Three hours later, Ava was stepping out of the shower to the sound of someone pounding on the bathroom door. She dressed slowly, content to ignore them in the meantime. It was likely one of the twins; they were usually the most impatient when it came to waiting on the shared bathroom.

Ava expected them to go away after she didn’t answer, but instead, whoever was on the other side kept knocking, louder. Finally, Ava balled up her shirt and yanked the door open, ready to throw it in the face of one of the twins. What she didn’t expect was to find Ry standing there, hand poised to knock again.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Ava demanded, shirt dangling limply from her hand. Ry, to his credit, didn’t let his gaze dip past her chin. He may not have even noticed she was shirtless. Not that she cared. A body was a body. Any sense of shame had been stripped from her long ago.

“Abigail called Diana, just to talk, and when she heard what happened, Diana pulled me out of bed and made me drive her here,” he said, sounding bored, like always. But he hadn’t answered what she’d really been asking.

“No, why are you here, banging on the door loud enough to wake the dead?” Ava snapped, hand on her hip. This, her movement, finally drew Ry’s eyes down to her bare abdomen, but they quickly darted back up, not giving away anything but glorious, untouchable boredom.

“Because someone had to check on you,” he said simply. Ava resisted the urge to snarl at him for that, for assuming she needed checking up on. She could handle herself perfectly fine without him, and told him as much.

“Really? Because all I see is an angry, scared girl who doesn’t know how to say she’s not OK,” he said cooly. Before Ava could decide if she wanted to punch him or shove him down the stairs, he continued. “I see someone who doesn’t need or want to be left alone right now. So come hang out with Diana, Abigail, and me. That’s what friends are for.” With that, he disappeared down the hall, leaving Ava gaping at where he’d been standing.

It took all her willpower not to follow after him, shove him against a wall, and show him just how angry she really was. Instead, she pulled her shirt over her head and brushed her curls back from her face, putting a leash on her temper. Taking everything out on him would get her nowhere.

Instead, she slammed the bathroom door shut and gripped the counter so hard her knuckles turned white, his words ringing in her ears. Who did he think he was, talking to her like that? Like he knew a saints damned thing about her.

In the mirror, her eyes shone brightly with anger, ancient and cold and unending. For a brief moment, Ava thought she saw a tinge of red in the gold, but when she blinked it was gone. Saints, she thought, I’m losing it. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need to be around people. Though it pained her to admit it, Ry’s words rang true, urging her out of the bathroom and into the loft with the others.

No one commented on her arrival, or the vicious twist to her mouth, but Abigail smiled brightly at her, gesturing for Ava to sit beside her. Ava allowed herself to be guided into a seat, but didn’t pay attention to the conversation at hand, at least not at first.

“So you’ve dealt with Hunters before, right?” Diana asked, voice falling to a hushed tone. “What… What happened? You told us about Dahlia, but what happened after… you know.” Ava sucked in a breath and looked over at Abigail, watching her clench her fists in her shirt. Ava reached out, laying a hand on top of Abigail’s, squeezing gently.

Abigail had been closer to Dahlia, and her death had devastated her. She hadn’t spoken to anyone for two weeks afterwards, not Argent, not Ava, not Erin, not Sirius. She’d simply stayed curled up in her bed for days on end. She barely ate, hardly slept, didn’t seem to be alive.

It had finally stopped when Ava had dropped the Hunter’s protective amulet - a sign of completed training - on her pillow, an inch from Abigail’s nose. For the first time in weeks, Ava had seen a little bit of life in those icy eyes, like winter thawing, when Abigail had looked up and asked what Ava had done.

“Nothing illegal,” she’d said begrudgingly. “He’s with the cops now, confessed before they asked him anything other than his name.” Abigail hadn’t smiled, but Ava could read the grim satisfaction in her eyes.

Argent had been furious, but Ava had expected that. What she hadn’t expected were Lupus’s tears, or the way Argent had fallen to her knees when Ava walked in the door, blood on her knuckles and an enchanted amulet burning her hand.

And the sound Argent had made - Ava had fallen to her knees in the doorway and apologized until she hadn’t known any other words, because for the first time she saw Argent undone at the seams, and she hadn’t known what else to do. Argent hardly let Ava out of her sight for the next month.

“Ava?” Ry asked, interrupting her thoughts. “You don’t have to talk about it,” he said softly. Ava tried to be angry about how gently he spoke to her, but she couldn’t find it in her to feel anything right then, too exhausted by the events of the morning.

“He’s in jail, where he’ll spend the rest of his miserable life,” Ava said flatly. “He’s currently serving twelve consecutive life sentences, so I don’t expect to see his face ever again. And I’m sure he hopes to never see mine.”

“What did you do to him?” Ry asked, leaning towards her, green eyes trained on hers. She wasn’t sure what to make of his curiosity, but she supposed it couldn’t hurt to tell the truth.

“When it comes to my shapeshifting abilities, I have two main talents,” Ava explained. “The first,” she said with a smirk, “is looking good enough to make a grown man cry. The second also involves making men cry, but is usually followed by them pissing themselves.”

“Do I even want to know?” Ry asked, though he didn’t move away. Ava laughed, but it was a hollow sound.

“I’m quite good at taking the shape of a nightmare,” she said, her voice a caress, a dark breeze, a breath on the back of an exposed neck. “I wonder what it would take to bring you to your knees,” she added with a smirk.

“I’ll show you a picture of one of my old foster fathers sometime,” Ry said coldly. “That ought to give you something to work with. Though I doubt you could mimic the way he-” Ry didn’t finish, finally tearing his searing gaze from Ava when Diana yanked on his arm, face twisted with pain.

“Ry, don’t,” she said softly. “Please, don’t talk about him.” Ava could have sworn she saw tears in Diana’s eyes, but she couldn’t be sure, because Ry pulled her to him, holding her against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.” Ava couldn’t tear her eyes off them, though she tried. The way Ry held Diana, the way she leaned into him, the easy, natural flow it had to it, was nothing Ava was familiar with. Ava didn’t know how to be comforted like that. The pack was close, of course, but Ava had never been one for physical affection, never been one to let someone hold her. She’d never wanted any of that either, had always been content to be the protector, never the one in need of protecting. But in that moment, more than anything in the world, Ava just wanted someone to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be alright.