Consciousness waxed and waned. Grace was vaguely aware of the jostling and rocking of being inside a moving vehicle. She tried raising her head to look out the window but the scenery blurring by outside nauseated her.

She roused again when numerous pairs of arms wrapped around her and hoisted her from her seat, carried her for a bit, and then dropped her from several feet up to the ground, the back of her head meeting a wall behind her with a splintering whack!

Moments later—or maybe moments later; Grace didn’t know how much time elapsed—the wall supporting her vanished and she fell backward onto cold tile. 

No. That hadn’t been a wall she’d been thrown against. That had been a door.

Bleary-eyed still, and slipping in and out of consciousness, Grace was only able to pick out bits and pieces of her surroundings. 

Hands appeared on her body—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. 

How many souls are touching me?!

“I recognize this. Valentino drugged her.”

The rim of a cup was pressed against her lower lip and she instinctually opened her mouth. Grace’s tongue was met with an objectionable, incredibly bitter syrup.

And then she was puking violently into a bucket that had, fortunately, been placed in front of her face.

Following a series of body-shaking heaves, she rested, draped over the bucket and trying to piece things together.

Several of those hands on her body were Angel Dust’s. Two belonged to Kofax.

They sandwiched her between them on a couch inside the Hazbin Hotel, Angel stroking her back gently while Kofax held Grace’s hair out of her face.

Charlie kneeled on the carpet in front of her, holding the barf bucket—a repurposed Homer Bucket, upon much-too-close examination—in her hands.

A couple more painful, unproductive retches left Grace nauseated but feeling like she’d emptied herself of any remaining toxins, food, and the majority of her internal organs.

They tried to lie her down on her back but she protested feebly and rasped, “I don’t wanna aspirate this shit.” 

Grace shifted in an attempt to roll onto her left side but Kofax, significantly stronger at the moment—being fed, well-rested, and not recently poisoned—rotated her the opposite direction. “No—” Grace whimpered although too weak to physically fight it. “I’m afraid I’ll puke on you—”

“Is that Little Fawn?” 

Half-lidded, semi-conscious eyes flew open and Grace glanced up; Kofax stared at her with a pointed look, lips pressed into a very fake, closed-mouth smile. An ‘I-did-this-to-help-you, sweet dipshit’ smile. An ‘I’ll-take-my-chances-with-your-regurgitated-stomach-contents-to-help-you-hide-your-current-condition-from-Alastor’ smile.

Alastor had survived another Extermination Day. But rather than celebrating that revelation, Grace blacked out.

When she came to again—weak but now fully conscious—her gaze swung around the souls in attendance.

Alastor was not among them. Had she imagined his voice and Kofax’s subsequent actions that seemed related to his inquiry? If that hadn’t been a hallucination, then where had he gone? 

Had he caught a glimpse of the demonic disaster formerly known as his Little Fawn and fled in disgust?

Grace didn’t want to think about the possibilities so she leveled a glare at Husk. “Did you give me ipecac?!”

He shrugged casually. “It was what I had on hand.”

“That shit’s motherfucking poison! Nobody in their right mind uses that anymore!”

Husk returned an unimpressed stare at her. “What did you expect would be readily available? We’re in Hell. It was ipecac or let you remain under Valentino’s influence.”

Grace exhaled rancid puke-breath through her nose and mumbled, “Thank you.” I guess. She groaned, flicking her tongue out of her mouth in disgust. “Everything smells awful.”

“C’mon.” Charlie stood, extending her arms toward Grace to help her off the couch. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Grace submitted; in part because she was willing to do almost anything to not reek of tossed cookies and poison, and in part because she knew she was too weak to decline the assistance. 

Rather than escorting Grace to her old room—or Alastor’s—Charlie took her to another room altogether; her own.

She started a bath, set out bottles of soap and shampoo. Retrieved a fresh toothbrush and tube of paste. Grabbed towels, a stick of deodorant. And then stood there like she actually expected to help Grace bathe.

The dik dik Demon shrunk back in her spot, glancing uncertainly at the bath. 

“Did you … did you maybe want someone else to help other than me?” 

I don’t need help.

Which is such raging bullshit that even I can see it.

She sighed a soft, “Please.”

“Alast—”

“No!”

Charlie winced but offered a sheepish smile. “I had to try?”

It wasn’t that Grace didn’t want to see Alastor. It wasn’t that she thought he wouldn’t want to help—although that was a distinct possibility. Well, it was actually kind of both of those things. But mostly, she didn’t want him seeing her like this. Not that her appearance mattered to him in the slightest—not even when things were at their best with him—but there was still, shockingly, the matter of her pride to contend with. How she had any of that left would be a mystery for the ages to be studied by future scholars.

