Arman wasted no time with his shot, and it crashed towards them reeking of gunpowder and charred metal. Whipping one arm out - bones aching from the speed with which she turned her body - Eve's wall of purple fire caught the bullet midair.

Protect.

The instinct had come so readily it swallowed her sound of protest, ballooning to something thick and cloying and slightly bitter in her throat. A sound came from Samir, and it was utterly inhuman, stifled by his teeth. His hands were large and desperate, stronger than perhaps intended as they struggled to shove Eve's body behind his broader frame. She only slapped him away with a motion that was growing increasingly familiar and released her tightly clenched fist. The bullet clattered noisily to the ground. Such strong magic. It flooded her veins, her very being, suffocating and refused to fade.

"Arman, you're a dead man."

"Sorry boss," the other man cocked his gun a second time. "But I don't think I can allow this to go on for any longer. You're clearly not in your right mind. And my loyalty - it is not to this woman. I see no value in continuing to risk our lives for someone who is little more than a stranger."

"She's kept us safe. I thought you were smarter than this," Samir breathed. His hands were wandering towards his belt, trembling with barely concealed rage.

"Smart? What about anything that you've done in the past week has been remotely intelligent?"

"If I had not stuck to Eve's side, if she had not gotten involved, I would have been dead thrice over."

"And that is where it should have ended." A voice like a blizzard, barreling through the room. "Move, or I'll shoot you too if necessary. I'd much rather have you sane and injured, than meddle with this monster for even one minute longer."

Monster. Yes, she'd heard that before. A clammy sweat had left her skin damp and her heartbeat thrummed obnoxiously in her ears. Was she feeling nervous?

Whatever for? Arman was one measly human. She could take care of him if she was forced to do so.

Slowly, stuttering over the thought as though she were choking on it, Eve realized that it was because, for whatever reason, she wanted this person to like her.

She didn't wholly disagree with him either. The conflict felt like a regurgitated, repeated version of what she and Samir had just hashed out two minutes ago. Only now she'd made her decision. However selfish it might be, Eve wasn't one to go back on her word.

"I'll keep him safe," she said, and hearing her voice out loud sent a scratching of goosebumps down her neck. That wasn't her mortal voice. Not with the way it bled into her mind, cool, collected and attractive. The kind of the voice that had kept humans hanging onto her every word. Feeling as though she were still wading through that unfamiliar, sparkling strength, Eve trained her gaze on Arman's flaming hair and tried to will the flood of magic away from her eyes. "And you as well."

A sharp-edged and cruel frown was her reply. "Fat chance I'll believe you now. Didn't you just say you've been killing me, to sustain myself?"

"Yes. But it's not what you think. Because you see -" Eve paused, knowing her eyes were still glowing a bright violet. She smiled, hoping to appear a little less threatening. "I could kill you right now if I wanted to."

Perfect.

Arman grimaced and steadied the trembling of his shooting arm. "Psychopath."

"That didn't come out the way I wanted to."

"Don't think there's a different way I could possibly interpret such a statement."

"What I meant is that I don't mean you any harm," Eve tried to soothe. "If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already."

"Your argument would have been significantly more effective if you'd have stopped with the first half." A second shot rang out just as a tremor shook the earth.

It seared by Eve's ear, and embedded itself somewhere in the wall behind her in a spray of wood chips. The entire room began to turn on its head, and Arman slid sideways as the Titan began to move again. She lunged for him. A dangerous light came into his eyes, and he reached back, fist sailing directly at her face, looking to catch her across the jaw.

Eve shoved his arm down, using the motion to knock the gun from his grasp even as she leapt forward, elbow colliding solidly with Arman's nose. It cracked beneath the weight of her blow, and her sleeve came away wet with blood. Oops.

"Shit, sorry -" his answering punch landed squarely against her throat, knocking the wind from her lungs, and then they were falling again, through the air this time instead of sliding across the floor. Eve lost what little air remained in her body at the impact of her body as she fell a full story backwards. At least Arman seemed similarly winded, blood still pouring from his nose and staining his teeth as he rolled onto his side to gulp air down with his mouth. They made a rather macabre picture, all things considered. Eve sat gingerly upright and pressed her palm against his back, where she could just barely feel the galloping rhythm of his heart.

Samir's steps were light, un-injured, as they came towards her. "I'll talk to him."

"He's hurt right now. We can talk later."

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"He deserved it."

"It's not so simple," Eve murmured, because it wasn't. Few things in life ever were, nowadays.

It was too quiet for the disturbance they had caused. Craning her neck towards the street, her senses prickled. Fear yanked thoughts and logic from her brain into a puddle at her feet. Samir's mouth, parted in rebute, closed with a click at the change to her expression.

Arman groaned, the sound muffled by her hand.

The door blew open.

A familiar scent - smoke and wax - filled the room. The sanctifier slid into the space with all the grace of a being walking on air. Its limbs clicked slightly with every step, armored from head to toe. Swiveling to face them slowly, two black pits in place of eyes, Eve watched with growing horror as the candles atop its head flickered out.

Well, she'd never been a particularly lucky person. But even for her, this situation felt a little unfair.

Those long fingers swiveled, drawing a shape in the air that was so complex Eve could barely stand to keep up with it. Then its body disappeared.

It fell from the darkness of the ceiling, colliding solidly with the barrier Eve had just barely managed to raise overhead. It's disgusting, emotionless face pressed against her magic, only inches away from killing them all. Power crackled, lancing all around them, cracks forming in her hastily crafted shield.

Arman, finally coming to his senses, recoiled visibly. "What is that?"

