The sign said it all, and with a sigh of relief Wick stepped inside. Finding this place hadn't been easy. Only one bathroom in the entire complex that had showers where girls were allowed. At least she didn't have to worry about any boys walking in. She'd always showered during lunchtime at BattleSchool, just to avoid it.

She undressed slowly, the soreness in her muscles much reduced but still evident. Her uniform smelled faintly of Jor, and she held it to her for a moment before putting it into the cleaner and then stepping into a wonderfully hot spray of water to wash the rest of him away. She wouldn't admit it, but under her anger she was lonely and bereft. By the time she was done with her shower, she decided to try to find him again. She needed to talk to him. She had no idea what to say, but she would think of something. He would regret making her come to him...but not as much as she regretted letting him leave.

She hung her head to let the water soothe her neck muscles, slowly rotating it back and forth with her chin nearly against her chest before flipping her short straight hair back and letting the water soak it more thoroughly. She would wash all of her. Wouldn't want to offend her roomie, after all, she thought with a smirk.

Well, not all of it. The cut the infirmary had left untreated was still there, a thin red line across her abdomen, but it required no medical attention, no stitches, and the bruise on her neck was still tender to the touch, but everything else went swirling down the drain.

Her bath complete, she wrung her hair out and grabbed a towel, keeping her head canted forward to keep water from falling on her as she dried the rest of her before wrapping her hair to keep it out of the way as she redressed in her clean uniform. The damaged one was also clean, but it was cut. She'd have to sew it, if she could find a needle and thread someplace. The undershirt was really pretty dispensable, but the jacket would be harder to explain.

She unwrapped her hair and toweled it dry as best she could before going to stand in front of the hot air vent set into the wall and finished drying it, mostly. She didn't really care if it was a little damp. She wanted to get back to the barracks, back to Gabe. She was in such a hurry to leave that she almost walked into the door when it didn't open at her touch on the palmpad.

The door was jammed, knocked off its track. She doubted she'd be able to get it open from this side. Her stomach figured it out before her mind did, clenching and making her breathing come a little faster as she looked away from the door, into the mirror that hung on the wall, into the silver eyes that were watching her with pained interest. Asmodeus. She had been able to see the door since she'd stepped out of the shower. He'd been there the whole time she was dressing, taking time drying her hair, thinking about her uniform, thinking about Gabe, and that infuriated her.

Her eyes displayed the same sort of light his once had when he'd risen from the floor where Swede had knocked him down to see Jordan and Wick enter the room. Dismay, fury...and determination.

Had such a look ever crossed Katera's features? He doubted it. Dante's? Perhaps. But not for him. She'd never fought for him the way this girl had for Hunter Gabriel. The only time he'd ever seen her fight was when she'd attacked him after the letter. That brought another wave of pain, and he couldn't meet that gaze any longer and looked away.

His hand came up automatically to block when she kicked at him, and he swung his gaze back to her and blocked as she unleashed a flurry of blows on him. Even blocking hurt, but he did nothing else, and six minutes later she was running low on breath. Her accuracy wasn't suffering, but she was slowing down, and her hits weren't as hard as they had been. He would bruise, badly, but nothing more. The girl was good, fast and precise, with a surprising amount of strength.

It wasn't going to be enough. Not without help.

He caught the next kick and pulled her forward. She struggled with renewed vigor and almost got free, but he pinned her arms to her sides with his hands, locking them around her wrists and into the material of her uniform as he backed her up against the wall. She tried to headbutt him and he threw his head back just in time, and then tightened his grip on her arms so it became more painful.

"Stop."

She did, her wide eyes fastened on his as he held her to the wall. Once she had stopped moving, he let her go and stepped back as she caught her breath. He looked her over with detached criticism, nothing but clinical scrutiny in his gaze, but she flushed and clenched her jaw anyway.

"What's your name?" he asked her quietly. She swallowed and took a deep breath, finally getting her air back. "Sol," she said through gritted teeth. He only nodded. "Are you always that overeager, Sol?" Her face remained blank, but anger leapt into her eyes again. He watched her impassively, crossing his arms across his chest and waiting as that anger turned into wary confusion instead. "What do you want?" she asked slowly, her eyes searching his. Her body remained tense.

It was now or never.

There was no graceful way to make this request. His words came slowly and evenly, and her eyes widened in shock, narrowed in disbelief, and then softened the tiniest bit in pity, but her voice was still guarded and suspicious when she spoke again. "Why?" He met her gaze evenly. "Because it needs to be done." His voice was flat and emotionless, and she just stared at him, perhaps wondering how crazy he really was.

She wasn't the first.

