He had always been her pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the ultimate prize for whatever she had gone through in her life. From losing her mother to her temporary lapse in judgment in getting involved with Hunter he had always been the constant prize in the end of it all. Despite the fact that her father had hated him from the word 'go' and her sister seemed reluctant at first to consider him worthy enough to have a hold of her little sister's heart Trish's mind and heart stayed true to the one man that could inevitably cause her more pain than any other for when you truly give your heart to another person, completely and without reservations you leave yourself open to have them hurt you and hurt her is exactly what he did.

It wasn't the feeling of the blade sliding into her that really hurt. The pain of that seemed to have been dulled by the pain she already felt coursing through her heart, through her mind. With the knowledge that she had let herself be fooled by a man who hid a monster deep beneath his skin and because of her foolishness their friends and family had been slaughtered had all but numbed her, the sharpness of that realization more destructive than any blade, than any other weapon he could have pulled out and thrust upon her.

The image of her father's bloodied body, head split open on the church floor filtered into her head unbidden and she replayed the way Henry had reacted to it in her head over and over again like she was stuck on repeat and even now, even after hearing what he was from his own two lips she couldn't see it in his reaction then. He had held her to him when she went to go to her father and he had pulled her away and brought her outside and held her while she cried and he stayed with her beyond that; he had offered to make the arrangements so her father could be taken home to be buried and the entire time something inside of him had taken some sick pleasure in it all, like her tears were his elixir of life that just kept him going. And maybe he did take some sort of sick enjoyment at the sight of them all crying, of her kneeling by her father's bloody body and crying out for him as if he would stand up and pull the head spade away like a Halloween prop and tell her it had all been a joke, that he was fine and he was so, so sorry he had upset her.

He had taken pleasure in all of it, every time one of them jumped, every bit of blood spilt and every scream and she wonders who he killed and who Wakefield himself had killed and wonders if the feeling of the blade sliding into someone's skin or the light going out in their eyes had turned him on in some wrested and perverse way, if he had smiled behind that mask he wore each and every time they found a new body and someone would break down crying. Did he get his rocks off by ending other people's lives?

And as she struggled against him and her thoughts both physically and mentally and the blade slid into her side and the air rushed out of her, her body pressed against his and him whispering 'it's not fair' into her ear over and over again like some sort of a mantra that would make everything better and make her forgive him it wasn't so much a death but a release from the truth behind what he had done; it wasn't so much being condemned to death but being returned to the ones she loved that were gone.

And as he lowered her towards the ground, cradling her in his arms as her breathing faded, holding her like she were precious to him she could feel the answer to her question, pressing against her side, the telltale sign that he did get some sick kind of sexual gratification by ending someone's life, pressing hard and evident against her side. And when her final breath left her body like a ghostly memory and her vision turned entirely dark she thought, that yes, he had been her gold at the end of the rainbow and just like all people who search for treasure she had paid the price.

She had chased that rainbow into hell and the devil had come to greet her, mouth and hands and body and had taken her in every essence of the word. And now she would always be his, both in life and in death- the ultimate kick in the teeth at the end of a long, brutal beating.