The treatments were making Stella's hair fall out.

They considered themselves lucky that somehow all the other treatments didn't take her beautiful curls away, but this one did. Stella cried when she came to Mila and Terry with a chunk of hair in her hand, even worse as the days progressed and it only kept falling out. They did the only thing they thought they could, they shaved the rest off so it wasn't just an awful pile of some on her head and some not, but she didn't do it alone. Terry asked Mila to shave his head too and when Mila and Marcus offered, Stella adamantly refused.

"I need to play with someone's hair," she said. "Someone still has to have it, especially if I don't."

It was a sweet but sad thing, so Mila and Marcus both spent the rest of the day letting Stella do whatever she wanted to their hair.

The treatment days felt long even though it was only a couple of hours of actually getting treatment through IV's at the hospital. It was still draining. For Stella, of course, but for Mila and Terry too. They were impatient to check and see if it was working, but they had to give it a chance to work which was why it felt like every day, and then every week, went by painfully slow.

Mila kept as much distance from her and Marcus as possible because every day that he was sweet to her sister, kept her warm whenever she needed it, it was making her feelings want to get attached and she didn't like that. She didn't want attachments to anyone when everyone left her for being too much and too odd, but especially not with someone who very obviously would eventually leave given he was a demon.

It didn't help that Marcus seemed unbothered by things that normally made people call her crazy. He hadn't called her crazy in a long time, actually. Now, every time she said something off-beat he would come back with a biting remark that usually left her trying not to smile so he wouldn't win that round. It was annoying how easily he kept up with her, especially since she was trying to get him to kill her still. The money from Katherine was wonderful but Mila and Terry knew too well how quickly money disappeared when medical expenses were involved. Not only that, but even if she didn't manage to convince Marcus to kill her, he'd still eventually disappear. Eventually she'd have to send him home and he'd go back to hell and do... Whatever it was he did in hell.

Thinking that had Mila frowning. What did he do in hell? Did he just go around doing what he was doing for her? That didn't seem right. He couldn't just wait around to be summoned by someone to kill all the time. She couldn't have been the first innocent person he couldn't kill.

"How many times have you been asked to kill an innocent person?" Mila asked Marcus as they sat in the waiting room at the hospital. Stella was taken back for blood work and only one person could go with her so that left Mila and Marcus alone while Terry went back with Stella.

"Few times," Marcus answered. "Why?"

"And you've killed one before," she said. He nodded. "So why not me?"

"I'm on probation."

"Still?" Mila frowned. "For how long?"

"Long time," he said, narrowing his eyes at her. "And even if it wasn't, I'm not killing you. Stella needs you."

"Stella needs treatment," Mila countered.

"Which she's getting."

"It'll run out eventually, the money Kat gave us will run out, she'll still need more."

"You don't know that," Marcus shrugged. "I'm not killing you. Get over it."

"How come you were fine with killing other innocents but not me?" Mila pouted.

"I was not fine with killing innocents," Marcus growled, glaring at her. "The first was when I wasn't aware I could refuse an order, I was new. The second, the last one, it was... I handled it sloppily," he muttered. "I'm not fine with it and I don't usually do it."

"What happened?" Mila asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he said, giving her a side-glance. "Doesn't matter. Point is, I'm not killing you so you might as well stop asking."

"If I annoy you enough, will you?"

"If you annoy me enough, I'll shove myself down your throat so you can't speak."

Mila's eyes widened and the messed up part of her clenched at that comment. Marcus looked over at her and smirked but said nothing. He didn't need to. The smirk said enough and Mila groaned in frustration, narrowing her eyes at him and wishing she could set things on fire too.

"What do you do all day anyway?" She huffed.

"What do you mean?" Marcus asked.

"Like on an average day," she said, turning towards him. "Do you just wait around to get summoned?"

"Fuck no," Marcus said, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his arms. The action lifted his shirt slightly and Mila had to seriously focus on not staring at his abs until they were covered again. "We don't get summoned that often, actually we were trying to do away with it entirely. Where the hell did you find the right words? We thought we burned all the documents that had them."

"My mom had them in a box," Mila shrugged. "She was all about that demon stuff, real afraid of it. Real superstitious. We were intense Catholics growing up because of her."

"You?" Marcus snorted. "Religious? I can't see it."

"Well I'm not now I'm not forced to be," Mila shrugged. "I do wonder about it though, I mean, obviously it's real," she said, gesturing to Marcus. "My mom used to mutter about demons all the time. We'd put sage above the door and all that. Everyone thought she was crazy and I guess I might've been guilty of that one or two times too," she said, a frown tugging on her lips. "So then what do you do all day in hell?"

"Depends," Marcus shrugged, a little surprised she was asking about this. "Sometimes I'm in charge of torturing souls that come in, sometimes I come into the mortal world and deal with hunters or evil souls. Sometimes I play guard on the more dangerous souls. It just depends on what's asked of me."

"Wait, hunters?" Mila frowned.

"Demon hunters," Marcus nodded. "Occasionally they become a problem that needs taken care of and I'm one of the ones that takes care of it."

"Huh... That's a moral quandary, isn't it?"

