"I don't know, Angel. But I can imagine. You told her you understood, didn't you."

"I don't . . . ." She looked at me. "Yes! Yes, alright? I told her I understood!"

She nodded, apparently satisfied. "But you didn't, did you," she began, her voice soft with a compassion which burned rather than healed. "You didn't understand her, though you said you did. Didn't understand what it was like to have a heart so cold and dark that taking another person's life meant little more than taking a trip to the market. Didn't understand that when death means nothing, life means even less."

"Enough, Corinne!" I shouted, my words echoing over the flat expanse of the lake and setting a small flock of birds to startled flight. "Enough."

She smiled again. "Is it? I don't think so, Angel. In fact, I think it's as far from being enough as it's possible to get." Her expression gentled somewhat. "Ice is a killer, Angel. It may not be all she is, but it certainly makes up a great part of who she is. It shapes her thoughts, molds her actions. It's instinctive, like breathing." Her soft voice trailed off for a moment as she closed her eyes. When they reopened, they were full of a horrible knowing that I wanted to turn my face from, yet couldn't.

"Every day of her life, Angel, every day, she has to make the conscious choice to live another day without violence. Another day struggling against her own instincts. Another day of trying desperately to hold on to the thinnest and most frayed of cords tying her to this path she's chosen. And do you know why she does it, Angel?"

I looked at her, suddenly lost, suddenly unsure of the one thing in my life which had seemed bedrock. Ice's convictions. "Because she knows it's the right thing to do?" I hazarded.

The smile she gave me, sad and filled with gentle disappointment, wrenched at my heart. "No, Angel. Although it may be the 'right' thing to do, that's not why she does these things."

"Then why?"

Reaching out, she took my hand and clasped it tightly in her own. "She does these things because one day, several years ago, she met someone who, without even trying, reached inside her and grabbed hold of a heart she couldn't remember having. A person who, against all odds, captured her effortlessly and holds her close to this very day. And a person in whose eyes she can never allow herself to seem any less than perfect." She smiled again. "She does these things for you, Angel. Because she loves you. And because you've managed to do something no one else has ever done."

"What's that?" I asked, very aware of the hoarseness of my voice.

"You've made her see that she's worthy of being loved. It's what spurs her on, what dictates her actions now. It weighs heavy on every decision she makes, because no matter what, no matter what, she never wants to ever be seen as unworthy in your eyes."

Tears etched silent streams down the hills and valleys of my cheeks and jaw. Seeing them, Corinne grasped my hand more tightly, squeezing in comfort and, perhaps, understanding. "That's a heavy burden to place on anyone, Angel. I know that. Ice does as well. But when you told her, not once but many times, that you understood and accepted who and what she was, she felt it was a burden you both could share."

With her free hand, she gently brushed away my tears. "She's opened her heart and soul to you, Angel. The darkness and the light. That's a gift very few people in this world ever receive. A gift beyond price. And when she makes decisions that go against her very nature, like allowing Cavallo to live, all the while knowing instinctually that she'll pay for that decision later, she does so because she wants to be that person you see when you look at her every day."

A sob came up, unbidden from my throat, and I covered my mouth against its utterance. "She told me that very thing once," I gasped, only now understanding the true import behind the words she'd spoken. "That all she wanted to be was the person I saw when I looked at her."

Corinne nodded, her face kind, but grave. "She believes in you, Angel. She believes that you love her for who she is as well as the person she has the potential to be. But remember this. Her darkness will always be there. Just because she doesn't act on it doesn't mean it's gone, no matter how much either of you wish that were so. It's not a stain that can be washed away nor a sin that can be miraculously forgiven like some penitent's confession to a black-robed Priest. It's a part of her as deep as her love for you. Neither can be erased."

Her gaze sharpened and I felt as if she were looking into the depths of my soul. "The decision is yours, Angel. Either you accept her for all that she is, accept that, given the life you two share, there will be times when she'll be forced to act on instinct because she's allowed herself to go against those instincts in the past and she must now pay restitution, or . . . ."

I could feel the breath catch in my throat. "Or what?"

"Walk away, Angel. Quickly and far. Sever your ties with her and never look back. Bull tells me that she may think you dead. If you can't be what she needs you to be, the one person in the world who loves her unconditionally, then please, for her sake, let her mourn your passing and be done with it. Don't hurt her more by allowing her to see the condemnation of her nature in your eyes."

After a long moment, she released my hand and stood up. "Think about what I've said, Angel. I'll be upstairs with Ice."

I stood as well. "I'm coming with you."

A touch on my arm was all it took to stop me in my tracks. "Have you even heard a word I've said, Angel?"

