A/N - Takes place somewhere before season 2. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy! xx.

()()()

"I don't know how you house the sin

I was never sure how much of you

I could let in."

- Heavenly Father, Bon Iver

()()()

The money is running out. The money that took them halfway across Mexico and thousands of miles away from Bethel, it's all gone now.

And Seth can't get more. He's too high and when he's not, the withdrawals are too deep. They make him crazy, scratching at the puncture wounds while he drove, eyes squinting at the road.

He couldn't pull a gig, not like this. Not with his dark eyes so bloodshot and his hands so shaky. Not with an ounce of heroin tucked into his back pocket and a gun tucked into his belt.

They'd ship him back to the US and put him away for life. They'd send Kate back to Bethel to live with some distant, dying grandparent.

And Kate wasn't about to let that happen.

So she started making her own money, finding little ways to help out with cash. Seth was so high all the time he didn't notice the funds adding up, how she crept out every once in a while when he was drowsy.

At first she found positions helping out in the motels they stayed at, cleaning and dressing up the rooms. The requests got weirder after that, she'd be called in to turn down the beds for men three times her age, to run a bath for them or to try on this nightgown, that sundress.

She listened, she always did. If she wanted to stay in Mexico, stay with Seth, she would have to provide for them.

()()()

When they moved around, her reputation proceeded her. It was like the last motel had called one the next town over, saying "hey, there's a pretty American girl coming your way. When she asks for a job, give her one."

She found jobs, money flowed quickly to her, thrown at her by men who asked, begged to look - but never to touch. She grew comfortable with it, their eyes trailing her around the room as she cleaned, as they asked her to tease them, to call them Daddy or Papa or some other sick word that made her swallow the bile that had risen in her throat.

But she was bringing home hard cash, fast cash, that she hid under the mattress and placed discretely in Seth's wallet when he was fast asleep. If he noticed, he never said so. Seth Gecko was cocky enough that he probably thought he was pulling gigs when he was high, or in his sleep, robbing convenience stores without opening his eyes.

Kate let him believe it, just like she let the men look at her, let them tell her what to do, but she reminds herself that she is in charge, that they do not own her. She'd move on if she could, but waitressing doesn't make the same kind of money that being a sex object does.

Shuddering, she reminds herself that she is more than an object. She repeats it over and over again, her mantra, as she paints her nails a dark shade of brown and applies another coat of makeup, knowing what does and what doesn't look good in the dim, fluorescent lights of a hotel room.

She's been in this trade for 3 motels now, and she smiles and walks in like she owns it. Kate is not burned or scarred or scared - she is a woman. She takes a deep breath and reminds herself that she is doing nothing wrong, just as long as they don't touch.

She is the apple and they are Eve, waiting patiently for a bite. Her innocence is not ruined, yet.

()()()

In the beginning it was Seth who took care of her. He pulled all the gigs, got all the money, while she stayed in the room, fiddling with her thumbs and waiting impatiently for his return.

It scared her every time he left, knowing he might take another life, knowing someone might take his.

Now it was Seth's turn to be scared.

He didn't know where she went, didn't know what she did, but he had a bad feeling in his chest whenever she left the hotel room, left him alone with his high.

When he kissed her, she was no longer scared. When his long fingers found their way to her core, running up and down her thigh, she smiled in a way that reminded him of another woman. When they first had sex, Seth knew she was a virgin - he'd seen the blood, watched it flow out of her, and then she turned to him with dark, needy eyes, and begged for him to go harder.

When he touched her now, called her name, she flinched in the slightest. If he hadn't known her so well, spent all these months with her, he never would've noticed.

But he did, and he watched as his Kate, shy and quiet and reserved, evolved into someone who was razor sharp, someone hot to the touch.

Then one day she took off her cross. She peeled the metal away from her neck, leaving the tiniest of green lines from where it had sat, and placed it gently in the drawer on the beside table. Beside the Bible, Seth was sure, for someone else to find. Someone who needed it more, who believed in it more.

Seth wanted to say something. He tried to, but he was just too far gone and the words wouldn't come out.

When they left the motel the next day, he didn't know how to voice his opinion, but he was sure she'd left it there.

()()()

According to Kate Fuller, if God existed her father would not have been dead and her brother would still love her and she would be with Seth Gecko, legally and happily.

Instead she is a seventeen year old runaway, her fingernails cracked and too much makeup on her face. She dances for these men, old and withered in motel beds. She runs their bath and becomes their temptation, their own personal curse, so much like Santanico was.

Kate knew what demons were, but she never gave a thought to how they became that way.

It's what she thinks about at night, when Seth is drugged up and she lies beside him, still dressed in the shorts she outgrew last summer, still wearing too much makeup. She thinks of how those people prayed to Santanico, saw her as their savior.

Silently, Kate begins to worship her too.

They're too alike for Kate to be afraid of her anymore.

When Seth rolls over, laces a heavy arm around her body, and leans in close to her neck, she smiles.

Kate believes she has found her God.