I screamed.

Before this moment I had never really considered what Hell might truly feel like, but now—now I knew.

Hell was watching Lucius shoot Leviathan in the chest. It was watching the man I love fall to a bloodied heap on the floor. I knew the rules of angels, but I was unfamiliar with those of demons. I knew that I should be dead; Leviathan should never have been able to get into the church alive, much less rescue me. I knew that a death here, unless administered by the angelic sword, would land him in the pit where he would rot until the final battle.

What I did not know was what being shot in the heart might do to him.

I struggled against Lucius's hold on me but he would not relent. I was pulled back, away from Leviathan and towards an opening in the alley. The crowd in front of the church could not hear me screaming or see me over the flames that were slowly licking their way up to the steeple. The wooden cross on the bell tower was almost entirely engulfed in flames. I kicked and screamed, grabbing onto anything I could to keep from being pulled away.

I had lost the sword and no longer knew where it was; my one weapon against this man was missing. No one would come looking for me. None of my friends, save Leviathan who lay dead behind the chapel, could even assist me. Michael had said I would need to face this on my own, did that also mean I would die alone?

"Unhand me!" I was screaming, my voice hoarse from the smoke I'd inhaled.

Lucius turned and shoved me towards the back of the alley. He let me go but the force of his push was enough to knock me to the ground. I scuttled backward on my hands; trying to distance myself from him as he continued to stalk towards me. My back hit the cold brick wall and I found myself corner by him.

He crouched in front of me and placed his gun on his knee, angling it towards me as he said, "Now, Miss Holbrook, I love a good lie. I adore it when the human mind can fabricate something so untrue, so far-fetched, that it fools even them. It's a stunning thing, truly it is. But I cannot stand when such things are used against me." He leaned forward, his teeth bared like a savage animal as he said, "Who the hell are you?"

I closed my eyes. The feeling of that gun aimed at me. The image of Leviathan on the ground. It was enough to make my stomach roll. "Adonai, please—"

Lucius's hand collided with the side of my face so violently that my skull bounced off of the pavers behind me. "Don't you dare."

If I am to die, let it happen now. Let him kill me now. I refuse to be used by him, to be threatened by him. "Get away from me." I seethed.

"This is so interesting, you see, I've dealt with so many people over the last few centuries. All of them too far gone, too driven mad by the pain of my torture. A pity really. By the time they finally got around to admitting what a nasty liar they were, it was too late. But, you," He pressed the cool metal barrel of the gun to my forehead, "You don't feel pain. So, what am I to do with you, Miss Holbrook, eh?" I spat at him and he backhanded me again. "Impertinent child."

I kicked at him, almost hitting him in the groin but he dodged me and caught me by the ankle. Before I could do anything to stop him, he hauled me towards him by my legs, my back and head hit the pavement with enough force to cause my vision to go black. By the time I'd blinked away the confusion, he had the gun back at my head. I lay still. Breathing so heavily my shoulders shook with the effort to draw air into my smoke filled lungs. "Go on then," I dared, "kill me."

He laughed and shook his head. "Oh no, I intend to get what I want out of you first—even if it takes me a hundred years."

He pressed a hand to my throat, pinning me to the ground with his hands before he crawled up my body and shoved his knee into my stomach. I gasped, unable to breathe as all the oxygen was knocked from my lungs.

"I will be patient. I will get to you in the only ways that I can. You see," he leaned forward and moved his hand under my dress, across my bare thighs, to the waistband of my undershorts. I struggled to kick him off, to scream, to do anything at all. No. His hand pulled at my underclothes, tugged them down. He was smiling, so wickedly. He shoved his palm against my neck so hard I thought it might crush my throat.

I squirmed, kicked and twisted. I threw a punch, but he just laughed and grabbed my wrist, twisting my arm forward across my chest and moving to roll me onto my stomach. I fought him harder as he pinned my other arm underneath my body and went back to pulling my shorts down. My nightgown had ridden up, twisted so tight across my middle that it kept me from moving. I felt him touch me, his grin spread across his face with malicious triumph. "You see, there are many different ways to torture someone—" His green eyes bulged and he froze, mid-thought.

