remiss to not be able to witness it. To him, there was nothing to grieve when she'd emerge, because he'd seen this in her from the start and he'd wanted it.

She knew it was, deep down, the same for all of them. But Aro was more reserved in his delight, and Marcus was...struggling to accept this. Not because it wasn't deserved, but perhaps he cherished her mortality the most. He'd love her anyway, because one day she'd achieve their level of ancient wisdom and they were made to be together, they were all pieces of a puzzle that fit.

But she only became more aware of how little she knew of their pasts in this moment. She knew them as people, knew from some disturbing bedtime stories at night how their coven came to be, how they met, what their time was like together. But when it came to the complexities of their three thousand years alive and what made Marcus just so scared to lose any slight part of her, those little gray spots and holes in their stories that roused her suspicion, she knew only so much.

And after this, that would be rectified.

Brought back to the present, the 'them' Alec was bringing turned out to be a serial killers dream. The young boy wheeled in a tray topped with a plethora of the grimmest torture tools.

For the first time, Nora's head span and she began to feel intimidated, creeping cold hands of indecision slithering around her throat until her erratic pulse pounded in her ears.

...Was she really capable of this? And god, if she was, what did that mean for her? Housing a shard of brutality was one thing; she did. That was plain and simple. But she'd surmised that the pestering need for blood and pain had been created by her delve into the supernatural world, simply because she was meant for immortality, but...fuck. It was scary and wrong but so, so right to think that, what if this had always been in her?

Perhaps there's a darkness in all women. Built and added to as the years go by, as they grow older, as they learn the world will never be what they dreamed it would be when they were a little girl. Prince charmings don't exist. Not for the majority. Perhaps every man that hurts them, that ruins the dream, only twists the lid capping their darkness a notch further and further undone until finally, with too much pain to bear, it cracks open and the pitch born from shattered hopes comes spilling out, greedy for revenge.

Life was luck of the draw. You chose your fate, but there are some things set in stone that you don't get to change. Destiny is real, and she is cruel. Nora's hand she'd been dealt was equally damning and saving–she had wound up with three prince charmings, who'd delivered her revenge on a silver platter, who loved every part of her. Even that darkness. And she grieved for all the people out there who'd never have that, because their life wasn't wired that way. Who were stuck with their monsters. Who'd never get to see them destroyed.

"Nora."

She, realizing she'd zoned out, blinked. And she almost physically jumped to feel the tickle of salty tears flowing down her stinging cheeks.

"It's okay," Caius crooned, ducking to coax her to meet his eye as she sniffled. What she saw on his face, the care and warmth in his voice, it reassured her so he was all she focused on over the crescendoing panic in her chest. "Breathe for me, sweetheart. You're alright."

She followed his instructions, in through her nose out through her mouth. His smile was pleased and he gestured to the metal table carelessly. "You don't have to use these. Brandish your words as the weapon if you wish and leave us to commit the act. But..." He held her face between his hands and mapped every apprehensive feature of her face, "I said I know you, Nora. I know this sickens and pleases you. I understand your reservations, and it's okay to let your heart bleed for every creature on this Earth. That's who you are. But it's also okay to have that end at a certain point, sweetheart. There's only so much you can try. And there are some who are undeserving of everything but pain."

It took her a beat, simply because she reveled in the sanctity he leveled in her soul through the chaos.

"Then send in Jane for me."

That was not what he was expecting, and Caius hummed inquisitively.

Still taking some deep breaths, Nora calmed down, exhilarated instead of panicked. "Your, uh...toys...are appreciated, babe. But pain is Jane's forte. I'm sure she'd love to show me in the flesh just how much stress she's been relieving."

Caius pouted but sighed sullenly when a sob ruptured from behind them, whiny and by the sounds of it, snotty.

Nora rolled her eyes and Josh's pathetic little whimpers sparked that terrible dark lust that gripped its icy fingers in her soul.

"These aren't going to waste, Cai." She was the one cooing now, copying his earlier movement, tapping him under the chin, "I just want my favorite little psycho to have the last of her fun before I take away her plaything."