"Come here." He gave the command nearly gently, but she did not move, her face tightening a little behind the icy mask she was wearing. His eyes narrowed. "You've read my file, Sol. Kat told me about you. You have some idea of what I could do to you if I chose, what I might do to you if you don't listen to me. How would Gabriel take that news in his current condition?" She flinched and then looked as if she were about to leap at him again, but she did not...and still did not move forward.

He tried again. "The next time you see me, Sol, I will be far less interested in your well-being. If you don't do as I instruct, then I will have to take payment for your misbehavior out of Gabriel instead." Her mask faltered, and her wrath and fear were evident on her features, and Angel felt ashamed...but it had to be done.

She approached him with hesitant steps, defiance on her features, and he shot his arm out and grabbed hers, spun her about to face the mirror on the wall. She struggled, and he slipped one of his hands to her throat as the other captured her wrists and held them tightly behind her back as he forced her to look in the mirror at him holding her. She glared back at him, but quickly realized the futility of fighting him and went lax.

"You fight too fast," he said in her ear, his gaze still locked with hers in the mirror. "You have to slow down. You won't wear me out, not like that. My right side is slightly weaker than my left. Try to stay on it. Don't bother feinting. It only wastes your energy and it might get you hurt before you finish your job. And do not, under any circumstance, allow me to hold you like this again." She yanked to get free and he let her go except for a hand around her arm. She didn't attack him, just looked at it and then back to his face. "One more thing. Your hair. It gets in your way."

Before she could protest, he slipped a hand into her hair and pulled her to him. She hissed, but he was relatively gentle, his hand dropping from her arm and moving through her dark hair with old, old motions he'd known as long as he could remember. Her hair was heavy, but not coarse, and it held the braid well. She tolerated this, but she was trembling by the time he was finished.

He released her, and she stared at him. The lines of her face were in greater contrast, her high cheekbones more pronounced without the long hair around her face. She would be pretty, he decided, if his heart had been capable of telling him what pretty was, after seeing Dante's beautiful face set in cold rejection of his love, the icy smile she'd worn as he was dragged away past the infirmary in BattleSchool.

He turned and yanked the door, and it lost a bit of its plastic and moved back on track enough for it to slide open, and he left without another word. The last of the light was fading quickly, and if the darkness took him here, Sol would never have a chance to do what he'd asked of her.

Even as he did, the other things he had seen as he'd approached started to register. The red marks on Sol's wrists, where she'd been restrained. The way the door had remained open even after she was already through. But these were all things that were filtering in like background noise. All he was seeing was the look in Sol's eyes.

Gabe took hold of her shoulders, looking into her eyes, and she blinked and embraced him, unmindful of his injury, hugged him tightly and stared at the wall over his shoulder as she tried to calm herself enough to make sense of what had just happened. The braid felt strange and awkward after wearing her hair loose for so long, the air on her neck making her shiver.

She raised a slow hand to her neck, her fingers brushing the bruise that still marred the skin as she tightened the other around Gabe's waist. The events of the last few minutes began to impact, and she shivered and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. The rough feel of the bandage under his uniform jacket made her pull away, and a little of her daze evaporated as automatic apology entered her features.

Sorry?

"Sol, what the hell happened, are you alright?" Gabe took her face in his hands and turned her face left and then right as he craned his neck to check her for injuries, for blood. He was too numb to think of anything else.

The only injuries he could see were the ones on her wrists. She'd been held tightly, but not necessarily savagely -- they looked more like the marks that were made by struggling against a very strong grip.

Kat didn't have this kind of strength. She was quick, and her insanity made her tough, but she didn't have this kind of raw power in her.

That left Mode.

Gabe pulled her to him and hugged her tight, planting his lips against her forehead. Jesus Christ, she'd been attacked by Kat's ally and he'd been lazing around in the goddamn barracks.

What could you have done, fool? Followed her into the showers and watched the door?

Blaming himself was completely illogical. But then, Gabe himself was getting damn illogical these days. That was the price of happiness. Open yourself to love, and you let in pain too. So be it. It was worth the price.

Logical or not, he could not absolve himself of guilt. He should have done something. He should have noticed that she was gone too long sooner. He should have waited outside the showers instead of back at the cell.

He'd relaxed in a time of danger. He's let down his guard when he should have been waiting with a ready sword.

You live by the sword, don't you, Mode? You and Kat both. Well, I hope you know just what that means.

Kat had stabbed him. That was all well and good. He'd tried to kill her with a pipe once, and had her sent to the Institute. Stabbing him had been revenge. Fine. But Sol was an innocent. She always had been. She'd gotten tangled up in all this when Gabe had enlisted her computer skills eight years before. And now this Mode had attacked her.

