Chapter Text
“Way to go, Silver, another one of your terrible ideas…”
Her voice dragged out of her throat like it, too, was bleeding. She leaned her weight into the construction rail, wolfish hand splayed across the torn ruin of her stomach, claws pressing hard enough to make the metal groan beneath her grip. The snow below had long since given up its purity. It was mottled and soaked, crimson threading through white in uneven constellations that marked every staggered step she had taken toward the exit. Golden eyes fixed on that distant opening with a stubborn, almost childish defiance. It was there. She had nearly made it.
“…So close to it going differently.”
The wind swallowed the rest.
Leather creaked against steel somewhere behind her. Her ears flicked before her mind caught up, and she turned just in time to see a man easing his head past a concrete pillar, pistol already trained on her. The muzzle flashed. The report shattered the night and reverberated through bone and beam alike. She flinched but did not falter. Her right hand snapped the lever action down and back up in one fluid motion, chambering a round by muscle memory alone. The rifle answered with a violent bark. Concrete burst apart. The man’s body jerked and folded, collapsing against the pillar before sliding down into the snow.
Silence reclaimed the skeleton of the building in ragged pieces.
She had counted them before the pain began to thin her thoughts. Fifteen.
Now there were none.
Her shoulders drooped, the rifle hanging heavy at her side as she approached the last man she had put down. His blood spilled down the steps behind him, trailing toward the overlook where the Hudson rolled in dark indifference. The city beyond shimmered in electric halos, reflected light trembling across black water like something unreal. Snow crunched under her boots as she descended, each step less certain than the last, until she reached the bench waiting at the edge of it all.
The wind moved without mercy. It lifted sheets of snow into the air and scattered them across the overlook, hissing against stone and wood. She dropped onto the bench with a breath that almost broke in half, back settling against frozen slats while her clawed hand pressed again into her stomach. Blood ran warm over skin already paling toward porcelain, sliding between her fingers and dripping down onto the drift beneath her boots. She stared out at the Hudson, watching the city lights blur and sharpen with each uneven blink. The moon washed everything in sterile silver, as if the night sought to disguise what she had done beneath something cleaner.
It reminded her of summer. On another bench. Abrams sitting beside her with that steady patience that felt almost unnatural in a world like this. They had overlooked the same river after an arrest that should have spiraled into catastrophe but did not. He had talked her down from a ledge she never admitted she had been standing on. When she muttered a quiet thank you, awkward and unpracticed, he had only said you needed it. No sermon. No smugness. Just a simple fact. He was one of the few who had survived her orbit, and she suspected it was because he never tried to fight it head on. He simply endured it.
The memory faded as another tremor shook her. Stupid missions. Stupid pride. Always throwing herself into the meat grinder and acting surprised when it chewed back. She set the rifle between her knees and fumbled inside her jacket for the flask she knew she should not rely on. The weight betrayed it instantly. Empty. Still she brought it to her lips, popped the cork free with her teeth, and tilted it back like an idiot hoping for a miracle.
Nothing. Just the faint sweetness of honeyed whiskey clinging to the rim. She swallowed air and let the flask drop from her fingers. It struck a stone and rolled away into the dark.
When she dared pull her hand from her wound to look, she almost laughed at the stubbornness of it. The bleeding had not slowed. It welled and pulsed with cruel determination, staining coat and bench alike. She pressed her claw back into torn flesh and hissed through her teeth, dragging air into her lungs that smelled of iron, gunpowder, and winter.
Then something else cut through it.
Earthy. Sweet. Thick.
Frankincense.
She turned her head slowly. A gaunt figure stood a short distance behind the bench, hands pressed together in quiet composure. Crosses and rosaries draped his narrow frame, catching the amber glow of an oil lamp positioned just behind him. Grey traced through his hair. Black fabric hung severe and deliberate from his shoulders. A crossbow rested along his back, its outline stark against the light, and a thurible swayed at his hip, smoke curling upward in patient spirals.
Of course.
“Are you kidding me,” she rasped, a crooked grin tugging at bloodless lips. Her gaze dragged over the crossbow and the incense. “Did I miss the memo where exorcisms come with ballistic support?”
The man did not flinch at the mockery. He stepped closer, boots soft against snow.
“Let me help you, child.”
No disgust colored his tone. No fear. Just an infuriating, steady resolve.
Silver squinted up at him, vision threatening to tunnel. “You’re late,” she muttered. “If you’re here to hunt the monster, she’s already bleeding out. Saves you the paperwork.”
He ignored that too. His hands reached her with practiced precision, pressing firm pressure into her wound, binding, tightening. The pain flared white and vicious, dragging a raw sound from her throat. The thurible swung gently, smoke thickening the air until the metallic stench of blood dulled beneath something older and heavier. Words slipped from his lips in a low murmur, not loud enough to command the night, but steady enough to challenge it.
Her heart pounded erratically against her ribs. For a moment she felt the river rising to meet her, vast and patient and ready to swallow. The city lights flickered at the edges of her vision.
Then the pressure at her stomach shifted. Not gone. Controlled.
Her pulse, frantic and uneven, began to find rhythm again. Breath entered her lungs and stayed there instead of stuttering out. The cold still bit at her skin. The pain still clawed at her insides. But the darkness that had been pressing in from all sides retreated by a fraction. Enough.
She blinked up at the Venator, smoke wreathing his silhouette like something half holy and half absurd. A weak, incredulous huff left her.
Her fingers twitched against his sleeve, testing sensation. Testing reality. The river remained where it belonged. The skyline still burned bright against the night.
She drew in another breath. It hurt. It was real.
“…fuck...” she muttered, almost disappointed, almost relieved.
“...That’s inconvenient.”