A/N: Can we talk about the screaming chemistry between Frank and Karen for a moment? Because I am done for. Every single detail, be it his face when he looks at her or the way she bends over backward to defend his name, hooked me in line and sinker and the rest is history. That being said, this story will be my take on season 2 and the aftermath that follows in its wake. Enjoy!

Hell is empty
and all the devils are here

~William Shakespeare~

Fear was a familiar thing now, pulsing quick beneath her skin. There was a time when she would have had no choice but to let it consume her. Freeze her mind, motions, and every instinct that fought to keep her calm, quiet – alive.

But that was long before she had moved to New York.

Now the sensation that rose the hairs at the back of her neck could only mean one thing.

The sound of her seat belt clicking securely around her just barely cut through the blaring Earth Wind and Fire song with an almost humorous irony to it, but before she let herself think too much, she shut the music off mechanically at the Colonel's sharp command, and focused instead on the road passing steadily beneath the wheels. She breathed and breathed, knuckles just beginning to turn white around the steering wheel when the thought struck her.

To everyone else she must seem batshit crazy – it was dangerously close to common knowledge that where Karen Page chose to go, danger usually followed – but if it meant bringing to light another piece of the puzzle, she'd throw caution to the wind and chase her calling.

This time she half-hoped it would ring true.

The barrel of the Smith and Wesson twitching just an inch from her temple briefly won the fight for her attention, bringing with it lucid memories of the ever-growing list of times she'd had the misfortune of staring one down.

There was the abandoned warehouse – a sudden, unexpected flip of circumstances driven by fear and sheer adrenaline, leaving scarlet stains of red blossoming along a crisp, white undershirt – a sight that she never really could erase from her skin, nor the worst of her nightmares.

Then there had been the star of them. Fisk. Each night there for a while, silently waiting for her in the darkest corners of her conscious, reaping his revenge in any number of imaginative ways depending on how much she had to drink that night. After too long though, the darkness had become something she had learned to easily navigate, leaving him no places left to hide. Leaving only a lifeless man in a cold metal chair instead, red on white.

Until only weeks ago, fresh on the front her mind like the permanent stain of black ink, there had been the hospital hallway.

By no means had Grotto been a saintly man – she clung diligently onto her compassion in a place that saw it as insanity, sure, but she was far from stupid. This man had been a career criminal for far longer than she'd even held the understanding of what exactly that meant… but he was their client, too and had come to them begging for help. So she put on her best New Yorker act and pledged her undying love for her injured 'husband'. Lied right to the administrators' and nurses' faces and not a single one noticed. It was infuriating and exhilarating and liberating all at once.

At that moment, she thought she knew exactly why it was that the Devil of Hell's Kitchen put on the mask every night and took the burdens of the city onto his own shoulders. Why he hid his face from the stifling grasp of the streets and the eyes of the people he protected.

Because it was all for show. A symbol. Meant to make the public believe that criminals quaked in fear at the thought of carrying out crime in even the dimmest lit back-allies. To make people feel safe in their own homes.

To lie.

There were no heroes in Hell's Kitchen.

The faintest sound of struggle had whispered through the walls of the hospital room and every synapse along her skin spit flame. She'd grabbed up Grotto without second thought and towed him toward the hallway.

The first shot rang out from behind them, exploding through the tight space and shuddering her to the core. Another followed almost instantly. Nurses and patrons screamed, calls for security were fired off, and her heart hammered loud in her ears– but she only truly heard the sound of heavy, booted footsteps reverberating off the walls behind them.

Karen's hand found the back of Grotto's left arm, towing him toward her mid-sprint, just in time for the third and fourth shots to splinter the wall where his back would have been. She turned to push him around the corner toward the fire exit before her and risked a glance back.

Wide eyes found exactly what they had expected to – the lone, terrifying man, once mistaken for an army – a figure in all black from jacket to boots, so broad that his shadow in the remaining fluorescents splayed across the tiled floor, nearly bridging the distance between them. Her focus lowered to the matching shotgun he held at his chest – black as night, pointed directly at her – she watched him just long enough to see a large hand jerk the grip back and prepare another shot.

Karen turned the corner and bolted, pushing against the top of Grotto's back when she caught up to him at the top of the stairs, running right off his heels. Her upper body tensed, expecting the excruciating pain of hot steel to tear through her at any moment in a haphazard attempt to reach its target.

But it never came.

