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I searched for Hunter’s familiar figure in the mess of faces, but I didn’t get far as rough hands grabbed my arm, and I spun around to see a man looking at me with a predatory gleam in his eyes.

“What do we have here then, a wannabe Rifter?” He held onto me as I tried to yank myself free and struggled. He pulled my sleeve up, revealing the Riftkeeper mark, before giving me a crooked grin. My stomach churned with dread and disgust. “Or a Celestial?”

I mashed my teeth together, his touch burning my skin. “No,” I hissed. “Human.” I spat at him then, making him let go of me as his hands went up to cover his face. I didn’t wait to see what would happen as I turned and legged it.

But I was only able to get so far before I was pulled back by my hair.

A ragged scream tore from my lips as the man from before came into view.

He looked pissed, my spit still gleaming across his face.

He threw me to the ground, and I coughed and gagged as my hair got in my mouth.

A throbbing sting radiated through my head at where he’d roughly grabbed me from, and I tried to force myself to stand, but the Riftkeeper was already on top of me, grinning.

I screamed a grunted sound as I pounded my fists against his chest, but all he did was laugh in the most horrific way imaginable.

He stopped when he yanked me closer and got a good look at my face.

Time seemed to pause for him, and I seized the moment before he could utter a word or act, swiftly retrieving a dagger from his waistband and thrusting it into his throat.

A surge of anger and survival flooded inside my chest as he gasped a wet, ragged sound.

My own scream ripped through me as I stabbed him again with a lack of control I couldn’t fathom.

Blood splattered against my hands, hot and slick, and I kept stabbing over and over again, even as he slumped over me and I couldn’t breathe.

A metallic scent filled the air, mixed with the frenzy of others around me and then.

.. and then I felt hands around me, pulling me from beneath the Riftkeeper’s body.

I went to use the dagger on said person, but luckily my vision cleared, and I realized it wasn’t a Riftkeeper, it was Hunter.

His face was so sharp and focused that his voice—a low mumble of reassurance barely registered through the fog of panic.

I couldn’t even feel my feet as he half-carried, half-dragged me through the factory. We passed by cages, the trapped Celestials and demons cheering and banging against their own prison bars, fueling a fire within me that I didn’t know I had left.

“Wait,” I panted as we made it towards where the cherub was locked up. His small frame was barely visible in the shadows of his cramped cage.

Hunter looked at me, brows knitting together with impatience, but something in my face must’ve changed his mind as he glanced at the cherub and then back at me.

He nodded, releasing my arm, and I stumbled over to the cherub’s cage, gripping the cold, rusted bars.

The Riftkeeper who had told me to kill it luckily wasn’t around, and I took deep breaths, watching as the cherub’s eyes lifted slowly.

His once-bright face was streaked with dried blood, and the sight filled me with determination to get him out of here.

“Hold on.” I looked for something to break the lock or maybe some hidden release mechanism, but there was nothing.

Just then, Hunter shouted my name right as a Riftkeeper came at me with a blade. I dodged in time for Hunter to lunge at him with the force of his power, sending the Riftkeeper flying back.

Hunter turned to me and eyed the cage. “Stand back.”

“What?”

He didn’t answer me as he walked toward the cage and a weird hum vibrated once Hunter touched the bars.

“No, don’t!” I shouted, grabbing his arm but he didn’t let go; his fingers were already turning white as he wrenched at the metal. He muttered under his breath a string of curses and pulled, but each time he did, a ripple of resistance hit him, like an electric shock sparking up his arm.

He grunted in pain, and worry raced frantically through me as his face paled.

“Hunter.” His name fell from my lips, but he didn’t look at me; he only tightened his grip, straining against the metal with every ounce of strength he had.

But I could see it—the flicker of weakness that passed through him, the barely noticeable tremor in his arms as his powers began to waver.

“It won’t work; you’ll just grow weak, like you said.

Let me try and find a key or something—I’m not a Celestial, and I know I don’t have super strength like you, but I could—”

“Grace?” He cut me a swift glance. “Stop talking.”

My lips smacked shut before I could ramble further on.

I looked around and saw a broken piece of wood on the floor.

I ran for it, grabbing it in time for when a girl with wild hair came screaming at me.

My eyes widened, and I did the first thing I thought of as I whacked the ply of wood over her head, sending her to the floor.

“I...” The words inside my mouth practically froze as I stared at her unconscious body. But when I heard Hunter’s struggling grunts, I refocused, staggering back to him and placing the now bent piece of wood against the cage.

His jaw clenched tight. “Fuck,” he hissed, his voice rasping as he leaned into the bars, his muscles tensing visibly with effort.

