Something is burning. 

Maybe a bonfire; some kids rebelling, trying to make everyone paranoid of history repeating itself. Maybe a makeshift campfire; some poor homeless people, trying their best to weather the cold. Maybe something more sinister; evil in the flesh, rearing its ugly head, just in time for the most horrible time of the year to be on the streets of Detroit. 

Whatever it is, it's not like Raven can tell right now, anyway. Eric is lightning-fast, catlike in agility. He jumps across building tops as if it were nothing, never once stumbling over himself. 

Remaining by his side, Raven knows that she'd be petrified, if she had the time to feel anything at all. But everything's so quick; he hops from one building to another within the approximate time frame it would take someone to blink. 

There's something exhilarating about it, if not quite soothing. The city almost looks pretty from this angle, all of its grime obscured from the naked eye. 

Knowing that there's no risk of accidentally falling to her second untimely death, Raven finds a sort of thrill in it all. She's almost on top of the world, -- quite literally, -- and sort of invincible. A twinge of excitement fills her as the two of them continue their journey, seemingly with no set end in sight. 

If what Eric promised is true, the two of them could have their revenge in just a few moments. Even with no taste of it in the past, Raven knows that will feel good.

Perhaps better than good. 

A slight chill works its way down her spine. Whether it's from the cold air or the thought of vengeance, she isn't quite sure. 

Suddenly, their chaotic stride comes to a halt. Eric squeezes Raven's hand as he turns to her. Raven tries her hardest not to flinch, though it feels more like a simple courtesy than any sort of advance. 

When he speaks, his voice is quiet, level. Despite this, his eyes seem to glimmer with some sort of mischievous challenge in the moonlight. 

"Ready?" he asks.

Raven continues to stare at him, confused. "Ready for what?"

Eric doesn't reply, turning away from her as he squeezes her hand again. Raven swears she hears him chuckle under his breath before the rush washes over her. 

Raven yelps slightly as she finds the two of then suddenly in the midst of a freefall, as if they were some twisted version of Peter Pan and Wendy. 

Falling, Raven finds, feels the same regardless of whether you're dead or alive. Even if you know the impact of hitting the ground no longer poses any real threat, it's still just this side of terrifying. 

'Hopeless' is how she would describe it, she figures. 

Before she has the time to ruminate on why this is or if Eric feels it, too, -- he did fall from the third story of his apartment, after all, -- they're hitting the ground. Raven cringes, closing her eyes.

 It takes her a good minute or so to realize that they're safe; somehow, they both managed to land on their feet. Wide-eyed with surprise and a foreign sort of anxiety, she turns to Eric, only for him to hold a finger against his lips. "Shh."

Knowing that it's usually best not to ask any questions at all, Raven simply nods. 

As Eric cranes his neck to look around a corner, Raven realizes that they've ended up near yet another alleyway. She thinks she knows this one, though she can't be quite sure. There's no street sign in sight, and, even if there was, she still can't be certain that it would ring a bell.

She saw a lot of alleys when she was alive. 

Except for two horrible nights in particular, the result was always about the same.

His exploration seeming to have yielded satisfactory results, Eric turns back to Raven. His eyes look sharp even in the dark, almost glowing like a cat's. Raven isn't sure if this is the result of some supernatural post-mortem powers or pure rage alone. 

"Hang back a little bit," he orders her, voice quiet but stern. "I'm gonna get closer, but I want you to stay here."

Despite the golden rule that had been ingrained in her over the last years of her life, Raven feels the strong urge to argue then. This was supposed to be about her revenge, too. "But--" she begins, only for Eric to throw up his hand. This stops Raven's complaints rather quickly. 

Reasonably benevolent or not, the last thing that she wants is for a man to touch her again.

Eric seems to sense this, because he soon puts his hand down. He continues to speak, expression hard. "Listen," he hisses. "If this asshole wants to tangle with anyone, it's gonna have to be me. I know more about him than I'd like, and I really don't want him trying to mess with you." He pauses to look around the corner before returning to the one-sided conversation, that strange look in his eye morphing into something else. Something much more sinister. 

"This is Tin-Tin," he says. "If I remember correctly, he likes knives." 

As soon as he says this, the bile threatens to rise in Raven's throat. 

She remembers, too, all too well. 

One of them was quite fond of knives; he flashed those shining blades proudly from behind his menacing leather biker ware, priding himself on being such a damn threat. 

