"Tell everyone who is discouraged, Be strong and don't be afraid! God is coming to your rescue…" -Isaiah 35:4

Not three months ago, Kat had had a nightmare. She couldn't recall exactly what it was, only remembering there were glowing eyes and a grating voice, long shadowed fingers crawling from her closet into her bedroom. She'd awoken in a panic, grabbed Lime from beside her, and clumsily ran to her fathers' room, sniffling all the way. Valefor, who always slept right in-between their rooms, had hopped up at her noise, trotting over to help her make it to her destination. She'd clutched onto his collar to keep her sleepy balance, whining and shoving their door open, calling for them.

She remembered Kyle waking up first with a start, Kenny not far behind and moving to shield Kyle from view as he groggily asked what was wrong. She'd just cried, the two of them guessing right off what had occurred, Kenny stumbling in the dark to pick her up and Kyle rushing off to the master bathroom with Val. Kat had been hysterical watching their shadowed forms seep into the darkness, thinking they wouldn't be able to come back out while Kenny tried to bounce her a bit to cool her down. Ken had sat down on the bed with her in his lap, brushing tangled curls out with his fingers and trying to get her to talk, while she was far too preoccupied watching the bathroom in anticipation. She could recall seeing a faint red light coming from the room twice intermittently before it died off for good, her heart pounding as the faucet began to run and the clear sound of frantic scrubbing echoed out of the doorway.

She'd hidden in Kenny's shirt, clutching her bear and him and not able to stop her confused sobbing. Valefor had rushed back out first, hopping with his front paws on the bed and nudging her with his nose, trying to pry her out of her hiding spot. Kyle followed not long after, rubbing himself down with a towel and sitting next to them on the bed, Kat automatically gasping in relief at his safe reappearance and reaching over to clutch at him as well. "Hey, hey, hey," Kenny had cooed. "What's wrong, Kiddo? Bad dream?"

She'd nodded, flinching as a tissue was pressed up under her nose, looking to see Kyle illuminated in the moonlight watching her with worry. "Tell us what happened," he'd urged, wiping off her face.

"I-I don't know," she'd croaked. "Monster."

She remembered seeing them glancing at each other, as though trying to decide just what to tell her before looking back down as they met their silent consensus. "There's no such thing," Kenny promised. "And if there was, Val would tear 'em right up. Then me and Dad would beat 'em with a bat." She'd nodded, burying herself between their waists, trying to create a barrier around herself.

"You wanna sleep in here?" Kyle had asked, petting her hair.

"Uh h-huh." Kyle had moved to the far side of the bed, Kenny sighing through a yawn as he helped her clamber into the middle. She'd held on to Lime like her life depended on it as they rearranged pillows before slipping back under their covers and helping her get situated.

"Ken, can you set the alarm a little earlier?" Kyle had requested, getting a half-awake grunt in response as Kat stared at their ceiling, the shadows of trees peeking from the split in the drapes looking far too daunting for her comfort. The bed had dipped and they all looked down, seeing Val cautiously climbing up, watching Kyle with care for any direction to get off the furniture before plopping down in the middle of their legs, his head resting beside Kat's feet and pressed against Kyle's calf.

"You shit," Kenny had snorted, reaching down and scratching his ear.

Kyle had shaken his head, "Tonight only, Val," he'd warned with a yawn as he and Kenny slid to lie back down. Kat had grabbed their arms one at a time, guiding them over her to cage herself in and curling up into a ball. Her dads had watched her before obliging, moving in closer and holding gently around her, trying to get her sniffling to come to a stop.

"Hey," Kenny had whispered. "Nothin's gonna get you. You got me and Dad and Slobber-boy right here."

"Why'd you mention yourself twice?" Kyle had asked with a sheepish, sleepy grin, snorting as Kenny slapped his arm and getting a small, choked giggle out of Kat. He'd looked down and bumped his head against Kat's. "Hey. You're tough. Anything would be scared to take you on."

"Right," Ken had agreed through another yawn. "You're my lil fighter. Just like your dad," he'd poked Kyle's forehead, getting another small huff of a laugh out of him. "Anythin' happens, I'm hiding behind the two of you."

Kat had given another tiny twitter, snuggling down and clasping around Lime, her heartrate finally slowing and finding herself feeling safe enough to face the night again. She'd drifted back off before she knew it, pleasantly swaying in a dreamless sleep. She'd woken up to the feeling of warmth and comfort as sunlight just began cresting through their window, looking to see all three of the others passed out, still surrounding her and protecting her from the outside world. She'd loved that, feeling so secure, knowing that her fathers would get her away from anything that would be remotely scary to her.

So why weren't they here?

Valefor nudged her gently, tongue passing up over her arm as she clutched around him and sobbed, sinking to the ground and just overwhelmed with what was happening. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know who this 'angel' beside her was, or what the monster lingering and watching in the background was. She only knew that her dad seemed as scared as she was, and that just made her feel worse. If he was scared, then something very awful had to be happening, something that no one wanted to explain to her, wouldn't let her limited comprehension rest a bit with some answers.

