"What are you doing?" Logan comes to sit by me and instantly goes for the scrunched up ball of paper on the floor. I end up sitting on it, hoping it would deter him from going for it again until I could dispose of it.

"Spring Cleaning!" I lie.

"Your, diary? Is that Bob?" He gasps in fake enthusiasm and I roll my eyes.

"Ron gave him back and I was just, ah, tidying him up a little."

Again he goes to grab the torn out pages and I slap his hand away.

"You know, the more you don't want me to read it, the more I really want to see!" He argues.

"Loges, these are pages of a confidential tool, used to further educate our kind on our own adventures and mishaps. This isn't a joke! The only way you will be able to read this, is when I'm dead." I tell him seriously.

"Well clearly your sense of humour has already died. Since when do you take it so serious- oh, you really don't want me to see it do you?" he frowns, and I ready myself for his attack. It doesn't happen. "Okay."

"Okay?"

He nods. "I just came in to tell you V was looking for ya."

Then he walks out.

No more arguments. No more attempts at getting it. Just like that; he gave up.

I know his game. Damn reverse psychology; I will not fall for it. 

I look at Bob and put him on the table with a sigh, yet still pick up the torn out pages of the original entry. I stuff it into my pants pocket and leave the room to go and find V. It's not hard to find him. Since he is the only vampire here, it's easy to sense his location and to find him working out with only his reflection as company isn't what I expected to walk in on.

For a second I hover by the door, watching as he dances around the punching bag. He isn't hitting it too hard, and going in closer, he is breathing rather heavily. Unlike Logan, he keeps a shirt on, yet even he has taken to wearing the pants that Logan has been living in. Maybe I should try out a pair.

"Hunter." He greets casually, catching the bag as he swings back to him before turning to look at me. 

Something is different. He looks, younger. Happier even. Maybe spending some time in the sun, even a fake one is doing his skin some good as he has a touch of colour on it now.

"What do you want?" I answer him cautiously.

"You act tough now, but I know what you did this morning," he smiles, a genuine, real, smile, "what you did for me."

"Really? Because I have no idea what you're talking about."

I turn to leave and forgetting how fast vampires can move, he grabs my arm before I make it out the door. "Yes, you do. I want to say thank you."

"Save it." I pull my arm free, yet he follows me anyway.

"Why act like you don't care? If you were angry with me, you wouldn't have got it to rain! After our talk, you can't say it was a coincidence!" He had me on that one.

"You're really over thinking it. Given the chance, I will kill you!" I promise.

He only laughs. "No, you won't."

He is baiting me.

I know it, yet I throw the first hit with a fiery determination to prove him wrong. The way he defends himself, tells me I was right. He wanted this and after knocking him down, I run back towards the gym because there are weapons there. The second I pick up a sword, he knocks it from my hands.

"You wanna play that way?"

I don't answer, tackling him down instead. I manage to get the sword back and free it of its holder, quickly swinging around to hit him, my blade meets metal as he has one too. Determined to see how much of my own training I remember, I don't back down and it gets to the point, where our hits get harder.

The game is turning serious as neither is willing to bow down to the other.

"I told you you're not like the other Hunters," he calls out, and as we lose our weapons, we return to a more brutal form of combat. "You're not made of the same stuff they are."

He keeps going. Telling me my flaws, teasing my moves. "Keep your elbows lower, your just going to leave yourself open for this."

I dodge his hit and send a high kick into his face, which results in his nose bleeding.

Leaving myself open, yeah not likely. Jordan taught me that error of that mistake years ago. "You shouldn't leave your face so unprotected either."

He laughs.

We keep going now as if this is nothing more than a hard core training session as he is constantly calling out warnings about how I position my legs wrong or what weaknesses of his I'm missing. Some how, it stops being so serious and we find a good rhythm. He make some good points about things I didn't even know I did and eventually we call truce.

We're both exhausted, standing at opposite ends of the mats, glaring at each other. My hands are burning, my knuckles bloodied and I can feel my eye starting to swell. The most annoying part is, for the most part he was going easy on me. Breathing hurts; I don't know how many times he had thrown me to the floor or managed to hit and kick me. Bastard.

The only part in this that gives me some comfort is the fact he is looking at roughed up as I am.

 "You know," he starts, daring to come closer. "just because your past was painful. Just because it was hard, doesn't mean that's all that is waiting for you in the future."

"I know."

"Do you? Then why are you so determined not to care? Why are you letting the past and it's lessons, keep you there?" He keeps pushing.

"What does it even matter to you? Think cause you have Ron and Ailin on your side you're like, what Yoda now; all wise and all knowing?" I snap back.

"Yoda?" He asks confused, "I don't know who that is?"

