Sometimes life seems like a dream. One minute, you're walking through life with a smile on your face, the next moment, you're standing alone somewhere, the feelings of loneliness consuming you. The blackness consumed everything in a split moment, gripping my flesh and pulling me closer to its chest. The blackness took me in and tried to keep me forever.

Shadows danced along the walls in the grey room where I stood, looking out from the large wooden door and across the frost kissed ground of the forest clearing. The moonlight desperately attempted to break through the cover of the trees, in order to illuminate the solid ground under my feet. The chill in the air began to nip at my flesh, as I walked out into the night, the fog encased my body and the sweeping tendrils of mist swept across the bare flesh of my arms. The night smelled of that first hint of rain against the dry ground; the petrichor floating into my nostrils caused my heart to race.

I looked across the clearing and then back to the room where I once stood, but it was no longer there. All that was left were the massive pine trees mixed with the smaller Balsam Fir trees that lined the forest surrounding me, like protectors ready to stand guard. Their scent mixed with the night air, reminded me of the scents of my house at Christmas.

A figure stood at the edge of the clearing, his back towards me, the mist swirling around him. I was hesitant to approach him, but I felt my feet stepping on the dry needles beneath me. The feel of their prickles against the bare soles of my feet caused me to cringe in slight pain. Faint hints of music notes hung in the air, clutched against the soft howls of the winds around. On my eardrums I could hear the faint hints of a song, calling to me. My hand stretched in front of me, to clasp him on the shoulder. I had to see his face. 

I needed to feel him one more time, but when he turned around, his face was void of emotions and I instantly felt pulled away, my body propelled in the opposite direction, forever away from the things that comforted me. A hundred vicious hands gripping my skin, yanking me away from him...

No!

My eyes fluttered open, the feeling in my head was like a million jackhammers beating on to the solid concrete below it. My body ached and I couldn't seem to focus my vision. I didn't feel like me, I felt broken and my heart ached in betrayal and sadness.

"Picks? Baby, can you hear me?" Seth's voice echoed through the haze. "Hey! She's waking up!"

I tried to focus, but all I saw were the faint hint of pale blue walls around me, my brain stuck in a thick fog. The florescent lights up above stung against my tired eyes as I looked around. The hints of antiseptic clung to the air around me, giving the room a sterile freshness as the air invaded my lungs with each breath. 

I tried to pull my hand to my face to rub the persistent ache, but my hand felt heavy. When I raised it, I dropped it suddenly, hearing the loud thud of something hard against metal. I pulled my hand up towards my face again and willed my vision to focus on it. My hand was encased in a hard shell and my brain searched for answers to what was going on.

Sensing my confused state, I heard Seth's voice again, "It's alright babe. You broke your hand. It's in a cast." 

My eyes focused on the hard white material, which had a ton of graffiti like designs across it in different colored Sharpie pen. I must have been out of it a while, if Seth was here and he had time to decorate a hand cast. My other hand, which had a stinging pain in it, from the needle in it, traced the patterns of red and green roses, intermingled with music notes and a large blue skull with piercing pink jewels for eyes.

Wait... Seth was here? Where was here?

"Seth? What happened?" I asked in confusion, feeling the tears welling up as my memory shifted back to that moment on the road. I could still smell the snow coated asphalt and the scent of the pine trees nearby. I could still hear the sound of tires on the roadway and the sound their screeching made.

"You got hit by a car. They think maybe a hit and run, where the driver didn't see you cause of the snow," he responded and I just shook my head in acknowledgement. I thought to myself how convenient it was that one driver on the roadway hadn't seen me in plain daylight. How did they not know that they had hit something? We had animals like deer, but very few issues with them running out in front of cars, according to Lizbeth, who often glided down the hill from the Academy late at night, without a care of a possible problem.

I heard someone clear their throat and looked over at the doorway to see Killian entering the room with a doctor. Killian came over and stood by my bed, taking my uninjured hand in his and smiling, his eyes were puffy like he had been upset. I looked over to the wall to see my brother Miles standing nearby, with his arms crossed, looking at me in relief.

"Dad?" I choked back the tears as I tried to talk. He rubbed circles with his thumb over my pale skin and just smiled.

The doctor checked over me and pulled Killian aside, speaking to him in private, while Miles just left the room for a few brief moments. Seth stayed at my side, in a uncomfortable looking chair, his hand on my injured arm and worry in his eyes.

"I think I fucked up, Seth," I looked at him, while I felt the first tears cascade down my bare cheeks.

"It was an accident, babe. It wasn't your fault. But had it not been for Liam driving up the hill to see Lizbeth, you might not have been found for a while."