She flinched as a soft hand touched her arm, looking up through bleared eyes to see Pip kneeling down beside her, watching her with nothing but pure sympathy over his face. "There there," he cooed. "It'll all be all right, Katlyn."

Kat gulped, looking into kind, dark eyes, remembering her dad swearing that he was someone she could trust, someone that would take care of her and protect her. But the air of doubt was lingering, that lesson he and Kenny had drilled into her about never trusting a stranger without the two of them with her echoing loudly above his promises. "I want… want Daddy a-and Papa," she croaked.

Pip's heart sank, feeling revulsion swelling within him. A child. Damien had taken and threatened a child. He certainly couldn't put a dirty move like that past the antichrist, but it was sickening, pathetic. He shifted, sitting on the sides of his legs and watching her little lip trembling, the raw fear raging in dark blue eyes that wrenched his chest. "I know," he finally worked out, wings maneuvering behind him to sit comfortably. "But… they can't get to you right now. But they will," he promised. "They'll do anything to get you home."

Kat rubbed at her wet eyes with her arm, looking up at the only familiarity she had, meeting eyes with her dog and her jaw dropping slowly. Bright, beaming red stared back at her instead of that relieving, rich chestnut, the unusual hue sending her falling backwards, Pip quickly diving forward and catching under her head as she continued to stare at Valefor who looked lost at her sudden fear. "Val-for?" she whimpered. He cocked his head, leaning down and sniffing at her stomach, squinting in the slightest as a small, tremoring hand came up to touch over his brow bone. "Red…" she trailed off. This was too much. This was just too much.

Pip looked between the both of them, still holding her curly head up and gnawing on his lip. He had a hell of a choice to make here. How much was Kyle willing to let be known to his daughter? Pip knew well enough he'd tried to hide it from her, hide everything. But now, they were both trapped in the world that he'd spent so long building a wall around, trying to ignore its existence for her sake. Pip was no fool, everything was going to spill out to her one way or another, but he just didn't know how much Kyle wanted to be the one to sit her down and talk her through it, if Damien would even give them that chance. He didn't know how long it would be before something could be figured out, no doubt it'd all take longer than what Kyle's disguising spell lasted for. He'd promised he'd explain what he could, though, and Kyle seemed to accept that in the split second he had before he was torn up and away.

"Those are his real eyes," Pip started slowly, Kat looking at him and sniffling.

"Real?" she echoed.

He nodded, sitting her up with the three of them in a huddled little group, Gragor watching with dull eyes from the cave wall. "Valefor lived here before he and your dad found each other."

Kat looked around with heavy, wet blinks, taking in the rich, warm colors spanning the sky, the deadened earth beneath her and the rocky terrain splashed with scraggly trees lingering in the distance. "How… how come they're r-red?"

He scratched up through his hair, clearing his throat a bit. "He's not… from… Earth. He's from here. In… Hell," he winced.

Kat stared at him in bewilderment, "Where's that?"

"They haven't told you about Hell?" he raised his brow, blinking rapidly before remembering with a start Kyle's impromptu explanation of what he was. "Do you know where Heaven is? Or perhaps who God is?" he tried. Maybe they just stuck to Kyle's faith, Kenny and he opting out of the notion of Catholicism altogether and they were slowly building on the tales as she got older. She shook her head slowly and he bit his lip. They hadn't told her anything. And he wasn't entirely sure how the two of them would react to him giving her a theological lesson. The choices, however, were looking few and far between. He didn't exactly have enough imagination to come up with outlandish tales, not when he'd been dealing with the outer realms for so many years. "Oh dear," he murmured, rubbing his arm uncomfortably as she waited for further elaboration. "Heaven… is where good people go when they die. Hell is… where bad people go."

She looked around again, eyes widening. "Die?!"

"Not you, not you," he corrected immediately, shaking his hands in front of him. "You, your father, and Valefor are all alive, I promise."

"Then why… why are we here?" she insisted, head spinning. Kenny and Kyle had sat her down to tell her about death not long before, when her class' pet fish had floated to the top of the bowl. "Like sleeping, but you can't wake up," they'd said. She'd understood the gist, Kenny pointing to her favorite movies at good characters who had died, explaining it as best as he could with Kyle for once letting him take the lead, just nodding along and answering questions directed towards him. But they never mentioned places anyone went, only the consequences, why the other characters were struck with such sadness or anger.

