Several things happened in that short moment. One of them being the fact that Jade's heart literally stopped the moment she stepped outside of that dressing room and laid eyes on the women she watched kill herself two years ago.

And there she was, wearing a wedding dress, and gawking at Lilith like she was the true bride-to-be.

She didn't exactly wake up that morning and think that she'd be looking straight at her that day.

She heard the voices around her, Catherine screaming at the sight of her niece, Jolly dropping the box in her arms and going wide eyed and freezing on the spot. All while time seemed to stop for Jade, and she just stood there like an idiot and stared at Lilith Holmes.

Lilith wasn't even looking at her aunt, or at Jolly. She was looking directly back at Jade with a soft smile, as though she just saw her that morning.

Jade wanted to do so many things at that moment, but she couldn't find the energy or courage to do so. She felt so helpless, like she didn't have any control over what she was doing or what was happening.

Lilith was grinning now, like the cocky genius she was. "I certainly hope the man who's marrying you knows what a lousy roommate you are."

Yes, Lilith. He does. He's been living with her for months now.

"And your strange habit of leaving tea cups around everywhere, only to make more tea every ten minutes."

He also already knew that.

Jade felt stiff, standing there in the dress with so many emotions going through her head. She watched in shock as Lilith looked her up and down with a displeased look on her face. Somebody was grabbing her arm but she didn't know who, or cared to know. "By the way, that dress doesn't suit you very well, just to let you know."

She wanted everything to end. This sick joke was too much, too much.

"It's not you."

Lilith frowned at her.

"...yes, I do believe it is."

"No. You're... you're dead."

Her words were barely a whisper, cracking and broken like shards of ice. And Lilith, the bitch, was standing here like she didn't do anything and it was a normal day.

"You..." The lights above them suddenly felt extraordinarily bright, and was the floor shaking or was it just her? "You can't-"

"Jade, before you-"

"You're DEAD!!"

Lilith was suddenly taken back, stepping backwards and nearly tripping on her own two feet, like she could not even fathom the thought that Jade was suddenly shouting. She was angry, at her.

"I WATCHED YOU DIE, LILITH!"

Lilith had seen Jade mad before. At her, at other people, at killers and criminals. She'd seen firsthand the absolute power and rage such a little woman could contain. The first time she'd ever seen Jade this man was when she was snapping at someone who tried to kill Lilith during a case. It was amazing to watch. And now Lilith was here, feeling exactly how that man felt in that case. She might as well be behind bars too.

Lilith Holmes killed Lilith Holmes.

"Jade- stop...!" Catherine was the one grabbing her arm, staring deadly at Lilith like she was some zombie risen from the dead. Shock enveloped everyone's faces. "Calm down, I-"

"You... you lied." Jade sounded so betrayed it hurt. "You lied. You let.... I... y-you let me grieve... you let EVERYONE grieve!"

"Jade." It was the same tone Lilith used when she was trying to get Jade to understand her when she couldn't. As though she was making a simple deduction. "Alright, I understand you may be a little-"

"A little what?!"

Lilith bit her lip humously. "A little frustrated..."

Jolly was still standing there like she turned into an ice statue.

"A LITTLE FRUSTRATED-?"

Lilith's mouth went into a straight line. "Alright, maybe more than a little-"

"For GOD'S SAKE-!"

"Jade!"

"No!" Jade looked like a very angry bride, sticking her pointer finger up and shaking her head like she was still trying to make herself stop believing the reality she was in right now. "You- you faked your own death? And for what? You really don't realize what you've done? It's NOT funny, Lilith!"

Lilith's smile went away at that, and she felt suddenly very trapped, like Jade had shoved her into a corner she didn't even know existed. All eyes were on her, everyone taking in the fact that Lilith Holmes was very much, indeed, alive. Jolly looked like she was about to fall over, which she actually did eventually, while Catherine seemed to be on the edge of running into her arms. And at the same time punching her senseless.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"Alright, alright, before you get any more... upset with me that you already are," Lilith then said, waving her hand in the air like she was brushing off Jade's reaction. "I just have... one question for you."

Jade was glaring bullets into her brain, but she went on anyway.

"...are you really going to get that dress?"

"Oh fucking-"

And that was when Jade lunged at her.

