The worst kind of torture.

A/N: Many thanks to Katiefoolery for betaing.

He hesitated. His fist trembled but it did not descend. Rushton gave a groaning cry and seemed to fight with himself, fist still upraised. I dared not move for I had introduced something fragile and random into certainty, and the outcome of this moment was so finely balanced that a single breath would push him to attack.

Suddenly Rushton dropped to his knees with a horrible half-strangled snarl…

He lunged at me, knocking me backwards to the ground. Fireworks erupted behind my eyelids as I felt my head crack against the floor. The pain of the blow was intense, I hardly noticed as hands closed around my throat, tightening with enough force to constrict my airway. The instinct to gag was near overpowering, but I resisted.

Instead, I disabled my nerves; simultaneously paralyzing myself and blocking the pain. I had already accepted my fate. I was dead. I just didn't know it yet and I could not struggle, because when Rushton came out of this, it was already going to be hard enough for him to heal. The more I struggled, the more he would be hurt.

And Obernewtyn needed him.

It was a strange experience, observing my own murder with none of the pain. Only then did it come to me, as I lay there, watching my love strangle the life from me, that perhaps this was the answer all along. The weaponmachines would still exist, but if Ariel needed me to use them, then removing myself from the equation had to do some good.

Didn't it?

A feeling of peace filled my veins. I had beaten Ariel on my own terms. Rushton would live and heal and the world would go on. I would die, but that was a small price to pay for the lives of those I loved.

I struggled to keep hold of my thoughts as the lower parts of my mind began to dissolve into the mindstream. As ideas and memories began to vanish, I knew that Rushton had done his job. The block between my nerves and me disappeared, but it no longer mattered as I felt myself pulled toward the stream.

And then, only then did he leave me be, as he was pulled away.