Matthew followed Vanessa to her room over Eric's garage. Both still didn't say a word since they left the drug den.

Vanessa sat down by her desk and started to move around documents and separate them into piles. She was still deep in thought and was ignoring Matthew who was looking at her with a certain sadness in his eyes.

"What was that back there?" Matthew finally broke the silence after realizing she wouldn't.

"What was what?" Vanessa asked him surprised with his question.

"You were ready to kill that man back there." Matthew admonished her sitting down on the bed. "He was not a threat." He added.

Vanessa stopped working with a deep breath. She spun on her chair to meet his gaze and looked at him with sharp eyes.

"I was." She confirmed with an acid voice. "What's the problem with that?"

Matthew's eyes opened wide with that remark.

"What is going on with you, Vanessa? You are not like this." He asked with a worried face.

Vanessa gave a loud sarcastic laugh.

"And how do you know how I am? How long have you known me?" She hissed at him.

"Are you really going there? After everything we've been through together? Do you really think I didn't get to know you after all that? It doesn't matter if it's not been long. I know you. You are not like this. You're not this bitter. You're not this hateful." Matthew got angry at her.

Vanessa rubbed her face with her hand, turned on her chair and opened a drawer from her desk. She took out a cheap whiskey bottle and opened it.

"But I am kid." She said quaffing the bottle. "You just met me in a good mood."

"No." Matthew disagreed with her. "A bitter and hateful person wouldn't offer help to a kid trying to learn the ropes of this business the first time they met. You were kind and gentle. You took care of me. Even now you were trying to protect me from whatever it is that you're doing." He took a time to breathe and asked: "What is going on?"

Vanessa took another huge gulp from the whiskey bottle and sat it on the desk with a hard thump. She looked at him. This time her eyes showed how tired she was. How hurt she was feeling.

"Fuck you." She said with a sad voice.

Matthew just smiled at that. He could tell she didn't mean it. She was just frustrated.

"That night. With the Gnoles. It brought back things I had forgotten. Things I didn't want to remember." Vanessa said and sighed. "When we spoke and you were surrounded by the monsters. It reminded me of Edwin, my husband." She had tears on her eyes now. "Ever since I learned it was them, the Howling Spear again, I can't stop remembering him. I can't stop feeling like this."

Matthew held her hand and didn't say anything.

"I want to kill them, Matt. I want to make them suffer. I'm trying to do this rationally. To build a case against them." Vanessa pointed at all the documents around her. "But all I want is to blow up their headquarters." She growled with tears running down her cheek.

"I understand." Matthew said. His face reflecting the anger she was feeling.

"You do, don't you?" Vanessa smiled at him squeezing his hand. She knew well everything Matthew went through.

"But we need to do this right. We can't throw away our lives just to get revenge. I don't think your husband would want that, would he?" Matthew said wiping her cheeks with his fingers.

"Edwin?" She laughed grabbing the whiskey and taking a sip. "No. He was a wuss." Vanessa laughed remembering her husband. "Always doing the right thing. Always so calm and contained. I took him once to a Squashing Graves concert. Poor man. He looked so scared." She reminisced taking a picture that was hanging on the wall and showing it to Matthew.

It was a picture of a barbecue right there in Eric's house. It showed the bothers Eric and Edwin with their hands over each other shoulders and with Vanessa and Katrina, Eric's dead wife, by their sides. Edwin was half the size Eric was, he had the same blonde hair, but Edwin's was combed perfectly around his skull.

"I miss him." Vanessa said getting up and going to the bathroom with the whiskey bottle in her hand.

Matthew stayed there on the bed looking at the picture and studying the happy family. Katrina was clearly pregnant in the picture. Judging by their apparent age, it was Katia inside her belly. That meant that Vanessa was 18 or 19 in the picture.

Suddenly, he heard glass breaking inside the bathroom after a high pitched scream. He ran there and, without knocking, opened the door.

Vanessa as sitting on the floor with both hands on her face crying heavily. She hiccuped wildly trying to hold it back, but it was in vain. The wall was stained with whiskey on where she threw the bottle and glass shards covered the floor.

Matthew sat by her side and put a hand over her shoulder not saying anything.

Vanessa then pulled Matthew by his shirt burying her face on his chest and crying loudly. Her tears and saliva wet Matthew's shirt, but he didn't mind.

Vanessa switched between trembling trying to hold her tears and crying out loud in deep pain.

"She's hurt." Ffyr said to Matthew hovering over Vanessa's feet. "She stomped the glass hurting herself." The fairy explained.

Matthew nodded at his familiar, but decided not to say anything. He thought it was better to let Vanessa cry out before dealing with that.

"Use your totem skill." Ffyr said possessing the Vitality necklace Matthew had around his neck.

Matthew got stunned for a while. He didn't think Ffyr would willingly possess an object, but it seemed that helping Vanessa on that moment was more important to the fairy than her own sense of freedom.

A warm green light irradiated around them when Matthew used his Healing Totem skill using the possessed necklace as a totem. The small cuts on Vanessa's feet quickly healed under that light as if the Heal skill was being used on her.

The warmth of the spell made Vanessa feel comfortable and Matthew's arm around her made her feel safe. After a couple of minutes she was fast asleep on his arms.

Matthew, with extreme care, cleaned her feet from the blood and carried her to her bed covering her with a blanket. After that, he went to the bathroom and cleaned the glass shards from the floor and whiskey from all around.

When Matthew was throwing the glass shards in the trash can outside, he saw Eric's car driving into the garage.

Katia ran to him as soon as the car stopped and hugged him. Her cute face and wide smile immediately removed all bad feeling he had inside of him. Matthew patted her head smiling at how the innocence of a child was a powerful healing power.

"Where's aunt Jess?" Katia asked Matthew.

"She went back to sleep just now." Matthew answered.

"Aunt Jess is always sleeping or away. She never plays with me anymore." Katia pouted.

"She's busy working. But soon she'll be back to normal." Matthew consoled the little girl.

"Really?" Katia asked with wide shining eyes.

"Really. I'm helping her now and soon she'll be done with work." Matthew said smiling at her.

"Katia." Eric said coming out of the garage. "Go take a shower for dinner." He ordered.

"But I want to play with uncle Matt!" The girl protested.

"Uncle Matt has to go home. His mother is very worried since he hasn't come back since yesterday." Eric explained to his daughter.

"Aunt Martha is?" Katia thought to herself and then turned to Matthew: "You can't make aunt Martha worried! Go home!" She said showing him the tongue and running inside the house to shower.

"She's such a good girl." Matthew laughed at Katia.

"She is." Eric agreed getting close to Matthew. "What you have there?" He asked pointed at the trash.

"Vanessa broke a bottle. I cleaned it up." Matthew explained.

"She's that bad?" Eric asked with a sad face noticing the huge wet spot on Matthew's shirt form Vanessa's crying.

"She is." Matthew answered looking down.

Eric sighed loudly turning his face to the windows above the garage.

"Don't worry. I'm here for her. But you should go home. Your mom called me looking for you." Eric said.

"Oh!" Matthew exclaimed just remembering. He took his phone out. "I had it in silent mode. I probably should go home." He said looking at his messages, but then looked at the garage. He was divided between Vanessa and his family.

"Go, Matt." Eric said. "I can handle her for a while. She'll be fine. I'm here for her."

"Ok." Matthew nodded.

He said goodbye and took a bus home. The whole way home was filled with memories of Vanessa's crying and pain. He decided to do everything in his power to help her.

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