It was all coming back to me. I remembered the large black Range Rover speeding towards me, as I stood near the road to the clearing, trying to adjust the hood of my sweatshirt. I remembered the feeling of the SUV colliding with my body, throwing me through the air and my limp body thudding against the hard surface of the ground. I briefly remembered the feeling of the back of my head hitting a really hard and sharp surface and the warm moisture that coated my hair, the scent of something metallic in the air around me.

I reached my hand back towards the back of my head and felt the bandage, with the hint of the hardness of stitches underneath. Rock 1, Talia's head 0. I remembered sounds I didn't recognize, were they laughter? I remembered the sounds of the SUV barreling off away from my body and the feeling of laying there as the snow drifted down around me, coating me in a cold protective blanket of the unknown. I remembered the sound of someone's voice, after the sounds of an old truck coming to rest nearby. Frantic sounds and the feeling of hands on my body, trying to figure out if I was alive or not. Then I remembered dreaming. I remembered being stuck somewhere I couldn't escape from.

"No, Seth, I fucked up. I brought this on myself."

"I don't understand," he responded, a wave of confusion on his face as he leaned back in his chair and just looked at me, like I needed to spill what I knew at that very moment or else.

"I remember everything. I remember telling Damian and Paxton we weren't going to play this game anymore. I remember Paxton being extremely angry and telling me it was far from over. I remember the car. It was Paxton's car that hit me," my eyes glanced down towards the bed in shame, as Killian came back into the room, with Lizbeth, Miles and Liam in tow.

Lizbeth hurried over and wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my neck, sighing in relief. I could feel her tears against my skin and I knew that I had a lot of explaining to do, right here, right now. It was the moment I was dreading, but the look on Seth's face told me that it needed to happen immediately. It was a look I had never seen before from him. It was pure rage that he was holding back.

"Dad? I really screwed up," I managed to squeak out as Lizbeth released me from her grasp and stared at me. Liam put his hand on her shoulder and cleared his throat a few times, his shoulder tic getting more prevalent due to his nervousness about the situation.

I saw Seth clench his jaw and grit his teeth, as his fists balled up and slammed down onto the arms of the chair he was sitting in. In an instant, he stood up and stomped out of the room, the sound of his fist colliding with the wall was the only sound my heart heard, as it broke even further.

"Talia, you didn't screw anything up," Killian's deep voice coated the room, trying to reassure me in the moment, but it was no use.

It all spilled from my lips. Every single piece of information about my involvement with the Reever boys, my feelings, my decision to end things after what had happened in Minnesota, and finally the vital pieces of information; meeting Julian and Maria Reever. I saw Killian's facial expression change to pure horror and anger, as I told him about meeting Maria in the market and the things she said. I then let out a large breath and told the final piece, I told my family about the large black Range Rover that hit me.

I never understood why Maria called my father a tyrant that day in the market. Sure, I had seen hints of his rage, but nothing that would classify him as an utter monster. I had never seen the anger that could manifest out of hurt, anger that could consume your body and take over like it was the driver and your flesh was merely the vehicle. I had never seen true rage until that moment. Until the moment, when Killian Wyndham picked up the heavy chair that Seth had been sitting in and easily propelled it through the air towards the far wall. 

I had finally seen my father for what he was. 

I saw the tyrant that wouldn't rest until every single member of the Reever family was unable to ever hurt the ones he loved again. I saw the monster that hid in the man whose blood coursed through my veins. I saw the man who would without question, kill for me.

I saw a father's love. 

......................

I felt hands stroking my long strands of hair around my face and felt my eyes fluttering open from their restful state. The room around me was silent and as I looked around I was alone, except I wasn't really alone. I felt his strong fingertips on my skin and I looked up into his gorgeous eyes that were hidden behind his thick black framed glasses. His dirty blonde hair was a mess, like he had been tugging on it endlessly in worry. His brow furrowed and I could see the pain in his features.

"Damian?" my raspy voice questioned if I was really seeing him in front of me. The last time I saw him, I was sure he would never speak to me again.

"Shuuuush. I'm so sorry, Grey. If this had been worse I don't know what I would have done. I know things between us are finished, for the time being, but losing you would have killed me."

His hands reached back into his back pocket and he pulled out a red pen, reaching for my cast and drawing a small heart near the place where the cast met my thumb. When he looked up at me, I could see the tears in his eyes that he was pushing back. 

"I love you, Grey, don't ever forget that," he got up and leaned down, placing a light kiss on my lips. The taste of his black cherry chapstick invaded my senses and I felt my heart break further. Saying goodbye to him once destroyed me, but this time it took the one piece I had left and my soul placed it in his pocket, as he walked away.