"Yes, Corinne. But I need to see her. To be with her. I need . . . ."

She shook her head slowly, sadly. "No, Angel. This is something you're going to have to do without her. Ice can't help you with this."

"But . . . ."

"No, Angel," she said firmly. Her eyes softened slightly. "Angel, I love you with all my heart. You know that. But I love Ice just as deeply. And I won't see her hurt, by you or anyone else. So please. Stay here and think on what we talked about. Listen to your heart, Angel. It will tell you what you have to do."

I could feel my shoulders slump in defeat. Almost against my will, I nodded my acceptance of her request. A request that I well knew, knowing Corinne as I did, was more of a command than the simple asking of a favor.

She smiled slightly, and with a nod of her head, turned and stepped off the dock. I watched as she made her careful way back up to the cabin, my thoughts in utter turmoil.

When she disappeared around the corner of the house, I turned back and faced the dark water, not really seeing it for the tears blurring my vision.

The tears soon passed and I was left feeling weary, empty, and very confused. I wanted so desperately to go to Ice. To see her, to hold her, to stroke her hair, feeling that somehow all the answers to my questions would rest with that simple, profound connection between us. A connection I could feel even with so much distance between us. Distance that I, in my fear, had caused.

I only thanked God, in all his mercy, that Ice wasn't awake to see it.

I also knew that Corinne was right. Ice couldn't help me with this. No one could, save for myself.

I wrapped my arms around myself as a chill wind blew off the lake, a harbinger of a winter not far away, even now, in the midst of a glorious summer.

As I looked over the lake as the wind swayed the trees, I forced myself to examine the hardest of Corinne's questions to me. Did I love Ice for herself? For the woman she truly was? Or did I, instead, love the woman I wanted her to be, an image I constructed in my mind; a white knight on a charging steed, with a pure heart and an untainted soul.

I snorted softly. Perhaps I'd gone a bit too far with the "Knight Errant" analogy. Ice had never been, even in the first moments of my knowing her, what anyone would consider pure of heart and soul.

But then again, who among us was?

Certainly not me.

So the question remained. Who did I love?

A real, flesh and blood human being? Or an image superimposed over that person to make her more palatable to my sensibilities, such as they were.

It would be so damned easy just to chuck it all and go with what my heart was telling me, which was that I loved Ice with everything in me, that she held my heart in the palm of her hand, that I trusted her in a way I'd never trusted anyone else in my life and that just the thought of not having her in my life made my guts twist inside.

But I also knew that to do that would be to do a great disservice to us both.

The dream terrified me more than I was willing to admit to anyone but myself. And until I figured out why, until I came up with an explanation that satisfied my need to know, I'd be no good to either of us.

And Ice only deserved the best from me.

How I went about giving that to her was another question entirely.

I heard myself groan as I once again lowered my stiffened body on the chilled and worn wood of the dock. So many thoughts, feelings, emotions and images ran through my mind that it was difficult to know where to start. Or, even, how to start.

"The best place to begin is often at the beginning," my mother was fond of telling me.

I shrugged to myself. Seemed as good a place as any.

A name came to my mind, and I went with it.

Cavallo.

The bastard who'd started it all. The bastard who'd almost ended it all.

From what I could remember of his history, told to me in bits and pieces by Corinne, Cavallo was what was called a 'mole'. He'd risen up through the ranks of the Family Ice was attached to, the Briacci crime family, all the while snuggled deep within the back pocket of Briacci's largest rival. Hoping to plant the seeds of mistrust, he'd framed Ice, sending her out to kill an innocent man.

But, and this I'd almost forgotten in my terror over the nightmare I'd had, she'd refused to kill him.

"She refused," I whispered aloud, making it real, making it there.

Even knowing that such a refusal could mean her own death, she'd gone against orders anyway.

"Many of us have lines we draw in the sand and this was one of my lines. I never killed innocents and I never killed witnesses, no matter who they were testifying against."

I remembered those words as if she'd told them to me only this afternoon instead of five full years ago. They suddenly took on new meaning as the first part of my puzzle slipped silently into place.

When the man was killed anyway, Ice took the rap for it, to use prison slang for a moment, even going so far as to refuse the outstanding legal services of Donita, who very much cared for her and very much wanted to help.

And all because the Ice I met in the Bog that first time was a woman who'd acknowledged the light in her soul and though she wasn't guilty of the crime for which she'd been convicted, she was determined to pay restitution for the ones she hadn't been convicted of, even if it meant, as it seemed at the time, giving up her freedom as payment for the rest of her life.

Could I have done the same?

Well, in a way, I had. I was no more guilty of murdering my husband than Ice was of murdering that innocent man, but I, too, was willing to pay restitution because, whether it was murder or not, I had killed him.