That had been her first clue.

It was the driving force behind her decision to join 'team Matt' when it came to the alarming idea of representing Frank Castle in court.

He had killed people in cold blood, deserved every second that he would be sitting in jail for it, but the huge man strapped down in that hospital bed was not the monster that everyone labeled him to be. Monsters didn't care about anything – not their families, their memories, and definitely not about innocent life. But he – Frank, had asked to speak with her and her alone. Asked her to stay, please, and help him remember. Looked her in the eye and swore she was never in any danger – not with him. But it was only afterwards, when he spoke of his family – his lips curving up with the ghosts of wounded smiles as he shared with her the bittersweet memories of their time together - that she believed him. Every word.

He was alone. Having to relive his worst nightmare day-in and day-out without any form of redemption or resolution, apart from that he found in the trigger of a gun. He was a war hero without a war, so he brought one with him wherever he went. And, like each of the resulting casualties along the way, he did not deserve to die for his sins.

Karen handed him the picture of his family, bringing a look to his eyes that left her feeling every bit like the criminal she was for breaking into his home and forcing herself into the most private parts of his life. He would only glance at it every so often while he spoke with her, as if taking the time to focus on each of their faces would lead him to their fate.

The man himself was not cold blooded. Not so much as they believed. And if his methods labeled him a monster in their eyes, what would that make her?

That night would be the first of many that brought her no inkling of rest. Instead, she would spend the entirety of it with a pot of coffee and yellowing news prints, digging until she pieced together the puzzle that was the truth. Anything to keep him from getting the death penalty that Reyes was so viciously pushing for her own personal gain.

If Matt noticed the next morning at the office, she was thankful he had chosen this specific occasion not to ask – but she knew well before he pulled her off to the side to insist that she didn't have to face Frank alone again if she didn't want to that feigning PTSD was not going to work. It was clear the man was not crazy, and was certainly not suffering from anything caused by the hardships of a faraway war.

And she was not afraid of Frank Castle. Not anymore.

So she went to him again, spending nearly half an hour being searched from head to toe. Fingers rifled through every one of her files. Paperclips were discarded. And she was uniformly regarded by each set of eyes on her as if she were just shy of senseless.

He watched her enter the interrogation room with a permanent glower on his beat up face, acknowledging her with a quiet "ma'am" and hawk-like eyes. The cool, solid chair was a pleasant contradiction against her back as she sat down across from him and held his gaze, the challenge of it alone exhilarating in its own right. Chains at his wrist jingled in the silence as he rested his hands for her to see on the table between them.

Something changed when his eyes flickered down to the faint shadows beneath hers.

"You found somethin'."

Her hands suddenly itched to fuss with her face. It wasn't fair. Where she had to fight for leads and dig through the dirt to find the facts she sought out, he only needed his sight.

Instead, she cleared her throat and tried her spiel. Nearly an hour's worth of convincing had been organized and filed within the sections of her small briefcase, but just as she'd suspected, he would hear nothing of it. Frank's interest lied only in one matter. He was at war with his past just as much as he was with those he punished, and she was certain it could be the only thing that saved him. Her temper had always been a fiery thing, but him failing to see so for himself was the kindle.

Karen threw a hand out in frustration. "All of them – they all think that you're a monster… But I know that you're not." A look of disbelief and something softer passed through his bruised eyes. "You're not."

His brow twitched. "You sure about that?" He asked, infuriatingly calm.

Karen shoved back blonde locks from her neck and sighed. She wanted to be, but to prove it they would both need more time.

The idea of calling Frank to the witness stand at his own trial was one that sat uneasy in her gut. He would have to tell his tragic story out loud to every stranger in attendance, and though she knew it was the only way for the real truth to be told, something about the idea of it beckoned to a more primal side of her that she had not known existed until he entered the room, garnered in a tieless suit and chains.

She instantly regretted asking him to do it. They did not deserve to hear his reasons with the way they berated him, stoning him with vulgar signs and slurs as he walked the gauntlet that was the main hall of the courtroom. He showed no signs of their effect on him and Karen could only wonder how with the way they scalded her.

If she was honest with herself, something deep within her unwillingly blamed Matt while she watched him push and prod with his questioning, until finally all of her hard work and sleepless nights were flushed down the drain. The sleeping beast was poked once too many times and woke up to tame his masters.