~*~*~*~

Jade had hit Lilith many, many times before. Only a majority of them were friendly punches or those occasional slaps to the head or kicks to the shin when Lilith was being particularly annoying. And Lilith would hit her back, and it would be all playful and goofy.

This time was not like those times.

There was fresh, pure red blood dripping out of Lilith's nose when they left the shop, the group silent and all extremely confused and tired. They left with no purchases, just the handkerchief one of the store clerks gave Lilith to stop the bleeding.

So now they were sitting on the edge of the curb, all filed in a line and their thoughts overtaking their heads.

Jolly and Catherine put some effort to sit further away from Jade and Lilith, who both looked on the verge of screaming at once another again.

Jade stared down at the empty street before her like the world was ending and she was trying to savour every last moment of it. She couldn't even look at the troll sitting a few feet away from her. Like she didn't even want to acknowledge that she was there, her presence very much alive, and her heart pounding in her chest. Lilith Holmes was alive. She had been all this time.

"...I called Jamie Moriarty to the Falls," Lilith then suddenly said, quieter than normal, and a bit nasally due to the bleeding nose. It dribbled down her face and even on her lips but she didn't seem to mind. "I knew she was going to want to finish the game there, so I had to make several plans in advance. As you know, I wanted to avoid dying, if at all possible."

"...did anyone else know."

Lilith was so, so close to turning to look at her, to try to see what emotions were in her eyes. It was a harder question than it needed to be. The curb suddenly felt very cold.

"...my brother did." She looked over, and noticed Jolly and Catherine were sitting together on a nearby bench, somewhat comforting each other. It was like they knew that this moment, the very first moment, was the one where she needed to talk to Jade before anyone else. "...and one other person."

"Who?" Jade's voice came out like a croak, her anger beginning to boil up again. She could feel Lilith, even though she wasn't very close to her. "Who else knew...?"

Lilith took a deep breath.

"...Max."

Jade suddenly took a long, deep sigh. "Max Hooper."

"Max Hooper."

"Right."

"Yeah." Lilith stared up at the sky, which was turning a lovely orange colour. "I had to make sure Moriarty thought she had the better of me, that she thought she was going to win. Which ultimately resulted in me-"

"I don't," Jade told her, with gritted teeth and heavy breaths. "care how the hell you did it, Lilith. I just want to know why."

Lilith frowned at the road. "Moriarty needed to be stopped."

"So you can still tell Max Hooper about you faking your death, but you can't tell me?"

Her voice was ice cold.

Lilith paused and then went on, voice suddenly serious. "Jade, I need your help, there's-"

Jade's eyebrows suddenly raised up, her face, which was once filled with hurt, shock, and betrayal, turning into a look of are you serious right now? "Pardon?"

"There's-"

"Catherine, Jolly, we're going home." Without warning, Jade Watson stood up from the curb and began turning away from Lilith, leaving her alone on the curb with nothing but her regrets to keep her company.

~*~*~*~

Lilith Holmes: Alive?

To say that news spread fast would be an accurate statement.

Perhaps it started with someone walking by them while they sat on the curb like they were homeless, or maybe one of the bridal shop owners who decided to take advantage of the scene. Whoever it was, it didn't matter. Lilith Holmes was back and the ENTIRE kingdom knew.

That next morning, The Metanoia Club seemed to suddenly turn into superheroes with superspeed, bolting into the meeting room with their head spinning on their necks and their eyes wide and red from the shock.

World-Famous Detective Found to have Faked Death

"Have you seen it?" one woman called Jackie shouted, practically kicking the door down. She was accompanied by what looked like the entire club behind her, waving her phone in the air. It was on the news.

Darling Detective, Lilith Holmes, Faked Death

The group waited at the door, eyes frantic, waiting for their leader to react to the news. The news which was currently sweeping the world into a mad frenzy. It was like the earth itself was shaking and everyone was feeling it under their feet.

He sat in front of the television, his face with the same expression they all had. On his head, he wore the signature Lilith Holmes hat.

"She's alive..." The words came out in a whisper.

Jackie and the others grinned like madmen. "She is, Sir."

Biggie Anderson turned to look at them, eyes gleaming with hope. "We were right."

And his club looked at him back with the same faith. "We were, Sir."

~*~*~*~

Branch didn't hear the news when everyone else did, because he found out before all of them. That past night, when he was exhausted from work and thought about sleeping on the sidewalk because it would be no different than tossing and turning in his bed at home, he unlocked his car and glumly sat in the driver's seat, staring at the road ahead of him.

