By the time Sera stumbled through the threshold of the tiny apartment and separated herself from the veiled knives of winter she wasn't only cold, but burdened with fatigue. Her limbs sunk to the earth with heavy sorrow and her face sore from its puppeteering. Tears had feathered in and out throughout the night, soft and discreet like water paint over parchment.

She still wore the stranger's coat. He had left without reclaiming it and she only remembered she still wore it once his footsteps had long since faded. Leaving it behind had seemed a waste of a good coat, and despite it being far warmer than her own, it still was no victor against the vicious storm outside. Where a figure far larger than her might have filled its sleeves and prevented the bite of ice and lick of the wind from slipping between fabric and skin, her dainty figure provided shelter for the cold air.

Cupping her hands together she breathed into the hole between them before rubbing her palms against her cheeks. She could barely feel her own skin. All she wanted was to curl into bed and...

Bed...sheets.

She dashed into the room and found it just as she had seen it last. The bed was unmade but the room itself was empty. She felt her throat constrict and the sobs threaten.

"Sera?"

She turned, her braid whipped around and smacked her on her other cheek. She felt it—a good sign. "Hannah...what...wha...?" she closed her door on her room, feeling safer with a barrier between her and the memories that lurked behind it. "What happened? You were supposed to stay at the Carvers?"

Hannah shrugged, she was in her sleepers and had perhaps even been sleeping before Sera came in.

"Did something happen, Han?"

Before she could stop herself, Hannah dashed the back of her hand under her eyes, dropping her gaze and turning from Sera.

"Hannah?"

"Bay's....dead."

Sera froze, her eyes flew wide and her skin prickled from scalp to toes. Her breathing hitched and she felt something inside her plummet to the ground forcing her to lean against the wall for support. "Dead?"

Hannah nodded, her hands trembling at her side.

"How...how did you...when?"

Hannah opened her mouth but nothing came out, instead she choked on a sob. Her small body started to quiver and then shake and finally, her knees buckled and Sera caught them both before they landed on the ground, Hannah's head pressed to Sera's chest, her thin arms wrapped around Sera's waist and her legs tucked under one of Sera's armpits.

"Shhhh," Sera assured, her own tears falling freely once more. "It's okay." The words felt hollow and false. Lies. Who was she to know that everything would be okay? Who was she to assume anything would work out and that heartache and death had any meaning?

Cold water.

Kole jerked awake. Pain stunting his movements. He reached to press a hand to his bruised ribs and found they were bound. Looking down, he lay on a stone floor wearing nothing but shirt and trousers, all traces of his hidden weapons gone. There was little light in the room but if he squinted he could make out the bars of a cage, a single lantern burned somewhere behind him but he found twisting a far too painful task. Remnants of straw lay strewn on the ground, their usual sweet smell unable to mask the scent of waste and sweat.

He could hear them now, the other men groaning and muttering to themselves. While a steady beat of raindrops fell somewhere nearby, deeper in the building someone wailed, another screeched and beyond that the the wind whistled its way through every nook and cranny.

Kole pushed himself to a seated position, clenching his teeth as his bruises and injuries made themselves known. It was bearable though, not as bad as he expected. Somehow he had escaped with superficial damage despite being numb to most of it. The question was whether anything was broken or not and to test that theory in the limited light available to him, he had to move.

So he did. He pulled in both his legs. Despite his back burning and his muscles straining, no stabbing pains erupted anywhere. Rolling his left shoulder was a problem, he expected he had dislocated it again. It would need to be set soon if he were to avoid permanent damage. His breathing wasn't raspy either, so his internal organs were likely undamaged too, but his ribs did feel like they had taken a beating.

"Ye be in pain boy?" a voice asked. It was deep and raspy, as if it had been dragged across hot coals after a lifetime with no water.

He cleared his throat and tried to source the voice's source. The corners were so dark, but if his instincts were right, he knew he wasn't in the cage alone. It was big enough to fit thirty men standing shoulder to shoulder, it currently housed perhaps twelve.

"Pain is relative."

The man made an agreeing sound. "Ye be lookin' in mighty rough shape if I may say so meself."

Kole shrugged. "Life is rough."

"Oh is it now?"

Kole heard shifting in the far corner. As nonchalantly as he could, he leaned his head against the bars and eyed the space with hooded eyes.

"I been down here so long I be forgetting what freedom tastes like," the voice said. "Can't remember it being rougher than this shithole."

Kole took a long, painful breath in. "This shithole...how deep are we?"

"Ha! So ye ken where ye are then, eh?"

"Only the Hatch smells this bad, and by the lack of windows I'd say we're underground, or high enough to not need windows at least."

"Aye, we be below ground. Where they keep the rotters. The men they forget about until our decaying corpses disturbs them in their quarters." He laughed. "See there."

A silhouette of a thin arm pointed behind Kole. Kole twisted as far as he could and almost jumped.

"He been a stone for about a week and nobody be coming to fetch him until his eyeballs be missing."

Kole stared at the corpse sitting in the corner, the torch catching the hallow and receding skin to paint a haunting image of a man who died in agony, curled up in a ball on a stone cold floor.

"Why don't they move him?"

The man snorted. "Ye want the pretty answer, boy? Or the one that will steal yer sleep from ye and leave ye with nightmares."

Kole gritted his teeth. So he had landed in the Hatch. Finally. The day had been inevitable and now that he was here, he thought it a rather fitting end. He was locked up where he couldn't hurt anybody. Locked up so that he couldn't be used to do another's bidding. If the price to pay was to die a slow, harrowing death so be it. Perhaps his injuries would fester and he'd perish sooner than most.

"How long have you been down here?" he asked the voice.

"Eh?" More shuffling. Kole could just make out a silhouette of a man with long hair and a crooked nose. "Some men lose count of the days. Sometimes by mistake, sometimes on purpose, but I remember. Betrayal leaves a nasty mark on a man, don't it boy?"

"Yes, I suppose it does."

"It burns. A constant reminder of yer duty to punish the bastard who betrayed ye, eh?"

Kole shrugged.

"Over seven years I been down here," the man said. "Seven years of watching other men die. Of doing anything to survive just to..." The voice trailed off.

Seven years.

Kole felt the small hairs on his body prickle.

"Seven years since I was left for dead."

Seven years ago...

"Seven years since I woke up in this godforsaken tower. Bloodied and bandaged."

Betrayal...

"Seven years of constant starvation, dehydration and cold. I survived it all just to see him dead...or worse."

The voice was becoming less raspy, clearer, fuller and more familiar.

"No..."

"No?" the voice laughed. "Oh I'm afraid so, my boy. Kid, what was the one rule a death dealer lives by?"

"No...no...no..." Kole's entire body was going cold, sweat trickled down his back despite the icy air.

"What's the one rule I taught ye, kid? The one rule I told ye never to forget?"

"You're dead. I killed you."

"If ye'd stuck to the rules I would be, but ye didn't, now did ye?"

"You're dead."

The man moved forward so that his features were visible. Thinner, smaller and more unkept, but the face was just as harsh and fearsome as Kole remembered.

"I been waiting for this day, kid." Rufus said. "Waiting for the day I could kill ye with me bare hands."