A/N: NEW CHAPTER! I'm really going to try to get them out faster now, with the story being so close to its conclusion. I don't know if this chapter was necessary...but damn, I enjoyed writing it, so there we are. ENJOY! PEACE!

Thank you to AprilGilbert1996, Thatpersonthatreads, Shandy777, Esha Napoleon, BigRedMachineUK, and Girl on Fire for reviewing the last chapter! YOU ROCK! LOVE YOU!

Chapter 36: Marry the Night

"I'm a soldier to my own emptiness..." - Lady Gaga, "Marry the Night"

They called it "the room".

It was located in another set of empty storage units, adjacent to the building that housed the base of operations for Cena and his team. Like its counterpart, the walls had been knocked down between the individual units, creating a much larger space, and the makeshift electrical grid Jeff had constructed extended to this structure as well. Unlike the base, however, the cement walls and floor of this place remained bare, unfurnished; the locks on the doors leading into it located on the outside, rather than the interior.

It was a room, after all, that served a very singular purpose.

Every one of the team's bases - there were dozens of them, scattered all over the country - had a space like this; a spartan chamber where the walls were soundproofed and the floor was scrubbed clean; the one location in their headquarters where there were no cameras. It was always separate from the base itself, and even when it was unoccupied, all of the Hunters unconsciously gave it a wide berth.

Not because they were superstitious...but because some things can never be washed away.

Ash dissipates in the wind; even blood can be eradicated with enough bleach - but emotion stays. It lingers, leeching into the walls and floors and becoming a part of the structure itself. It was the reason that all of them, even Cena, avoided that room like the plague - because every time any of them stepped foot inside, all that pain and desperation and death rose up out of every surface like a noxious miasma, clogging their nostrils and subtly blurring their black-and-white world into shades of gray.

All of them had been inside that room, at one point or another. All of them had done things, crossed moral boundaries, committed acts that haunted them as much as the atrocities they had endured. And no matter how cold and merciless they became inside that room...it was not uncommon for them to puke their guts out as soon they stepped outside.

Perhaps it was because the room was the most telling evidence, more than the battle scars etched on their bodies, of what grief makes us capable of doing. Or maybe, even more than that...it was a harsh reminder that, even if they won the war, if they succeeded in exterminating every bloodsucker on the planet...they could never have normal lives after this, because too much of their hearts and souls had already been irretrievably lost.

Stolen away by tragedy...or willingly exchanged in the hunt for vengeance.

As Jeff had once remarked dryly - grief makes monsters of us all.

The harsh blue-white glow of the bare bulbs cast strange shadows on the low ceiling, throwing an almost otherworldly illumination on the figure seated in the center of the room.

Randy groaned softly. His head was pounding, and his left arm in particular was throbbing like a mother, as though someone had shoved razor blades length-wise through his skin. He slowly lifted his head up, sucking in a pain-filled hiss as the slight shift in position sent a wave of dizziness and nausea coursing through him. But instead of relinquishing him to the sensation, the Viper's Pit owner merely gritted his teeth and pried his eyelids open.

After so much darkness, the initial gleam of light was dazzling, but Randy's eyes acclimated quickly, sweeping almost perfunctorily over his surroundings, taking in the austere gray walls and floors, the stark lighting, the door several yards away with no handle or knob.

The Viper's Pit owner's head was still swimming, but he impatiently shoved it aside as he tried to recall what had happened to him. He remembered the bar, of course; the gun, pressed to that traitorous bitch's head. He remembered gloating, as he prepared to pull the trigger-

And then...pain - absolute, indescribable agony that overloaded his senses and sent all remaining rational thought spiraling into incoherence. The last lucid memory he had, before blackness had bloomed upward and consumed him, was lying on the floor, the icy bite of a blade digging into his neck, and that red-headed cunt glaring down at him...

Move, and I'll open your throat...

Randy clenched his teeth, his blue eyes narrowing to small slits. It was more than just losing Mickie yet again - it was the fact that, for the second time in as many days, he had been overpowered. By a woman.

Defeat...that was one thing. Defeat at the hands of a creature who bled for a week and didn't die...that was a whole other kind of outrage - and in the back of his mind, he told himself that if he ever encountered that red-haired whore again, he would shove the gun up inside her and pull the trigger...

The Viper's Pit abruptly ended the thought, pushing it back to the farthest corners of his subconscious. As pleasantly warm as this fury was, it would serve him no purpose, and he had more pressing concerns on his mind - namely, how to deal with his current predicament.