I want you to know that I'd do it all again…

Frank had looked right at her for the smallest of seconds, right into her face, enough for her to catch the terrifying shift in his expression.

I know what I did. I know who I am. And I do not need your help!

She clasped her hands hard over her mouth as he morphed into the monster everyone wanted him to be, roaring deep curses through the courtroom, man after man piling on to restrain him.

The worst of it had to be over.

She liked to think of herself as a strong woman molded by a past laced in venom, and both the financial district and the laws of the land in one of the most ferocious cities in the world. There was also staring death in the face on three... four? separate occasions, and surviving to relive their darkness in her downtime.

But this was something else entirely. This was a lie accepted as the truth and she could no longer be a part of it. It was a convincing show, sure, but that man on the witness stand was merely playing an assigned role. Doing what he was told. Following orders. Only to be confirmed when a mere two days later, they released the name of the cell block he had escaped from. The same one that housed Wilson Fisk.

Before the city even had a chance to brace for the impact, the attacks started again.

Karen could admit to not liking Reyes in the least. In fact, after what she'd just learned about her involvement in the deaths of Frank's family, her feelings very closely edged disgust, but when she peered up at her lifeless body hunched over her desk in a pool of her own blood, murdered right before her eyes, she could only think of the woman's daughter and the lifetime of pain that would come with her death. It was the kind that drove good people to do bad things.

Matt's weight lifted off of her and immediately she tore herself away from the thought and instead tended to the muffled moans of pain coming from Foggy. He had luckily not been hit in a critical spot, but it was enough to let her know that they were just as much a target as anyone else on his list.

She had gotten too close. Lost all objective. Knew too much. The offer of police protection was one she would put up a fight against Ellison about, but only due to the small voice that cried out guiltily at the back of her mind, warning her that it could only mean two more innocent lives getting caught in the crossfire.

Frank had made a point once to mention his precision in an attempt to make her feel safe. One shot, one kill.

If he wanted her dead, she would die. It was that simple.

So she waved out the brave pair of New York's finest with a halfhearted retort and rushed to her bed to grab the files, filled from cover to cover with the names of other people that could potentially be sitting in a very similar, terrifying position as her. But she doubted it. Some things just still didn't quite add up. The skull photo found in Reyes' daughter's backpack, unjustifiable targets – Foggy surviving the hit... Not exactly the Punisher's MO.

As she gathered her things, the calling-card sound of a struggle came from just beyond her door, beginning and ending in the span of three quick rasps of her heart.

Her purse was quickly discarded onto the bed before she knelt down, slid open her middle dresser drawer, and pulled out the loaded .380 that rested inside.

The cool metal of the grip had just begun to match the temperature of her skin when she drew it up in front of her.

Karen's lip curled coldly when she saw him, his frame filling the span of her doorway and closing off her only escape. Icy fear curled up each inch of her spine and hummed in the back of her skull. He moved with slow paces across the threshold, arms held out to either side of him submissively, empty palms open in the air. He softly shushed her, the sound barely coming in over the beat of her heart in her ears and doing nothing to slow it.

"Hands on your head Frank," she hissed through her teeth, fingers slick around the gun aimed square at his chest. Her thumb cocked the hammer back "I mean it…"

"It wasn't me," he drawled quietly, and she wanted so badly to believe him – to lower her weapon and uncover the real story – because right now this one felt anything but right.

The feeling refused to release its hold on her trigger finger until the gun was knocked from her grip and a huge mass hovered over her, warming the air with the scents of coffee grounds and gunpowder, and shielding every inch of her comparably small frame from rogue shrapnel. Shock locked her muscles and blurred her eyes. She felt the press of rough hands against her head, his instincts surpassing her own at protecting the most vital part of her from shards of piercing hail.

The shots only went on for a few seconds, but it could have been years before the air finally stilled around them and the weight of him let up off her just enough for her to greedily draw a breath into tight lungs.

"Jesus Christ…" she exhaled, turning her face up, finding his hovering inches above. Wild eyes surveyed the space around them.

"Believe me now?" He asked, distracted. "We gotta' get out of here. Stay low."

Only when he lifted himself to his knee, still using his own body to shield her from the view of the windows, did she allow the confirmation of the truth she'd always known was there to settle her chest.

"Get in," he said over his shoulder, motioning toward the passenger door of her car as he moved quickly around to the driver side, somehow producing the keys from his pants pocket.