I would have walked away from all this, if you had let me, you two. I would have readily accepted any truce. Just so it was over. Well, not anymore god damn it.

Not anymore.

The girl Minerva was still following her, but Riya could have cared less. She had other, more important things to focus on. Rabin, for example. The boy reminded her of Kat; always temperamental, always easily angered... and full of potential. She'd wanted to smile when Rabin had tripped Gabe outside, and when his hatred toward Gabriel was made obvious, she nearly did grin. What a useful tool. There were so many things she could do with him.

All of them involved killing Gabe.

She was out of the shower and dressed before she took notice of her surroundings again, and when Minerva moved to the mirror beside her, Riya gave her a quiet glance. Wouldn't hurt to continue to cultivate this alliance. It might prove valuable in the future.

Might as well not stink for my first day of classes.

She saw Riya walk out the door towards the girl’s shower area. Minerva began walking a few paces behind her, trying to show her she wasn’t purposely following. When they entered the bathroom, Riya went straight to a stall. Minerva grabbed the shower a couple down from her. She began thinking of Rabin again. That big brute was going to start trouble again, she knew it. She didn’t take kindly to idiots like him antagonizing her cellmates. Even if she ended up not liking them, she did have to work with them for the next two years, and she would prefer to have that time be very uneventful. But his strength could cause a problem: Hunter was built, but not big and huge like Rabin. If they got in a fistfight, no doubt that Rabin would win. She definitely needed to talk to Hunter and Rebecca.

Minerva quickly turned off the shower, got dressed, and exited the stall at about the same time Riya did. If she hurried, she could go see if Hunter and Rebecca were in the cell…

“Should we go?”

Minerva nearly jumped at Riya’s voice. She hadn’t expected her to say a word, so Minerva had decided to keep quiet. But here she was, actually saying something to Minerva…without being forced too.

She surprised me again.

Her hair was dry, her collar still undone to allow her access to her injury, and her bare feet made no sound on the tile as she walked slowly over to stand in front of the mirror. The towel she held against her throat with her left arm fell away, and she looked at the red bitemark dully. Her fingers dug into the thick material of the towel and she glared at that mark, unable to look away from it.

He wanted to mark me. He wanted me to know I was his. Like that's new.

But it was different this time. This time, she'd gone to him for comfort, she'd asked him for help, she'd humbled herself, and he bit her. This wasn't the little love marks they normally traded. This was something meaner, and she didn't like it.

She didn't like it at all.

She finally pulled her eyes away from the mark, and focused on her reflection, ice eyes boring into each other, looking for life. Looking for her spark. I used to be alive. I used to be real. I used to be mine. What am I now?

The answer was in her eyes, maddeningly empty of the fire she used to love in herself, replaced by weakly smoldering ash that was entirely dependent on something else for fuel.

His. Something to be locked away. Something to be owned. Something helpless to be protected. Something to be marked. His.

The towel dropped to the floor, and she balled her left hand into a fist and struck the flat plane of the mirror as hard as she could. There was a loud cracking sound, and she jumped despite herself. The heavy plate of plexiglass didn't shatter, but there was a small scratch in the polish. She looked down at her hand. The knuckles were just beginning to bruise, but that wasn't what had made the scratch in the mirror.

The palefire ring had gained one as well.

She brought her right hand up to her left and fastened her fingertips around it. All she had to do was take it off. She would get herself back. She would belong to no one. She would be free, and she would never have to depend on anyone else again.

But how much of me would be left?

Her reflection spread its hand out flat against the cold mirror surface, white against the silver. The ring clicked as it came into contact with the glass, and she met her own eyes once more as her right hand fell to her side. Wick was a liar - a good one - but lying to herself was counterproductive. She knew that ring was there to stay. So did Jordan. She couldn't live without him...but she couldn't live like this.

Alright, Jor. You win. You have me, and you know it, but if you make me, I'll punish you for it. Just because I'll die for you doesn't mean I won't fight you. Just because I'll spend the rest of my life on my knees before you doesn't mean I won't bring you to yours. You own me, and you'll pay for that...and you'll love me for it, because I have you too, Jordan. You're mine, and I'll never let you forget it.

Her hand fell away from the mirror, but she held her gaze as she took hold of the ring and twisted, turning it so the small scar was towards her palm. Jor would never see it. The mark on her neck was bruised and ugly, and she pulled her collar over it roughly with a businesslike motion and snapped it into place. That mark was done with. It would not stay on her, as the stamp had marked Jordan's back, but the scar beneath the skin would last a lifetime.

We're even, Jorry. We balance. Next time I'll have to hurt you back.

A small, strange smile touched her mouth, and at last, after almost four years of battle with Jordan, Wick was at peace.