“Hunter, just stop,” I whispered urgently. “It’s draining you.”

He shook his head. “Not... leaving him,” he ground out, fingers still curled around the bars.

With a final desperate push, he let out a grunt, and the metal gave way with a screech.

But even as the bars were wide enough for the cherub to escape, Hunter’s hands slipped, and he stumbled back, his knees almost buckling beneath him.

I instantly reached out to steady him, my hand gripping his arm as he took a shaky breath.

“Get him out,” he managed, his voice low and strained as his chest rose and fell with effort. When his gaze found mine, there was a flicker of pain behind his usual steel-like resolve. Something I didn’t think I’d ever see after he used the Seraph blade on himself like it was nothing.

He placed a dagger into my hands, and I barely nodded before I reached out toward the cherub. The fragile creature’s gaze shifted between us, its eyes wide with hope.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, gently reaching out to cut the barbed wire tangled around his wings. “You’re free.”

The cherub lowered his head, a quiet reverence in his posture. “Thank you. Your bravery will not be forgotten.”

He glanced once at Hunter—not with gratitude or acknowledgement but something more... unreadable. A flicker of recognition, maybe even a warning, passed through his eyes before he vanished into a puff of silver smoke.

“Wait!” I called after him, stepping forward. Maybe he knew something about Aaron. Maybe he could’ve helped.

A sigh slipped from my lips as I backed into Hunter’s arms. His grip steadied me; his strength slowly returning along with the color in his face.

Together we stumbled toward the exit, half leaning on each other as we climbed the worn steps out of the Riftkeeper’s hideout.

And then—finally—fresh air. Cold and sharp against my skin, but real.

We’d made it out.

We managed to make it back to the motel somehow intact, though the details blurred together in a haze of shadows, and I felt more as though I was falling apart.

Hunter checked the door, his strength fully back now as his eyes scanned the empty hallway, making sure we hadn’t been followed.

As his gaze settled on me, he looked at the dried blood all over my jacket, my shirt, my hair.

.. “Get out of those clothes, wash yourself and then we’ll leave, okay? ”

“Okay,” I whispered, like a broken doll.

My fingers shook as I ran into the bathroom and stepped in front of the mirror.

I almost blacked out once I saw how much blood had splattered all over me and my white top.

I was thankful this motel was that god-awful that no one had dared look up at us as we made our way through the front desk, but even so. .. this... I didn’t recognize myself.

I tried to steady my breathing as I turned on the tap, scrubbing my hands with frantic urgency.

I scrubbed so hard I couldn’t tell if the blood swirling down the drain was mine or the Riftkeeper’s.

My eyes burned, tears blurring my vision as everything crashed down on me at once.

A sob tore from my throat before I could stop it, raw and aching, shattering the silence.

The blood wasn’t coming off. It was branded to my skin just as the Riftkeeper mark was, and I desperately needed it gone.

All I could think was if I was just one and the same as the Riftkeeper’s. I killed that man with no remorse. Hell, this was the first I had ever killed someone.

What would Joe think?

What would Nadael, Eden, and every other angel at Celestia think of me?

Panic swelled in my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. “Why won’t you just fucking come off!” I sobbed in frustration.

“Grace,” Hunter’s voice came from behind. I ignored him as I smeared the blood all over my arms, the water doing nothing to help. “Grace.” My name sounded closer, but I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t think.

I wanted it to stop. I wanted this panic to just let me go, but it only seemed to tighten its hold on me.

Hands clasped my shoulders as I was spun around. Hunter was there, his grey eyes searching mine, but all I could see was red, red, red.

“It won’t come off.” I sobbed. “It—it—”

He grabbed my face gently, but I couldn’t stop the violent tears racking my body. “Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

I couldn’t. All I saw was blood everywhere. On me, on him, on the walls.

Red, red, red.

“Grace,” he said more firmly, and I shook my head.

He was now moving me towards the shower, pulling his shirt over his head and turning the tap on as the cold water came down on us.

I gasped and shuddered at the impact, but Hunter didn’t release me from his arms as he turned my back to his chest and slid us down until we were both sitting beneath the shower spray.

I clung to him as I broke down in his arms. It was no longer the blood; it was the Riftkeeper’s, Lucas, being a Warrior when I wasn’t supposed to be one and so much more blended into one giant mess.

Yet through it all, Hunter stayed with me, never once telling me to stop crying or anything. He rocked us back and forth, his chin pressed against the top of my head as he lulled me into a sense of security that I did not want to end.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, letting the water soak through us but all I knew was that the longer I was in his arms, the less the world seemed to stop spinning.