You resolve to shoot Francesca

You did not hesitate. You knew you were putting too much at risk if you did, so you pulled the trigger while you still had the chance.

The silver bullet went through Fran's chest and penetrated her heart precisely. She let out an agonized howl, gazing at you with eyes full of resentment and sorrow. The light in her black eyes extinguished in a few seconds, and she quietly collapsed and slowly reverted to her human form.

"Fran... I'm sorry..." You gently touched her face, weeping, but you knew you would never get a response from her again.

"James..." Grace sighed a breath of relief when she saw that you were fine.

Suddenly, a furious roar ripped you from your grief. At the sight of the kindred he had created and cherished killed by your hand, Bruce's face twisted with pure anger. He ripped Valerie's right arm away from her torso, sent her flying across the foyer with a heavy kick, then lunged at Grace with terrifying speed.

Grace's attention was still on you, so she couldn't react in time. Bruce's claws easily slashed open her throat, leaving her lying in a pool of blood, barely clinging to life.

"Grace! No!" You desperately raised your gun and fired at Bruce.

Guided by Lady Fortune, the silver bullet miraculously struck his right eye, setting half his brain ablaze for a brief moment. Bruce pressed a hand to his right eye in agony, shot you a hideous glare. You didn't have the chance to get a second shot, as he charged at you so swiftly that, before you could even react, your arm was slashed open by his claws, and the revolver in your hand dropped.

"It's over, Mr. Wilson." A monstrous laugh spread across Bruce's face as he was ready to finish you off.

You lost your balance and fell to the ground. As the werewolf slowly closed in with his sharp fangs and bloodied claws, you waited in despair for death, or an even worse fate, to descend upon you.

But that didn't come. Gravely wounded, Valerie could no longer sustain her lycanthrope form and reverted to her human form. Yet with her remaining left hand, she wrapped an arm around Bruce's waist from behind and yanked him backward, away from you, with all her strength.

"You pathetic, worthless piece of trash..." Enraged, Bruce spun around and slammed Valerie to the ground. He drove his claws into her chest and, with a violent wrench, tore out her heart. Her blue eyes glazed over, and she drew her last breath, unreconciled.

"She's not..." You whispered. Valerie's sacrifice was not in vain. You seized the opening, picked up the revolver from the ground, and pressed the barrel into the socket of Bruce's already blinded right eye.

"Wait-" He screamed.

Without a moment's hesitation, you pulled the trigger. The last bullet punched into Bruce's skull and tore through his brain. His head burst open, and his body fell to the side and slammed onto the ground. A red mist rose from his lifeless corpse and disappeared, as he reverted to his human form.

It's finally over. You dropped the revolver and knelt helplessly on the ground. Fran's corpse was lying next to you, and you didn't dare to look at her face.

You quickly rushed to Grace's side and checked on her. It wasn't looking good. Her blood had spilled across the ground, yet the wound on her neck had mostly healed, with her regeneration boosted by the infection. Even with such a sight before you, you still clung to the desperate hope that she might yet be saved.

Nathan arrived at the mansion as soon as possible, but all he saw was Valerie and Fran lying on the ground, Bruce already dead, and you crying beside Grace. The horrific sight of Valerie's heart torn from her chest and her arm ripped from her body nearly drove him out of his mind. But he couldn't fall here. As a doctor, he had to save who could still be saved.

"James!" He ran towards you to see if there was anything he could do.

A faint gasp came from the other end of the foyer, and you raised your head and looked that way. Sherry was sitting against the wall, still reeling from the bloody carnage of the battle that had just ended. Her injuries were not fatal, and thanks to her werewolf regeneration, her wounds had mostly healed.

"Sherry..." You walked to her. She was startled at first, so you kept your distance, trying to calm her down. "I'm not gonna hurt you..." You said.

"Bruce said he killed my father and Ben... Is that true?" Sherry said in a shaking tone.

You quietly nodded.

"Why did he do that? Why did he want to kill me? He said something about my mother, but..." She couldn't begin to comprehend the madness behind Bruce's words and actions.

"Ben told me something before he died. He's your uncle, your mother's brother."

"My... uncle?" She seemed shocked.

"Your mother's name was Karen. She was a werewolf, and... Bruce believed that she had something to do with his parents' deaths." You didn't tell her everything you knew, because you had no evidence to prove that it was true.

"I... I don't even know my mother..."

"Sherry, I don't want to push you, but we need your help. Grace was infected by Bruce, and she was turning into a werewolf. You're the only hope to save her now. Please..." You pleaded with tears in your eyes.

"She's... infected? Turning into a werewolf? It... It was only a scratch..." She looked at you in shock.

"Yes. That's how the lycanthropy infection spreads. You were born a werewolf, but humans could be infected and turned, too." You sighed. You couldn't believe that Sherry had actually no idea about her own condition.

"Oh my God... Shannon, did Bruce infect her? I thought she always had been... just like me... I thought I could learn from her... And... that means... That night, I... you..." Sherry couldn't accept the truth, and her speech was faltering.

"I know. You are the werewolf who attacked me that night." You gently nodded. Was that why Sherry wanted you to investigate whether Shannon was a werewolf? She wanted to know whether Shannon was one of her kind, so that she might find out what being a werewolf meant? Damn it...

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wilson... I didn't mean to..." Sherry looked at you with guilty tears in her eyes, "Bruce told me to embrace what I am, so I... I was carried away when you and I were..."