So, in that way at least, Ice and I were very much the same.

Another piece added itself to the board.

My mind returned to Cavallo. Not satisfied with simply framing Ice, he wanted to twist the knife in any way he could, while still rising within the Family, intending, one day, to start a coup and take it over entirely. He'd set up Briacci's wife, a woman who'd been almost a second mother to Ice, had her thrown in jail, then had her murder staged for an audience of one.

My lover.

And though she was devastated over the death of a person she'd loved, and though I'm sure she had any one of a hundred chances to exact her own form of permanent justice on the man, she remained in jail, determined to pay for her crimes.

Another piece of the puzzle snapped into place for me as I began to view the events of five years of my life in an entirely new light, wondering, with a bit of shame, why I hadn't bothered doing so before.

Twisting the knife still further in her heart, Cavallo made a deal with the warden, condemning Ice to servitude by doing his bidding, stripping down cars which he then resold at a healthy profit. And when she'd finally had enough and refused to roll over any more, Cavallo, through his mouthpiece Morrison, threatened harm to the one thing that was most dear to her in all the world.

Me.

Believe me when I tell you that I don't take that lightly, nor is it an enormous massage to my healthy ego to state such a thing so baldly. It is simply the truth as I knew it then and as I know it now.

Would a conscienceless killer have taken that threat lying down? Or would she have instead ripped the Warden to shreds and caught the first hostage out of town on a mission to personally deliver Cavallo his very own death warrant?

Ice answered my question by her own actions.

She took it. She accepted the knife to her gut, not quietly no, but accepted just the same, in order to keep me safe, healthy, and whole.

And still it wasn't enough for Cavallo.

In a scene that still haunts my dreams and will continue to do so, I suspect, until I finally shuffle off this mortal coil, he came face to face with her-with a prison fence and a dozen fully armed guards between them, courageous man that he was-taunted her, and when she didn't rise to the bait to his liking, shot her in the back.

Quite against my will, the scene replayed itself in all its Technicolor glory.

With one last squeeze, and a scream from Cavallo, Ice released her grip and held up her empty hands, grinning. Taking two careful, deliberate steps back from the fence, she winked at the mobster, then turned.

Our gazes locked as she completed her turn and the world began to spin in slow motion. From the corner of my eye, I could see Cavallo reach beneath his coat with his good, right hand.

"Ice!" I launched myself at her, aiming for her legs. "Nooooo!"

Her eyes widened in question.

The sound of a gun firing, oddly flat in the turbulent air.

The question turned to shock as a bloom of red stained the small, burned hole that suddenly appeared in the upper left chest of her jumpsuit. She looked down, then back at me.

Then her eyes went as empty as they were in my dream and she crumpled to the ground silently.

I landed on top of her, screaming.

I pulled myself away quickly, slapping at my tears as I turned her over onto her back. "Oh God, no. Ice, no. Please. Oh God."

Blood pumped out of the exit wound in slow, sluggish bursts. But that meant that she was still alive. Pressing one hand over the hole in her chest, I used my free one to stroke the hair back from her face. "Oh God, please wake up, Ice. Please don't die on me. Please. Don't do this to me. Please. Oh God. Oh God."

I was panicking, and I knew it. But I couldn't seem to stop. Blood welled up in the spaces between my fingers, painting me with its heated vibrancy. "Don't you die on me, Morgan Steele. Don't you dare die on me!"

The sound of running footsteps caused me to look up. The pale, scared faces of Sonny, Pony and Critter stared down at me.

"Oh fuck!" Pony grunted, squatting beside me and pushing her own hand down on top of mine in an attempt to stem the bleeding.

"Get an ambulance!" I screamed, not even feeling the pressure of Pony's hand against my own. "Now!!"

Nodding abruptly, Sonny turned and sped away, running back toward the prison in a furious burst. The shocked crowd parted easily to allow her passage.

"Are they gone?" I asked Pony, my rearward view blocked by her muscled body.

"Who?" Pony asked distractedly, her face grim as she increased the pressure on my hand.

"The warden and . . .the shooter."

My friend looked over her shoulder, still blocking my view of the fence and the area beyond it. "A car's peelin' rubber outta the parking lot," she grunted, returning her full attention to her task of slowing the bleeding pumping out of my lover with every beat of her heart.

"Thank God."

"What are you thankin' God for? That might be Ice's killer getting away!"

"She won't die. I know it. She can't."

"I wish I had your faith, Angel."

"You don't need it. I have faith enough for all of us."

Blinking, I wiped the tears from my face as my mind finally released its hold and allowed me to come back to the present.