"How so?" Marcus scoffed.

"Because they think they're doing good by getting rid of demons, then you have to come kill them."

"First of all, they rarely go after demons that have actually done anything wrong," Marcus said. "They often just go after any demon they see and I've lost friends to assholes like that, so no, there's no moral quandary. If they want to put their lives at risk to attack a demon that's not hurting anyone, they get what's coming to them. Second of all, moral quandaries hardly exist for me. Evil demon, remember?"

"You're not that evil," Mila said, raising an eyebrow.

"How do you figure?"

"I mean, you're a sweetheart to my sister and it was nice of you to come with us," Mila pointed out. "So you're not all evil."

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm just bored because a stubborn human is keeping me here," Marcus said, crossing his arms.

"Bored and a liar," Mila muttered under her breath. Marcus sent her a dirty look and she smiled sweetly. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, saying something in a different language Mila couldn't catch. She thought about asking him what he said but she was too curious about the other things he did.

"Do you like it?" Mila asked, tilting her head to the side. "Torturing and guarding? I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about torturing truly evil people sometimes."

Marcus looked over at her, caught off guard by how nonchalantly she spoke about it. Like it didn't bother her. Like what he spent all his time doing wasn't some disgusting thing he needed to hide away. She spoke as if this was a normal conversation and part of him appreciated that in a human. With demons, no one cared, but humans weren't as open to the idea. Katherine made an effort to ask him about his days but even she shied away from the more gruesome stuff. Mila didn't seem to care, so he wasn't going to hold back.

"I don't much care for playing guard, but torturing the disgusting pieces of shit we get?" he asked, a dark smirk forming. "Yeah, I enjoy hurting them, fucking with their head. It's satisfying to watch a soul that tried to break down so many others get destroyed. I like cutting and burning people up, removing limbs while they watch, taking them to that precipice of pain right before they pass out but not letting them quite get there. Some people start begging to die before I've barely done anything. Those ones are the most fun. They scream the loudest."

Mila nodded slowly, unsure what to say, and wondering why the idea of him torturing people like that when they were truly evil was somewhat of a turn-on. She huffed in annoyance at herself and Marcus looked over questioningly.

"It sounds fun," she said, trying to distract herself.

"Cutting and burning people sounds fun to you?" He asked, a smile tugging on his lips.

"I mean... When they're evil? Yeah," she shrugged. "I've seen a lot of evil in the world and I wouldn't mind being part of breaking those souls down. I've thought about taking a knife to several people's dicks and the idea doesn't even gross me out, I just wish it was legal and socially acceptable so I could do it all the time."

"You don't think you'd mind the blood?" Marcus asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Bitch, please, I see more blood once a month than you probably see all month in hell."

Marcus laughed and shrugged. "Fair enough. You'd make a great demon, then."

"I can't be a demon, I'm apparently too pure," Mila said with mock innocence.

Marcus snorted and shook his head, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. "I can fix that, you know," his eyes sliding to her, giving her a slow wink. "Corruption's my game, . I can corrupt anyone and anything."

"What did you call me?" Mila frowned.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Marcus, giving her a lazy grin with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"Ugh, demon," she said, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms.

"Looks who's talking, little miss 'I wanna take a knife to people's dicks."

"Well right now I'm only thinking about doing it to one person," Mila said, giving him a side-glance.

"Baby, if you're thinking about my dick, you can just say that," he said, a smile playing on his lips. "I don't mind if we get kinky."

"Call me baby again and the knife will sever your dick," Mila warned.

"Whatever you say, mea deliciae," he shrugged, standing from his seat as he saw Stella and Terry coming around the corner.

Stella waved at Marcus and Mila, trying to be energetic despite how tired she felt. She insisted on walking herself but was getting tired with every step.

"How'd it go?" Mila asked, standing and walking towards them.

"It went fine, we'll get results in a few hours," Terry answered. "They said not to get our hopes up, the numbers might not be dropping yet, we're just checking in."

Mila nodded, trying to smile at Stella and not let her know she was upset. Marcus crouched down in front of Stella and she gave him a tired smile, leaning her head against Terry's leg.

"So you went in there and got poked with a needle and had your blood stolen and you're just cool with it?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "I've done it a lot."

"What a little badass," he whispered, making her smile and Terry sigh.

"Language, Marcus," he reminded him for the... he lost count of how many times he reminded him to watch his mouth around Stella.

"What'd I say?" Marcus asked innocently. "I thought I said what a little warrior," he said, reaching down and picking up Stella, setting her on his shoulders. She giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck while he bent down to get her oxygen tank. "Warriors need fuel, let's get out of here."

Marcus started walking to the elevators with Stella, making her giggle despite her tiredness. Mila watched them and couldn't decide if she was glad he was good with her or if it drove her insane because it confused her feelings.

"Bad language aside," Terry said, nudging Mila's shoulder with his as he followed after them. "I'm glad he's here."

Mila chewed on her lip, feeling a light flutter in her heart that made the conflict even worse. "Me too," she admitted quietly, following them towards the elevator and wondering how she'd last anymore time sleeping in the same bed as Marcus.