Yelling doesn't solve anything, but it makes me feel better. "I hate you, so just leave me alone."

"Why? Because I won't let you run away and hide from your demons?" I only glare at him, "Is it the guilt that's eating at you? What, for letting him die, for not being able to stop the change - for moving on?"

"I don't have to listen to you!" I snap.

"But you are listening to me and here I am very much alive. You hate me and want to see me as nothing more than a villain, than a vampire, because you know I'm right!" He comes even closer, the breeze of his breath brushing against my forehead as I refuse to look up at him. "And you're angry, because here I am. The only one, out of all your friends and family who knows exactly how you feel, that understands and isn't going away because you tell me to do so."

"What's in this for you? Are you fucking with me for some weird kind of thrill?" I know everything he is saying is true, but I refuse to admit it and I don't know why he is doing it either.

"Think what you will my darling girl, but all of this is what will you see you fall at Dracula's hands. He does it to hurt you, I'm doing it to help you. Think back to when we first met. I was a weak vampire, I should have killed you without a second thought, but I didn't."

"Why?" I finally look at him now, biting the inside of my cheek as my eyes were burning with a dryness the flood of tears behind them promised to relieve. Not yet, not here and not in front of him.

Then I remembered something else. "You moron! How about you think back to when we first met? You probably stopped yourself from making me a snack for the same noble reasons as saving me from his lordship, which was to then try and convince me to kill myself closing the portal!"

His confidence faltered then, for about a second. I saw it though and for all his good intentions and bullshit he was able to spew out at me, it was enough.

"Exactly. Nice try asshole."

He let me leave this time and I went straight for where the phone had been before. Luckily it was still there and the area was cat free. Dialing Jordan's number, he answered. Real him, not trick voice mail answering him.

"Elise?" He asked hopefully.

"Yeah, how are you?"

"Tired. All the crap we went through and apparently Ron's son and his wife were found by your bloody demon friends!" He curses.

"The Kasha?"

"Yeah."

"But it was-" I hesitate. 

"What? Do you know something?" Jordan instantly pounces.

"Maybe. What are you doing now?"

"Watching CJ cook me breakfast. He'll make someone a great wife one of these days!"I have to laugh at that, and the yelling that follows has me missing their company. "Oh and CJ said you tried calling yesterday?"

"Yeah, I just. I needed to talk to you. I had a feeling that something was wrong and last time I felt like that you disappeared and we know how that all turned out." I sighed.

"Is that all? You don't sound like you, or Mum, which I'm still pissed about by the way!" He reminds me with a small chuckle.

"Jordan, how do you deal with everything that happened? I mean, Selene kept you in a dungeon, Alison betrayed you, waking up on that stupid shrine thing-" My heart started racing as my throat felt like it was being squeezed shut. 

Breathe Elise. Breathe.

"I dunno. I mean, after I was pretty fucked up. We almost lost you, and to see Mum and Dad fighting, literally for their lives and feeling so useless when more of those monsters kept coming out. I don't think I ever really dealt with it, I just found acceptance. I find peace every time we kill another demon, or shut down some witch who gets carried away with the dark arts - that's one less I have to worry about."

"How do you find peace in killing something?"

"Not the death, that sucks, even if they are monsters, but it's survival of the fittest Ellie, them or us and I choose them over me every time!" He sounded so sure of himself. 

"Me too, but. I dunno. Drac is using all of that to get at me. Why can't I be like you, and everyone else? Why do I let it get to me? V says that if I don't get over it, Drac will win."

"V? When did you see him?" Straight back into Hunter mode. "Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like that. Don't trust him Ellie, he was working with Drac remember?"

"I know."

"Look, the way I see it is you fought against what we are since you started at the Academy, maybe if you didn't develop that um, opposing view of it all, it would be easier for you. Do you even remember why you were like that? You were so excited to finally start and you'd beg me to teach you what I had learned each holidays."

"No, I just remember hating school." I admit.

Jordan took a deep breath, "You don't remember Isabel Diaz?"

"Should I?" I thought about, but nothing came to me.

"She came home with me one holiday break, Christmas I think. She was my first girlfriend too and since she was orphaned Mum told me to bring her home. You were in love with her after she gave you that pink lipstick. The whole holidays you were like her shadow, an annoying twelve year old little sister shadow.  Then Dad let us go out on a hunt with him and Grimm. Not to do anything, just watch and learn. Ringing any bells?"

It did. It rang a lot of bells.

"It wasn't Christmas, it was for the fall break. She died, that trip went wrong when you were all attacked." Everything came back to me then. How did I ever forget that or her? I looked at my wrist, at the reminder that wouldn't let me forget him that easily.

