Note: @Niamvers, your character will come soon, but I feel like we've had so many assassin characters that I should spread them out a little! :D 

Tia's POV

Ridge was in front of me before I could react, and my stomach lurches as I hear the impact of the red matter knife. Kayleigh jumps backwards in surprise, before grinning a ghoulish grin and sprinting-smartly-to the window and leaping out with a crow of delight.

I catch him as he drops, and I gently lower him onto the floor. Despite him assuring me red matter could not kill him, the sight of blood spurting from the hole in his chest made me swallow in surprise-and just a little bit of excitement. 

"You okay?" I ask stupidly, ignoring the fact that his head was resting on my lap.

"Mhm" he hums, shutting his eyes, his forehead slightly creased with pain.

"Do you want me to take it out?" I question him, gently stroking a bit of his hair.

"Yes please" he sighs, and I take hold of the hilt cautiously before yanking it out. He grunts, stiffening and his eyes squeeze shut.

Laying the knife gently aside, I clutch him to me, staring at the wound nervously. He watches me keenly, blue eyes flickering wearily to mine.

"You look scared" he notes, and I shrug.

"Just wondering if it does actually kill you" I half smile and he chuckles, his face scrunching up again at the pain of it. 

"You'd like that wouldn't you?" he murmurs, coughing slightly.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I guess I would miss you. If you died" I tell him, forcing the words from my tongue. He smiles in answer, and studies me with his eyes.

"Insanity suits you" he muses, smirking slightly. I raise an eyebrow at him, shaking my head.

"I'm not insane" I insist, and he rolls his eyes.

"You will be. Soon enough. You're going to love being insane, Tia. No one ever bothers you. No one can ever get to you." he sighs, shutting his eyes as he relaxes.

"I got to you" I whisper quietly, watching him smile just a little bigger before his pulse stops and he suddenly goes cold and limp in my arms.

I take the moment to inspect him, running my eyes across him. I never really payed much attention to him-he would take it as flirting, the dumb dog.

After five minutes of cold, dead, still silence, I began to get worried. What if he was actually dead? What if this was all just a big prank and he was fooling me even in dea-

Just as I think this, his chest heaves, his eyes flickering wide open as he inhales sharply, staring at the ceiling.

"Welcome back" I murmur, and he looks slightly startled at my presence.

"How long was I out for" he groans, wincing as he holds his head.

"About five minutes" I shrug, and he groans again, leaning back onto my lap.

"Where did you go? When you said you had business to take care of?" I ask curiously as he pulls himself up onto his feet and dusts his coat down-I notice that through the tear in fabric of his coat, the wound had healed completely in his chest.

"Like what you see?" he murmurs, blinking slowly at me with amusement-filled eyes.

"No" I answer-slightly too quickly.

"I can show the rest if you want" he chuckles.

"That won't be necessary" I snap, and he grins widely, taking my arm with his hand.

"I was visiting Sips and Sjin. You know who Heroine is?" he asks, and I nod, grimacing. She was another one of the assasin girls, fierce but cold, a lust for revenge for the scars she had received from Sips. 

For a moment, I hesitate. She was like me, in more ways than one, just like Kayleigh. We were all linked, all of us.

Ridge was reading my expressions and he squeezes my arm softly to bring me from my thoughts.

"You're nothing like them" he soothes, smoothing my hair down with his hands.

We reach the cells together, to see the girls all still caged up. Nowhere to run. A new addition of course, Heroine herself, clutching her hands together-she glances up at our entrance, glaring at us with hatred. She looks at me, sneering at me as if she was threatening me-and I can see her scars on her arms, bare and red.

Quietly, I lift my own shirt sleeve up, revealing the long, deep scar. She looks at it in confusion for a moment, before looking up at me, and I mouth "Sjin".

She nods, and she looks down, the anger gone from her eyes, only sympathy and fear.

As I pace by the cells, the other girls gaze at me, no longer angry. The pure, unmistakable pleading, begging of their eyes almost made me smirk-but I didn't want to push this..."new" insane me any further. What ever had happened to me during that fight would not happen again.