Karen's fingertips brushed against the handle and she faltered, looking over the car at him at the same time the electric doors unlocked in unison. She flinched at the sound and glanced behind her.

"We need to talk somewhere safe." He swung his door open, fingers tight around the frame. Something about his sense of urgency caught her off guard and choked a cynical retort in her throat. Days ago, she had been the one to try and get Grotto 'somewhere safe', and that was as far away from the man before her as possible. His eyes met hers when she didn't move. "Please, ma'am." Impatience tightened his voice.

Trapped between him and the unnameable threat that followed close behind, she ignored her better judgment and slid into the seat.

"Buckle up," he said, shifting the car into drive, and with that they were tearing through the city like hell on wheels.

Karen watched the buildings blur by, numb to the reckless speed they were traveling – to everything aside from the haunting new question that berated her mind like Josie's scotch.

"If that wasn't you… then who was it?" She asked aloud, more to the air than Frank.

"I don't know," he confessed, the words holding a certain strain of guilt that felt misplaced in her ears. He pressed the pedal down a little harder. "Not yet."

Karen turned to look at him, a bleak expression tugging at her features.

"We have to go to the police with this – they're on a man-hunt for the wrong man while whoever this is has free reign on the city… If they find out I'm still alive, they're going to try again," she ran her hand across her face, fiercely swiping at tears before they could fall free. The other frantically searched in her coat pocket for her cell phone "I – I have to call Foggy."

"Wait a second," Frank's hand moved toward her wrist and she jerked away, the harsh reflex to his action undeserved but ingrained within her just the same. He stilled, letting it linger passively in the air between them. His eyes flicked between her and the road. "Okay, just breathe for a second, okay… Just breathe." He repeated, and something about the way the words rolled on his voice helped more than it should have.

Only then did he return his hand back to the wheel.

"Listen to me," he started as he pulled smoothly into a parallel spot, right in front of the police station as if the entire force wasn't out for his blood. He met her eyes. "You go in there and get all the help you need, but I can't be involved… not yet."

"But Frank…" she began.

"No." he paused, nostrils flaring. "No. You were right. Whoever did this… whoever found you will do so again way before the cops can figure out who's pullin' the trigger, and I can't have them getting in my way."

Her brow furrowed over eyes that grew more mystified by his every word.

"In your way? You expect me to lie to the police so you can pick up where this maniac left off?" Her arms locked defiantly in her lap. "I'm not a part of your legal team anymore Frank. I have no laws to protect me from this. If I go in there and give them a false story, that's perjury. A felony. Jail time," she pressed. "I'm being hunted out here in broad daylight. Can you imagine what would happen to me in prison?"

Frank's face went unreadable.

After a moment, his head bobbed forward three times in quick nods, a single long finger restless against the steering wheel. "Okay – Okay look, just give me a chance to find some information. After that, it's all yours to do whatever you want with. Tell the cops everything, write your story, whatever you want," all at once, russet eyes drove into her like rain onto the earth and she internally fought back against the drowning sensation. Had she even mentioned her story to him? "I just need some more time."

This wasn't right and she knew it. She was playing right into his hand. What would Matt and Foggy think if they found out that she was harboring a fugitive? More specifically, one that had put all of their lives in danger.

But now, she had to take into account that he had saved hers once too.

She exhaled through her nose.

"Dammit. Fine. But I get to go with you." Frank's jaw ticked but she continued, unfazed. "They're going to stow me in some hotel somewhere, thinking I'm safe and hidden away but I've seen firsthand that it's a pretty flawed system."

For a long while he just looked at her, his head dipping every so often as he considered her tactics and mended his own. His eyes thinned before he finally nodded again.

"I'll be waiting below."

It wasn't really lying, she kept telling herself, just an incorrect version of the truth – a mantra that got her in and out of the police station and into a protected hotel within the span of an hour. Matt had been the only thing to slow her down with his preaching and protecting, but as always it had come far too late.

Call for us if you need anything, the officers had said as they made their way down the elevator to give her some privacy.

I will, she lied to them through her teeth and the thin crack of the door, and it finally hit her how deep in shit she currently found herself.

How did she know he would even be down there waiting? Why did she want him to be? If she truly believed herself sane at that moment, feeling safer with a convicted mass murderer than the police seemed like the indefinite tipping point. She argued its merit with herself as she crept her way through the corridors, passed the heavy exit door, and down the narrow stairway that led to the underground parking garage.

