The silence in the room weighed heavily between the beautiful, short-haired, green-eyed woman and the lanky, bedridden young man. The pleasant light of the midday sun, lazing in a clear blue sky, filled the space with its warmth in juxtaposition to Ben's frigid stare. The sound of a protest and a light scuffle from the streets below the open window pierced the pregnant pause between the two former companions.

"Look, Ben. I'm-" Jor was interrupted by the thuds of footsteps on the wooden floor.

"You won't get much out of him, he appears lucid at times but just speaks gibberish. Mostly catatonic," a handsome man with messy red hair spoke as he passed the Archer and entered the room. "Say, when did you arrive in the city? It's been, what, two months since you left?" the tall, bronze-skinned man said as he turned to face Jor with his deep black eyes.

I was out for two months?

"Uh, yes. I arrived last night…" she said as she tore her gaze from Ben to address Kieran with worry. "Are you sure he's non-responsive?"

The handsome man furrowed his brows and shrugged. "Why wouldn't I be?" he said as he approached the bedside and began to slap Ben's cheeks with what seemed like the practiced ease of numerous demonstrations. "See? Nothing."

"Okay, thanks, Kieran. I'm awake now," Ben croaked between slaps.

"He doesn't eve-" Deep black eyes snapped to meet the young man's gaze, and Kieran's mouth fell open. His face lit up, and his smile grew wide, made terrifying by the mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth. "Ben!? I can't believe it!" He turned to Jor. His posture was ecstatic as he bounced on his heels. "It must've been your presence! Of course, a close friend visiting would rouse him from his deep sleep!"

The color drained from the raven-haired woman's face as she met the young man's gaze once more. She gulped and shuffled awkwardly on her feet.

"Yes," she let out a forced chuckle, "I suppose so."

"I can't believe it…" the Caster repeated. He stared at Ben with a wide toothy grin, yet his focus was distant.

"Kieran, I can't believe it either. Do you have some water?" the young man asked.

Kieran snapped out of his musing, and his attention became focused. "Yeah, give me a moment. I'll have to pop out across the street. Be right back."

The tall, handsome man left with a skip in his step, and the room's atmosphere lost its warmth.

"Go on," Ben said as he stared at the Archer. His heart began to quicken, and his chest grew hot. He wanted to get up and strangle her. Slowly. A subtle weight pressing on his mind tempered his lust for inflicting terrible harm on the woman. Ben felt something was off about her, strange. Her presence felt more substantial, similar to what he felt the first time they met, yet it had a different:

Flavor?

He tried to rationalize the feeling.

The tall, slender woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other and regarded him warily. Her brows furrowed, and she remained silent for a few heartbeats as if she considered her words carefully.

"Back at the embassy…" she hesitated, "there was so much going on, and I-"

"If you're here to make excuses, save it," he interrupted. "Either you tell me what you're doing here, or you put that dagger to use." He gestured toward a sheathed blade strapped to her brown, knee-high boots with a pointed glance and a raised brow.

He sat up in the bed and was surprised to find that the worst of his condition was weak muscles, likely from the two months of inactivity. He regarded her big, green eyes. Her brows slanted upwards, and she tilted her head. Her lips opened to speak, but she closed them shortly after and held her tongue.

"You better be quick with your explanation or knifework," he paused, "because when I get my hands on you, I'm going to take my time."

Jor flinched, and she folded her arms tightly against her chest as if to ward off the cold of his tone.

She scowled and exhaled through her nose. "What did you expect me to do? Let you kill him?" Jor's voice rose, incredulous, before calming herself with a slow blink and a deep breath. "Look, Ben. Take it as you will, but I never intended for any of that to happen. He… Eric promised me he'd let you live. He said he wanted to discover why the Old Worlders were showing up."

"Yeah, you didn't intervene while he was trying to kill me, though, and I don't buy that you truly believed that. You led Ann and me to die, and when I proved too stubborn to roll over, you took it into your own hands," Ben spat.

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The Archer dipped her chin into her chest, and her shoulders began to tremble. Her arms around her midsection gripped even tighter than before.

"Your sobs won't wor-" Ben stopped abruptly, and his brows furrowed. He heard a strange sound escape the woman's lips.

Jor lifted her head to reveal glistening eyes and a manic grin. Upon inspecting her face, he noticed the faint line of a scar tracing her eye socket, high on her left cheekbone. The eerie sound the young man had heard began to fill the room.

She's… giggling?

Ben's eyes darted around the room for a weapon, anything he could use to defend himself. The sound terrified him. It spoke of a broken mind. Of insanity. Suddenly, the woman stopped, and her posture went slack. The same manic grin was still plastered on her face. She moved frighteningly fast. The bed creaked with the weight of the new occupant. Ben looked up to see Jor straddling him. Her rapid, uneven breaths warmed his lips as the tip of her nose lightly touched his. Wide green eyes encompassed his entire vision, and he felt the beast stir within him.

"Can I tell you a story? Did you know that I like telling stories? It's about a girl. You like girls, right?" she blabbered in incoherent whispers.