Raven hates that type of man more than anything. 

She thought it then, and she thinks it now: he's the type she'd like to kill. 

Knowing now that he's just around the corner, however, she's not sure she could do it. 

Though this makes her stomach sink, she knows that's what Eric is here for, and he surely shows no sign of backing out. The anger she saw from him earlier is back again, fresh as just-spilled blood. Unlike the blood that had seeped from his own skin before, this visceral rage has no place to return to; it's about to boil over, causing reasonable amount of carnage in its wake. 

Raven's anxious for that to happen already. So anxious that she puts her preconceptions about physical aside, lightly nudging Eric's side.

"Go on, then," she says, willing her voice not to quaver. "I'll wait."

Eric looks at her face for a fleeting moment before tilting his chin up in a slight nod, heading around the corner at the same menacingly brisk pace as he had approached her with earlier. 

Shaking, Raven presses her back up against the wall and waits, praying to a God that seemingly had no interest in her that she isn't seen. Somewhere above her, Eric's crow companion settles, watching the activity in the alley intently. 

The maniacal laughter that begins mere seconds after Eric leaves her sight makes Raven jump. She isn't sure which man it belongs to, and that scares the life (or lack thereof) out of her. 

She figures that she knows, however, when a voice rings out, seemingly bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings. 

Booming. Menacing. Brash.

Definitely not Eric's. 

"What the fuck are you all painted up for, crackhead? Huh?" it demands. Malice drips from the mere sound of it, causing that sickly sour taste to return to Raven's mouth. 

Pent-up energy courses through her veins as the man continues to speak. She can practically hear the cocky, taunting smirk on his face, and it makes her want to go berserk. 

"Halloween ain't 'til mañana." 

Another pause, followed by a blatant, sickening challenge: "c'mon."

Raven gasps quietly at the noises that follow. 

A surprised grunt. A violent thud. A cry of anguish. 

A struggle.

She knows the sound of that all too well.

Finally, the grotesque cacophony comes to a momentary halt with the sound of someone's body making impact against vsomething solid. The few seconds of quiet allow  some amount of coherent breaks through; luckily, this time from Eric. The voice delivering the words, however, does not keep Raven's spirits from sinking upon hearing them. 

Voice edged with palpable hatred and agony, Eric pays no mind to remaining discreet as he screams out those two damning words: "you murderer!"

Despite the illusion of strength that she's worked so hard to maintain, -- even in death, -- Raven suddenly wants to cry. 

Murder. As severe as the word might seem to a normal person, it was exactly what that man had partaken in, time and time again.

Raven. Eric. Shelly. Who knew how many others? 

He'd had the blood of every single one of them on his hands, and only now was he having to pay for it.

And yet, he shows no remorse. None at all. 

He won't even admit to it. 

"I ain't fuckin' murdered nobody, man!" he yells back. "I don't fuckin' know you--"

Raven tries to tune it all out then, sinking down against the wall with her hands held over her ears. She can't listen to any more, won't listen to any more. 

She wishes that she didn't remember.

She wishes that her soul had died along with her, let her remain blissfully unaware, let her rot unknowingly sink into the earth somewhere. She wishes that the useless flame that was her existence had been snuffed out completely. 

In the moment, she wishes that she had never met that man dressed in black at all,  that she could just continue to drift and feel miserable, be the lost soul that she was meant to be. 

Remembering that night makes her think that she isn't worth avenging, anyway. 

Try as she might to block out all of it, she continues to catch bits and pieces of their dialogue, mostly on Eric's end. Each and every word cuts deep. 

"A man and a woman in a loft, a year ago..."

"You cut her... You raped her.. "

"Murderer! Murderer!"

As miserable as hearing those anguished words is, Raven can think of few times she's felt dread as terribly as when Tin-Tin speaks again. "Let me tell you about murder..."

Those words are followed by the tell-tale sound of a blade, cutting at nothing. Raven wants to be sick.

"It's fun... It's easy... You gonna learn all about it."

The man laughs a disgusting chuckle, and Raven wants to jump out at him, offer herself up instead of Eric. 

"I'd like you to meet two buddies of mine... We never miss."

Eric wants to put up a fight. Raven wants to make a sacrifice. 

It's a win-win, right?

She doesn't think she'll get the chance, however, once she hears that auditory chaos begin again. 