A quick one-over of the space and there was her car, parked square in the middle of the lot. An old, familiar tune blared from the inside.

You're a shining star
no matter who you are
shining bright to see
what you could truly be

Karen quickly got in and shut the door.

"Seriously? You know there're cops all over, right?"

The corners of his swollen lips lifted, the same way they would each time he'd divulge a long lost memory.

"Catchy tune huh? I used to sing along to stuff like this. Imagine me doing that?"

Scary thing was, she kind of could. This man had been someone else entirely before, and this was exactly the side of him that she'd tried so hard to convince everyone else was there. Of course his mannerisms and… habits had changed drastically. If anything, it showed that he was human. Broken.

Relatable, even.

She promptly ejected the tape and and tucked it away safely away in the glove compartment, opting to look out her window instead of at him when his voice, heavy like gravel, called for her attention. Her eyes found her reflection in the glass and she did what she could to steel herself against her second thoughts before she faced him.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sounds that came from the dining room. Every time a bone snapped, glass sliced flesh, blood gurgled, – it seemed to make a point of echoing loudly off the thick metal shelving she hid within, over and over again in her ears like a fever dream that there was no waking up from.

Such a frighteningly different man this was than the one she'd shared a conversation with just minutes before. He had looked straight into her eyes and somehow knew more about her than the friends she'd worked side by side with everyday for over a year. Solved her like a riddle. It was unsettling at first, as he inquired about her history with guns, but she could only label it as innocence when he dropped his eyes to the side and asked her why she hadn't taken a shot at him back there in her apartment.

Because there was a part of her that believed in him – always had.

Frank had never given her a reason to doubt him, and from the outside she was sure that sounded absurd, especially right then as buckshot tore the small diner to pieces, but no one else had been there in that hospital room... the interrogation room, her apartment; each time a new side of him coming to light that she knew had been there long before the world he lived in fell to ruin, dragging the real Frank Castle down with it – the one who saw straight through her bullshit and called her on every one of her jumbled emotions, his own eyes ablaze with them, only to leave the mess worse for the wear.

This, though, was something she could not handle. Being stalked and hunted down like a wild animal was one thing. Being used as the bait to draw them out made her sicker than she had believed she could ever feel – until she slowly uncurled herself from the kitchen appliances after the last deafening gunshot, and peaked over the doorway to survey the damage.

The iron smell of blood hung heavy in the air, its lesser source dripping thick from Frank's lips, down his chin and white shirt, and from his fingers like scarlet rain falling lazily over the pair of disfigured men at his feet. Karen's hand shot up to hide her gasp. The sight reminded her more of the climax in an old horror movie than anything she could possibly be witnessing in real life, and she was left to guess how many times he had been the star.

His name slipped passed her lips without fully meaning for it to, pulling his shadowed gaze in her direction. He refused to meet her eyes and she was almost thankful, for fear that the blackness of them at that moment would swallow her whole.

"You call the police, get protective custody… Get away from this thing. Get away from me," he murmured, breath hitching on blood as he fought to clear it from his mouth. "Just stay away from me."

Karen watched him leave, a part of her wondering whether his warning was more for her own good or for his - or those who chose to pursue her.

That night, she told the police everything, coming clean about the apartment shooting, the diner, where he was going to be next, everything – unloading the truth so wholly from her shoulders that for the first time in months, she truly felt like she deserved to hold her head high over them again.

There was barely enough time to enjoy the feeling before the call came in, resounding in unison from the police radios that surrounded her.

All units, explosion, 41st at the pier. Proceed with extreme caution.

Sergeant Mahoney stood from his side of the desk, a knowing look lifting his brow.

"I'm going with you." Karen confirmed as she pulled her jacket from the back of her chair and followed him from the room.

Something about the scene wasn't right. Burned bodies dotted the pier, some full of bullet holes, others only partially scalded, and a few that were being pulled in parts from the water below. The scenario had Punisher written all over it – but it had been the ship that was on fire, the smoke billowing high as firefighters finished off the final burning piles of ember – not the pier, leaving it only possible that they had never been on it. They'd known he was coming and ambushed him.

"Look, I know what you're thinking. Maybe Castle survived, maybe he's still out there... He ain't." Mahoney tried to comfort her as Karen ran her eyes over each of the charred faces she could still see before they were tucked away into their body bags.

