“You know I can’t let you go.”

At these words, Laura’s widened eyes slid from Ryan’s lifeless body to Travis; the dark gaze he was resting upon her caused a shudder through her mostly bared skin. In all of the time they’d spent together she had only seen that particular look in his eyes once—earlier that day, in fact: after she had shot him, and locked him inside the jail cell he had kept her in those two long months. ‘You’ll regret this,’ he had threatened, voice strangled with pain, which considerably lessened the intended menace in his words. Seeing the man who had imprisoned her & Max, manhandled them, and nearly worst of all, withheld vital information from her, whose help he seemed to desperately seek, in a weakened state had strengthened her resolve and belief that her actions were completely fucking justified, given the circumstances—even made her bold enough to mock him as she and Max left the cell block. If there were any doubts or regrets left over from the experience, the following events of the night had wiped them from her mind.

But now, the Travis sitting before her now certainly gave her a reason to fear his retribution, and feel deeply her loss of the werewolf's violent confidence; she was vulnerable, and they both knew it.

She needed a way to defend herself, a weapon...the gun!

Laura looked back towards Ryan's body, the last person in the room to wield the silver bullet loaded gun which he had used to kill Chris Hackett. It was resting on the ground near his feet, awaiting its next owner, its next chance to take another life—another Hackett life, Laura realized grimly, if it should come to that...if she failed to reach the gun before Travis. She darted a glance between him and the gun, saw him doing the same, his face still impassively cold, eyes as dark as coal.

It was now or never.

Scrambling upwards on unsteady limbs, Laura started her desperate grab for the gun. The instant she began to move, out of the corner of her eye she saw Travis move too—also going for the gun, she assumed. She was wrong.

Hand outstretched, her fingers just about to make contact with the shotgun, Laura suddenly found herself slammed to the ground, Travis' heavier body pinning her to the bloodied hardwood floor, his legs straddling hers, as he with one hand kept both of her wrists above her head, while his other bloody hand held the mirror shard directly above her heart.

His face was twisted with fury.

Laura could only stare into Travis' crazed eyes—gone was the mask of ice, melted away by a hellfire blazing so passionately she swore she could see the flames radiating from his skull. Those burning eyes raged straight into her own and she had the urge to turn her head, lest she be physically seared by the pure unbridled hatred aflame within him. When she did try to move her head, Travis released her wrists to roughly grab her chin and force her to remain staring directly up at him, and no where else.

"Stop moving," he snarled. The sharp end of the mirror shard began to press lightly into her tank top; not enough pressure to break flesh, but enough to earn her stillness.

"Travis—" He cut her off by moving his hand to cover her mouth.

"Stop talking."

Test, test test—test.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

She deserved to die.

She deserved to die, and he deserved to be the one to do it—his way, his choice.

And Travis had made that choice, right here and right now; he waited for her to be at her most vulnerable...and what could be more vulnerable than half-naked, drenched in blood, and suddenly without the increased vitality provided by the werewolf's bite? It had been easy to get her where he currently had her, where he had wanted her since she fired the bullet from his own gun into his body: unable to move, unable to speak, with the instrument of her destruction at the ready to take her life, like she tried to take his...like she took from his family, one by one.

His dear mother, adversarial Constance...

His respected father, loyal Jedidiah...

His precious niece, sweet Kaylee...

All dead by her hands.