“Well how about Kofax?” Charlie suggested.

To that, Grace nodded.

While Charlie fetched Kofax, Grace stripped herself of the VoxTek pajamas, left them in a heap of shame beside the tub, and sunk into the bathwater with a long exhalation.

The door eased open and Grace fully expected Alastor to have bullied his way in. Kofax poked her head around the edge of the door. “Can I join you?” Assessing Grace’s expression, Kofax followed up, “What’s with the face?”

“There was a moment I thought you were Alastor but I know better than to believe he’d use the door like a normal soul.” Grace scoffed at herself but then tipped her head. “Come on in.”

“You actually need any help washing up? I mean … I’ll happily make sure every nook and cranny is cleaner than it’s ever been if you want.”

“Thank you,” Grace said wryly as Kofax closed the door after herself. “But I’m perfectly capable of all that. I just … don’t wanna be alone. I … probably … shouldn’t be alone right now.” She’d had enough ‘alone’ recently to last several afterlifetimes.

“I can go get your Maroon Mr. Darcy.” Kofax hesitated, nudging the VoxTek pajamas out of the way with her foot before plopping down on the tile next to the tub and leaning her arm on its edge. “Or is he still the Vermillion Varlet?”

Grace picked up a washcloth and ran it down her arm, muttering under her breath, “Swear to god.”

“Scarlet Scumbag, it is!”

“You really don’t have to be so gleeful about it.”

“Oh, no, you don’t understand.” Kofax grinned. “I’ve been saving up all these nicknames for weeks now and I’m just so excited to be able to use them!” Her grin fell and her gaze drifted away from Grace. “I was starting to fear they’d just go to waste.”

Grace pouted, pressing a wet hand on Kofax’s arm where it rested on the lip of the bathtub.

“So … I know you were with the Vees. I saw that travesty on Vox 2 Nite. Did those fuckers bother even trying to feed you?”

“What do you mean? Did Vox bother to feed me lines or food?” Grace asked, shifting her gaze to the bath faucet.

“Food, Grace. I’ve not known you to be a waif and yet I can see your cheekbones and collarbone. Just … how?” Kofax swallowed loudly and repeated angrily, “How!”

Around the lump lodged in her throat, Grace took a deep breath and filled Kofax in. She ended the recap of the last several chapters of her afterlife with, “And by-the-way? You didn’t need to try so hard hacking into VoxTek’s system.”

“I didn’t?”

“His password is FuckAlastor, the number one, exclamation point. Capital F, capital A.”

Kofax’s jaw dropped in a gaping smile. “Do you suppose he’s updated it? I feel like all the little things I’ve been doing just haven’t been enough, you know?”

Grace took a few moments to wash her hair, scrubbing her scalp more aggressively than she needed, like trying to get every last bit of Vees off herself. When she emerged from the water with hair stuck to her back, she replied, “What little things?”

Kofax regarded her, wide-eyed. “Did you not get my morse code messages? With the flickering lights?”

Grace shrieked with laughter, slapping the water hard enough to splash Kofax. “I knew it, I knew it! What were the messages?”

“Kfax knows what you did; prepare for a whole new world of pain.”

“So … switching the thermostats from Fahrenheit to Celsius?”

“A silly idea Cherri gave me,” Kofax said with a shrug. “I didn’t even think it would get noticed!”

“And screwing with the language and captioning settings on the televisions?”

Kofax leaned back with a cocky grin. “Petty shit that I loved every minute of.”

“The documents translated to Swahili, the TiVox recording Gigli—” as Grace listed the technological complications the Vees had faced, she began singing it with a melody. “Oh, my god! Those were things from that Weird Al song, Virus Alert!”

“Yes!” Kofax shrieked. “Holy shit, you recognized that?!”

Grace laughed. Hard. “Only just now! Are you even kidding me? I didn’t think anyone else knew about that song!”

They both began singing in unison:

“Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!

Forward this message on to everybody

Warn all your friends, send this to everybody

Tell everyone you know, tell everybody now!”

“Are you even kidding me?!” Kofax squealed. “I was a huge Weird Al fan! He was my first and only live concert!” She sighed, casting a wildly affectionate smile at Grace. “I knew I loved you, you fucking nutcase.” 

Grace returned the smile but after a few moments, commented, “I’m sure Vox has changed his password but probably to something like FuckAlastor2!. Can you test that theory for me?”