"How can you be sure?" She asked, pulling the blanket draped over her shoulders closed a little tighter around the unwarranted knot in her chest. She swallowed. "Y-you ID him yet?"

"Twenty burned bodies," Mahoney rocked on his heels. "It takes time."

"So there's a chance?" Her eyes pinned him.

Karen was sure he tried to convince her otherwise, but she hadn't heard most of it.

"Coulda been smart. Coulda let the story go down with that boat. The real Castle," he mocked. "Like you cared about him."

I did her mind screamed, not for the first time, all the while begging her to resist the urge to ignore the gun in her face, turn toward her passenger, and smack the infuriating sneer from his mouth.

If she were one to label, this is what a monster would truly look like. A decorated colonel, turned innocent-killing drug smuggler. A pathological liar that looked both judge and jury in the face, spewing endless adoration for the man whose family he'd had murdered and put a hit on to tie up loose ends.

The only person in the world who would speak for the true Frank Castle.

Sickness curled in her gut.

The truth – it had gotten her many places in her short career as a journalist, but none so dark as this. She scanned the woods around them, looking for anything that would cut through it; headlights, a porch light, or – if she would really risk letting herself fixate on how that specific cassette tape found its way back into her stereo – a figure darker than night amongst the trees – but there was nothing but blackness around her, leaving her to easily guess her captor's intentions. It unwilling brought into her subconscious the words of that damn catchy song.

Shining star come into view

"Pull over here," he ordered.

Her eyes flickered over to his tense form, noticing his seatbelt dangling lifeless against the door – and there, shining just passed him, was what she had been silently hoping for since she'd clicked off the radio. Chills spread across her skin. She only needed to make it a few more feet with her head still intact.

Shine its watchful light on you

"Pull over!" he barked again.

And with the bomb-like impact came relief so overwhelming that she woke up from its emptiness with an almost dreadful air to her thoughts. It had been the first taste of sleep she'd experienced in three days, if it could even be labeled that, but she pushed back as hard as she could against the urge to rest her forehead on the steering wheel and wither away in the wreckage.

The gravel scratched against the exposed skin of her legs when she toppled out of the mangled pile of metal, but she managed to fight to her feet, cradling her useless left arm across her midsection as she backed away.

She was alone now, lulled by only the chilled air and soft sounds of the forest.

There was blood everywhere. It coated the shards of broken glass that once made up her passenger window and streaked a wide path of gore across the pavement, trailing well past the bank of the road, up into the dark tree line and beyond her view.

Another calling card of sorts. Each time he had tried to hide it from her – this part of him. And each time she found herself chasing after him, studying his every move, searching for the angels in his demons. She knew every bit of what he was capable of – what he believed he had to do – and what he would and would not do for her.

It was why every instinct within her told her to stop, to turn around and get the hell out of this place – but like cool water to wild fire, the only possible way to earn any control of it was to catch it early.

"Frank," she called softly to the trees as she entered their veil.

The muscles in her battered legs protested against the uneven earth as she moved as quietly as she could through the brush. She heard them well before they came into view, Colonel Schoonover sending back a foolish stream of taunts pointed sharply at the man who sent a boot into the back of his knee.

Then he said it. A word that affected Frank more than the foul jab at his family, resulting in the bloodied man's spine crashing hard against the trunk of a tree. Frank's shoulders lifted with his ragged breaths as he spiraled into an angry fury that radiated through the night. She was too late.

"Khandahar!" the Colonel proclaimed with an eerie edge of glee. "You think they would ever let that go?"

The strange question stilled her. Frank unzipped his jacket, his hand going for the piece at his waistband. Karen conjured every ounce of reckless ambition she had left within her.

"Frank stop." She said firmly, grasping desperately on to the thin line that separated an order from a plea. "You don't have to kill him."

She was giving him a shot at redemption in her eyes right here. Right now. The chance she'd fought so hard to earn him – a clean slate – and she saw enough in the struggle of his own when they flickered to her to sense that a small part of him knew it too, knew exactly why she had followed the gruesome trail of warning he'd left her.

"Go back to your car." The command was dangerously quiet, but it shook the night.

"What's he talking about?" She ignored it fervently, unready to give up. "Khandahar – what's that, what happened?"

"Go."

"Did you do something?" Karen pressed. "They come after you – just tell me, tell me the truth, I'll help you figure it out," she leaned in toward him. "Just tell me the truth."

"Yeah, tell her the truth…" the Colonel sneered. "Tell her."