Randy flicked his gaze up toward the ceiling as he coldly assessed his situation. He was seated in a metal folding chair; a quick exploratory shake with his uninjured arm informed him that he was handcuffed. A second, more insistent shake revealed that his captors had taken no chances - he had been handcuffed him to the chair as well.

Just as the Viper's Pit owner was trying to determine how to get around that particular problem, the door opened and Cena stepped into the room.

Randy's gaze shifted downward, silently watching as the lead Hunter strode toward him, his army boots making muffled thuds on the concrete floor. Cena halted right in front of the chair, staring impassively down at the Viper's Pit owner. Randy met it without flinching, the corner of his mouth twitching upward into a smirk. "John Cena, I presume?"

Cena's stoic expression didn't change. "Where's Mickie?"

The Viper's Pit owner's sneer widened just a touch. "Who?" he remarked, his deep voice a portrait of smarmy unwitting innocence.

WHAM! Cena's fist caught him right in the cheekbone, snapping his head back and rocking the chair up onto its back feet. Without breaking motion, the lead Hunter grabbed hold of Randy's shoulder, simultaneously digging his fingers into the Viper's Pit owner's skin and preventing the chair from tipping over. Leaning down until his face was level with Randy's, he spat his words out with brutal precision: "Where's Mickie?"

"Fuck!" Randy shook his head rapidly, trying to shake off the effects of the blow. He glared up at Cena, a welt already swelling outward from the spot where the lead Hunter's knuckles had connected with his face. "Why are you asking me? You had her last..."

The Viper's Pit owner's voice trailed off as the realization finally sank in, his irritation giving way to his prior unctuous confidence. "Oh...oh, I see. You lost her...didn't you?" He shook his head, clucking his tongue reprovingly. "See, this is what happens when you trust the word of a vamp-"

His smug admonishment suddenly died away to a startled gurgle as Cena grabbed him by the throat, tipping the chair back onto its hind legs again. "Don't play dumb with me," the lead Hunter commanded, his tone frigid and unforgiving. "We both know you're too smart for that." He released his grip; the chair wobbled back and forth dangerously for a second or two, but remained upright.

Cena took a step back, his azure irises never wavering from the man in front of him. "You made Maria by her fingernails - I'm willing to bet you knew exactly what had happened to Mickie the minute you woke up here. So I'm going to ask you again-"

He paused for a second, resting one hand lightly on his gun belt. "-where is she?"

A long indeterminable moment crept by. Eventually, Randy shrugged, the movement almost nonchalant. "I don't know."

Cena didn't just grab him by the throat this time - he shoved him backwards as hard as he could. The chair tipped over and crashed, Randy's head bouncing sickeningly off the cement floor. The lead Hunter kicked the chair, knocking it onto its side. Crouching down, he grabbed the other man's wounded arm, his fingers probing the bandaged appendage. "Where'd she stab you, anyway? Was it here?" His exploratory poke evoked a faint groan from the Viper's Pit owner. Cena kept going, his thumb hovering over a spot where blood had soaked into the bandage the heaviest, staining the cloth a deep crimson. "No...I bet it was here."

Without warning, he dug his thumb into the open wound, twisting sharply. Randy howled in pain, squirming around as frantically as his restraints would allow. "Motherfucker - I don't know where she is! I swear-"

"But you know who took her!" Cena interjected. He yanked his thumb out, wiping Randy's blood off on his fatigues with faint distaste. "You said so yourself - you were doing business with that bloodsucking bitch-"

"Who, Melina?" the Viper's Pit owner shot back. "She came to me - I don't know where from, and I never bothered to ask. She paid me to find Mickie and that waste of fangs Dave. Okay, yeah, I fucked her - but it was just business. That's all it ever was...until-" He hesitated.

"Until what?" Cena pressed relentlessly.

Randy's azure irises shifted slightly, meeting his - despite the pain and defiance etched across his handsome features, those eyes remained flat and dead. "Until I found Mickie," the Viper's Pit owner went on. "and realized there's more going on than just a simple lover's quarrel."

Cena's stoic countenance twitched ever-so-slightly. "What are you talking about?"

A ghost of his former scornful smile darted across Randy's face. "Now who's playing dumb?" he drawled, his deep voice containing only the faintest hint of sarcasm. He twisted his head to the side, staring up at his captor. "You know about her - know that that brat inside her's half-vampire." The Viper's Pit owner paused, a thoughtful note creeping into his voice. "What do you think...something like that is worth?"