He wanted to take a smoke.

"You know you have a lovely car."

And then he turned to look at the passenger seat and found her sitting there.

"I didn't even know you had the capability of driving," she remarked, gazing around the front seats like she was suddenly fascinated by vehicles. Then her eyes drifted to the man in the driver's seat, who was staring at her like he couldn't believe it. Because he couldn't. She was here.

She was staring at the package of cigarettes in his pocket, which was poking out. She smirked that smirk she always smirked. The smirk he used to hate, but now loved more than anything. "Those things can kill you."

He found himself reaching to the door and opening it, stepping back onto the sidewalk. She did the same thing, calmer than he felt inside. While he stood there awkwardly, finding it hard to breathe again, Lilith Holmes leaned against the side of the car with an eager smile on her face. He felt like he was being rewarded, but for what?

After a moment, he smiled back.

"You bitch."

And then he suddenly marched to her side, and pulled her into a great big hug.

"Don't ever do that to me again."

He was squeezing her harder than she would have liked, the needles coming back into her back and pressing into her spine as he did. She ignored it though, and tried to process what was happening.

She sighed. "I don't plan to, Breg."

"It's Branch."

"Branch."

And then, as he let himself finally realize that Lilith, the Lilith he had treated like a daughter all those years ago, was really and truly back, he whispered, "I'm sorry."

And after one more moment, he heard a whisper back. "I forgive you."

~*~*~*~

Max found out only after Branch.

Noe was, surprisingly, out doing something that could be defined as productive. They left that afternoon to go and "complete a quest." Max hoped this guest would not lead into Noe ending up either attested or in deep trouble by the morning.

His day had ended and he was heading to the locker rooms to hang up his lab coat. The room was eerily quiet, and it reminded him of a scene from a horror movie sometime right before a killer clown or something bursts out from behind him and horrendously stabs him to death. Luckily, there were none roaming the building.

He swung his locker open and put in his coat, which had just been cleaned from a blood stain (not his, of course). That was when he glanced in the mirror in the locker door and saw the face of a dead woman.

His heart practically leaped out of his chest, but surprisingly he didn't look shocked at the fact that she was here. "Jesus-"

"Hello, Max," she said with a dazed look, as though she was disoriented. "Good to see you too."

His shoulders, which once were stiff with fright, relaxed. He gulped back a choke, worried for the reason she was standing here in front of him instead of being on the run like she had been for the past two years. "What are- what are you doing here?" He slammed the locker door shut, and listened to it echo throughout the room.

"Well considering the fact that over five people are fully aware of my existence I might as well start walking around freely," she shrugged, hands behind her back. He could have sworn she looked like she was about to collapse any moment. "The papers will have the story out by morning."

He chuckled a bit, looking at her up and down. "And would it be rude of me to ask why you're back, Lilith Holmes?"

She smirked, even though she still had that look in her eye like she'd seen a tornado unleash before her. "I'll leave you to your deductions."

~*~*~*~

The November sky looked gloomier today, like the world had been covered with a dark grey blanket with small holes of sunshine bursting through it. Or maybe it really was nicer than she thought. The sky always looked miserable to her.

She waited, feeling like her feet were frozen to the ground. She kept shifting her weight between them as though she felt she was going to fall over any time soon. At this rate, it may just snow. She quickly buttoned the last button on her jacket, which was the only one left open.

Then she heard the door of the shop close, and the man stepped out, putting on his mittens. "Jade..."

She took a deep breath. She was expecting this.

"...Lilith Holmes is alive?"

She started nodding without even realizing, like her muscles were moving without her control. "...yep."

When she looked up at him, he was smiling in utter shock, something she did not expect. "Wow- I, I just saw it on the telly inside. Did you know? Why didn't you tell me?"

She quickly grabbed the coffee cup from his hand and began marching down the street, with him quickly following at her heel. "I found out last night."

"I thought you were at the bridal shop last night."

She smiled ahead of her, but it wasn't a happy one. It was a murderous one, one she'd seen on so many criminals before in her lifetime. Like she was plotting someone's doom right then and there, the steaming coffee in her hand. "She showed up at the shop, actually. Dressed up like a bloody employee and surprised me."

He snorted, his peachy short hair blowing in the wind. "I can't believe it- that's insane. Oh my God."