There's that terrible swooping, switching sound of a knife, being swung around, -- no, thrown, -- with reckless abandon. Within mere seconds, it's followed by another. Raven pulls her knees up to her chest, wondering just how long this will continue. 

Sounding every bit the madman, Eric eggs Tin-Tin on. "Try harder!" he urges. "Try again!"

Another swoop occurs without any sort of clearly climactic follow-up. When she hears Tin-Tin groan without offering any sort of smart-aleck remark afterwards, however, she knows for sure: Eric's winning. 

That premonition is confirmed by the chilling words that slice through the silence. Once again, Eric's voice has gone cool, the fiery emotion no longer clouding his delivery. That doesn't make the words he speaks any less poignant, however.

"Victims." He says it so slowly, calmly. "Aren't we all?"

The only sound that follows is that of the knife sinking in, a fatal hit.

Raven just squeezes her eyes shut. 

Even if Tin-Tin is long gone, Eric shows no sign of stopping in his stabbing for a long while. The blows come again and again, making Raven a bit more nauseous each time.

After what seems like forever, he finally rounds the corner once again, as nonchalantly as if he had simply checked his mail or paid for gasoline. This time, he's wearing Tin-Tin's coat. 

Shaking violently, Raven lifts her head to look at him. He simply smiles down at her before bending down to her level. Roughly, he grabs ahold of her forearm.

 "Come on," he says, voice breathy from exertion. He shakes her, just slightly. "We've got other stops to make."

Raven can't help it: once she finally gets her mouth open, all that comes out is a blood-curdling, ear-piercing scream. 

Her panic is only worsened as Eric claps one large hand over her mouth in an attempt to silence her. Adrenaline causing her senses to go haywire, with images of that night playing in her mind, Raven gets out of it the only way she knows how. Growling like a rabid street dog, she sinks her teeth into his palm as hard as she can.

Eyes going wide with surprise, Eric jerks away. 

Raven watches in horror as he stares down at his hand, fresh blood now dripping from a new wound. Of course, it doesn't take it long to close up again, Eric's own blood leaving as if it were never there. A bit of rusty liquid remains afterwards; Tin-Tin's, she realizes with disgust. 

Still looking shocked, Eric meets her eyes. Raven cowers, awaiting violence, a part two to the episode that had just played out in the alley.

Yet, the storm never comes. Eric just gazes at her, a look of grim realization on his face. 

Understanding, Raven thinks incredulously. He understands.

It would appear that that is true, judging by the one word he offers her: a surprisingly weak 'oh.'

With that, Raven buries her face further into her hands and starts sobbing.

Quite frankly, she's terrified when Eric kneels in front of her, daring to pull her hands into his. Those hands had just taken a man's life. Not that he hadn't deserved every single bit of it. 

And still, Raven continues to shake and cry, swearing that this has to be the third most horrible night she's ever lived through. 

"Raven."

Somehow, she finds the strength to look into Eric's dark eyes, full of what seems to be concern.

But why should he be genuinely concerned for her? There was no way it was real.

Raven is convinced that no one has sincerely worried for her since her mother was taken away from her. She's always been something else, something plastic, disposable. 

A toy. A guardian. A pawn. 

And yet, Eric sure is good at playing the pretend-worrying game. 

He practically coos at her, a prettier, gentler version of the bird that's just landed on his shoulder. "Hey," he says. "It's okay. He's gone now."

Raven whips her head from side to side with such force it makes her dizzy. "You killed him," she says. 

"Of course I did," Eric replies. "Did he not deserve it?" 

"H-he did," Raven continues. "But it was just... Just so brutal..."

He snorts. "Brutal. Yeah," he says. "So was the way they raped and tortured my fiancee."

Raven chokes on another sob. "It takes me back," she says. "To the night that they--" 

"Raven," he interrupts her again. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to." 

She sighs, swiping at her eyes with a sniff. "But I want to. No, I need to." She smiles at him ruefully, humorlessly. 

"I need to kill them," she says decisively. "Or else I'll just keep on living."

Eric sighs, raking a hand through his dark, unkempt hair. Apparently, he has no argument for this. They're one in the same, really.

"Fine," he says. "We've got somewhere else to be between now and the next kill, anyway. But, judging by my premonitions, if I were you, I'd get going now.* 

Once again, he holds a hand out to her, much more tentative this time. 

She takes it. 

Crow trailing behind, the two of them begin their brisk run just as the alleyway bursts into flames.