It barely felt like I was walking any more. The hard clacking of shoes against concrete steps would usually reverberate in my ears almost painfully, but now it was something to draw my focus. To keep me anchored, keep me going.

Simon had taken most of my weight, undoubtedly hoping that I wouldn't notice, but I was actually quite thankful for it, as what little pressure I did put into walking caused a wave of painful pins and needles to bloom from the flats of my increasingly sluggish feet, and tingle up my legs. They had done what they could to my wounds, and I hadn't the heart to tell them that their work had come undone some sixty or so feet ago.

Bethany had lost whatever obnoxious, confident, face she'd always wore, and now stalked onwards like a relentless predator with the scent of prey. She never wondered too far, but her silence competed with her determination with how deafening it was. Her clothes didn't ruffle together, her steps never echoed, it was as if I was watching her memory stalk ahead of us. A ghost.

Lyra wasn't so poised. She followed the rear, honey coloured eyes sharp on every detail and every twitch. Not much of her clothing remained from her earlier transformation, but it was enough to stave off any cold that would cause her discomfort I should imagine. She didn't hold any particular air about her. None that I could feel anyway. There was no grim determination, no anger, no fear. It was almost mechanical. Like she was "going through the motions" and she had been through such horrors many times before.

"There's people with guns in there..." Bethany's voice beat it's way through the silence like a maul. Bludgeoning, and painful, as we stopped with hushed tones to the end of a hallway before a door of pasty blue. I hadn't felt it. The danger, the cunning. It made me pause that perhaps the gunmen meant us no harm, but maybe I am more wounded than I felt.

"How many?" Simon whispered, leaning me against the wall to the left of the door. Bethany seemed to furrow her brow in a brief moment of focus. I almost smiled as her tongue peaked through her lips in concentration as she tilted her head so her right ear was closer to the door.

"It's hard to say. I'd wager somewhere between eight and ten, maybe? They're scared." She answered, just as a presence washed over me. As pure, and as unfiltered as sunshine. It caused goosebumps to ripple from my spine and up my arms, a momentary and welcome break in the blunt numbness that had taken hold of my body.

"Victoria is in there..." I croaked, using the wall to brace myself a little better. I noticed an air of trepidation spill over our group as our end goal was within our grasp.

"Do we have to worry about poison?"

"Uh... No? Yes? I wouldn't think a bullet could hold enough of the stuff that killed Aramis to kill you without being specially made, but it wouldn't be good for you if you get hit..." I explained, remembering back to the residue that was on the knife that killed Aramis. Nocte Ruptur. Enough of a dose causes the Vampire's supernatural regenerative abilities to essentially shift itself in reverse. Causing them to fall apart.

It was something that hadn't been used in centuries, and is definitely not knowledge that is easy to come by. Victoria's revenge streak must've been particularly hate-filled.

"Maybe I should go first? Operation meat-shield and all that?" Lyra suggested, followed by an awkward silence. It was a good suggestion. Lyra was big enough to block a good portion of the damage to allow Bethany and Simon to potentially get in unharmed. If they can do that, it's over. Unless they were particularly well trained that was.

Simon gave a reluctant nod, and on cue; Lyra began to shift. She ripped her leather jacket from her shoulders as muscle began to darken, punching it's way out wards as it began to sprout a coat of bristly dark fur. She breached up wards with heavy breaths, that deepened into growls as a dark muzzle stretched from her jaw line. The cacophonous pairing of crunching bone and slick muscle fell to a close as glittering claws clacked against the tiled floor. Lyra was a wolf to behold. Cedar brown fur neatly spread atop a taut and muscular frame, that leaned forward into long fore limbs. Where Flint was a grizzled, wild, mess of fur, muscle and slobber, Lyra was almost graceful in her lupine appearance. Big, but aimed like an arrow. My mind wandered briefly at the notion of majestic, moon drenched vistas. Ever green forests thick with roots. Running wolves. I missed my forest. I missed my home.

She dug her claws into the floor, easily piercing through the surface like a hot knife through butter, winding up as she flung her self forwards, the door coming from it's hinges in a smattering of twisted metal and wooden splinters as thunder await her...

Immediately came the loud popping sound of gun fire. The muzzle flash, enough to dazzle my eyes in the brief moments I was brave enough to peak around the edge of the door. Splatters of blood, like popping water balloons, splashed the wall, the ceiling, me, as the bullets bit deep into the Wolvish figure of Lyra.

Her teeth and claws bared, she charged. Flinching only somewhat from the impact of their weapons as she tore the first one asunder. Ripping him apart from the mid-rift like one would split a log, drenching his compatriots with a horrifying tsunami of gore that spilled onto the floor in a rapidly growing puddle.

