A/N: Please be aware that there is some violence in this chapter

The air between the phone and her ear, only a millimeter of space, burned like scalding water. Eve let the device clatter to the plastic lined car flooring, dirty hands trembling.

Pressure settled in bands around her head while the world submerged in silence and her vision blurred. Everything and nothing flooded her body, a shock of utterly overwhelming emotion that had the rest of the world disappearing in a rush of horror. She was floating. Hurtling through a void, tangible thoughts colliding with one another until words and emotions became utterly indistinguishable. Through a hiccuping noise that worked its way up her throat, Eve heard the dial tone, and looked down to see that Hedeon had already hung up the phone. A blank, black square stared up at her. Aska. If even a single strand of her hair was out of place Eve was going to kill-

"Eve!" Samir's face was a little frenzied, his hands pressed against both her cheeks, cradling her head and giving it a little shake. "Snap out of it." She gave a little gasp, air rattling through her lungs, all the anger trapped inside and shoved forcibly downwards. There were more lights outside now, cars sailing over the sand in slow, bobbing motions, engines and pitched voices carrying over the wind.

Fuck. That hadn't even been her own anger.

"Samir," she rasped, eyes burning with unshed tears. Her fingers had curled into his forearms, leaving desperate little half-moons in his skin. "What exactly did you do, for those people to hate you this much?"

"Eve," Samir said again, and his voice was much more cautious now, flat and emotionless. "I never asked, because I did not think there was a need. But can you feel them? What they're feeling?" When she was silent, shock-still and at a loss for words, Samir shook his head dazedly, pulling backwards. "By the gods, I had guessed but it was so hard to believe that I couldn't -"

The words cut off. Eve had pushed forward, pressing two fingers firmly against his lips, gaze darting from side to side anxiously. "Be quiet," she murmured. "Unless you want them to hear you. Don't invoke them, don't call for them. Not right now."

"Call for who?" Samir's lips brushed against her fingers, plush and gentle. There was a blown confusion in his pupils, and it dawned into realization with harsh intensity. "You don't mean-"

"Yes," Eve breathed. She was sure they had prying eyes, and ears on them, from the other world. If not Hedeon then his spies. Samir gazed up at her, and reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He was awfully calm, given everything that had happened in the last several days. "But Samir, are you alright?"

"I'm processing," he murmured, pressing a kiss to the red strands he still had tucked between his fingers. His eyes twinkled with an unplaceable joy. "For now, I think we should stand up."

The realization of what had happened dawned belatedly.

She had crawled half on top of him, somehow, in her desperation- out of the car - and they were both now sprawled across the sand. Samir was ethereal, sprawled amongst the pale earth and dusted by moonlight, and Eve felt embarrassed, mostly. Dull by comparison.

She stood quickly, dusting her body to little avail.

It had only taken a few seconds, really, to press down the want she could not explain.

Samir took her hand as he stood. Eve pulled away, stomach churning as she did so. As though the space between them was somehow unnatural. If Samir had noticed her internal struggle, he kept quiet about it, still and emotionless. Controlled instinct rippled through his limbs as he reached to his side - for the holster of his gun.

"Arman," he said, the click of the safety fading into the crashing of waves. "Cleanup duty."

"Yeah boss," Arman grimaced. "I figured."

There were three cars pulling towards them. Perhaps 35 meters out or so.

Samir fired three times.

All three cars stopped, one swiveling and crashing into the vehicle next to it.

Instead of anger, nauseated shock wavered in Eve's direction, and she knew that Samir had shot to kill. And succeeded. The man was a damn good shot, if nothing else. Security company her ass. Security guards didn't shoot to kill. But Eve kept quiet, knowing she was in no position to talk. As much as she hated death, this was none of her business.

"Hey." Eve began, shifting uneasily. A strange sense of foreboding had begun to sink into the air. "Give me a weapon." Samir reached down, and procured from a holster by his ankle, a short, sharp knife. He didn't say a single word, the line of his neck frigid, gaze searching the figures of the men which had begun to flood from the cars. But perhaps it was a good sign, if he trusted her enough, now, to willingly hand her a weapon.