And Isabel? She was nothing, just like the rest -another statistic that acted as proof about how fucked up our lives were. Forgotten.

"You blamed Dad, and me. When you told us you didn't want to do it, that what we are is stupid, we thought it was just the grief talking, but you never grew out of it." we both went quiet for a moment, "You've held onto your pain Elise. You always see this for what it is, but you have to find something that is able to lift you out of it too because V is right. Our enemies, especially ones like Drac, will use that against you. Hell, look at how everyone thought of your abilities before you proved us wrong!"

"I don't know what to do Jord!" Now I cried, and despite not being here, he tried to comfort me by saying anything he could think of, but in the end it was Logan who came in and hung up the phone.

Eventually I woke up in my room and it was Alfie beside me, not Logan. I felt hungover, exhausted and getting up, the first thing I noticed was my very exposed diary hadn't been touched. After taking a shower, I went to find Logan. He wasn't far away, sitting in the garden talking to Jules and as the duo saw me, Logan left him and came over.

"How you feeling?"

"Better," I managed to smile, and he pulled me closer to him. 

"You and V sort out your issues? You two were going at it pretty hard?"

"You saw all that?" 

"We all saw it. Wanna talk about it?" He offered.

My first instinct was no, and looking at Logan, it was what he was expecting. I still keep pushing him away; because of our past or just because I could?

Why the hell am I so emotional today? It was like V had managed to break the lock off what ever held me together and now? Now I was mess. 

"Why are you so nice to me? Why would you even want me when-"

He put his finger up to my lips and silenced me. "You're kind of like a train wreck. Part of me is all for looking away, but I can't! Ever since you had me against that wall when we first met, I've been in fucking love with you!"

"A train wreck? Logan, you just called me a train wreck!" I yelled, more in disbelief than anger. So much for sweet loving sentiments! 

"It didn't quite come out how I wanted it to!" He shrugged, blushing instantly, "Seriously though, you're special. To me. I told you I'd always wait for you."

"Well you're special too," I smirk, "A special kind of idiot! A fucking train wreck! Really?"

I go to storm off, but that special kind of idiot stops me. "I'm sorry! God, it sounded better in my head! How about this?"

"What?" I ask hesitantly as he stands in front of me again. Taking my face in his hands, I'm left looking into his eyes, and as he smiles, I can't stop that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. "Bunny, I love you! Now, tell me what the hell has been going on?"

"You're infuriating Loges!" I move forward to kiss him, only he pulls back.

"New rule. All of this, out of bounds until you start talking."

In the end we go back into my, well really, our room - and I do. I talk until it's dark and he only talks when he feels like he has something to say. He doesn't tell me my thoughts are stupid, he doesn't judge me and not once do I feel rushed. I finish by giving him the original entry in my diary and he reads it silently, before throwing it back into the trash once he's done.

"You really hated me didn't you." His voice is dark, and he doesn't stop staring at the wooden planking of the floor.

"Yeah, I let you in and then I got hurt. A lot."

"It wasn't how you thought it was though. Sam-"

"I know, now. If I thought otherwise, this - us, here and now, wouldn't be happening!" I held my breath as he didn't move, didn't even flinch, as I reached out to hold his hand.

"I'm glad you told me everything, for the first time, well ever - I don't feel as if you're pushing me away!" He sighs and I crawl closer to him.

"No secrets this time right?"

"No secrets." He promises.

-x-

A week goes by and Robyn finally wakes up. Being confined here is torture and while I'm still not talking to him, V puts Logan, Julio and I through training that even Zane would be envious of. It doesn't help that Toyo and Ailin are helping him with it and if I had any doubts before, now I am positive the demons are trying to kill us.

For what ever reason, the others don't believe me

It's still dark when I wake up and going outside, V is in his usual spot under one of the few trees near the creek. Going over, I pick up a pebble and think about Ailin's words of wisdom, about ripples and other crap she used to tell me.

"Here to try and kill me again?" V greets smugly, putting down his book.

"Maybe," I shrug, taking a seat opposite him.

"Since when do you wake up this early?" He sounds like my Dad, and I can't help feel a little homesick. If I knew where home actually was these days.

"Since I've been thinking about something. Who or what is Cain?"

"Did you get a visit from Drac?" V closes his book and looks at me curiously.

"No." Maybe I should bring that up with him too then?

"From Cain?"

"So it is a person?"

"Once." He grins at me wickedly, "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes. So far all I know he is bad, bad enough to get everyone freaking out. I know I should stay out of it too, but-"

"Not really your style is it?" He cuts me off.

"You know more than what you've already told everyone, I know you do!" V nods, leaning back against the bark of the tree. 

"Does this mean you're talking to me again Hunter? I might tell you something you don't want to hear again."

