(Yona's POV)
The chamber felt like it was closing in on us, the vaulted ceiling pressing down with invisible weight, stone ribs arching overhead like the inside of some massive beast that had swallowed us whole. The mosaic eyes beneath our feet seemed to follow our every movement, their dead stares judging, condemning, *knowing* something we didn't. The blue torches that lined the walls flickered and sputtered, their cold flames dancing erratically as if struggling to stay alive, casting shadows that writhed across the pillars like tortured souls trying to escape the stone.
The air had changed after the girl vanished. Thicker now, heavier, pressing against my chest until each breath felt like work. That sweet-rot smell that had followed us through the castle intensified, mixing with something sharper,ozone, metallic, like the air right before lightning strikes. My skin prickled with static electricity, the fine hairs on my arms standing straight up. The symbol under my skin wasn't just tingling anymore,it was *burning*, a sharp, insistent pain that radiated from my forearm up through my shoulder and into my chest, making my heart race even faster than fear already had it going.
I stood there clutching my dagger in both hands,small hands, *child's* hands, barely big enough to grip the hilt properly,knuckles white from the pressure, palms slick with sweat despite the cold. My whole body was shaking. Not just trembling,shaking, like I was coming apart at the seams, like the fear had gotten inside my bones and was vibrating them loose.
Xeno stood beside me, and he was the only still point in the chaos. His shovel rested against his shoulder with deceptive casualness, but I could see the way his muscles had gone taut beneath his worn shirt, coiled springs waiting to release. His blindfolded face was turned toward the far end of the chamber, toward the deepest shadows where the blue torchlight couldn't quite reach, where darkness pooled like spilled ink.
He knew.
Somehow, even without seeing, he knew what was coming.
Nyx hovered a few feet off the ground between us, her wings beating in slow, measured strokes that kept her suspended but betrayed her tension in their slight irregularity. Her black-rose eyes were bloomed wide,petals of darkness opening and closing like living things, drinking in the dim light, searching the shadows. Her small body was rigid, every muscle locked in preparation for fight or flight, her claws flexing unconsciously.
"The game," she whispered, and her voice was small, *young*, stripped of the confidence she usually wore like armor. "He said the game begins. What does that mean? What kind of—"
"Shh," Xeno cut her off,not harsh, just certain. Absolute. The way you'd quiet someone when silence was survival.
The shadows at the far end of the chamber moved.
Not the normal shifting you'd expect from flickering torchlight, not the dance of darkness responding to flame. These shadows *parted*, pulling aside like stage curtains, like they had substance and will, revealing what had been hidden behind them.
A figure stepped forward.
One step. Two. Three.
Each footfall completely silent despite his size, as if the stone itself chose not to announce his presence, as if even the castle feared him.
Lord Azael.
I'd imagined what he might look like during our long march to this place. Pictured a monster,something twisted and wrong, scarred by his corruption, marked by his sins. But the reality was so much worse than anything my child's mind could have conjured.
He was beautiful.
That was the horror of it.
Seven feet tall, maybe more, with a lean but powerful build that moved with liquid grace under a cloak of midnight black that seemed to drink light, to pull the blue flames toward it and swallow them. The cloak didn't move like fabric,it flowed like smoke, like shadow given weight, shifting and coiling around his frame with hypnotic patterns.
His skin was pale,not the healthy pale of someone who spent time indoors, but a translucent pallor that let you see the network of veins beneath, dark rivers mapping territories under parchment-thin flesh. It looked delicate, fragile, like porcelain that would crack at the slightest touch. But I knew instinctively that it was stronger than steel, that the appearance of fragility was just another lie.
His hair fell in perfect waves past his shoulders,long and white as fresh snow, each strand catching the torchlight and turning it silver. It framed a face that was too symmetrical, too perfect, features arranged with mathematical precision that no human could achieve naturally. High cheekbones that could have been carved by a master sculptor. Full lips curved in a smile that was arrogant and amused, like he'd already won and was just waiting for us to realize it. A strong jaw. A straight nose.
But his eyes.
Gods, his eyes.
They glowed with fractured red light,not solid red like Nyx's black-rose petals, but shattered, like someone had taken rubies and smashed them with a hammer and then tried to piece them back together in the shape of irises. The shards shifted and rotated as he moved, catching light at different angles, creating patterns that were almost hypnotic. And they were hungry. Not for food or blood but for something deeper. For worship. For submission. For the bowing of lesser things before his greatness.