"I'd rather not talk about it anymore," she told him bluntly, refusing to look at him as though he was the one she was furious with.

He frowned. "Uh, why not? I thought you'd be happy with it." He quickened his pace and ran up so he was in front of her, and began walking backwards to look at her. "You don't look very happy, you know." He reached out and used his finger to gently raise the edge of her mouth upwards, mimicking a smile. "This is how you look happy, in case you forgot."

She grumpily swatted his hand away, not meaning to be so rude. "Yes, thank you. It's just that even after two whole years, Lilith's not changed."

"What, she's still a super clever and snarky detective? No surprise there, honestly, Jade."

"She's still an arrogant, cold prick."

He paused, and then registered how the whole situation was affecting his fiance.

"I mean, can you believe her?" Jade suddenly began a rant, her coffee burning in her hands. "She thinks she can just walk back into town and come back to me like she just went on vacation! And she's got no idea what she's done! Honestly, I-I would just rather her not come back at all."

The taller man frowned at her, biting on his lip as he let her words echo through the empty air. She looked to be on the verge of bursting into tears, and it broke his heart. He wished he could meet Lilith Holmes to tell her everything she didn't know. "You don't mean that, do you?"

"I do."

"Save the I Do's for the wedding, Jade," he joked lightly, but then realized it might not have been the right time for jokes. She rolled her eyes a bit, the way she normally did when he made his usual lame jokes, but she still looked like a broken doll on the inside. "But seriously, you should give her a chance."

"Why should I?"

"Tomorrow," he told her, sipping his coffee. "Tomorrow you'll go and see her."

"Are you crazy?"

He smirked. "Absolutely." He leaned in to give her a quick, gentle kiss on her forehead before they continued down the road. She still felt cold even after they arrived back home.

~*~*~*~

Lilith stood on the couch, her weight sinking her feet into the cushion, staring at the wall before her. She had moved the entire couch over just to face the wall. She didn't have any blackboards or anything, so she had to make do.

Catherine walked in moments later, staring at her niece standing there, using furniture for the wrong purposes like she always would. For a small moment there, she smiled, faintly, feeling like Lilith never left for a second there. She quietly set down the teapot on the table behind her, then the cup, and began pouring the steaming lot liquid into it. Her eyes stayed on Lilith, watching her like she was a species gone extinct. Which, for a long time, she had been.

"Aunty you are absolutely lucky I'm not an ordinary person," Lilith suddenly said, breaking the silence, her back still turned on her. "Because then I would be utterly weirded out by your constant staring."

"I'm sorry, Lilith," Catherine shrugged, shaking her head slightly with amusement. "How ironic, considering all I've been surrounded by lately are ordinary people."

Lilith felt a shiver crawl down her spine. "Of course. Sorry for that, by the way." It didn't sound like a very sincere apology. Lilith herself didn't know whether she was trying to be sincere or not.

"I assume you'll be moving back in," Catherine sighed, glancing around the room. "Thank the heavens."

"What about Jade?" Lilith asked, as though Jade should have been the first thing on Catherine's mind. "Will she be too?"

Catherine hesitated. She didn't know exactly how to answer the question. Lilith innocently stuck another photo of a man onto the wall with a piece of tape.

"...well, I'm going to guess no," Catherine finally confessed, leaving Lilith frowning and turning around to face her aunt. She stood there for a moment, staring at empty voids, before flopping back on her bottom to sit on the couch like a proper human. Or, at least, she did her best. She sat with her legs on the sofa and her hair slightly less defined than it was the previous night.

"What?"

"Lilith, she's getting married," Catherine told her, speaking to her like she was speaking to a toddler who didn't understand simple manners. She sighed heavily and crossed her arms over her chest. "She lives with Mason now."

"Mason," Lilith spat, the name new and unfamiliar on her tongue. "When did she even meet this man? He sounds utterly boring." Her heels tapped the bottom of the sofa as she swung them side to side. "From what I can tell all she's been doing since I've been gone is sulking and moping."

"Lilith, don't be rude."

"I'm being honest, not rude," Lilith corrected her, holding her arms up in a surrendering pose.

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Honesty itself doesn't have to be kind."

"Since when have you gotten so wise?" The new voice did not belong to Lilith, but rather a man who was now standing in the doorway to the pod, leaning gently against the wall. His umbrella was already perched at his side, like he had been standing there for some time.

