AN: This is a very short, intermission chapter.

"In science, a tipping point is the point at which a system is displaced from a state of stable equilibrium into a different state." Wikipedia

Chapter 7: The Tipping Point

Juliet.

Poor Juliet.

I'd taken everything from her.

Her boyfriend.

Her partner.

She had no one left.

I cried for her while he hurt me.

I cried and wailed and mourned for the dead and for the living.

I cried for Gus.

His friend was gone.

His second dad.

I didn't cry for myself.

I cried until I had no more tears left.

I lay in the dark, my wrists still bound, my hands numb.

His arm was over me, hot against my side. His legs were tangled in mine beneath the coarse blanket.

Why wasn't I dead?

Too sad to sleep, too tired to stay awake. The dimness of night and the darkness of dreamless sleep were indistinguishable.

I woke to a knife at my throat.

This was it, then.

I looked up at him, fearless and hopeless and ready. Oh so ready.

"I was going to kill you here," he said.

My heart sank. The past tense. He'd changed his mind.

He looked at me, and for the first time I felt like he was looking at me. Not my body. Not my fear or helplessness, but inside me.

What did he see? What was left? I was nothing but an empty shell, stripped of life and hope and love and anything good.

"I'll let you live," he said, pausing as if waiting for a reply.

"I'd rather not," I answer at last, my voice deep and dark and emotionless.

The knife slid along my throat and I winced at the sting.

Warm blood dripped down like tears from the shallow cut.

"You say that, but you don't mean it," he said, the knife hovering now over my heart.

He pressed down, the tip sliding into my pectoral muscle with a slight crunch.

I cried out lightly, shocked by how it burned.

He pulled the knife away, examining the crimson-coated tip with interest.

"Work for me, and I'll let you live," he said casually.

My chest burned, my throat stung. He hovered over me, haloed in the bright sunlight, his shadow covering me. I glared at him.

"I won't go back to the basement. I'd rather die."

He smiled, his gold tooth glinting.

"You don't understand," he said, his hand on my knee as he spread my legs, "I'm not your brother. You'll be far more profitable in an open market."

The knife was pressed along the soft, sensitive skin inside my thigh.

"Doing what?" I ask, my voice breathless and tight.

The knife moved and I couldn't help the whimper of pain as the skin parted beneath it.

"What you're good at, Angel," he said, bending down and licking the blood from the cut.

What I'm good at. What I've had practice in. The only thing I'm good for.

He moved up to my throat and licked the blood from there, sucking lightly.

What did I have to live for?

Answer: nothing.

But did I want to die?

Did I want to die?

"What's your answer?" he asked, hovering above me, "And be sure, because I'm not going to ask again."

I thought about all I had lost. I thought about all I had seen. I thought about all I had yet to see.

"I…"

I would betray his memory. I would become the very thing he never wanted me to be.

"I want…"

But he was dead. He'd left me. He was gone. And I was alone.

"I want to live."

He smiled, victory gleaming in his cold grey eyes.

He kissed me and I could taste my blood on his lips.

"Congratulations, Angel," he said, putting away the knife, "You're mine now."