Ben felt as if his heart was about to explode from his chest. He grabbed the woman's shoulders with sleep-numbed arms and tried to push her off him. She was strong, far stronger than she had any right to be. He was about to call upon the concept of Overwhelm when a thought clicked in his mind.

Wait… this aura.

"Jor," he said, and the woman's rambling paused, yet her breaths maintained their erratic rhythm.

"Yes," she continued as if she hadn't missed a beat, "it's about Jor. How did you know? Anyways,"

He watched with wide eyes as the woman slowly unsheathed the dagger on her boot and lifted it to her lips, dangerously close to his own. His Avatar growled. She paused her muttering to flick the blade with her tongue before continuing.

"Lonely. Always lonely. But then a boy came."

She drove her trembling forehead into his until he lay down, and with the hand that held the dagger, she rolled up the sleeve on the opposite arm. Ben glanced down at the exposed pale skin of her forearm and saw numerous angry lines cover the soft skin in a messy weave.

"He made her feel. Not alone," she giggled, "and then…" She pressed her lips tightly against his.

Ben felt the vibration of the deafening, desperate sound of air rushing out her nostrils. He pushed her away, and she didn't resist. She sat atop him, eyes closed, almost blissfully, as the weight of her presence subsided. He looked down to see a fresh crimson line weep blood from her arm.

She's lost it.

He searched her pale, lightly scarred face and tried to rationalize her actions at the embassy. He considered that her broken mind could have been the catalyst for her attempt to kill him, but then he thought of his Keeper.

No. That's not good enough.

The beast's breath was hot against his ear, and his hand launched up to grab her neck with borrowed strength. Her eyes shot open as she dropped the dagger and tried to pry his grip from her neck. Her cheeks began to turn a light shade of pink, and he felt her presence fluctuate as her eyelids sagged.

"All of this," he said through clenched teeth, "was your doing. Ann would still be here if you didn't give us up to your cousin."

Jor stopped her struggling, and he saw her eyes become lucid. She frowned and tapped the hand around her neck frantically.

"I don't fucking want to hear it!" he screamed at her.

A dam of emotions opened, and he spoke.

"Overwhelm."

He leaped up to stand on the bed; Jor's body swayed before him as he held her aloft before slamming her down and pulverizing the wooden furniture in an eruption of splinters and broken glass of half-empty vials. The floorboards cracked under the impact, and the young man lifted her once more and threw her at the opposite wall. The Archer spun uncannily in the air and nullified the impact in a horizontal crouch; her feet absorbed the force as if she had landed from jumping off a rooftop.

Ben launched himself at her with a force that caused the debris to swirl in a whirlwind behind him. She moved, and Ben braced himself with outstretched hands as he crashed into the stout, stone wall with a thud and the crunch of broken wrists. He turned to see the woman standing across the room. His hands, ruined by his carelessness, hung limply from the ends of his arms.

"Stop! Ben, please!" she cried.

The young man ignored the plea and lunged at her with a swing of a compromised arm. Jor evaded the attack and made for the door before turning to face him, her hand caressing her reddened neck. He stood, chest heaving with deep breaths.

"I'm sorry. I…" her head dipped, and she grimaced, "I shouldn't have come."

She turned to leave, and the young man felt the power of his concept begin to wane. With the looming onset of extreme fatigue, he called out to her.

"Tell me where Eric is."

She looked over her shoulder and met his gaze with slanted brows.

"I don't know. He… with my Avatar gone, he said he had no use for me," she said in an unsteady voice. "I'm truly sorry, Ben. For everything. I thought I was getting better, but I'm still… unwell." She paused, and her eyes dipped to the floor, "I should go."

She left, and Ben collapsed and sat amongst the rubble of furniture. His broken wrists throbbed, and he felt a profound fatigue wash over him. He was deeply disturbed by the meeting with the raven-haired woman. He thought she was clearly damaged psychologically, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. Ben had intended to take her life, as Eric had taken that of his Keeper and close companion, yet her words muddied his resolve. The thought of Ann brought warmth to his core, and he felt it as if she were nearby.

The soothing feeling was doused by the chilling prickles of unease scuttling up his spine as he recalled Jor straddling him on the bed. She had used him to satisfy her depraved impulses against his will. The beast had expressed disdain at the woman violating and having a modicum of control over him, and Ben felt his head spin.

A pair of hurried footsteps on the wooden floor roused Ben from his melancholic thoughts.

"Yes, Miss Blackwood. I only left them alone for a-" The young man looked up to see Kieran enter and freeze. The tall, handsome man stood in the doorway, eyes wide and mouth agape at the scene of destruction. He held a heavy, smooth clay vessel in his hands as he scanned the room before his eyes came to rest on Ben.

"What the f-"

"My heart?" interrupted a short woman in a white robe. A single, thick braid of pale blonde hair was draped over the front of her shoulder, and glistening, soft blue eyes regarded the young man amidst the chaos of wood and broken glass.