To this, the lead Hunter said nothing. Randy must have taken his silence for speechlessness, because he went on: "You know what Melina is like, right? Pretty to look at, but you can smell crazy on her a mile away." His voice dropped to a satisfied whisper. "So why should I hand Mickie over her for a few thousand when the ones she answers to will pay me a few million?"

Cena drew back, his unreadable expression giving way long enough for a hint of disgust to flit across it. Grabbing hold of the chair back, he hauled it - and Randy - back upright without ceremony, returning it to its original position. That done, he turned away from the Viper's Pit owner, locked his hands together behind his head as he paced toward the opposite side of the room.

Randy watched him sullenly, cracking his neck back and forth and wincing slightly. "What is Mickie James to you, anyway?" he asked, his tone hovering somewhere between resentful and intrigued. "Sister? Cousin? Old girlfriend?"

Cena didn't stop, nor did he turn around. "I know you won't understand, so I won't even bother explaining it to you."

"Really?" Perverse enjoyment seeped into Randy's voice, and the blue-eyed man smiled. "So it's like that, then?"

This time, the lead Hunter halted, but still kept his back turned. "Your sick mind can believe what it wants to - I don't need to explain myself to scum like you."

"Uh-huh," Randy grunted dismissively. He cocked his head to the side, his bright blue eyes glued to the muscular form of the lead Hunter. "So...since you're aware of the situation...have you given any thought to what you're going to do next? I mean-" The Viper's Pit owner shrugged. "-assuming that kid doesn't burst out of her stomach like one of those Alien movies."

He leaned back against the metal folding chair. "Even if she makes it through this - she's still going to turn, regardless." He paused, the absence of sound deliberate. "Will you be the one to put her down?"

Cena looked back over his shoulder, his azure irises boring into those of his adversary. "I'll do..." the lead Hunter intoned, his tone holding only the faintest hint of strain. "...what's necessary."

The Viper's Pit owner shrugged again, the motion as infuriating as his tone. "Not that I care one way or the other - it doesn't change my life any." He leaned forward a little, as much as the cuffs binding his wrists would allow; his tone growing soft, conspiratorial. "Personally, though, I wouldn't hold it against you if you did end up letting her go - from what I've heard, it wouldn't be the first time you failed to finish the job."

For a moment, a heartbeat, Cena's impassive expression cracked, his features sagging in genuine surprise. Randy leaned back again, his tone warming with contemptuous pleasure. "See, I heard this story - a rumor, if you will - that you used to be a regular guy, that you didn't even believe vampires existed...until one attacked your wife."

The Viper's Pit owner planted both feet on the floor, rocking the chair back slightly. "Now, either this vamp had no idea what he was doing, or else your wife was stronger than she looked - either way, she was able to fight him off and make it back home with only a few nasty bite wounds. And being the dutiful husband that you were, you called the police, you patched her up - you went on with your life."

Randy paused, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. "But then...she started to change."

By now, Cena had regained enough control over himself to force his features back into their original stony expression, but his entire body was rigid, almost trembling with tension. The Viper's Pit owner continued. "You have to have known what was happening to her - the way she avoided sunlight, took off her wedding ring because the silver was irritating her skin, the way she was hungry all the time - just like you knew what had to be done."

Randy paused again, his mouth curling up in a smirk. "But you didn't...because you loved her too much to let her go. So you ignored it, you pretended that it wasn't happening, convinced yourself that you would be able to handle it before it got out of control...and then, one night, you came home to find her up in the nursery, cradling the body of your son-"

The lead Hunter barely heard him; in his mind's eye, all he could see was-

-the blood, splattered on the walls, the crib, the stuffed blue football that Zachary loved...

-her bent head, the ends of her long blond hair obscuring the body in her arms...but not the tiny white hand, the fingers curled in death...

-the tears rolling down her face, mingling with the blood staining her mouth, and her voice, high-pitched and pleading...

"I couldn't help myself, Johnny...I was so hungry-"

Randy paused, lifting his shoulders up and down nonchalantly. "-but then again, what do I know? It's just a rumor." He grinned; in the weird light, his expression seemed wolfish. "Perhaps you'd like to tell me what really happened."

Slowly, Cena straightened up, turning around fully to face his handcuffed adversary. His face was stretched so tight that his skin seemed in danger of splitting along the seams, and his voice was thick with effort and restraint when he spoke. "My wife...is dead."