"Auggie!" Catherine's eyes widened in delight as she noticed her nephew.

Lilith sighed with as much dramatic effect as she could and picked up one of the teacups, bringing it to her lips. "Thank the lords you said something. I was wondering how long you'd be standing there for."

"Now, Lilith, remember he saved your life," Catherine reminded her with a knowing look. She had only recently been caught up on everything going behind the scenes of Lilith Holme's recent adventures.

Lilith only scowled at them both as August. "I don't understand why you both keep bringing that up! What, am I supposed to feel obliged to be grateful? It's not like I couldn't get out of that myself!"

"You know sometimes I wonder if you've ever kept mentally maturing since you were a sixteen year old girl," August mumbled, sending Catherine into a small fit of giggles. He wandered over to the girls and stared at the wall behind Lilith. "I see you're still working on this case."

"Which I may even have completed if you didn't drag me out of the institute," Lilith added, her voice tinted with sass. "Quite literally, may I add-!"

"At the point it's easy to think that Jamie Moriarty just might be causing more trouble when she's dead than when she's alive," August snorted, still gazing at the chaotic wall which Lilith had covered top to bottom in papers, news articles, photographs of seemingly random people, and small maps of the city.

"All I have left is this one institute," Lilith said, turning around in her seat to stare up at the wall as well. "This is the last criminal headquarters that Moriarty managed to leave a footprint in and I need to destroy them from the inside out before they can do any harm to the kingdom."

"Who are all the trolls you've got photos of?"

"Ah, yes," Lilith nodded at them all. "Agents of the network. Or, I should say Moriarty's network. She somehow managed to wrap them all under her finger in the last few months of her life. They've all been acting oddly strangely in the last little bit, though."

August frowned at the wall, looking as though he was mentally printing out memories of the people in his brain. "These are all international agents from around the globe. The government's been after them for weeks, Aunty. Lilith and I have been trying to demolish every last imprint Jamie Moriarty has left in the criminal system of Trollstopia."

Lilith eagerly pointed to a photo on the wall of a middle aged man, who's photo had been taken of him walking down the street with his hands in his coat pockets. "Felix McOllie. Or, at least, that's the name he's been going under. Forty-one year old rock-pop troll who's been spending an awful lot of time near the hotel a few blocks from here, and for the past fifteen days he's gone to make a phone call right in front of the hotel  at 5pm." She was struggling to stay balanced on her knees as she reached up to point to another photo. "Eva Grant. Also false name. She's been taking the same route downtown Trolldon for the past two and a half weeks. Everyone on here follows a similar pattern."

Catherine stared at the wall like she was just told the world was ending and didn't know how to comprehend that.

"I've got my own agents keeping a close eye on them," August chimed in, crossing his arms. "They're continuing that pattern as we speak."

"Complete waste of many men's time," Lilith muttered with a timid look.

August mumbled some sort of rude comment in retort, to which Lilith scoffed back at, and Catherine gave him a swat on the head as she stood up and walked to the kitchen. She then made eye contact with Lilith, and the two smiled. Catherine hadn't felt this happy in a long time.

August and Lilith sat there in comfortable silence for some time, while their aunt did whatever sort of work she did in the kitchen to keep herself busy. For a moment there, Lilith remembered those lazy Sunday mornings when she and Jade had no cases to work on, no gruesome murders or bizarre kidnappings, and Catherine would come over to chat and make tea and biscuits, and they would all sit around and talk and relax. On the occasional days August would pop in randomly, either to scold Lilith about something or to bring her a new case. Most of the time they were boring, unwanted cases. Lilith remembered the way Jade would laugh when she mentioned how August's cases were as useless and boring as Biggie Anderson.

Whatever happened to Anderson, by the way?

At some point August looked up from the newspaper he was looking through, which he had snatched from the coffee table before him and began reading. "You haven't reconciled with Dr. Watson yet?"

"I've met her."

"And judging by the expression on your face at the moment, and her..." He glanced around the room, making his point. "...lack of presence at the moment, she isn't thrilled with you?"

"Fantastic deductions, August," Lilith mumbled back, as she turned back to her wall and began scanning it again like she was a printer. "Would you like a metal for that?"

