The darkness came over him like a veil. For a moment, there was nothing. An empty abyss of silence and sightless vision. And then a blur, a soft, white shower of fuzz and lace. He blacked out again.

"Get up", said a deep, sinister voice. He didn't recognize it.

Anton groaned and felt a slight pain in his head, his vision turning red from the blood that kept spilling into his eyes. He tried to think. He remembered a snow covered cemetery and opened his eyes, regaining consciousness. Someone kicked him in the back, but he dared not make a sound. He was lying on the ground in the snow, the cold preventing him from feeling anything.

"Get up", repeated the sinister voice. It sounded deranged. Calm, but dangerous.

Anton slowly turned his head and looked up at his tormentor and saw before him a shadowy figure wearing dark sunglasses and a red bandanna over his mouth. A black cowboy hat on top of his head. It was the very same man Elena had been afraid of this whole time, the one who tried to kill her in the past. The monster from Sophia's vision, the true form of the black wolf from his nightmares: Andrew Pittman.

Anton gathered enough strength to sit himself up, his vision swimming as he wiped away the blood from his face with the cuff of his sleeve. He turned his head up to face the demon who took his love away from him.

"Hello, Anton", said Andrew. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"How do you know my name?" Anton questioned him, a look of poisonous anger clearly evident on his face. Despite his pain, he was determined to kill Andrew, even if it meant he died trying.

"You don't remember? You were only a little boy when we first met. Your father brought you to his work one day and you were sitting in a hospital room while he was giving me a check up. I was suffering a mental breakdown and I reached out and tried to grab you and hurt your arm. Your father pulled me off before I could do any real damage. From that point on, he told me he was done being my doctor. He became angry with me, but his anger was nothing compared to the anguish of the betrayal that I felt. So I tracked him down to his home one day and waited until dark and started banging on the door for him to let me in. You remember that night, Anton? I do. I remember the look of horror on your father's face just as I pulled that gun out on him. I was going to use it to kill myself, but ultimately, I decided to use it to kill those who had wronged me. I killed your father for his desertion of me, and then I killed your mother just for falling in love with him. He didn't deserved to be loved by anyone. I spared you, though. Why? Because I wanted you to remember me. And look at you now. The great Anton Chigurh defeated at last. You look so much like your father, you know... except for that hair. It just doesn't seem to fit quite with the rest of you."

Anton shook his head, telling him, "I don't believe you. You know nothing about my father, you never even knew him. You give me one good reason why I should believe you."

"Oh, I intend to", said Andrew. He stepped back and placed a hand on his head, removing his cowboy hat and revealing long tresses of messy, unwashed yellow hair. He dropped his hat and let it fall down onto the snowy ground. He pulled his bandanna down and revealed a tangled beard, the color of wheat. He removed his sunglasses and revealed his face to Anton, whose facial expression quickly went from anger to confusion, and then slowly faded into fear and horror. His face was vague, lacking all emotion known to man. His evil black eyes were deep and hollowed, sunken into his skull like he hadn't slept in years. His whole appearance reeked of nothing but illness and deranged madness. If not for the filth and grime, Anton still would have recognized Andrew from twenty-six years ago.

"No", Anton whispered. He shuddered, but it was not due to the cold. It was fear, genuine and unmasked for Andrew to see that he recognized him.

"Now you remember?" Andrew questioned him.

Anton nodded, panic racing in his heart and casting an identical look on his horrified face. "I know you."

Andrew walked around Anton, circling him like a scavenger scanning its prey and waiting for just the right opportunity to attack and feed on the flesh of the deceased.

When he looked to his right, Anton turned pale at the sight of a dead body lying on the ground. Blonde-haired and half-naked, the lifeless corpse of Mary Hartman lied there in the snow. There was a gunshot wound in the middle of her forehead. The grave she was draped over was a military grave, most likely her father's. In her final moments, she had been beaten and raped, the price she had paid for her betrayal to the deranged madman.

Andrew walked over to Mary's body and said to her, "You shouldn't have ratted me out, you little bitch. And now four people are dead because of you." Andrew tossed his sunglass down next to her body and kicked some snow in her face just to appease himself. Even Anton saw that as going too far, which was very unlike him. As much as he despised Mary, he did not wish for her life to end the way it did.

