Author's Note: Hello! I just finished reading KOTW, and wow… Just wow. If Derek keeps on torturing us with little bits of Valduggery (I mean Me and Mrs. Jones, among other things. Really? REALLY?), I am going all the way over to Ireland, and I am going to smack him. Of course, I can't go all the way to Ireland, and even if I did, he might get mad and not write an 8th book, so I guess I have to just make do with a mental smack. Grrr. There, all done. Anyway, I can't wait for the Tanith Novella, and of Course the 8th book to come out ( One year is soooo long!), so I'm writing this. Read and review!

China Sorrows stumbled wearily across the rubble of the collapsed house, panting with exertion. At least, she assumed it was once a house. It could have been anything in the condition it was now – that was, demolished. The roof had been blown clean off, shutters scattered, and all that was left of the windows were jagged holes that looked to her like the teeth of some scary, horrible monster. Saying that, it was in better condition than most of the town. At least most of the walls were still upright.

She leaned against a section of still standing wall to catch her breath from her strenuous hike, and glanced around at what had been the base of operations for the Resistance movement. Now, most buildings weren't standing, lying in pieces across the street, and creating miniature mountains that you had to climb over if you wanted to go somewhere. Homes were razed, businesses gone, and every little thing that could have been used to fight had been confiscated by the Redhoods. A grimy, grey haze clogged up the air, clinging to and coating China's throat, making her gag.

The sight saddened China the slightest amount. Then she waved it away. Getting sentimental about anything, especially a town, was just plain stupid. She'd seen so many towns - so many people - destroyed like this before, that she just shut off any sadness that she might have felt. All it did now was feed China's roaring anger deep inside. She had lost so much: her family, her friends, her life, her FREEDOM. Now her home too, was gone. And yet here she was; stuck in the middle of a trashed town, leading a weary, near-broken group of fighters, not having slept or showered for days. The one good thing was that her life was so bad; it wasn't possible for it to get any worse. She smiled sarcastically.

The thought of giving up crossed her mind, but she sent it away. She narrowed her eyes. Mevolent needed to pay for what he had done. But that would come later, once they built up a reasonable supply of weapons and recruits, as well as fixing the base. China had been foolish to think that Mevolent would let her and her organization go unpunished, even if he had been a bit distracted by Valkyrie trying to kill him.

Valkyrie.

The name only made China angrier. She hated the fact that Valkyrie had the power to kill Mevolent, but didn't. The innocent people – mages and mortal alike– dead because of her. Ghastly, who had become one of the only people she ever let close, slashed to bits. Meritorious, locked up in his cell. And the Scepter - which had been in China's hands - the ultimate weapon to destroy her enemies, was gone. All because of Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant.

China shook her head to clear her thoughts. The last rays of sunshine were dwindling and fading fast. She needed to get moving; nightfall wasn't safe, especially here. She stretched her sore muscle, and took a step forward. Suddenly, the ground below her foot crumbled and caved in to a hidden cellar below. China was sent sprawling. Instinctively, she put her arms out in front of her to break her fall. She realised that it was a bad move at the last second, but by then it was too late. A sharp CRACK! Split the air, accompanied by a hoarse cry of pain.

China didn't even have to look – didn't want to look – at her arm to know it was broken. Red flashes circled through her line of vision, and China nearly threw up from the pain. Along with the knives of pain radiating from her arm, her ankle throbbed dully. It was most certainly twisted, if not sprained. The pain from it was dim in comparison to her arm, but it still hurt, and China knew she wasn't going to be going any where for a while.

She groaned. A moment before, she had been contemplating how her life couldn't get any worse. It was just like fate to prove her wrong. If it hadn't been so painful, China would have laughed. Grimacing, she tried to get her thoughts in order.

She needed shelter, a place to stay for the night. The Resistance would certainly not look for her until morning, so until then, China was on her own. She looked up, blinking away tears. The house was as good a place as any, and probably the only place she would be able to make it to before passing out from the pain, but the door was five meters away. Still…

Be brave. China thought to herself. Be brave.

Mustering all her strength, China started to crawl towards the door, on hand and knees. It was slow going. As much as she tried to protect her arm, it still jolted, making her breath catch and stunning her for a moment. The rocky ground made tatters of her knees and good hand, but China was too determined to notice.

Suddenly, China's hand caught on something that wasn't rock or rubble, but the light was so faint that she couldn't make out what it was. She held on to it, grasping it as if it was her lifeline, as she crawled the last meter into the house. As soon as she was inside the doorframe, she collapsed, silent sobs wracking her frame. In front of anyone, she would have been cool, calculating, and composed, but alone she let her pain and fear overtake her. Feelings she had suppressed for so long bubbled up in one confusing burst of emotion.

When her sobs subsided, China felt calmness overtake her, clearing her mind and muddled thoughts. She managed to sit down, the cool stone wall pressing into her back. She rested against it for a minute, feeling her muscles unclench and the adrenaline fade, relief washing over her..

Night had fully set by then, she could see it out of a window on the opposite wall. The stars and moon were blocked by the dust haze, making the shadows darker, and if she looked at them out of the corner of her eye, she could have sworn that they were alive. She grinned. It was a good thing that she wasn't afraid of the dark. Then she remembered the item in her hand. It was too dark to see clearly, so she set it in her lap and fumbled in her jacket pocket for the light she always kept with her.

It was a glass tube, on which she had delicately engraved symbols – standard issue for the Resistance, for situations that needed a bit of… enlightenment. China twisted the top, activating it, and the familiar faint, golden glow illuminated her hand, throwing twisting shadows across the far wall. She looked down and saw her prize.

It was a bracelet.

China had been grasping it so tightly, that it had indented marks into her skin. The small, dark, oval beads glinted in the light. It was simple, not elegant or practical. Something that people wore to be stylish and something that most people would wear in war, except for her, of course. But it wasn't hers, so whose was it?

China frowned. She knew this bracelet, or at least, she had seen it before on someone. Her mind scrambled, trying to associate it with a particular face, a particular person, but all efforts came up blank. She closed her eyes and pictured it on someone's wrist. At first, nothing appeared, then – A slim arm, pale, reaching for something, something important, and… It disappeared.

She clenched her eyes tight, trying to draw up the picture again, growling in annoyance when she couldn't. She had almost had it! But it slipped out of her grasp, slick like Lord Vile's shadows. She opened her eyes to glance at it once more, but they were getting heavier by the second, and China slowly slipped down to lying on her side. After the exhausting toil of day, she needed rest. Dreams welcomed her, relieving her of all her heavy burdens.

What seemed to her like minutes later, China's eyes suddenly shot open. Heart pounding, she scanned the room for any threats. No movement, only the faintest light of the moon and the darkness of the shadows. No monsters or thieves, which she could have dealt with easily. A small movement of her arm confirmed to her that it had swollen since yesterday, increasing the pain by a tenfold, but she knew that hadn't woken her up. If not that, then what? From what China recalled, she hadn't been having a nightmare, which, though unusual, was not entirely unpleasant. Something had awakened her, and it was there, nagging at the back of her mind… A hand, an arm, reaching for a scepter. Then she remembered.

The bracelet.

The person who wore the bracelet.

A sadistic, cold smile crept up China's face, turning it from something beautiful, into a hag-like creature of darkness. She had thought that if the bracelet couldn't be returned to it's owner, she might keep it as a small trinket, to remember this day in the war. But it appeared that the person would get her bracelet back after all. That was, right after China killed her.

Revenge would be sweet.

Valkyrie Cain would never know what hit her.

Author: Good? Hope so. Review and I write faster, because comments are encouraging. Bad or good, it still means you read it. :D