"Be silent if you do not wish to die this very second," Eve whispered. Too much magic. She was using too much magic again. Somehow, though, it didn't feel quite as wrong as usual.

She had to protect the humans.

During her time in their world, Eve had come to understand how the mortals envisioned battles. Fights were always accompanied with noise - booming screams, drums, and dramatic battle music. Ruin and pain became romanticized in their eyes.

Fighting in silence was thousands of times more terrifying.

One. A sharp inhale through her nose, the air making her throat feel tight.

Eve darted forward, hardly fast enough to dodge the swish of a sickle, unfolded from the very folds of reality and impossible to predict. Two. A lifted arm, desperation making the movement clumsy-and half assed. The thin layer of a shield she had wrapped around her body was thinning rapidly. As one long, left-handed swing tore across her skin, it became obvious Eve could only buy one or two minutes of time in this fashion.

Strangely though, it stopped there. Its blade bit no deeper. Almost as though it dared not to hurt her any further. An idea came into her head.

Three. The rustle of her clothing, silenced by scraping metal.

The room began to turn again, but she was prepared for it this time. Using the floor to launch herself into a spin, Eve landed on her feet. The sanctifier emerged from the darkness, spectral and horrifying. She tore the sickle from its hands before it could react, purple fire, fear, and adrenaline making her movements swift.

Four. Icy metal as she laid the blade against her own throat.

"One more step and I'll kill myself," Eve vowed, looking straight into that unseeing face. It froze, four hands folding into a symbol of prayer. Bolstered by the immediate response, she lifted her chin higher, voice carrying confidently outwards. Speaking to what lay beyond. "Recognized me this time, didn't you? Hedeon, you bastard, you didn't think this one through. Your puppy is only good for killing. It has no knowledge on how to keep something alive."

A small sound of protest from Samir. Then a gunshot.

The sanctifier swayed, a bullet hole straight through the forehead. It stumbled two steps backwards. Then it straightened back up, gaze never straying from where Eve stood frozen, only looking, not attacking. "Samir," she began flatly. "Bring me my bag."

She'd lost her tools mid-scuffle. The bag settled, heavy against her unoccupied wrist hardly five seconds later. Samir's lips skimmed the top of her head. A sign of trust.

The sanctifier shuddered - its mouth dropping open, as Eve tested the black plastic grocery sack's weight. Heavy. It was still there. Hedeon's voice came from those chapped, half-dead lips. "Evelyn. Must you drive me to such extremes?"

"Shut up. You should have killed me when you had the chance. Only of course -" a wry smile tugged at her lips. "Clearly, you don't actually want me dead. You know, I always wondered how I'd survived at all. Even if I'm trapped in this useless shell now. What was it that possessed you to keep me alive? Was it because I was useful, or was it something else?"

The sanctifier went silent. Not a particularly surprising response, given how secretive Hedeon had always been. He'd much rather lose a pawn than reveal anything else.

Eve pulled the hotel clothing iron from the bag.

It collided heavily with the sanctifier's - comparatively - soft, fleshy body. She whacked the beast's head so hard she felt the skull beneath her blow crumple, brutal, violent, and necessary. Her arm came down again.

And again. The scream that rose up above the sound of the blows was chilling, sending disgusted ripples down Eve's neck.

She closed her eyes as she hit the sanctifier one last time. There was no possibility that she'd ever get used to the killing.

The thrashing beneath her stopped. Eve twisted in a half circle so she wouldn't vomit directly on top of the body.

"Ugh," she shuddered, taking a deep breath. "We're leaving. Any complaints?" The two men were thankfully silent. Eve straightened, somewhat unsteadily, and wandered several steps away. The room, which had been swimming before, slowly stopped shifting enough that Eve could crouch and begin to draw the gate symbol. What a total failure. She hadn't found out anything, not about the barrier, nor about her body.

It wouldn't be surprising if the humans wanted to kill her now, having seen her resort to such crude violence. Arman still looked a little uncertain, though he'd pocketed his gun for now.

Only, Eve no longer felt terrified about the prospect of death. Not the way she had before, hiding from the enemy, playing it safe. No. Eve was finally, properly, scaldingly angry.

Samir's fingers pulled the chalk, now hardly more than a nub, from her grasp.

"Hey-" A fruitless protest. The man had already drawn a line into the coordinates she'd plotted into the center. A familiar symbol. It was almost intimate, the way the half-destroyed room folded in on itself around them.

Salt and pine stung her nostrils next.

"San Francisco?" Arman sounded amused. They could see the bay up ahead.

"How did you know about this place?" Eve rasped. Was it the shock, or the exhaustion that dragged her limbs towards the ground?

"I just did." Samir's silhouette was dark against early morning fog. A note of wonder stuck gummily to his words. He turned and began to walk in the direction of her safehouse, without even being prompted. Arman's gun dug into the small of her back, but Samir had already disappeared behind a curtain of white, and did not interfere. Only the sounds of leaves stirring in the underbrush interrupted the stillness of a world yet to wake.

"For the record," his subordinate said, voice glinting with danger. "I still want you dead."

Eve felt a flicker of irritation. It dissipated as soon as it appeared, flickering into purple sparks. The gun in Arman's hands fell apart, screws coming apart and the cartridge fell noisily to the damp, black cement. She knew her voice was bitter, poisonous.

"Arman?"

"Yeah?" His voice was a little breathy. Afraid.

Finally. "Fuck off."

Who cared if he liked her.

Wandering off down the path, Eve watched Samir unlock the door of a home he should not have known existed and wander in.

She followed him, ignoring the enormous, pitch black tear in the sky over the glimmering ocean waves.