It's almost impossible to recognize the tipping point when it's happening. After all they're often subtle things. Which drink brought the liver disease? Which rain drop started the flood?

Only when it's too late do we realize the moment things turned for the worse.

"You don't have to do this," Ray's voice was gentle, as if he was reassuring her. Why he didn't reach for the gun in his jacket she had no idea, but his hands stayed up in surrender as he kneeled in front of her.

"I wish that were true," Nora said, shocked to hear the tremble in her voice.

She didn't understand this man, or why he felt responsible for her. But she knew he wanted to break the hold Mallus had on her, and the more she was around him the less sure she became that that was a bad thing. There was no room for doubt. Not anymore.

Nora leveled the gun at his head. "But I have no choice."

"You always have a choice," he said, and she thought she heard something akin to resignation in his voice as he added: "Remember that."

She breathed deeply, and when she spoke again her voice was steady. "Goodbye, Ray."

The sharp crack of the gunshot rang in her ears. It wasn't the first time she killed, and it wouldn't be the last. But that was the moment, as the light faded in his dark eyes, that Nora became more demon than human.

After so many years of internal struggle, that was the moment the scales tipped. The devil on her shoulder won, as the angel bled to death.