"Fine," August sighed, flapping the newspaper open again and looking down again. He noticed the large, bold headlines on the front page. His sister's name was a part of it, no surprise there. "Anything else?"

"Well I did try to talk to her after last night," Lilith told him, with no emotion in her voice, like she was sick of this topic.

"And would it be daring to ask what she said, although I don't really care?"

"Fuc-"

~*~*~*~

"-K OFF!"

Mason instantly dropped his mug as her voice went booming through the flat. He shivered and wondered what it was this time. Quickly, he bent down and scrambled to pick up the now broken cup, tossed it all in the trash can, and scrambled to the sitting room where he found her standing with her phone to her ear and her face set in a scowl.

"NO, I will NOT like to be on your calling list!" And with thar, Jade slammed her finger on the screen and hung up. She noticed him standing there like a scared kitten. "Scam caller. Honestly, annoying as hell."

"Right," Mason nodded slightly, wondering how he was going to explain to her that he broke a mug. Maybe he just wouldn't. "You seem... wonderfully agitated this morning. Ever since we got back from the coffee shop you get mad at the smallest things."

"No I don't!"

He raised an eyebrow. "You yelled at the microwave earlier for taking too long to heat your scones."

"Minor inconvenience."

"Jade." He looked her in the eye, a small smile forming on his face. "Go see her. Please. I know you're angry, and hurt, and getting quite frustrated with... lots of things, but sitting around here isn't going to help."

She was looking at her phone. "It's almost nine. I should get to the hospital."

"Just promise me after work you'll go and see her?" He realized he was talking to someone who was already leaving the room. She didn't respond, but he knew she heard him. He sighed and hoped that she would.

~*~*~*~

"Oh my-" Catherine had heard the curse from the kitchen, and shook her head doubtfully as she scrubbed a pot in the sink. "Doesn't sound like she's in the mood to talk anymore."

"You are painfully correct, Aunty," Lilith shrugged back. Within the next minute her attention was focused back on the wall, staring and staring at it like it was a giant jigsaw puzzle she had been trying to solve for months. Which, in a way, was completely correct.

August only rolled his eyes, flipped the newspaper page, and wondered how long until it would take these idiots to figure everything out.

~*~*~*~

Anderson was in a slight pickle.

He remembered making dozens of calls that day, to all sorts of people. He felt like he was some important businessman who suddenly got a huge promotion. He decided that was the best way to summarize the entire morning.

He spent a lot of time sitting in the flat alone. At some point, when he felt stiff from sitting down so long as his voice was on the verge of disappearing from all the talking about Lilith Holmes, he got up and stood at the window. Everything was the same. The cars moved the same way they always did below, the people walking down the street moved no faster or slower. But he knew, just like everyone else knew, that things were changing. At a very rapid speed.

He thought about calling Jade Watson so many times that day. He knew she had to have heard of the news, possibly had reunited with her best friend. He knew Branch Lestrade and Poppy Donovan would have known. He could only imagine everyone's reactions. Maybe some of them cried.

He felt so real. He was right. Everybody told him otherwise but he was right. It felt so surreal. He kept having to pinch himself to tell him that this was real, he was right, and Lilith Holmes was back.

Ah yes, the pickle. Right, of course.

As he stood there, at the window, Biggie Anderson did not hear the new person enter the room, and he did not realize what was happening before the hand clamped over his mouth and he didn't have time to scream.

~*~*~*~

Jade was going to see Lilith.

She did not want to in any way. In fact she would rather be doing anything than this, but somehow she found herself standing on Baker Street again, feeling the wind prick at her face like needles. There was a sense of dread in the air. She had no idea if Lilith was even here. She could be wasting her time. She was wasting her time.

She looked down the street and saw the same group of young children that she saw when she came over yesterday. She was certain she was hallucinating them. She felt cold all of a sudden.

She was going to do it. She had to. She was going to knock on the door and find Lilith Holmes and whatever would happen next would just be undecided. It scared her half to death.

She wondered if Lilith was standing inside and had already noticed her. Maybe she was watching from the window. Waiting, tapping her foot impatiently like she always did. She often did that with clients when she was waiting for them.

She stepped up to the door. The children were still there, taunting her without saying a word.

She raised her hand up, trembling. She felt like the world was closing in on her, sucking the life force out of her body. Draining her of breath.

She was seconds from knocking before she felt the cold, sharp needle press into the side of her neck.