"Shut up!" Karen snapped at him, quickly turning her attention back over to the broken face that mirrored her. "Please, we'll figure it out," she pushed on, hearing the desperation lift her voice as she fought to keep his focus on her. "But if you kill him you will never know."

It was clear the very second the wrong words fell from her lips – signed the man's death sentence with nothing more than a few soft spoken promises. Frank's attention snapped onto her with severity that he had, until then, reserved only for his victims – a predator set free from its chains. His breathing hitched.

He snatched the man across the dirt toward a small, wooden shed nestled in the trees just a few yards away.

Karen didn't have much time. Her mind raced, searching for the right things to say – the right words to make him stop. But it was the overburdened, overpowering, permanently unresolved portion of himself that won the battle for his soul every time.

"No no no, Frank!" Her throat bit out his name, arms squeezed tight against the dread building beneath her sternum. She limped forward after them. "Listen to me – Frank! You do this and you are the monster they say you are, do you hear me!"

If he did, he paid her no mind, kicking the door of the wood shed open so hard that it was surprising it remained on its hinges. The sound pounded at her aching brain. He dragged the bloodied man inside behind him.

"You do this and I am done, that's it… You're dead to me." She put the only thing she had left to bargain with on the line. If he lost his fight, she'd lost hers too. No longer could she stand back and do nothing while people – not innocent, but still people – were murdered in cold blood right in front of her; caring far too much for a careless man.

A single kick of his boot sent the Colonel's body out of her view.

He straightened and flipped on the fluorescent shed lights, casting a broad silhouette that sheathed the forest floor in darkness right up to the tips of her shoes. The sudden brightness blinded her eyes and as she moved to close the distance – to pour every last bit of herself into the most important fight of her life – she tripped over herself, stumbling forward onto already bruised knees and fully into the shadow of him.

Frank moved forward a half step, bracing his hand against the door frame as if the hollow threshold were his prison cell.

He was nothing more than a formless blur to her now.

"Do you hear me, Frank," she repeated lower, the stone in her throat growing heavier with every word.

After a few seconds, he took a single heavy step back, the wooden floor groaning under his weight.

"I'm already dead."

It was all he gave her, slamming the door shut with a sickening finality that sent her falling forward onto her hands, and shattered her thoughts across the dirt in all directions. She could feel the betrayal seeping into the broken parts of her and tearing them at their already fraying seams, the pain of it nearly matching the pulsing that started at her hairline and now shook violently down her spine.

She was so, so tired. Tired of being lied to and let down by the few people she chose to keep near her. Acknowledging that she had not been the best judge of character as of late proved no issue, but this loss, for some unforeseeable reason, hurt infinitely more than the others before it. There was no clear cut category that she could place him in – no longer was he just a client. That time had long since passed. He most certainly had not been her friend... but never her enemy either – not really. So the only conclusion she could pull from the fog of her mind was challenge. One that rivaled a glance in the mirror after the things she'd done to try and overcome it. He was something she thought she could fix, and had tried so hard that she destroyed herself.

Though, it wasn't like he hadn't tried to stop her.

The crack of the gunshot could have been miles away.

She sobbed into the earth, sounding weak and disgraceful to her own ears, well past the point of reining it in. It had always been there, balled up tight within her, the driving force that pushed her toward the real truth – the one she always seemed to find at the end of trails of blood. She could taste it now, the tinge of iron on her lips, and with it, her thoughts muddled dense in her brain.

A creaking sound came from somewhere close by.

A second later and his hands were on her, too gentle to be the same man that had lost all her faith with the latch of a door. She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes and saw the stars above.

Dirt mingled with blood, thick against her skin – lots of it, oozing freely from the gash at her forehead and smearing down her cheek to war with the pale trails of her tears.

She looked anywhere but at him.

"I told you to go." It rolled uncharacteristically soft from him, close at her side, drawing from her the choked offspring of a sobbed laugh and she hated the sound of it.

How maddening it was when his words said one thing but his tone, another. Her eyes finally found him but would not focus.

"Where?" Karen breathed, voiceless.

After a long moment Frank exhaled, rough and ancient like the discarded air had been trapped beneath his suffering for centuries. He answered her with the shift of his weight and before she could draw forth the energy to shove him away and curse his name in all the ways her lips knew how, she was being lifted from the ground.

Song referenced: Earth Wind and Fire - Shining Star