She remembered asking why no one was sad when a bad person died if death was so sad, why no tears were shed for the characters cloaked in the shadows. Why the end goal seemed to be this distressing notion befalling the villain. Both of them had fallen silent for a few moments before Kyle had grasped her little hand and squeezed. "Someone will always be sad, no matter how bad the person," he'd told her. "But, sometimes, a person is bad enough that others have a better life without them, but that doesn't happen often. Unless someone hurts you, and I mean really hurts you, you should never hope for someone to die. It's a terrible thing to want, because you only get there through the worst of things happening to you. Very few people ever deserve that kind of hateful thinking. Do you understand?" She looked down as Valefor plopped down beside her, head resting on her tiny legs still marred with dried blood and looking at her with those unknown eyes. She wondered if this was a dream, one that she couldn't wake from, if it was some form of death that even her fathers knew nothing about.

Pip clicked his teeth a bit, still considering her question with care, knowing he was walking a very fine line with just how much he would be revealing to a toddler, to an innocent. "The person who took you… he doesn't like your fathers very much," he winced. "He's… a very evil person."

The concept was foreign, Kat only knowing the term from cartoons and movies, where the 'evil' was never around at the very end, was always struck down by the heroes for a happily ever after. Where they cackled in dramatic fashion and wrung their hands and lightning struck in the background of long-winded speeches. "How… how come he- he doesn't like them?" She was no fool; she'd seen plenty of people who didn't like her parents. Her 'sorta-kinda-not-really-Uncle' Eric, as Kenny had introduced him, fought with her dad constantly in his few visits until Kenny would break them up and send Kyle off to cool down. Her papa had a running grudge with one of the other dads at her preschool, anytime she and Jamie were picked up at the same time met with the two of them glaring at one another and passing sharp quips before storming away with their children. Kenny had explained to her on the ride home once how Jamie's dad just didn't like him and her dad together, to just ignore him and to ignore Jamie if he ever fell into a similar way of thinking. But they were little things, tiny inconveniences that her fathers taught her was better to brush off than let get to them for more than a few minutes. Nothing like this. Never had a fight with someone taken it to this extreme in her short life.

Pip looked at her with a sad gleam to his eye, Kat befuddled at the tone. "He's jealous of your papa. And…" he paused, looking for the right words, not sure of how to explain the deep-seated, mismatched power play Damien held so haughtily over Kyle, wanted to crush him with. "And your dad… he's been through this before," he whispered. "Damien, the evil man," he explained, "he took your dad to make your papa upset a few years ago. But your dad fought him, and he didn't care for that. So he wants to stop him from doing it again."

Kat blinked, hearing her papa's voice again. "My lil fighter. Just like your dad." She sniffled, wiping at her eyes again and staring down at Valefor's head as he heaved a somewhat burdened sigh, still watching her. Like he knew; like he knew something was desperately wrong and she wasn't getting the full story. "Where… where did he take… take Daddy?" she asked quietly, voice worn from exhaustion and crying.

Pip sighed, patting her arm genially. "I don't know. Probably to see your papa, to tell him not to try to rescue you or your dad will get hurt…" 'And you,' he thought with a weighty heart, hating to spell out the truth but knowing in this situation, anything less would be ludicrous reasoning for not getting her out immediately. Kat looked at him again, lip trembling at the notion, remembering the pained, muffled scream and the blood she'd watched rushing out of her dad. The way that one of the men she thought was impenetrable, the one that was strong enough to lift Valefor up into his arms and carry with ease was thrown tens of feet away into the dirt like nothing.

From the attack that was her fault.

Pip continued to try to soothe her down as she coughed out another guilty sob. "Don't you worry, though," he said determinedly. "I know your fathers very well. Nothing will stop them, I promise. They're going to figure something out and get all four of you home and safe," he patted Valefor's head a bit, the dog giving him a brisk tail wag before his focus fell back where it belonged.

She paused, cocking her head at the number. "Where's Papa?"

"In Heaven," he held up his hand as her eyes widened again. "Not dead." He cleared his throat, 'or if he is, perhaps you don't need to know that,' he thought. "He has friends in Heaven, both of them do. They're probably all going to come down and rescue you both," he forced a smile across his face, wondering if filling her with false promises would be something Kyle would have disdain for. He highly doubted he'd be too distraught with his daughter having hope, though. Unfortunately, it was probably far more hope than he himself would be having at this moment.

Kat nodded slowly, hearing her dad's promises for her papa to get them both out. But then again, she was also promised that monsters weren't real. And stealing another glance at the gold-plated demon lingering off and away, such a statement held little water anymore.

She yawned a bit, tiny body worn out from such a barrage of events and new information, leaning forward to rest on Valefor's head. She curled up slightly, hiding her face in his thin fur and sniffling, feeling Pip comfortingly rubbing her back and breathing out in broken waves. She felt so lost, felt a helplessness and a loneliness that she'd never experienced before. Tears trailed down her cheeks, landing in Valefor's fur as he nuzzled down further into her legs, letting her clutch tighter around his skull without so much as a grunt.

There was nothing that Kat could think of in her over-stimulated mind except where she wanted and needed to be: In her fathers' bed, where the four of them were curled up so closely with one another, where the so-called nonexistent monsters would be kept at bay. Where it was the safest place in the world.