"I'm a Hunter seeking information from a source. That's all!"

"I only speak to Slayers. It's a vampire thing anyway, so go play with your monsters and ghouls." He waves his hand away as if to dismiss me and reopens his book.

"Fine." I get up and go the water, where Alfie soon emerges. "Go get me the vampire."

Maybe it's my tone, but Alfie looks almost evil as he nods and before long I have a vampire above my head, chucking out death threats and curses my way.

"You could've just told me what I wanted to know Vaaron!" I taunt him and Alfie hisses at him in warning.

Problem with that is, we don't get much further than that as the night turns instantly into day and the Kasha appear in their demon form. Logan runs over amongst them, and seeing the three of, his expressions changes into one of shock.

"I'm not going ask. Come on, we gotta go!" He grabs my hand and I hesitate, especially since he has a backpack on.

"Why?" Then it happens. Just like when V arrived the wall begins to get blurry. "Oh shit."

Alfie drops V with a thud and we don't stick around to see who the newest visitor is. Judging by the reaction of everyone else, I don't want to find out either. We just make it to Julio and Robyn when everything starts to tremble as if there was an earthquake. Logan keeps hold of my hand as Alfie grabs both of us, and closing my eyes, I'm expecting to be taken somewhere familiar, but all that surrounds us is forest.

Rather than keep moving, Alfie slumps down and a I drop beside him, to hold his head. "Hey, buddy, what's wrong?"

It's hard to see in the dark and Logan stands over us looking around. There is shouting and chaos from somewhere ahead of us so, as soon as Alfie can move again, we start running in the opposite direction.

"What is happening?" I call out, nearly tripping on a fallen branch as the topiary above us blocks out what light the moon offers.

"Nothing that is good!" Logan answers, stating the obvious.

It's cold. My face feels frozen as we keep running, and a trail of our breath follows behind us like ghosts. The trees give way and rather than keep going across the field, we stick to the treeline, using the darkness like a friend. We don't stop until we can no longer hear what ever we left behind and I can't help but feel like we should have stayed. 

"We could have helped fight!" I gasp; struggling to catch my breath. A few cuts on my legs sting and despite the hot rush from the run, my hands are like ice.

"Ailin came to get us, but you were gone and so I grabbed a few things and went to find you first!" Logan blurts out, his breathing as random as mine.

"What happened Alfie?" Why didn't he get us away?

"Alfie stopped. Hurt." He turns to look at his body and the wet patch glistens in the dim light. 

"Shit! Alfie!" Dropping beside him, I stroke his scales near the wound, but I don't have anything to clean it with. He does, spitting on it and I know he can heal himself. Doesn't stop me from worrying thought.

"Something stopped him transporting. They must have known!" Logan mused.

"Kasha do it too, remember when Selene," I stopped, he wasn't there then, "Well, Selene did this thing before where she made it so Ailin could only go to where she wanted her too. They must have blocked everyone in?"

So that meant fae or witches were involved, but who were they working for?

Movement came from the way we had just come and without a word we all moved back into trees. Alfie climbed up one of the larger trunks, while Logan and I kept low amongst the bushes. The sound turned into footsteps and the prickly tingle of vampire took over.

"I know you're here!" V called out in a loud whisper, "I smell your blood!"

"Stay!" I nudge Logan and get up, knowing if V tries anything I have Alfie above me and maybe Logan had something useful in that bag - like a stake. "Fine! You got me!"

"Are you okay?" I'd almost think he cared as he came over and grabbing me by the shoulders he looks me over, "you're bleeding?"

"I tripped a few times, I'm fine." His hug surprised me more than anything else.

"Where is your little Tracker friend? I know the snake is there and I didn't see him with the others." V asks, looking around.

"What is going on?"

"We got found. Come on, we need to keep moving and do something about your cuts." He ordered.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" I protested, pulling free of his hold and sure enough Logan appeared with a dagger and a stake aimed and ready.

"Then die!" He started walking and looking at Logan, he shrugged.

It's cold. Alfie needs time to heal and V's right, I need to at least cover the cuts on my legs otherwise I'm practically leaving breadcrumbs for the birds to follow me home with.

"Do we go with him?" I ask Logan.

"Do we have any other choice right now? If he fights with us, we might stand a chance."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then he will die first."  I like how he thinks. 

----------

So, I know this chapter was dialogue heavy, but I really want some of the turmoil Elise is feeling to be touched on, especially with how her fears etc is being used against her by Drac. I hope it's coming across how I wanted it too :\  Anyway, enough chit chat and D&M's... time for some action and Cain! Just quickly though, do you think V ist just playing the part of 'good' vampire or is he for real?