Though, now that she thought about it, she'd never had to convince Samir of her capability. He'd trusted her from the get go. Had put his life in her hands within just a few days of knowing her.

A strange decision that she would have never made. Even now, despite how much she wanted to trust the man, some niggling doubt had sunken deep into the very fiber of her being and rooted there, unmoving and insurmountable.

"Stay back unless you have to interfere." There was an edge of threat to the words, Samir shoving her back, behind the open car door, and the two men were moving before she could add her own opinion.

Eve had been in enough fights to know that they were never like she imagined. There was no such thing as 'fighting fair' or a polite enemy that would wait in queue before launching their attack.

Bullets sang out first, and it was a miracle that the shots missed as Samir and Arman both rolled forward. But they were strangely graceful nevertheless - the way in which Samir and Arman moved in sync, the follow-up bullet from Samir's handgun sinking through two pairs of legs, neatly knocking men to the ground where Arman finished the job.

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Where Samir's movements had a calculated logic, Eve couldn't even begin to predict what Arman's next move was going to be. Watching the redhead stumble, a snarl dripping from a split lip, bitten open with his fall, she realized it was because the man himself didn't plan a single thing. He was operating on sheer animal instinct - his kick turning into a lunge so he could sink past the punch sailing in his direction and knock his elbow between the last remaining man's bulky torso. There was a choking warble, cut short by another efficient gunshot.

Samir dragged Arman behind the first of the vehicles for cover, another sprinkle of bullets sending sand spraying where they had just been standing. Nearly two-dozen men had filed their way onto the sand after regaining their bearings, some dusted lightly in the blood of their comrades. It seemed an impossible, improbable situation. Something was sure to go wrong. She could feel it, sense the weight of the situation as it sank painfully through her gut.

The air rippled, twisting the clouds above them.

Eve swallowed, something clicking painfully into place, as though she'd suddenly stumbled on the lost piece of a puzzle.

"Samir!" She shrieked, voice tinny, washed away by an intense gale that had begun to twist around them. "Get away!" Panic drew her voice even higher, shattering it into a desperate, childish scream.

It was enough. He heard her. With short, sharp motions, Samir's fist connected solidly with Arman's shoulder, enough to send him reeling with broken momentum. His fist clenched tightly into the man's t-shirt to prevent him from falling entirely, and instead, he redirected that broken momentum to send Arman sputtering and stumbling in Eve's direction.

A hand tore through from the sky, pale and delicate and familiar, gloved in red.

Samir's long legs carried him the final few steps to her side.

The fingers swung down once. A simple, short motion, without flourish or fancy.

The sand became awash with flames. Flames the shade of starlight which ruptured with all of its intensity.

Eve inhaled sharply, knife slashing across her palm to scatter blood in front of her, mixing the pain with the utter, immobilizing panic that flooder her brain. It was only barely enough. The starfire slammed into her shield, mixing with her magic to glow a poisonous violet. Flecks of it pushed through, darting across her cheeks in sharp lines that seared the skin. The earth beneath them rocked, all three cars outside the barrier exploding beneath the heat, the might of the blast washing warmth through her clothes and stinging her eyes.

Another lazy flick of the finger, and even the embers were gone, suffocated.

Eve staggered where she stood, knees weak, wobbling in wake of the unexpected onslaught.

Not even ashes were left of the men that had been in pursuit of them. Arman had fallen backwards, shellshocked, shirt still bunched high up along his midriff.

From the sky came a familiar sniff. "Useless garbage. Couldn't bear to watch any longer." A long pause, the wind quieting around them until only the terrified, shuddering breathing at her back remained. The velvet baritone hummed and grew louder, irked. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

Eve glanced up, hardly daring to do so. She couldn't see much more than a silhouette, illuminated by more of those billowing flames, the sky bent around it as though it were a picture frame studded against the stars. But Eve would never forget those hands.