"Come along then, Caius." Aro barreled his way into their intimate moment, assertive and leaving no room for quarreling. Sardonic to the end, he ordered Caius, "Leave our girl to her cleanse. We should stall her no longer."

He pulled his taciturn, pouty brother out of her space the same time Marcus pressed a lasting kiss to her temple, passed a ringed hand over the crown of her head and stepped away. The loss of them all at once felt as if she had been chucked in the deep end of a pool and was expected to know how to swim.

"Breathe, dear." Aro reminded when it stalled in her throat.

"And remember what I said, Nora." Caius pulled her through and out of the murky, stress induced brain-fog with his heartfelt words, "There is no shame in this. Shield your good heart and let it not bleed for a man who doesn't deserve it."

Jane chose that candid time to enter, and Marcus was the first to make the move to take his leave.

"Goodbye, Elenora." He simply gave her a long, pensive glance, one last committing her to memory.

And then he was gone.

"Call for us if there's any trouble, darling. You know we'll be there." And after sending her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, Aro swiftly followed his brother, a frown on his face, and she knew they'd be sharing words.

Caius, however, lingered as if waiting for her to change her mind and let him stay.

That at least made her feel better.

"Go." Nora urged, very much like she was trying to shoo away a clingy cat; not even reacting to the sound of little Jane hauling Josh back onto the chair like he weighed nothing. "We've got this, Cai."

"Make me proud then, carissima." He beamed, a predatory flash of his teeth, before he too was gone.

Determined and suitably uplifted by him, she twisted on her heel. Jane stood, sedimentary and ready to receive orders with the most twinkly look of delight in her crimson doe eyes.

"Ready, sweetie?"

The small girl could have squealed to be allowed this, and she bowed her head, responding with barely suppressed glee, "Give the order, mistress."

And Nora eyed Josh who flopped around on the chair, too weak to get up, to flee as the familiar chilling cloak of Jane's overbearing presence fell over him. As if pure villainy emanated from her.

Joshua had only seconds to futilely brace himself before Nora muttered, "Pain."

And then that damning fire giving him a taster of Hell licked through his veins.

For hours and hours on end.

Fifty two.

Fifty two rounds of pain.

A tribute to every girl and woman he'd hurt.

But now, under the solitude of silence and the sweet relief of privacy, Nora was alone with her tormentor after dismissing a pouty Jane.

He was even more statuesque than before, no need for chains, no need for caution. That sweet little girls gift had reduced him to a limp, sweaty and downright disgusting lump of agony.

But he still tracked Nora as she took tentative steps to reach him, like the floor was made of glass and would shatter beneath her, revealing this all to be a dream once again.

But no. There he was, watching her as she watched him...and this time she was in the role of the predator. When she swallowed, her throat and mouth were dry as sandpaper, nerves the culprit. After years, she was finally talking to him. Alone. Face to face with the monster under her bed...and she smiled at it, the one now to bare teeth and petrify.

"There was so much fear you brought to me, once upon a time. I used to think you were the scariest thing I'd ever encountered. That if I was ever in front of you again, I'd be the one weeping. Crying. Begging the god who doesn't exist to spare me." To this she laughed, and gestured a hand around them, "I suppose there's a funny irony now, isn't there?"

Only proven when she stepped closer. He winced, knowing she was an impending storm and there was nothing he could do. That he was stuck in the eye of it.

And she was right. Every moment she idled in front of him, played her game, irony stood hand in hand with her hunger for revenge and laughed at him the way he'd laughed at her.

"Now you feel the fear there is in not being able to move, to be subdjected to sitting there and having to take whatever the merciless being in front of you gives. And now you are the one who is pitiful." With such joy she smiled, unburdened at last, "I can have you look at me and not be tormented by the evil satisfaction in your eyes that was always there when you'd haunt my dreams, or follow me through every moment in life. Because all I see in you here is defeat."