Pride.
This was Pride incarnate.
The temperature dropped as he approached,not gradually but all at once, like someone had opened a door to winter. My breath fogged in front of my face. Ice crystals formed on the nearby pillars, spreading in delicate patterns that would have been beautiful if they weren't terrifying.
The symbol under my skin flared with sudden, agonizing intensity,like someone had pressed a white-hot brand against my forearm from the inside. I gasped, nearly dropping my dagger, clutching my arm against my chest. The burning spread, racing up through my shoulder, down into my fingers, making them spasm.
"Ah," Azael purred, and his voice was layered,multiple voices speaking in perfect unison, creating harmonics that resonated in my chest cavity and made my ribs ache. "The curse bearer. How delightful. I can *feel* it on you, little one. The mark. The gift. The burden you don't understand. Does it hurt?"
I couldn't speak. My throat had closed up, breath coming in short gasps that didn't seem to bring enough air.
His gaze shifted to Xeno, and that arrogant smile widened. "And the blindfolded enigma. So much power locked away behind cloth. Tell me, boy,what are you hiding? What truth do you fear so desperately that you'd blind yourself to the world?"
Xeno didn't respond. Didn't move. Just stood there with his shovel, face turned toward Azael, giving nothing away.
Finally, those fractured red eyes settled on Nyx, and something shifted in Azael's expression. Not quite recognition,more like remembering something unpleasant. "The fallen child," he said, and there was actual disdain in his voice now, the first emotion other than arrogant amusement. "A Xenophore playing at humanity. Pretending you can be anything other than what you are. How pathetic. How utterly predictable."
Nyx's wings flared wide, spreading to their full span,which wasn't much, not on her small frame, but the gesture was pure defiance. Her small face twisted in a snarl that showed too many teeth, far more than a child should have. "You're the one who's fallen," she spat, and there was venom in her voice, years of hatred compressed into a few words. "You corrupted Vesper. You destroyed Lira's town. You've hurt *everyone*. We'll end you. We'll—"
Azael's laugh cut her off,a rich, rolling sound that filled the chamber like smoke, seeping into every corner, coating everything it touched. "End me? End me? Child, I am Pride incarnate. I am the sin that built empires and toppled gods. I am the force that makes kings believe they're invincible and heroes think they're chosen. You are nothing but insects playing at heroism. Nothing but—"
Xeno moved.
One moment he was standing still, shovel resting against his shoulder, the next he was a blur of motion,so fast my eyes couldn't track him properly, so fast he left afterimages in the air like he'd ripped through reality itself.
The shovel came around in a wide arc that whistled as it cut through the frigid air, aimed at Azael's midsection with enough force to cleave stone, to split trees, to kill.
Azael didn't dodge.
He raised one hand,casual, almost lazy, like swatting at an annoying fly.
The shovel stopped.
Not slowed. Not deflected. Just *stopped*, frozen in mid-swing as if it had hit an invisible wall. The impact sent shockwaves radiating outward in visible ripples,the air itself distorting, dust floating in the chamber suddenly blown away in perfect circular patterns. The vibration traveled up the shovel's handle and into Xeno's arms, and I saw his muscles strain against it, saw him try to push through whatever barrier Azael had created.
But he didn't flinch. Didn't hesitate.
He reversed his grip in a motion too smooth to follow, pulling the shovel back and then thrusting it forward like a spear, the blade aimed directly at Azael's heart with precision that spoke of countless hours of practice, of muscle memory deeper than thought.
This time Azael moved,barely, just a slight shift of his body to the left, and the shovel blade passed within an inch of his ribs, close enough that it tore through his cloak and left a thin line of red across his translucent skin.
First blood.
But Azael's counter was already coming.
His hand moved,faster than Xeno, faster than anything that size should move,and the backhand caught Xeno across the face with a crack like breaking rock. The force of the blow lifted Xeno off his feet and sent him flying backward across the chamber in a trajectory that would have been graceful if it wasn't so violent.
He hit one of the massive pillars with an impact that shook the entire room. Stone crumbled from the point of contact, chunks falling away to crash on the floor below, dust exploding outward in a cloud that momentarily obscured him from view. The pillar itself cracked,a jagged line racing up from where Xeno's body had struck, spreading like lightning frozen in stone.