With a wicked grin, Kofax held up her phone in demonstration. “On it!”

While Kofax’s head was bowed, Grace took the opportunity to wash her mountains and cavern. “So … what’s happened here while I was gone? How … how has Al—” She faltered. “—astor … been?”

Kofax said nothing for a bit, her eyes locked on her phone, fingers flying across its screen. Finally, she remarked, “Your Crimson Casanova spent the first week of your absence drunk off his ass.”

Grace snorted. “Sure he did.”

“No, I’m serious. He was constantly staggering around, slurring his speech. He was probably more whiskey than demon for a few days there. If you looked up despondent in the dictionary, your Cerise Cyrano’s photo would have been beside the definition. Even his shadows were drunk!”

“Oh, come on.” Although the timing does match what the Vees and Travis were chatting about when I hid under the conference table … No. No! It has to be coincidental.

“Grace …” Kofax glanced up from her phone. “He could be the poster-child for oblivious boyfriend.”

“Okay, first of all, he’s not—and never was—my boyfriend. Secondly, huh?”

“He genuinely has no idea what happened. One moment everything was the best it’d ever been and the next, he’s your enemy number one.”

Grace ran a big glob of conditioner through her hair. “You can’t be serious that he doesn’t know what he did.”

“I’m—well, I’m not the last sinner who’d defend him but I’m probably like fifth or sixth to last? after Vox and Lucifer and Husk and Vaggie—but I truly don’t think he does.”

He can’t be that stupid and she can’t be that naïve to believe that. “So … What happened after that first week I was gone?”

Kofax resumed messing with her phone. “What do you mean?”

“You said he was drunk off his ass for a week and then … he was fine? A week, and then he’s over me?” Of course that does imply he had some sort of feelings for me at some point. Grace was annoyed to have even given herself that much credit.

“Oh, fuck no! He went from drunk 24/7 to pining 24/7. Every broadcast he did was … well, he didn’t say your name, at least not at first. But it was still pretty blatantly about you. How great you are. How much he misses you. Shockingly sappy shit coming from a ghoul like him.”

Grace glanced at Kofax. “Tell me the truth … what color are my eyes?”

Kofax’s gaze flicked up and then back down.

Fuck. Still Vox’s, then. She didn’t really believe he’d let her go so easily. “I …” Grace’s voice broke, tears brimming along her lashes. “I heard him. When you all brought me back inside. I didn’t imagine that, did I?”

“You did not.”

Well then where the fuck did he go when I roused? But she only asked aloud, “Did he see that … that I belong to Vox now?”

“Nah, girl, I gotchu.”

“What am I gonna do, K? Hope that he’ll continue to give me space until Vox gets bored fucking with me?” It was possible Alastor had given up on her. Possible he hadn’t cared enough to begin with. Possible he still thought their contract was intact. But those four words—Is that Little Fawn?—had sounded startlingly emotional.

Kofax took a deep breath, then sighed, then gazed off into eternity. “If it were me?”

“Yeah?”

“I’d go straight to the top.”

“… Lucifer?” Grace sneered.

“Yes ma’am!”

“Even if I had a decent relationship with the Big Boss of Hell … like he’d …”

Kofax lifted an eyebrow. “You know Charlie would vouch for you.”

She shook her head. “Yeah, no. Gimme something else.”

“Gimme time to figure it out, then, cuz … Lu’s all I’ve got.”

“‘Lu?’” Grace repeated in disgust. “Alastor’s ‘Garnet Ghoul’ and ‘Scarlet Stinker’ but Lucifer is ‘Lu?’”

“Lu didn’t do something dumb enough to chase you away and ultimately get you owned by one of the worst Overlords there is.”

Grace exhaled slowly. “Yeah, okay, I guess that’s fair.”

“Are you even kidding me?” Kofax laughed so hard that she started crying. “You were right about Vox’s updated password: FuckAlastor2!” She sniffled, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Then she sniffed again. “Do you smell that?”

“Soap?” Grace offered the bottle of shampoo, squeezing it gently toward Kofax’s face, sending soap bubbles floating into the air.

“No, no … that is definitely food I’m smelling. Charlie may be making something special to welcome you back.”

Despite herself, Grace smiled. “Seems like the kind of thing she’d do.” She sighed. “I don’t know how I can face everyone. I was … so awful to everyone before I left. I said things to Husk that, like … if he’d actually been trying to poison me with the ipecac, I wouldn’t have blamed him one little bit for it.”