Simon and Bethany were in the room in an instant. It caused a shudder down my steadily jaded spine, as it merely looked like the blinking of silver lights. Slipping into corners and shadows. A young lad, no older than seventeen, shaking as the fear of battle took a hold of his bones deeper than the layer of blood that caked his face, gave a shrill cry as he was yanked by his feet.

His nails broke off in their attempts to find purchase on the ground, leaving bloody streaks in their wake as he was dragged by a pair of moon-lit dots into the shaded corner of the room where his silence was immediately followed by a gout of crimson spilling onto the floor.

Through the madness, I saw Victoria. An array of windows sat at her back, where she observed everything. Her appearance suggested an air of complacency. A business suit occasionally splattered with a few drops of blood. Her countenance was still. Her jaw tight. But I knew. I knew she was sweating. I could feel her.

I dragged myself around the edge of the door frame, immediately dropping to the ground as my strength left me. A guard to my left cocked his firearm as he pointed it's shaking muzzle in my direction. He gave a shriek of pure terror as a raging ball of brown fur barrelled into his form, taking him out of the room.

It was then I began to pull myself along the floor. My eyes were focused on Victoria through the war zone of a slasher movie that was unfolding before me. Blood soaked through my clothes, it was hauntingly cold as I dragged myself further.

A body slapped the ground in front of me, causing me to immediately roll to an over turned desk for cover. I caught the very brief sight of his back snapping on itself as Bethany landed on its center. Her jaws falling upon his neck, before I regained myself back on the task at hand.

I was almost there now, the gun shots had stopped. The heavy breathing of Lyra panting through a muscular frame was met by the clacking of paced claws on the ground. Victoria spotted me in this moment, her eyes widening somewhat as I pushed myself up on to shaky feet. I probably looked horrifying, but I didn't care. This had to end now.

Simon was at my side next as Lyra rounded from behind me. He was surprisingly clean of any violence. Like each kill he had scored had been as swift and efficient as possible. Where as Bethany was drenched. No longer did she hold that preternatural poise that frightened my core so inexplicably when we first met. She had, had enough. She was angry, and vengeance called her stronger than any sirens song.

I almost let out a protest as she lurched forward to throw herself at Victoria, bellowing a raucous hiss as she did so. But found that there was no need, as she found herself incapable of stepping within five feet of her. Bethany's body refusing to go any closer no matter how much she tensed or shrieked in terrifying anger. Lyra even found that even with a swipe of her massive paws, it would go no further than the glyphs that my eyes found to be encircling Victoria.

Gripping the wound at my side in the hope that the pain would grant me strength, I stepped forward over the Glyphs.

But I could go no further. One look was all it took. Our eyes met. Tears immediately blurring the vision we shared of each other, and I fell to my knees in heavy sobs. Almost on instinct, my arms found the shaking shoulders of Victoria as she met me on the ground in comfort. Being there for me like she always had been. That brief moment of crying, drowned out the angry yells of Bethany. The pacing of hungry wolf claws. The studious gaze of Simon. It seemed so silly in that moment. Like none of this had happened, and we were just holding each other. Comforting one another after a family death or the like.

We parted, her thumbs wiping the tears from blood stained cheeks.

"You look like shit" she sniffed, and we both laughed. The weight temporarily fluttering off somewhere, almost to be forgotten.

"Thanks" I said sarcastically with a brief grin as I looked down. A pregnant silence filling the air. It blocked my throat, refusing any air to go through. We'd look at each other, study one another. Smile at words and memories that would flash by in the fraction of seconds. But all of them would lead back to the moment we were in right now.

"They're going to kill me... Aren't they?" She said. It was less of a question, and more of a statement. Despite Bethany's descriptive affirmations, and Simon silencing her, it was if we could only hear each other. We were the only ones who mattered.

"Yeah..." I nodded, wiping my nose on the blood soaked sleeve. "We could take you back. Under go a Witch's trial." The futility of my statement didn't need mentioning.

"I'd be burned and you know it. Fuck, I fucked up so bad Avery..." She sighed, hitching her throat somewhat.

"Yeah... Yeah you did..."

"I don't want to die..."

"I know..."

"I guess it's fair."

"Nothing is fair. Nothing..."

"We had a good one though... Didn't we, Avery?"

"The best..."

"Avery?"

"Yeah?"

"I am sorry"

"I know."

"I am so, so, sorry"

"Me too." We hugged. Cried into each others shoulders, and held each other so close that we may never be part again. "I love you... So. Much." The words hurt, but not as much as the knife that found her heart at my hands.