"XENO!" I screamed, the word tearing from my throat raw and desperate.
I was moving before I'd decided to move, small legs pumping, dagger clutched in both hands, raised above my head in a grip I'd seen Lira use when she wanted to drive maximum force into a downward strike.
Useless. I was *useless*. A kid charging at something that had just sent Xeno,Xeno, who was stronger than anyone I'd ever met,flying like he weighed nothing.
But I couldn't just stand there. Couldn't just watch.
Nyx was faster.
Her wings beat furiously, propelling her forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, small body streamlined, claws extended in front of her like the talons of a diving hawk. She aimed for his eyes,the vulnerable spots, the places even Pride incarnate had to protect.
Azael's hand snapped up with serpentine speed, fingers closing around Nyx's throat mid-flight, catching her like you'd catch a thrown ball. His other hand grabbed her left wing, fingers digging into the delicate membrane, and with a casual twist he bent it backward,not enough to tear it completely, but enough to fold it at an angle wings weren't meant to fold.
Nyx's scream was horrible,high-pitched and young and wrong, the sound of a child in agony. She thrashed in his grip, small claws raking at his arm, tearing through fabric and flesh, opening gashes that immediately began to close, skin flowing back together like water finding its level. The wounds healed so fast I could barely confirm they'd been there,one second torn flesh weeping red blood, the next pristine pale skin as if nothing had happened.
"Pathetic," Azael said, his voice conversational, like he was commenting on the weather. His fingers tightened around Nyx's throat, and I heard her gag, saw her face start to turn red, saw her wings beat weakly, desperately, unable to generate enough force to break free. "A Xenophore pretending to be human. Playing house with the other children. How droll. Don't you know? You can never escape what you are. The hunger will always win in the end."
I reached them.
My dagger came up in a thrust I'd practiced a thousand times with Kai,low, quick, angling up under the ribs toward where vital organs should be. The blade punched through Azael's cloak like it was paper and bit into his side, sinking in maybe two inches before hitting something that felt like stone rather than flesh.
Azael's head turned toward me,not his body, just his head, twisting at an angle that was subtly wrong,and those fractured red eyes fixed on me with the full weight of his attention.
Time seemed to slow.
I saw his foot coming up,lazy, casual, the same motion you'd use to kick a ball,but couldn't move fast enough to avoid it. My body was too small, too slow, too young.
His foot connected with my chest.
The world exploded into pain and motion.
I was flying backward,actually flying, feet leaving the ground, body tumbling through the air with no control, no ability to catch myself. The chamber spun around me,ceiling, floor, walls, all blurring together. I tried to breathe and couldn't, lungs refusing to work, diaphragm paralyzed by the impact.
I hit the mosaic floor hard,so hard I bounced, body ragdolling, momentum carrying me skidding across the smooth tiles. My dagger flew from my grip, clattering away across the floor, metal ringing against stone.
When I finally stopped, I just lay there gasping like a fish on land, chest burning, vision swimming with gray spots. Each breath was agony,shallow, insufficient, feeling like my ribs were grinding against each other even though nothing seemed broken.
Useless.
The word echoed in my head like a condemnation.
I was six years old. A child. What had I been thinking? That I could fight something like this? Something that could swat aside Xeno and crush Nyx with barely any effort?
Through blurring vision, I saw Azael examine the wound in his side where my dagger had hit,saw him poke at it with one finger, testing. Then I watched the flesh close, sealing itself shut with wet, organic sounds, until there was no sign the blade had ever touched him.
He tossed Nyx aside,just threw her like trash, like something broken and useless. She hit the wall twenty feet away with a sickening crunch, her small body folding on impact, wings crumpling. She slid down the wall and crumpled on the floor, not moving, blood trickling from her mouth and pooling beneath her.
"Disappointing," Azael said, brushing dust from his cloak. "I expected more from—"
Xeno was back.
No warning. No sound. Just suddenly there, shovel swinging in a brutal overhead arc that would have split Azael's skull if it had connected.
Azael twisted, the blade missing by inches, and Xeno's follow-through cratered the floor where he'd been standing, stone exploding into shrapnel that flew outward like bullets.