Kofax rested her head on her arm, gazing at Grace with a small smile. “Can’t hurt to start with an apology.”

Grace replied with a wry smile, “I sure hope I’ll have room for dinner after all the crow I’m about to eat.”

“At least make sure you leave some room for dessert. You need the calories.” After a little pause, Kofax asked, “Can I braid your hair? Please?”

“It’s been forever since I’ve braided it. Even longer since someone did so for me. Sure,” she shrugged, the water sloshing against her chest. “Why not.”

“Okay, but first? I beg you, cover those up.” Kofax pointed at Grace’s chest. “They’re distracting me.”

“I … thought you had a something going with Cherri?” Grace pouted.

“Yeah, about that: I’ve been friend-zoned.”

“Oof, I’m sorry. Girls can be such teases.”

“I’m still of the opinion that souls with trouble-puffs and trouser-danger-noodles are worse.”

“I dunno. They’re not so bad.”

“Which is why you ended up in Vox’s possession?”

Grace had no rebuttal for a perfectly valid argument and so she finished her bath, dried off, and dressed in a little pale pink sundress with strawberry print that Charlie had left out for her. Charlie must have had in mind the way Grace was built prior to leaving the hotel. This dress was a little bit too loose all over and she kept having to pull the straps back up onto her shoulders since they lacked those little plastic doohickies to make the straps adjustable.

“I didn’t really lose that much weight, did I?” mumbled Grace.

“Have you looked in a mirror?”

Grace raised a pointed eyebrow and gestured toward her face. “With my eyes looking this way? And while stuck in those pajamas? I can’t stand the mere thought of me right now, let alone the sight of me!”

Kofax sighed heavily and led her to one of the armchairs in the sitting room adjacent to Charlie’s bedroom. She plaited Grace’s hair into two lengthy cornflower blue braids that fell over her shoulders.

“You better be careful with those straps,” Kofax said coming around to the front of the chair to help Grace up. “You’re gonna end up flashing folks at the dinner table.”

Grace snorted, permitting the Hacker Demon to lead her out of Charlie’s room. “It’s not like everyone here hasn’t already seen them.”

The aroma from the Hazbin Hotel’s kitchen was nothing short of enchanting. Like if Heaven had a smell, it would be that scent. Like if this were the last smell to grace Grace’s nose, she’d never want for another scent again.

The dining room table had been set; it looked like they were prepared to host a full house. Grace, on the other hand, was not ready to be around so many others. She needed a halfway house for re-socialization. Nonetheless, she sat in the chair at the far end of the table beside Kofax. Angel Dust came in shortly after and took the seat on the other side of Grace.

“I missed you, ya little bitch,” he said quietly. “You okay?”

Grace spared a glance at him. “Define okay.”

He cringed as he met her gaze. “That color blue looks fucking awful on you.”

“I know; I hate it so much, I hate myself so much,” she said with a quivering lip and trembling voice, covering her face with her hands. “I broke a whole-ass mirror as soon as I saw it.”

He leaned over, wrapping an arm around her shoulder to pull her into a little side hug. “Please don’t go away like that again. It’s dull here without you.”

She had a terrible feeling that either she’d have to go away again if she wished to find some way out of her contract or Vox would force her back when he decided he was in the mood to torture her some more. Grace forced a smile in spite of herself. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Yeah, okay, that was a lie. But you do add a certain factor of entertainment …”

“You just want me around to tell you shit about the Radio Demon.” She had half a mind now, out of spite for Alastor, to give Angel the filthy details he’d been begging for. She could give Angel such details as to make him rue the day he manifested, so curious, in Hell.

Angel Dust shrugged impishly. “If details were to be shared, details were to be shared. Ain’t nothing I can do about it!”

“You could stop inquiring about it.”

“True.” He pressed a quick kiss to Grace’s cheek before pulling away from her. “But that wouldn’t be much fun.”

With Vaggie, Niffty, and Husk accompanying her, Charlie brought out chafing dishes they placed in the middle of the table. Grace made a point of evading Husk’s attention.

Lucifer followed soon after with Cherri on his tail. 

“No fuckin’ way!” Cherri gasped at Angel Dust. “You weren’t shitting me! Grace is back!”

Cherri ran over and threw her arms around Grace.

Grace smiled once more despite herself but found that smiling came a little more naturally this time. “I missed you.”

“We missed you too, ya cunt. Just wait ’til you see the group chat!”

As the rest of them took their seats around the table, Angel whispered, “I assume you still don’t have a phone?”

“I do not.”