Andrew turned around and walked over and stood next to a tall headstone, where there was a figure covered by a blanket. He lifted the cloth to reveal a woman sitting on the ground. Her head lifted up slowly and her turquoise eyes met with Anton's.

"Elena?"

Elena looked at him and moved not at all. There was a piece of duct tape over her mouth. Her hands were tied behind her back with a pair of handcuffs, the same ones Anton had stolen from Marge. When Andrew knocked him out, he took them from Anton and used them on Elena to keep her hostage. She didn't look hurt.

Andrew grabbed her hair and forced Elena to look up at him. He slowly peeled back the tape from her mouth and placed his hand under her chin.

"Don't look at me that way, Elena", said Andrew, sadly. "It wasn't meant to be this way."

Elena spoke not a word, but shivered from the cold. She wasn't wearing a jacket or a parka. The deep subconscious of her brain forced her to hide her disdain for the madman and remain stoic.

"How about a little kiss for me?" Andrew asked her, leaning forward to force a kiss onto Elena, who reacted by spitting into his face. Andrew stepped back at once and put a hand to his cheek.

"Go fuck yourself, Andrew", Elena remarked.

Andrew grew angry at her rejection of him and slapped Elena in the face with the back of his hand, causing her to cry out in pain.

"Don't you touch her!" Anton shouted, pulling the gun out from under his shirt and firing it once at Andrew. He shot him in the back of his shoulder. Andrew cried out and turned around to face him.

Anton recovered his strength and stood up fast and aimed the gun to fire at Andrew again, but there was only a click. He looked at the gun and tried firing again, but nothing worked. The weapon was jammed.

Andrew yelled as he charged at Anton and pinned him down onto the ground. The gun fell out of his hand. Andrew's hands went to his neck, banging his head against the snow as he tried to choke the life out of him. Anton threw a good punch into Andrew's stomach, but this did nothing to faze him. He grabbed a handful of his hair and both men starting wrestling each other.

Elena sat there helplessly and looked around to try and find a way to free herself. She thought it over a minute and remembered something Anton once told her, about a situation he had gotten himself into some time before meeting her. He had allowed himself to get arrested and be taken into custody just to see if he could escape by an act of will. He spared her the detail of his kill, but she remembered exactly what he did to free himself. She only hoped she would be able to do the same thing.

At one point, Andrew pulled out a knife and was about to use it to plunge into Anton's heart, but the hitman stopped him by grabbing his wrist and delivered a fatal blow to his nose. He heard the bone crack. Andrew dropped the knife and put a hand to his face, howling like a wounded animal. That was when Anton decided to pounce on top of Andrew and pin him down on the ground, gaining the upper hand. He tried going for a second blow, but unfortunately for him, Andrew stopped him with his hand and decided to return the favor by punching him twice in the stomach, knocking the wind right out of Anton. He pushed him off of him and sat up at once and wiped away some of the blood on his sleeve and stood and went over to Anton.

Meanwhile, Elena threw herself down into the snow, narrowly avoiding hitting her head on the tombstone behind her. Breathing heavily, she managed to sit up again and squatted on the ground.

Anton turned over and began to search the ground for his gun, finding nothing but snow and dirt. Andrew came up from behind him and grabbed him by the back of his denim jacket and hoisted him up onto his feet. Anton turned around to face his opponent, only to be socked in the jaw by him. He tried not to make a sound, but failed himself and let out a soft moan. His high tolerance for pain lessened greatly. Andrew punched him in the stomach again and then grabbed him by the front of his shirt and threw him hard against a tombstone. Anton fell to the ground and landed on his side and lied there in the snow, coughing up a bit of blood in the process. He tried moving, but gave up the thought soon as he felt a sharp pain. His back hurt and he had broken some ribs. His hand curled in the snow. Breathing heavily, he turned over onto his stomach and tried to stand up again, but felt Andrew place his foot on the back of his head and force him back down on the ground. His vision clouded and he felt as though he had failed.