He turned briefly towards me, before reaching the door and simply said, "I'm really sorry."

"You motherfucker!" Seth's voice came crashing into the moment and all I saw in front of me was Seth grabbing Damian by the back of his jacket and throwing him into the far wall. His large tattooed arms gripped Damian by the neck and hoisted him up the wall slightly, but Damian didn't fight against him. It was like Damian was giving up, taking Seth's wrath as payment for his own guilt.

I heard the growl form in the back of Seth's throat as he inched his face closer to Damian, "You have some nerve being here Reever, after your brother had the balls to mow down my girl!"

Damian's expression instantly shifted to confusion as he choked out, "My brother? Paxton couldn't have, he was with me and our father all afternoon after we left the diner."

Seth's grip loosened slightly from around Damian's neck, before he spoke again, "Well then someone took his big black beast and rammed it into her. Explain that away, before I crush your face for stepping foot in here!I told you once I'd kill you if you hurt her, that wasn't bullshit talk..." Seth's black wavy mohawk bounced slightly as his grip tightened around Damian's throat.

Damian looked like he was thinking, then a wave of horror flashed over his face and I instantly knew what conclusion he had come to. If it hadn't been Paxton, and Damian was with his father, then that left only one Reever with enough venom in their blood to kill a Wyndham.

Maria.

The hater of everything that had to do with my mother, the matriarch of the Reever clan had just showed me full force exactly how far her poison would flow if I refused to do what she wanted. She had almost warned me that moment in the market, when she grasped my chin in her cold fingers, her nails digging into my skin like sharp razors. She had warned me in her own way; if I refused to cease my "nonsense" and didn't comply with her family's wishes for me to be with Paxton, then I was nothing more than the expendable daughter of, in her words, a tyrant and his whore.

I heard the loud bash of Damian's body colliding with the wall again, his breath escaping in loud bouts as his head slammed against the pale blue wall. Every single sound he made, made my heart clench in pity and hurt. I had made my choice, but I couldn't stand to see him hurt; especially being hurt by my Seth.

Before I had the opportunity to request that Seth release him, he did and Damian just braced the wall and looked me dead in the eyes, the sheer pain behind those gorgeous iris' made the tears well up. I knew at that moment, that he finally grasped the gravity of the situation. This wasn't just a warning to me, it was a warning to Damian.

It was the warning of all things to come, as long as Damian continued to play the game against his brother. In his parent's eyes, he would forever be the loser, placing Paxton as the proverbial golden child.

I closed my eyes, not able to bear saying goodbye to him again or see his pain any further. I clenched them closed as tightly as I could and pulled my casted hand to my chest, my fingers running over the spot where Damian had drawn the red heart. I felt the tears slip down my face as my fingertips went towards my ring finger, searching for Seth's ring; but it was gone.

I felt the gasp escape my lips as I looked up and saw Seth's eyes focus on me, as he turned away from Damian and made his way to be next to me.

"Seth! My ring, where is it?" I choked out.

"Your dad said you weren't wearing any jewelry when Liam brought you in. Did you leave it in your dorm?"

I shocked my head violently. I never went anywhere without it, since he gave it to me. I wore it everywhere, even in the shower when it would tangle in my hair. I couldn't stand to be without it and I felt my heart breaking. I needed to find it. I needed to find it and escape this town as quickly as I could. 

I wanted to go home.

I heard Damian thrust open the door to my hospital room. The sounds of him slamming his fists into the wall, as he left through the hallway, echoed through my ears. It was like he was a man possessed and on a mission to get answers. I knew the look that had graced his face before I had to look away; it was the angry boy who was full of rage. It was the vengefulness that had been placed at bay for the last few months since we had gotten close. 

When Damian was with me, the anger and hate were always pushed back into his dark abyss and all I saw was the tender boy that I desired to be around. Tenderness was no longer there though; this Damian was angry and full of vengeance.

Seth laid next to me on the hospital bed and wrapped his strong tattooed arms around me and I placed my face in his chest and cried. I wept tears of shame at the situation I had created. I was finally grasping the gravity of my situation, the situation I had created when I didn't heed the advice of my family. 

I had made my bed and now I had finally been confronted with the reality that this was the set of sheets that could have potentially been my last.

I was lucky to be alive and if Maria got her way, that would eventually change.

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A/N: Hey Guys!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please don't forget to vote and comment.

So we found out what happened to Talia and who they believe is responsible. What are your thoughts, do you think it was Maria or Paxton?

Theories on what happened to Talia's ring?

Only like 4 more chapters till the end. The sequel will follow shortly afterwards ( I had originally said a week or so, but it may be a couple while I plot and write ahead a few chapters)

<3 Amina