Izzy bore her fangs and her hands clenched once more when Cutter made Trevor choke, but she stayed where she was, one foot further in front of the other. Her snarl deepened at his threats of destroying Trevor’s brain.
	“Some ‘man of God’ you are,” she growled through clenched teeth. “You’re as bad as the things you hunt. I haven’t hurt anyone, [i]killed[/i] anyone. But you? How many innocent bystanders have [i]you[/i] killed, Guillotine Cutter?” She snorted and shook her head. “But I suppose that doesn’t matter to you, does it? People like you don’t care whose blood gets spilt in their conquests. They could kill a [i]nation[/i] of innocents and not bat an eye as long as they destroyed that [i]one[/i] person they’re after.”
	She looked to the ground beneath her as Cutter requested to begin, then to the manicured grass between her and Cutter, quickly gauging the distance between them as she took a couple slow, deep breaths. She raised her gaze slowly back to her opponent with a stony expression. It was now or never.
	“That’s what you wish, then?” At last, Izzy let herself look to Trevor, her eyes locking with his. “The only thing you have to be sorry about, is not backing off when I told you I didn’t want friends.” She placed her feet together and loosened her fingers with an exhale, trying to release her cares and worries with the single breath. “Like I said. They only bring you pain. Sometimes,” her words slowed slightly, wondering how well he remembered their first conversation, trying to give a discrete warning to be ready, “avoiding people altogether is the best plan there is. Especially when you can still enjoy the sun while doing it.” She spread her arms out to her sides, as if basking in nonexistent sunlight... or, perhaps, the first sign of surrender.
	With that, she took another deep breath and dug her heels into the dirt. She tilted her head toward the sky, eyes closed, arms reaching toward the sky and wrists crossing above her head as she willed herself to transform into one of the things she had felt a connection with for as long as she could remember.
	She felt her body change. Her form grew and shifted until, in the blink of an eye, a mature oak stood in her place, its thick foliage a lush, summery shade of green. Izzy felt more than saw the world around her, the roots that had sprouted beneath her thick and strong as they snaked through the dry earth toward the wetter dirt beneath. It took her a fraction of a second to remember her mission, but, even to a tree, Cutter was still a threat.
	She drove her roots through the ground. They shot toward Cutter and Trevor just beneath the earth, and surfaced beneath Cutter’s feet to wind up his body, to pry his grip from Trevor. She needed to separate them, to loosen Cutter’s hold enough for Trevor to escape without giving the hunter time to harm her friend.