"Really?" Randy drawled. He leaned forward even further, his voice becoming more sadistic, more savage. "Is that what you know to be true...or just what you tell your team so they won't know just how much of a coward you really are-"

The roar of the gun drowned everything out. Randy flinched involuntarily; the round rocketed past him, missing his ear by less than an inch, lodging in the far wall and sending up a shower of tiny stone fragments. Cena stormed toward him, grabbing him by the back of the neck, forcing his head back, and jamming the barrel against his forehead. His countenance was no longer stoical; there was nothing in it now but pure murder. "I should...kill you," the lead Hunter growled. "For the things you've done, for what you did to her-"

"So why don't you?" the Viper's Pit owner retorted tauntingly. He nodded his head slightly. "Go ahead - pull the trigger. It's not the killing that's hard - that's the easy part - it's everything that comes after that you can't deal with!"

His azure irises fastened onto Cena's, as fathomless as the deepest parts of the ocean. "You feel it, don't you? The emptiness, the void, the lack of...anything at all? Most people, they fear it, but you...you know, just like me, that all it does is make things...clearer. Simpler."

Randy shook his head, his expression pitying. "It must be so hard - lying to your team, having to fake a response so they won't know just how much you truly don't care. They want this war to end, but you - you want it to keep going, because it's not the fighting, but normal life that scares you. Because this war has allowed you to be who you really are - a cold-blooded killer."

The Viper's Pit owner stopped, eyeing his captor thoughtfully. "You and me...we're a lot alike."

The lead Hunter vehemently shook his head. "I'm nothing like you-"

"Bullshit," Randy interrupted mildly. "The only difference between you and me is that I embrace the darkness, while you fight it - but what you fail to understand is that neither one of us would exist without it. So go ahead-" He jerked his chin up toward the .44 Desert Eagle. "Kill me. Blow me away at point-blank range, and say you're doing the world a favor. All you'll do is prove me right - prove that the reason you kill...is because you enjoy it."

Silence reigned over the windowless room. Seconds ticked by, then minutes - then Cena finally lowered the gun, his arm sagging back down to his side. With his other hand, he dug into the front pocket of his fatigues, pulling out a small ring of keys. The lead Hunter moved around to the back of the chair; there was a CLICK, and Randy felt the cold steel rings encircling his wrists relax.

The Viper's Pit owner pulled his hands free, gingerly massaged his wrists. He glanced up, his countenance brimming with scornful satisfaction as Cena came back into view. "Just as I expected-"

That was all he got out before Cena brutally pistol-whipped him with the butt of the .44 across the face, knocking him off the chair and onto the floor. The lead Hunter stared down at him, his handsome face revealing nothing as he carefully re-holstered his weapon. "Bet you weren't expecting that." he remarked to his now-unconscious adversary.

At that moment, the door burst open and Maria came barreling into the room. "Boss! Boss, I-" The redhead ground to a halt, her mouth dropping open at the sight of Randy. "Holy shit! Did you kill him?"

Something that could have almost been a smile flickered across Cena's mouth. "No."

"Oh." Maria's features sagged in disappointment, and she shrugged. "Too bad. Anyway - I ran over here because...I located the signal."

The almost-smile vanished, and Cena straightened up. "Where?" he asked, his demeanor now all-business.

"The northeast corner of the city, in the warehouse district-" Maria's voice faltered momentarily as the lead Hunter strode past her out into the night. She ran after him, practically jogging in order to keep up with his unrelenting pace. "It's weak, but I narrowed it down to a block radius-"

Her superior stopped, looking back at her. "You couldn't get any closer than that?"

Maria lifted her shoulders in another helpless shrug. "It's the best I can do. Those transmitters weren't designed to operate inside a body - let alone a vampire body. It's amazing it lasted as long as it did - that was some idea of yours-"

Cena waved his hand, cutting her off. "Listen to me," he ordered. The redhead immediately obeyed, snapping her mouth shut. The lead Hunter pointed back toward the storage building they had just emerged from. "Go back there, keep an eye on that piece of shit until I send Jeff over with the other van to cart his ass over to the ER and dump him there. Beth's coming with me - as soon as we're all gone, you get inside the base and you lock this place down."

He stared hard at the computer tech. "You stay on headset at all times - anything comes up that looks or sounds or even smells like Mickie or Melina or her two suckboys - you let us know ASAP. Understand?"

Maria nodded. "Of course."

"Good." The lead Hunter pulled out one of his .44s - the one marked REGRET NOTHING - and ejected the clip, checking the ammunition before ramming it back home.

"Because one way or another, this thing fucking ends tonight."