I was motionless, petrified as he loomed over me. As if in slow motion, his hand left my body and moved up to his chest. A stain, the size of only a sixpence, appeared on the front of his crisp white button-up, I did not dare speak or move as I watched it grow slowly until it spread across his chest. Blood. He was bleeding. Lucius opened his mouth to speak and vomited blood all over himself and me before he collapsed, pinning me to the ground.

It was then that I saw her. Rosalie Gressil. She stood, hunched over, holding the sword in both hands. It was buried, almost to the hilt, in Lucius's back. She was as pale as a sheet and looked ready to retch, but she was the most brilliant sight I'd ever seen.

I managed to push him off of me and scurried away clutching what remained of my nightdress to my chest. Neither of us spoke right away, both too in shock to say anything. Her eyes scanned me, running from the hitched hem of my gown to the rumpled mess of my hair. There was a question in her eyes one I could only answer with a shake of my head.

When Rosalie did speak it was a whisper, soft and timid. "I could not let him do to you what he has done to me."

I swallowed and looked to Lucius's slumped form. "I..." I had to stop, swallow, remind myself that he did not succeed, he did not get what he'd wanted from me. "Thank you."

She shook her head and stepped backward, leaving the sword impaled in Lucius's back. "Is—Did I kill him?"

I pushed myself forward on my hands and knees, forcing myself to touch him, to examined his body. My fingers shook as they pressed first to his wrist, then to the side of his neck. There was no pulse. "Yes. At least I think so. I—I don't know for certain, but if the sword works for you as it would for me, then he will remain in the pit until judgment."

Her eyes were large, stunned. "You mean to say...he will not come back?"

I shook my head and she promptly burst into tears.

It was here, sitting in the back of an alley holding onto a sobbing nephilim girl, that Gabriel found me.

It was as if his very presence alerted me to the fact that I myself was injured. I had been fading in and out of consciousness for sometime before he arrived, but seeing him released something within me and I relaxed. Adrenaline faded into an exhaustion that pulsed and breathed.

I was safe with him, this I knew for certain. Uriel was there as well. She held on to Rosie, pulling her from the alleyway and into the street beyond.

In the distance, atop the chimneys and the high rooftops, the sun was breaking across the horizon. The creaking of the chapel, the clash of bells, and the hiss of water from the Fire Marshall's carriages were the only sounds. It all seemed to ebb and flow into a sort of horrid waltz, one I had danced to once so many years ago. Before I had known who I was.

How much time had passed?

Gabriel moved forward to kneel in front of me. A shiver went up my spine as he cupped my face in his hands, "Rest now, Cassiel. All is well."

Hearing my name, my real name, woke up the part of my brain that had shut off the moment I'd been dragged away from the chapel. I shoved him away from me and stumbled to my feet, "Leviathan—"

Gabriel pulled me to a stop, "Is with Michael right now. I told you, all is well."

I shook my head and gestured back towards the church. "He was shot in the chest, Lucius—"

He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a gentle but firm shake. "Leviathan is alright. He needs rest, so do you. Allow us to tend to things for now."

I was weeping. "He shot him, Lucius shot him in the chest."

A hand touched my elbow and turned to see that Uriel had returned. She offered me a reassuring smile. "You need to return to Lily House with Gabriel so that you can recover, you're badly hurt." She met Gabe's eyes as she said, "Your heartbeat is slowing, you will collapse if you try to do much more. You have survived this, but your wounds are great."

I struggled to move past them. "But Levi—"

Gabe's hands found my shoulders and I was held still. Uriel touched my cheek and said, "If it will put you at ease, I will stay with him until you are restored enough to sit with him yourself."

I did not have time to answer before the sunrise faded into cool black darkness.