"I understand. You came to check on me the next morning when I woke up, to see if I was okay, didn't you? You just didn't know what was going on. I'm not blaming you." You shook your head, although you were not sure if you really meant it. "But Grace needs help..."

"What... What can I do?" She looked confused.

"I need you to transform into a full-on werewolf. We will extract some pheromone from you to make the cure." You tried to say it as calmly and sincerely as possible.

"And you can save so many lives." Nathan added.

"You want me to... transform? Into that..." Sherry looked at you and Nathan in disbelief.

"I'm not forcing you to, but... Grace is running out of time..." You couldn't help sobbing.

She wrestled with it for a moment, but soon believed what you had said and nodded. She undressed herself before you, and her body began to grow in size.

At the sight of this, you and Nathan instinctively backed away a step, but quickly forced yourselves to regain your composure. You didn't want to startle Sherry while she was doing it.

Her skull rapidly contorted and reshaped with sickening cracks. Black fur sprouted from beneath her skin while her slender hands twisted into sharp claws, and a massive tail tore out from the base of her spine. Her eyes turned a brilliant yellow. In mere seconds, she had become a full-on werewolf. You recognized the beast before you. There was no doubt that it was her.

"It's... going to hurt." Nathan took out a syringe. You were about to ask him to let you do it, but he didn't hesitate to stab it into Sherry's stomach, and began to draw the special pheromone from her werewolf bladder.

Sherry must have felt the pain as she let out a faint cry and her body twitched. You suppressed your fear and held Sherry's palm to calm her down. You feared that she might accidentally hurt Nathan, but she didn't, and he didn't seem to care.

"That's enough to make two doses..." A minute later, Nathan finished the extraction, took the syringes of monkshood solution and pharmaceutical instruments out of his backpack, and began to synthesize the cure. Sherry quickly reverted to her human form. She looked pale. The extraction must have taken a toll on her.

"Thank you..." You said.

Her eyes were dull and lifeless. She didn't say anything, only picked up her clothes, dressed, and sat there quietly. You didn't know what she was thinking, so you could only leave her to her own thoughts.

"Here." Nathan looked at the two syringes of the cure in his hand, each made of five-times concentrated monkshood solution and werewolf hormones. "Let's help Grace." He quickly ran toward her.

But when he knelt down and checked on Grace, he paused for a moment before he sighed. He turned around and looked at you sadly.

"She's... crossed the threshold." Nathan said, with astonishment and sorrow in his eyes.

"No..." You fell down helplessly.

You should have known, but you just didn't want to accept the truth. Grace was infected by a full-on werewolf and seriously injured, and it was only the infection that was keeping her alive. Just as it had been with Donna and Ben, there was nothing you could do but watch helplessly as she slowly turned, or end her suffering.

"I'll leave these to you." Nathan handed you the cures and stood up. "I'm sorry. I have to..." He left you alone with Grace and went to kneel at Valerie's side. There and now, he could finally weep.

You went to carry Fran's corpse to the living room, placed her on the sofa, and covered her face with a blanket. Grief had consumed you so utterly that you could no longer shed a tear. You betrayed her, failed to protect her, and eventually killed her. How could you live with that for the rest of your life?

"There's still so much I want to say to you, Fran..." But in the end, you couldn't bring yourself to say anything. She couldn't hear you anyway. You just left her there alone and went back outside.

"Sherry, don't do anything rash!" You heard Nathan shouting, so you quickened your pace.

In the foyer, Sherry was holding one of the silver bolts from the case, pressing the tip of its arrowhead against her chest, weeping. Nathan was trying to talk her down, but he dared not take another step closer.

"Sherry?" You quickly went beside Nathan.

"This is all my fault, isn't it?" She backed away to keep her distance from you. "Shannon, Dad, Ben, Miss Evans, and that lady over there... They all died because I'm the daughter of a monster who killed Bruce's parents, right? They all died because of me!" She cried aloud.

"No. It's not your fault. No matter what your mother was, or what kind of person she was, you are you!" You tried to persuade her.

"And I'm a monster, too! I didn't know anything, and I just hurt you. I might hurt the people around me and infect them with this... this curse! I don't deserve to live a happy life..." She stared at you and Nathan with her teary eyes. "Even if I were to meet someone who truly loves me, our child would still be a monster like me. I don't deserve to live..." She wasn't even listening to you.

"Sherry, you don't have to live for someone else. You can just be yourself!" You didn't give up. You couldn't.

"No... The cycle ends here..."

With a sudden burst of strength, Sherry drove the silver bolt into her own chest and straight through her heart. Flames began to lick across her chest, yet a faint smile curved her lips, for this was a choice not made for her, but she had made for herself. Her body fell backward, and in moments she was completely still. You dropped helplessly to your knees. Once again, you were powerless to save someone.

Later, you went back to hold Grace in your arms and carried her upstairs to the guest room where the two of you had once shared a moment. You placed her on the bed carefully.

Her condition continued to deteriorate. Her temperature was climbing, and her breathing grew more rapid. You knew that Grace didn't have much time left. She would become a mindless lycanthrope at any moment. She needed to be put down before that happened.

You grabbed the knife from your pocket with your shaking hand. You had seen so many deaths today, but it wasn't enough.

"I'm sorry..." You whispered.