Xeno didn't stop. Didn't pause. His shovel became a whirlwind,horizontal slashes, vertical chops, thrusts, reversals, each strike flowing into the next with mechanical precision and murderous intent. There was no wasted movement, no flourish, nothing but raw efficiency aimed at one goal: killing.
And it was working.
Sort of.
Azael was forced to defend, to actually move, to block with his arms when he couldn't dodge fast enough. Each impact of shovel against flesh produced horrible sounds,wet crunches, bone breaking, skin splitting. Blood sprayed in arterial gouts, painting the floor and walls in abstract patterns of red.
But it healed.
Every. Single. Time.
Skin flowing back together. Bones snapping back into place with audible pops. Even severed fingers regrowing from bloody stumps within seconds.
Still, it was slower than before. The wounds lingered for a second, maybe two, before closing. And the fractured red light in Azael's eyes was starting to dim, the shards rotating more slowly.
"You have power," Azael admitted, his voice strained for the first time. He caught the shovel blade with both hands,the metal bending under the pressure of his grip,and pulled, trying to yank it from Xeno's grasp. "Raw, brutal power. But no finesse. No elegance. No pride in your strength. You fight like an animal."
Xeno didn't respond.
He never responded in fights.
He just headbutted Azael,full force, forehead smashing into nose with a crack that echoed off the walls like a gunshot.
Azael's head snapped back, blood fountaining from his ruined nose, and Xeno used the moment to rip his shovel free. He reversed it, swinging low, and the blade caught Azael behind the knees with enough force to sever tendons.
Azael's legs buckled. He dropped to his knees, one hand going to his face to stem the blood flow, the other catching himself on the floor.
Movement from the corner of my vision.
Nyx.
She was up,barely. Her left wing hung at a wrong angle, torn membrane leaking ichor-like blood. Her right wing beat erratically, unable to support her weight alone. Blood dripped from her mouth and nose, matting her hair. But her eyes,her black-rose eyes,bloomed wide with fury and pain and desperate determination.
She launched herself forward,not flying, more like a controlled fall, using her one good wing to guide rather than lift. Her claws were extended, all ten fingers ending in curved talons that gleamed in the blue torchlight.
She hit Azael from behind, small body impacting between his shoulder blades, claws driving deep into flesh as she climbed him like a tree. Her movements were feral, wrong, more Xenophore than child. One hand grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, exposing his throat. The other hand drove claws into his face, raking across eyes, gouging, tearing.
The fractured red shards that made up his irises shattered further,actually breaking apart, pieces flying away like broken glass, leaving empty sockets that wept blood.
Azael's scream was inhuman,layered voices rising in discord rather than harmony, creating a sound that physically hurt, that made the torches flare and gutter, that sent cracks racing through the pillars and floor. The very stones of the chamber groaned in sympathy or agony.
I forced myself up, ignoring the protests from every part of my body, ignoring the way my chest burned with each breath. My dagger,where was my dagger? There. Ten feet away.
I crawled for it, not trusting my legs to hold me, dragging myself across the mosaic eyes. My left wrist was swelling, starting to turn purple. Sprained? Broken? Didn't matter.
Behind me, the fight continued with horrific intensity.
Xeno's shovel came down in a two-handed overhead strike that should have split Azael's skull. Azael caught it one-handed,his remaining good hand, the one not trying to protect his ruined face,and the impact drove him further down, forcing him from his knees to nearly prone.
But he was still healing. The nose straightening, the blood flow slowing, the legs behind his knees knitting back together.
Just slower. So much slower now.
Nyx was still on his back, claws hooked into his shoulders for purchase, her small mouth open in a continuous snarl as she tore at him with feral abandon. Her broken wing hung useless, but she didn't need it. Didn't need to fly. Just needed to hurt.
My fingers closed around the dagger hilt. I grabbed it left-handed,my right wrist was useless,and pushed myself to my feet.
The world swayed, tilted, threatened to dump me back on the floor. I locked my knees, refusing to fall, and stumbled forward toward the struggle.
Azael threw Nyx off,finally managed to reach back and grab her, fingers digging into her small body hard enough to crack ribs, and hurled her away. She flew through the air and hit another pillar,another sickening crunch,and slid down to lie motionless again.
But it had bought time.