Watching her fingers running over the tools the vicious man had brought her, Josh shivered under the calculated strike of every word she'd been longing to say to him.

And then their gazes locked once more. She considered him for a moment or two before it became too much for him, the pathetic mirror of himself in her gaze, and he dropped his head and proved her right.

On a stray giggle, her voice thinned, mind replaying the past in a loop that was reflected in those eyes. He couldn't look at her.

"You were this imposing, impossible force always trying to weigh me down, drag me under the waves of my depression...and yet here you are. And look at you." There was really no fear in her, and she wrinkled her lip, "You're nothing."

Maybe it was foolish that he was affronted to be mocked, or the pure fear of impending death. Whatever the reason, Josh stoked the flames of her fury in the worst way.

"Not nothing, Nora," Blood leaked from between his pale, cracked lips as he flashed a filthy smile up at her, a wet wheezy cough shirking up his throat. Pain radiated around his ribs, his heart, and he croaked around another cough, "I'll always be part of you."

What had he wanted? Screaming? Crying? Because he didn't get it. She only hummed, unbothered, and it was more evidence that she wouldn't be changed, manipulated or bullied into letting him live like he thought he'd have been able to.

And what she said next to him had him quaking down to his rotten core.

"Maybe you won't, or you will, who knows." She actually shrugged, like they were chatting over the weather and not his certain doom. "But the one certain thing is that you are dying today, Joshua. You won't ever win, because I will live a thousand lifetimes while you rot wherever you end up. You'll turn to nothing, to ash, and after a millenia I'm sure the horrible world of my memories of you will crumble and consume you too, until there isn't a thing that remains."

Metal scraped against metal as she picked up the first of her array of tools. Pearls of cool sweat dripping down his face, he gulped as she brought the stainless steel knife to her eye level and whistled, glimpsing him over the edge of the blade, "Let's speed that process along, shall we?"

He sounded like he might actually be sick, if his stomach contained anything to give. Because those eyes. They saw him like he'd never been seen before, and they showed him over and over what he'd done, what would happen to him for that, a window to the soul and a beacon of the future...and they hated, so ferociously.

"E-Even if I deserve this," He rushed out, successfully halting her eager steps, "If you do this, you're no better than me! You'll be what you hate. Evil. A monster."

"Some monsters are born. Others are made." She told him, nonplussed. Wiser than her young years should've permitted her. "If all the women you have hurt will be monsters for reveling in your end, then I need you to see one simple thing. You made us all. You sewed the seeds of rage into us against our will, and a monster created only of fury...it is in its nature to bite back with ten times the venom."

And Joshua, his efforts for nothing, wiggled and pulled for breath with all the terror of a lamb to slaughter–trapped, nowhere to go, the dark shadow of death in sight.

Everything came to her so easily, so slyly it didn't feel like it belonged to her. It was like she'd transformed entirely. A metamorphosis of the meek shell she used to be. And Nora, now, owned it.

She maintained her doll-like smile when she stepped fully into his space, lowering to be eye level. He squeezed his shut. And a lightbulb went off in her head. "Maybe I'll be merciful." She whispered, and he actually felt cold to be there. So cold. So chilled. Like death was her very aura. "Maybe I'll be nice, and take your eyes first so you don't have to see what I'll do."

...But in the end, she wasn't.

Revenge is an odd notion.

In all her planning, her dreams, Nora had imagined doing so many things. The way each strike at him would've had her burdens lessened. Would have her feel light enough to float. The way she could make him bleed, choke him on it like she'd choked on her tears that night, how surprised she'd be at the amount leaking from his savage wounds. The most, she'd loved to imagine, would come when she'd strip him of the thing he'd used to cause her so much pain.

All of the above weren't a fantasy anymore. But everything more she did in that room weren't things even Caius could dream up.

As the first scream rang out, guttural and desperate and harrowed down to whatever scraps of soul were possessed, Nora laughed until it blended with those sounds: a horrid harmony of agony and penance cascading through the dark halls of that building, reaching the ears of all waiting outside who took delight in it too.

Irony indeed.