The room is bright.
Sunlight plays across the furniture, glinting off of the metal bowl which had been thrown to the ground and reflecting the world into the contained ground on the television screen. Drops of wax stain the floor and a small pile of ash sits only a few meters away. The bowl is upturned beside it, as if someone had tried and failed to trap a spider. A fold out table lays almost on top of the bowl, the table top having detached almost completely from the remains of the legs. A small black cloth is trapped beneath the top
The house itself is silent, every clock stopped, stuck on a single moment.
Outside there is the faint noise of small animals and the wind through trees.
Rowena lays still for a little longer, collapsed where she had fallen.
Slowly she brings her limbs in. The woman wraps her arms around her chest and blows out a heavy breath. Her hands tremble.
It's then that she begins to cry.
The witch's face crumples as she pulls her head into her arms.
The angel's touch still claws at her skin. She remembers burning and flames, can feel where the raw skin hasn't yet healed even though he fixed it all up. The pain of being burned alive was something she had never cared about before but somehow in the superficiality of the wounds he had given her he had burned deeper than the witch hunters who had tried to burn her entirely.
There are marks she can still feel which he hadn't fixed yet. The small nicks of knives or whatever he had to hand are nothing to be worried about but if anything scars the witch doesn't know how she will take it. These too hurt more and seem to slice deeper than any real attempt on her life has done before.
Worst of all is where he touched her with his vessel's body.
The memories blare whenever she closes her eyes and she shudders as she feels his hands close around her throat, choking her.
"You've always wanted this, haven't you? And I could just snap your neck right now- just like I did before."
Her heart rises into her neck and she curls up smaller, trying to remind herself that it's over.
The feeling of flesh against flesh would always haunt her.
The way he told her to get dressed, his vessel's breath too close to her skin. The way he always pressed himself against her, just so he could feel how scared she was. The way he had strangled her and laughed, again and again and again.
Her screams still repeat in her head, overlaid with sobbing and laughter until it echoes.
"Stop!" It comes out a whisper. She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes.
"Stop!" But she knows it won't for a long time.
Somehow his boredom was more terrifying than everything she had ever faced before.
"Don't kill me!"
His lips almost touching her neck, tasting her vulnerability.
"Why would I do that? There's still a few little favours I need from you. Of course when I've no need for you I'll snap your head clean off but I've still got time- we've still got time, little witch." Cold hands.
All of a sudden the room feels frozen.
She tries to blast open the windows but nothing comes forth, her powers drained too much by the complicated spell work. The witch feels the bile rising in her throat and rolls herself onto her knees, breathing heavily.
"Stupid angel." She laughs hollowly, somehow feeling a little better.
"Didn't think you'd be tricked by a witch." Rowena stands, legs still shaking and arms clasped around her body.
The witch leaves the room then, ignoring the remains of the fight.
She dresses again and makes a cup of tea.
Her mind is silent, numb, as she sits and stares into the forest. She remembers his hands around her neck and constant fear and screaming and her weary body aches for her home.
The sunlight falls over her, gently warming her skin and hair, ever so slowly thawing Lucifer's ice. The house sighs through the open windows.