“I’ll fill ya in later.”

They started serving the food, which, it turned out, was the origin of this unbelievable scent. Kofax filled Grace’s bowl before she even had the chance to stand and do so for herself.

“I could do that, you know,” Grace chided as Kofax set the bowl in front of her. “I’m not some ninety-pound weakling.”

Kofax’s gaze dipped to the strap of Grace’s dress that had the audacity to slip off her shoulder right just then as if illustrating some obnoxious and unwelcome point. “Mmm. Your current physique begs to differ.”

Grace dropped her gaze in favor of the bowl. Its contents looked suspiciously like gumbo.

Her heart sank, tenuous smile fell, and she sighed. “You already forgot I don’t eat meat, Charlie?”

“Of course not!” Charlie replied with a dazzling smile. “This is vegetarian gumbo!”

Grace reluctantly tried it and nearly burst into tears; her mouth pooled with drool at the flavor as she pressed her hand to her lips. It was the tastiest thing she’d eaten since that Creole blueberry and sausage casserole Alastor had made her just before rutting her pussy raw.

The thought crossed her mind that anything would have tasted this good to her while she was starved, while she’d had so few things recently that had been made expressly with her diet and tastebuds in mind. But no; this transcended delectable. This wasn’t a mere symphony but a magnum opus of flavors.

“Charlie!” Grace gushed from behind her hand with the food still sitting on her tongue, blessing it with its presence. She was annoyed with herself that her eyes were brimming with tears over something insignificant like this. She moaned, “This tastes so fucking good!”

“Oh, don’t praise me.” Charlie’s gaze shifted pointedly toward the dining room entryway.

There stood Alastor. Smiling. Neither happier nor more anything than he ever was.

Kofax gasped, staring at him with wide-eyes. “You? You made this?!”

“I’d be offended,” he replied sourly, “if I weren’t already so used to that reaction.”

“Ya eat raw deer, Alastor,” Angel Dust pointed out.

“Anything could sound gross if you say it like that,” Niffty chirped.

Grace lowered her head and kept eating since this tasted so unbelievably sinful and she was so unbelievably hungry, trying to not let on that she noticed Alastor watching her closely.

She took a bite or two, adjusted a dress strap. Another few bites, the other dress strap slipped off her shoulder. Between bites, she glanced casually down at her stomach. The sundress wrinkled around her waist.

She supposed maybe she had lost a pound or two. She’d lost sleep. If she were still alive, she’d even have quipped that she’d lost years off her life over the last few weeks. 

But it couldn’t be nearly as bad as Kofax made it out to be. The loose dress had to be in part Charlie making the garment too large for her.

When Grace helped herself to seconds, Angel Dust began coughing and hacking around a mouthful of food. She glanced at him; he was staring, red-faced, in Alastor’s direction.

“You okay over there, Angel?” Kofax asked him, worry creasing her forehead.

“He’s fine,” Grace remarked. “If he’s coughing, then his airway isn’t blocked.”

Angel Dust cleared his throat and took a long pull from his glass of water. “Thanks for the concern, bitch.”

“Are you okay?” asked Grace.

He cleared his throat once more and muttered, “Yeah. You could’ve still been a little concerned for my well-being.”

One by one, the other souls around the table glanced over at Alastor and promptly dropped their heads to focus on their bowls, each one blushing furiously.

Grace refused to look.

Noticing this, Angel pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped away on the screen. He then stared hard and purposefully at Grace.

“What?”

“Oh, right.” He groaned. “You don’t have a phone anymore.”

“Nope, sure haven’t gotten one in the last ten minutes.”

Angel griped, “That’s getting real old real quick.”

At the moment, being unable to see whatever the Porn Demon had texted her, whatever the fuck was going on around this dinner table, Grace was glad she didn’t have a phone. 

She mumbled a teasing, “Boo, you whore,” and helped herself to another bowl of the gumbo. 

“Mean,” Angel whined in response.

Grace’s third serving wasn’t because she was hungry anymore but because she was savoring the meal while hoping Alastor might clear the entryway to let her exit the dining room without incident. Grace was much too tired to make a scene and any interaction with the Radio Demon at this point would be nothing short of a show-stopper. And especially with Lucifer in the audience, she thought her encounter with the Radio Demon would not just be a show-stopper but a crowd-pleaser, and she refused to give His Majesty that gift.

Alastor, unprompted, actually helped Charlie clear the table after dinner. While they were in the kitchen, Grace took the opportunity to slip out and retreat to her original hotel bedroom.