Xeno pressed his advantage, shovel swinging in a horizontal arc that Azael couldn't fully block. The blade bit deep into his side, opening a gash that revealed organs beneath, glistening and wrong. The shovel stuck, wedged between ribs, and Xeno twisted.
Azael convulsed, body arching, and vomited blood,not a trickle but a gout, black and thick and wrong, steaming where it hit the cold floor.
I reached them. Slashed at the back of Azael's knee with my dagger,the already damaged one, trying to severe whatever had healed there. The blade cut deep, and I felt it catch on something solid, bone maybe, before I pulled it free.
Azael's leg gave out completely. He collapsed forward, one hand braced on the floor, the other still pressed to his face where his eyes were slowly, painfully slowly beginning to reform.
"Prideful creature," Xeno said,actually spoke, which he almost never did in combat,and his voice was cold, empty. "Fall."
His shovel came free with a wet sucking sound, strings of tissue pulling away. He raised it high, muscles bunching, preparing for a killing blow.
Nyx stirred again,how was she still moving? How was she still conscious?,and dragged herself across the floor, wings useless, pulling with her arms and pushing with her legs. Blood left a trail behind her.
She reached Azael, grabbed his ankle with both small hands, and pulled, using her weight to throw him further off-balance.
He fell fully forward, crashing onto his chest, arms splayed.
The fractured red light in his reforming eyes flickered, guttered, nearly went out.
Xeno brought the shovel down.
The blade bit into the back of Azael's skull with a crack like the world splitting. Blood and worse things sprayed outward, painting the mosaic eyes beneath in fresh crimson. The shovel buried itself deep, wedged in bone, and Xeno leaned on it, driving it deeper, deeper, until the blade punched through and scraped the floor beneath.
Azael twitched.
Once.
Twice.
His mouth opened, working, trying to form words. Blood bubbled from his lips. His hands scrabbled weakly at the floor, nails scraping stone.
"I..." he managed, voice no longer layered, just singular, human, broken. "I didn't... want..."
More blood. His body convulsed, organs failing, regeneration struggling and losing against catastrophic trauma.
Xeno pulled the shovel free,the sucking sound was horrible,and raised it again.
"Wait," Azael whispered, and there was something in his voice that made Xeno pause. Not pity. Not mercy. Just... recognition of something.
I limped closer, dagger still gripped in my good hand, wanting to see his face. Needing to.
His eyes,barely reformed, just smooth pale orbs without the red shards,found mine. And they were... human. Just human. Tired and afraid and so, so sad.
"Pride," he said, and each word cost him, blood flowing faster now, pooling. "It was Pride that... corrupted me. Made me think I was... better. Stronger. That I deserved... everything. Deserved to... to use people. To hurt them. To break them. For my experiments. My... my glory."
He coughed, more blood spraying from his mouth. A chunk of something that might have been lung came with it.
"I was... a doctor. Before. Tried to help. Tried to... heal. But Pride whispered. Said I could be... more. Be great. Be remembered. And I listened. I listened and it consumed me and I..." His voice broke. "I destroyed... everything. Everyone. Became... this."
Tears mixed with blood on his pale cheeks.
"Please," he whispered, and now he was looking at Xeno, meeting the blindfold where eyes should be. "Please... let it end. I'm so... tired. So tired of being... of being this. Of hurting. Of wanting to hurt. Please."
Xeno stood there for a long moment, shovel raised, completely still.
Then he brought it down.
One clean strike.
Azael's head separated from his shoulders, rolling away across the blood-slicked floor.
The body collapsed fully, blood pooling, spreading, soaking into the mosaics and making the eyes beneath seem to weep crimson tears.
Dead.
Finally, properly, completely dead.
The chamber was silent except for our ragged breathing,mine fast and pained, Xeno's measured and controlled, Nyx's wet and struggling.
I stood there staring at Azael's corpse, trying to process what he'd said. He'd been a doctor. A healer. And Pride,the sin, the corruption,had turned him into... into that. Into a monster who experimented on people, who hurt them, who broke them for his own glory.
Could that happen to any of us?
Could the curse under my skin turn me into something like that?
Could Xeno's power corrupt him?
Could Nyx's Xenophore nature win?
The questions swirled in my head, making me dizzy, but I pushed them away. Later. I'd think about them later.
Xeno lowered his shovel, shoulders sagging with exhaustion. His blindfold had shifted slightly during the fight,I could see a sliver of skin beneath, a hint of something that might have been a scar,but I looked away quickly. He didn't want it seen. That was his choice.
