"I'm sorry," she whispers, "I'm sorry."

Blood oozes out of the wound in Dante's stomach and drips onto Mona. He places a hand by her head when he begins to fall over her. Pain is starting to etch over his hard features. There's something else there, something just behind his eyes that she doesn't recognize.

"She didn't think you'd do it," he gasped out in a half laugh.

She looks at him, confusion wracking her face. She watches his eyes close briefly and his face twists in pain. Slowly, his eyes open and find hers in the pale dark of the room.

"Mona? Mona, what…" he trails off as he looks down at his torso.

Dante rolls himself off of her and onto his back beside her. He moans and clutches at the glass in his stomach. Mona scoots away from him as quickly as she can, not quite trusting him. His thick fingers wrap around the base of the glass and he jerks it from his stomach. She watches him for a few terrifying moments before he tosses it away from him, and presses his hand to his stomach. Blood still seeps between his fingers.

Trish.

Mona runs to the phone on Dante's desk and punches the numbers in.

"This had better be good, or so help you," Trish grumbles into the phone after the sixth ring.

"Trish," Mona sobs out. "I stabbed Dante."

"What?" Her voice was more alert. "Mona, you did what?"

"I stabbed Dante," she stuttered out, "I had to! He was trying to kill me and… and. Trish, please help. He's bleeding so much, I don't know what to do."

"I'll be there in two minutes. Keep pressure on it."

The line goes dead and Mona looks back at Dante. He lies on his back, his eyes closed, and a grimace on his face. Carefully, Mona walks back over to him. Each step is placed with hesitation. When she reaches him, she kneels down next to him and places her hands on top of his. She winces at his groan when she presses down firmly.

"God, babe," he gasps. "I know I can be a dick sometimes, but did you have to stab me?" He tries and fails to smile at her.

"You don't know why I stabbed you?" she asks after moments of confused realization.

"Got m-me."

"Dante, you," she pauses, "you were trying to kill me. You attacked me."

He looks at her. "No, I didn't."

"You did. I had a dream that you attacked me. Only it wasn't really you. You asked me why I was up and I told you I had a nightmare. You smiled and apologized for whatever dream you did. I said I didn't say you were in it, Dante." She pressed harder on the wound. "And you said, 'Who says I'm Dante?' And then you attacked me."

He grows very quiet. He says nothing for a few moments, Scaring Mona half to death. Finally, he turns his blue eyes towards her. He starts to say something to her, getting her name out, but Trish throws the front doors open. Mona jumps and turns her head to look. Within seconds Trish is on the other side of Dante, ripping his shirt open.

"Where is Nero?" she demands.

Dante lets out a yelp when Trish shoves on his stomach. "You bitch," he gasps. "He's out. He went to go cool off. He sai– Fuck!"

Mona watches as Trish shoves her fingers into the wound. She nearly vomits and turns her head away. When she looks back, Trish has pulled out a broken sliver of glass.

"You'll live," she confirms. "You wouldn't have though if she would have just gotten you a little deeper. Mona," she says as she snaps her fingers to get her attention, "go into the bathroom down the hall and bring me the blue box in the corner."

"I didn't do anything."

"Bullshit. That girl called me terrified. She said you attacked her, Dante. Mona is not the kind of girl to lie about something like that. You did something. Now tell me, or I'll shove my fingers in your stomach again," she threatens, narrowing her eyes and raising her hand.

"I'm telling you, I did nothing. I had a pizza, drank some beer, ate a strawberry sundae, went to the strip club, and then came back here and went to sleep. Mona was in her bed, I didn't want to wake her. When I woke up, I was on top of Mona and had a piece of glass sticking out of my stomach." He groans. "God, I forgot how much stomach wounds hurt."

"Don't be such a baby," Trish sighs.

It takes Trish an hour and a half to get Dante, and Mona's hand patched up. After she was finished with Dante, she helped him upstairs to his room and then came back to finish up Mona. She sat down, face-to-face, with Mona's hand in Trish's lap.

"Will he be okay?" Mona asks after a brief silence.

"He'll be fine. He's stronger than you think. Kind of like a cockroach. If you would have shoved that in any further, he'd be in trouble. He likes people to think he's invincible, but he can get hurt. And, as much as it pains him to acknowledge it, he can be killed."

"Does he remember anything?"

"No. He did his usual routine after he put you to bed. He doesn't remember anything." She wrapped gauze around her hand. "Personally, I think he got something from one of those strippers. No, not a disease. I think one of them was paid to put something in his drink. I can't be sure though. I'll stop by tomorrow and ask around."

Nero walks through the door, jacket thrown over his shoulder like he hasn't a care in the world. He stops suddenly and looks around the room. His eyes freeze on Mona and her injured hand. Before he can ask her what happened, Mona stands up and storms over to him. She looks at him for a few seconds before she slaps him hard across his face.