Andrew was leaned over him, holding a huge rock in his hand. He raised the rock over his head and told him, "Goodbye, Anton. Meet your father in Hell."

A pair of metal bracelets dropped down in front of Andrew's neck and jerked him away from Anton. He dropped the rock and brought his hands to his neck, gagging. The attacker brought him crashing down into the snow. Elena was beneath him, applying pressure to the neck as she strangled him with the chain of the handcuffs. The skin around her wrists turned a rawish pink, but she wasn't giving up. Andrew choked on the metal chain cutting of his oxygen, his face reddening from the strain. He turned over onto his stomach and tried reaching a hand up to stop Elena, but the pain in his neck made him think twice as she jerked harder on the chain.

"DIE!" Elena screamed. "DIE, MOTHERFUCKER, DIE!"

Though he was exhausted from the beating he took, Anton slowly looked up to see that Elena, a Christian woman who hadn't a single violent bone in her body, was fighting back the demon who caused her so much pain and fear and suffering. She was no longer afraid of Andrew and was now unleashing all her unstoppable rage onto him. As small and fragile as she was, Anton was astonished she found the power and strength to strangle a man twice her size. Elena was not a violent person by nature, but for her, there was no other alternative to end this nightmare. The monster needed to die.

The bracelets were starting to leave bloody marks around Elena's wrist, but she was too adrenalized to care about the pain. She screamed again and yanked on the chain one last time, a squirt of blood hit the white ground. Andrew gurgled on his own blood and then stopped moving altogether, falling limp against the chain. Elena stopped strangling him and panted hard, looking over the result of her handiwork. She raised her arms and stood up at once, glaring down at Andrew's body. Not only was it payback for him kidnapping her and hurting the man she loved, but it was also a small revenge for what he had done to Mary.

Anton stood up slowly and tried walking over to Elena. He placed an arm around his torso and groaned from the pain and fell down again. Elena turned around and looked at him. She quickly became concern for Anton and ran over to him and dropped down to her knees.

"Anton? Anton, look at me", Elena begged him. "Look at me. Are you okay?"

Anton looked at her and whispered softly, "I'm fine, just let me be."

Elena took his head into her manacled hands and brought her cold lips to his, kissing him deeply. She released him and let out a shaky breath and lowered her head to his chest, crying. Anton threw his arms around Elena and hugged her as tight as he could, never wanting to let her go. He wanted to cry with her, to let her know how grateful he was that she was alive, but chose to remain strong for her sake. Despite his pain, he was much more worried about her than himself. He felt her shivering. Anton released her and sat her up straight and removed his jacket and used it to wrap around her shoulders. She had to be freezing in nothing more than a dress.

"Come on, we need to get you out of here", said Anton, helping her to stand up.

"But what about Mary?" Elena asked him, tearfully. She turned to the deceased friend she once knew lying on the ground and said, "We can't just leave her like that."

Anton held Elena closer to him and placed an arm around her shoulder, hiding her face into his chest. "There's nothing we can do for her anymore", he said. "Let's go."

Just as he turned around and was about to lead her out of the graveyard, Anton felt Elena fall against him and looked at her. He fell to his knees and sat down in the snow, cradling her unconscious body. He brushed her hair out of her face and placed a hand to her cheek. Her skin was cold. She wasn't breathing. He looked down and carefully took hold of her manacled wrist, blood staining the nickel-plated bracelet. Anton looked concerned at Elena and gently shook her to make sure she wasn't dead, but she didn't respond.

"No", said Anton. "Elena, don't leave me. Please, wake up. Please."

He heard a gun cock, his heart skipping a beat. He knew who the person was that caused that sound, yet he still looked up. Andrew was standing in front of him, holding a gun in one hand and pointing it an Anton. His neck was bleeding out slowly. His eyes were glossed over and filled with fire. Part of him was dead, yet he still held onto the motivation to kill his quarry.

Knowing that he was at the mercy of a cold-blooded killer, Anton accepted his fate and lowered his head and held onto Elena, refusing to let her go. If they were to die together, he'd prefer it to be done with the same bullet.

BANG!