Nora pressed her fingers to Angeline’s pulse and found a heartbeat. The relief she felt was so strong that she nearly collapsed back onto the floor next to Doogle’s dead body.

“I hate you for making me do this,” Slade said from behind Nora at the doorway. “We were in this together. You promised me you couldn’t be turned. Fucking beast slut, that’s all you are,” he said through clenched teeth. His hand was holding the gun with the poisonous darts kept for the sole purpose of killing traitors.

Nora knew she could throw the knife she picked up off of Doogle and take out Slade. In fact, she knew she could probably do it before he got his shot off but the way he was crying. It was just like that day. That day when they held onto each other in the back of the wagon after they’d both lost the only family they’d ever known.

As angry as his words were, she could see his raw pain in his eyes. It was like he’s just realized who’d she’d been for him all these years. Who they were for each other.

Angeline’s warning that Slade would be the one to kill her was still fresh in her mind and here he was ready to do just that. She should throw the knife, she knew she should.

“I loved you,” he cried. His hand was shaking, his trigger finger trembling. “Throw it,” he yelled surprising Nora. He knew she had the knife?

Nora shook her head.

“That’s selfish, you know that? You’re making me be the one who has to kill you. Fucking bitch.”

“You don’t have to kill me, Slade. You can leave right now and leave this life full of hatred and murder behind,” Nora said.

“She’s inside interrogation,” one of the HRAF yelled out from behind the protective wall.

Slade crossed the space between them when Nora looked toward the other guy who’d just yelled out her location. The barrel of the gun pressed against her chest right over her heart. “You always seem to escape death, don’t you Nora? Not this time.” He pulled the trigger.

The sharp pain that came with a hard punch to her chest hurt but the pain immediately following was much worse. Nora crumpled to the floor screaming as the traitor’s fire began to pump throughout her veins. The pain was so strong that it was nearly all that existed.

Shaking.

She couldn’t tell if it was her body or the room shaking. The strobing lights caught Slade in freeze frames it seemed as he unsheathed his knife with his gaze on Angeline’s stomach.

Nora thrust her knife up into his thigh, cutting the artery located there. He screamed but Nora couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own screaming. The knife pulled out with a twist as Nora’s body stiffened and her back arched up off the floor, the traitor’s fire increasing in intensity over her back like she was lying in a fire. No matter how much she arched, rolled or moved she wouldn’t escape this fire.

Killian appeared as if out of nowhere. He was lifting Angeline from the table.

The pain that began in Nora’s chest was suddenly sharp again. Her body was too stiff, the pain too great to move even to breathe. It was one of the final stages of the poison.

It’ll be over soon. It’s almost over.

She lost consciousness blackness closing in briefly only to have it recede as the fire feeling eased enough she was able to draw in breath only to have the fire in her veins rekindle and burn as the poison was designed. This process would repeat until she finally suffocated.

The pain was like new and she couldn’t stop herself from letting out the scream filled with agony.

The sky? Or is that heaven?

Ian’s face twisted in torment blocked out the sun from her eyes. The pained look and sadness on his face, worse than Slade’s had been when he knew he was going to have to kill her.

Nora clamped her mouth shut fighting the need to scream so that she might hear what he was saying before she died.

“… I’m so sorry. I have no other choice.”

He’s going to end my misery.

Nora wanted to tell him it was okay. It was the right thing to do to end this pain. But her body was already stiffening up again on it’s way to freezing up completely and cutting off her air again.

This time was faster than the last time since her mouth was frozen shut. It was harder to breathe earlier. The sky that was so bright behind Ian fell black. Ian’s eyes were the last thing she saw.

Goodbye, my love.