"What could I possibly have to say to you?" she said quietly, wincing as the throbbing across her hand spread wider. There was a trembling in her limbs and in her voice.

"Not even a hello for your old friend? I was surprised, you know, to hear you had returned. But then again, you always did love to get involved in troublesome things. Poor, compassionate Evelyn. Unable to leave the humans alone. So honorable. So foolishly unambitious."

"Dorian-"

"For the sake of old times, my dear Evelyn," Dorian continued, "I would strongly recommend you run now and leave this one to me. Then I'll consider letting you live." It stung. The silky voice, like spun gold in her ears. A voice that had once been her only salvation.

And her ruin.

"I don't believe you," she breathed, heart contracting in her chest.

Samir switched his weight from one foot to the other. He was standing so close she felt as though his radiating warmth was kissing along her skin, breathing coming in long, calm exhales. He laid a hand on her shoulder.

And the fear disappeared. Her mind stilled, a flat lake, undisturbed by even the slightest ripple.

A new tremor appeared. One that was of her own making, one that came from somewhere in the very pit of her abdomen and raked across muscle and sinew in an unbridled, scalding wave.

It occurred to Eve that she'd been on the defensive this entire time. Perhaps she'd become more human, over all of these years, to value her life this much. There had been a time where her existence had ceased to matter. Where she had been willing to crawl if need be, drawing blood from herself for even the slightest advantage over the other gods.

And she was fed up.

Fallen god she might be, but the distinction between her beliefs and theirs, had been drawn long ago. To most of the Elder Gods, humanity had never been more than cattle.

She said nothing.

Fury roared in her palms, amalgamating in an immense pressure, one so strong that it pulled a yelp out from the veiled face she could see within the dimensional tear.

Her lips curled, cruel and cold and satisfied, as she began to force the portal shut.

"Evelyn," the man inside hissed, a flash of red revealing two glowing eyes.

She poured more anger into the magic. "I've wanted to say this for a long time," Eve hissed, fingers stiff as she interlinked them and pressed her hands together. "But Dorian? You can go fuck yourself."

"You're making a huge mistake," said the voice, disembodied now, as though it was muddled by a thick layer of water. "Why turn your back on your own kind?"

"My own kind?" Eve laughed. She couldn't help it. Her answering smile was manic, feral, and tasted slightly of copper. She'd spent too much on this spell, given too much of her life to it, but she'd be damned if it wasn't satisfying. "If I was one of you, I'd have killed myself on the spot. How gracious of you and Hedeon to give me a way out."

"Stubborn as always," Dorian snarled. "But when we destroy the-" his voice distorted beyond recognition. Then it cut out entirely.

Destroy the what?

The sky smoothed out overhead, becoming perfectly unmarred. And Eve -

Eve continued to burn with a long forgotten rage. It flooded her veins, mangled her throat, felt as though it might tear her apart from within. Fear she was familiar with but anger -

She had forgotten how powerful it could be. Hadn't dared to use it.

Hated the ways in which it changed her. Controlled anger was powerful, but when she allowed her to drive instead, it turned her into a shadowed image of what she was meant to be. Of all that she stood for. And Eve had never found a more powerful source of magic.

Of course, there was also the slight problem of her human form.

It was quickly becoming clear that restoring her body would soon become her first priority.

"Ow, fuck" Eve muttered, swaying. Two pairs of arms caught her.

Arman's voice sounded fuzzy, and almost worried.

"Samir. Should I hold her again?"

"Please," Samir rasped, serious. His touch was cool, smooth, and he smelled familiar, a warm forest. Everything had already gone black, but even in that pitch dark, he was a brilliant color in her mind. Even more than the strain of her body, it was the comfort of his presence that was a black hole, pulling her under.

"Hey," Eve began, reaching blindly up. "Head for the hills."

"I've got you," Samir whispered instead, his mouth right by her temple, and his fingers already threading with hers. It was so quiet. There was no pain. Almost as though nothing had happened, as though for a brief second, the world itself had paused.

Maybe this time she could allow herself to rest for a good, long while.