Trish smirks and stands up.

"What the hell–"

"Where were you?" Mona screams at him.

He rubs his face where she hit him. "I was out! What happened?"

"I was nearly killed by Dante! And I nearly killed him defending myself, because you weren't here!" She shoved at him, remembering his smug face. "I needed your help, Nero! I screamed for you and you weren't here. I could have killed him, Nero! He could have killed me!"

Mona's entire body shakes with rage. Without giving him a chance to respond to her, she storms off upstairs.

Trish whistles and starts to clean up the first aid kit.

Mona wants to go back downstairs and beat the shit out of him, but her hand is throbbing. And she knows it isn't entirely his fault and she shouldn't blame him. Right now though she is incredibly angry. She pauses briefly at Dante's door and considers going in. Instead, she turns on her heels and enters her room instead. She decides at that moment to unpack with reckless abandon.

Two hours later the sun is streaming through her white curtains and she's finished unpacking.

The computer on her bed lures her to it and she gives in. The beloved startup noise fills her ears. Alas, normalcy. With a sense of dread, she opens up her email and sighs. Fingers type away as she responds to email after email: her teacher, her boss, her friends, her landlord. She writes all of them back, only with what they need to know, sparing all of the details. Immediately, she gets a response from the ballet manager, but she saves it until she's finished writing everyone back.

Mona,

I'm so glad you've emailed me! Darling, I've been so worried about you! Clara told me you had been attacked? I'm so glad to hear you're okay. Any time you're ready, you can come back to the studio. We can't wait to have you back. Auditions for Sleeping Beauty have not been held yet. Those will take place sometime next week and I encourage you to try out. In fact, I expect you to.

But enough business. Darling, are you certain you're alright? You know I think of you as a daughter and I worry about you. Ever since your Grand died I've seen a change in you. I only want for you to feel loved and to be looked after. Mo, if there is anything you need from me, please, do not hesitate to ask. I'm always here for you.

Write back soon, dear.

With warm thoughts,

Charlotte

Mona wipes tears from her eyes as she finishes reading the letter. It was cruel of her to not contact Charlotte sooner. She had been nothing but kind and sweet to her. Mona shuts her computer and slides it away from her. She should write back to her, express her gratitude, but she no longer has the energy for it.

She rolls to her side and wraps her arms around her stomach. In her entire life, she has never felt so alone, so broken down and cornered. Were they trying to break her down? Who are they exactly? Are they trying to weaken her? Because it's working, she can feel herself growing weaker and less alert. Somewhere in her mind, she's worried that she'll give herself over to them willingly. Eventually, she'll grow tired of fighting. A person can only fight for so long before they go gently into the dark.

She misses her Gran. If she were here, she would take her warm brown hands and wrap them around Mona's, and then kiss the tips of her fingers. She would take her into her yellow kitchen, make her a glass of warm milk with honey and vanilla, and sit her down in the window overlooking the garden. She would tell her to look to God, even though she knew Mona didn't believe in one. She would say that didn't matter to God, he still saw her, still loved her, and would never condemn her.

Mona reaches across the bed and grabs her rosary off of the nightstand. She brings it to her lips and kisses it gently: it still felt warm. It always felt warm when Gran had it.

Grand had told her that her mother, Mona's great-grandmother, Abigail, was just a girl when she moved out to Arizona with her parents. She said that Abi worked day and night searching for stones in the Arizona land. She liked to feel their heat. One day, she said a young Navajo boy, Tsela, found Abi out in the desert looking for rocks. He took her by the hand and led her around the desert, picking up turquoise, raw blue opal, and peacock ore (which was really just chalcopyrite and bornite fused together). Abi especially like the peacock ore. She had told Gran that it looked like the stars where God lived and watched over them.

Abi and Tsela grew close and eventually were married. They moved to the east coast as they always dreamed of. As a wedding gift, Tsela had the turquoise, opal, and ore shaped into rosary beads. When Gran returned to Arizona, she found quartz with lazulite in the desert. When she married her husband, Niyol, he had the stone carved into the shape of a cross and attached to the rosary. The original cross was melted down and made into Gran's wedding band, which Mona wears now.

Mona grasps the rosary tighter and feels tears run down her face and onto her pillow. Quietly, she whispers, "I don't know what to do, Gran. I don't know how long I can do this. I feel like I'm not strong enough for this. I know you would tell me to pray, Gran, but I don't know how. Help me, Gran. Please, I'm so afraid."

Nero had quietly entered the room and stood in the doorway, listening to her plea. It broke his heart to hear her cry. And he is a jackass for behaving like he has. It shamed him to realize he hadn't thought about how afraid she has to be. He lays down softly behind her and wraps his arms around her; a silent 'I'm sorry.' She rolls over in his arms to face him and he gives her an apologetic smile, holding her tighter to his chest. She hides her face and grips his shirt tightly in her hands.