Nyx lay crumpled against the pillar, breathing in short, pained gasps. Her left wing was mangled beyond recognition, just torn membrane and bent bones. Blood covered her from head to toe,some hers, some Azael's, all mixing together until you couldn't tell which was which.
I limped over to her, knelt despite the protests from my body, and gently touched her shoulder. "Nyx?"
Her black-rose eyes opened,petals blooming slowly, weakly. "Yona," she whispered. "We... we won?"
"Yeah," I said, voice cracking. "We won."
"Good," she murmured, and her eyes closed again. "Good. That's... good."
The wall behind us began to rumble,mechanisms activating, stone grinding. A section started to slide open, revealing a passage beyond.
But before we could move toward it, before we could even think about what came next, the shadows near Azael's corpse shifted.
She stepped out of them like she'd been there the whole time, just waiting, watching.
The girl. The one from before. The one who'd known Xeno.
She looked down at Azael's headless body, at the spreading pool of blood, and her young face twisted in an exaggerated pout. "And here I thought Lord Azael was strong enough to at least give you a challenge," she said, voice carrying that same cheerful disappointment you'd use when a movie ended too quickly. "But turns out he was totally useless. Boring. How disappointing."
She kicked at his severed head, sending it rolling toward us. It came to rest against Xeno's foot, dead eyes staring up at nothing.
"Oh well," she said brightly. "I guess that means it's time for the real game to begin."
She reached into her dress and pulled out something small, rectangular. A photograph, edges worn like it had been handled many times.
With a flick of her wrist, she sent it spinning through the air toward Xeno.
He caught it automatically, one-handed, and stared down at it.
Even from where I knelt, I could see what it showed.
A woman and a boy, maybe four years old. The woman was gorgeous,not pretty, not beautiful, but genuinely stunning in a way that made you understand why people wrote poems about beauty. Long dark hair, sharp features, eyes full of warmth and love. She was smiling, arms wrapped around the boy beside her.
The boy wore a blindfold. Even in the photo. But he was smiling too,a real smile, wide and genuine, the kind kids have before the world teaches them to hide their joy.
Xeno's hand trembled, making the photo shake.
"Mommy loved you," the girl said, and her voice was soft now, gentle, carrying a cruelty that was worse than any physical blow. "She loved you so, so much. Right up until the end. Right up until you—"
"Stop," Xeno said, and his voice was barely a whisper.
The girl giggled. "Bye for now, bestie. We'll play again soon."
She vanished,just gone, like she'd never been there, shadows swallowing her whole.
Xeno stood frozen, staring at the photograph.
A single tear rolled down from beneath his blindfold, cutting a clean line through the dust and blood on his cheek, and dripped onto the photo, blurring the image of the smiling woman and child.
He didn't make a sound. Didn't move. Just stood there crying silently, shoulders shaking, one hand pressed to his blindfold like he could physically hold back the tears.
I wanted to say something. Wanted to help. But what could I say? What could I possibly do that would make this better?
So I just stood, limped over to him, and took his free hand in mine,the one not holding the photo.
He squeezed my fingers. Gentle. Careful not to hurt my already injured wrist.
After a long moment, he carefully folded the photo and tucked it into his pocket. When he looked at me,or at least turned his blindfolded face toward me,his voice was steady again.
"We need to move," he said. "Find the others."
"Yeah," I agreed.
Nyx stirred, pushed herself up with visible effort. "I can... I can walk."
She couldn't fly,not with that wing,but she managed to stand, one arm wrapped around her ribs, breathing carefully.
Together, the three of us,broken, bloodied, traumatized,walked toward the opening passage.
Toward whatever came next.
Toward the others.
Toward the end of this nightmare.
The chamber rumbled behind us, mechanisms sealing it shut, hiding Azael's corpse and the evidence of our fight.
But I knew we'd never forget what had happened here.
The horror of the fight.
The brutality required to win.
And the truth that even monsters could regret what they'd become.
As we stepped through the passage and the wall sealed behind us, I looked at Xeno,at his rigid shoulders, at the careful way he held himself together,and wondered what that photograph meant.
What had happened to his mother?
What had he done?
And what would that girl,that horrible, smiling girl,make him do next?