"Why are we down here?" I ask curiously, my voice loud and echoing against the walls.

He pauses, tilting his head, amusement dancing in his eyes and I immediately got suspicious.

"To say some last words to them" he chuckes.

Immediately, I back away. There was no way he was going to kill me. Not after everything that had just-

"I'm letting them go. It will make the game more...interesting, shall we say? Also you and I have some business to attend to somewhere..." he murmurs, glancing at the girls in the cages who looked at him in shock.

"Which I will discuss further upstairs" he finishes, and I breath a sigh of relief.

"You just caught Heroine though?" I protest, and the girl looks up at her name.

"I just wanted to show her what happens to people who get in my way" he smirks, and I nod, glancing at them.

"So...any last words?"

Pausing, I look them all in the eye, my eyes lingering on Hannah's who looks sympathetic.

"No" I shrug and he nods. The doors of the cages open simultaneously and the chains on the girls break free.

"Go" Ridge spits. They stand, shakily, before quickly walking free. Kim passes me first, looking slightly scared of me, Minty next, a disgusted look on her face. Then came Heroine, who was quiet and thoughtful, then Hannah herself, looking angrily at me and shaking her head. Zoey came after that, not even looking me in the eye, and when Ashley walks past, she spits on the floor next to me, and I smirk at her as she leaves. 

We watch them leave from a window, all of them walking in a line towards the forest. Some of them look back at us, to see us staring at them blankly from the balcony and they will pick up the pace.

Until they disappear into the forest.

"I have a present for you" he murmurs, his hand tracing a vein on my neck, and I look up. He gestures for me to follow him, and I obey, walking behind him down the corridor to his room. I almost back away, possibilities flickering into my head, but curiousity got the better of me and I follow him inside.

He points to a cage on his chest of drawers, and inside was a small, fluffy rodent. A surprised smile appears on my face as I eagerly head towards it, gazing inside at the small white rat who looks up at me with beady black eyes.

"Where'd you get him?" I laugh, pushing my finger through the bar of the cage. It sniffs it wearily before biting it softly and I giggle, staring at it in fascination. I loved rodents more than anything. 

Silva came trotting in too, sniffing at the new arrival, before growling. I pet the dog, scratching her behind the ears softly.

"Sips and Sjin's house" Ridge chuckles, making me jump-he was right beside me and I hadn't heard him advance.

"I'm going to call him Snowball" I announce, straightening up, before spotting a familiar figure floating in mid air.

"Deamon is a better name" he grunts, a cheeky smile on his face.

Note: YAY MORE DEAMONZ

"I can barely handle one annoying rodent thank you very much" Ridge murmurs, snickering as Deamon looks at him in mock sadness.

"And here I was, thinking you loved me" he gasps, and I can't help but smirk. It was hard NOT to love him.

He floats down, landing neatly on his feet. Brown boots, with a royal red coat and golden edges. 

"What are you doing here?" I ask. I barely knew him but I felt like he was a friend to me.

"Haven't told her yet? Jeez, Ridge, what have you been doing these past few days?" Deamon sighs, looking disappointed in him.

"Getting stabbed by a mortal who somehow knew that red matter could hurt" Ridge murmurs, and Deamon looks surprised for a moment, before his cheeky grin is back in place.

"Aww, is Mr Ridgedog losing his touch?" Deamon coos, and Ridge punches him in the neck.

"Stuff it" he grumbles.

"So" Deamon continues, glancing over at me, "tell her then."

"We're going to London for a few weeks" he explains, seating himself down on the bed, ignoring Deamon who goes up behind him and starts styling his hair. 

It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying whilst an absolute stranger starts making his hair curly.

"Stop it" Ridge snaps, shoving Deamon roughly off the bed, who curses and grabs him as he goes down, yanking him straight off the bed.

"You wanna start that? Ok, let's start it" Deamon snarls, throwing Ridge so hard across the room he goes through a wall.

Deamon smirks at me, with a sly wink, when Ridge races back through the hole, slamming Deamon into the opposite wall and holding him up by his neck.

"No, I haven't lost my touch so go into the kitchen and stay there until I tell you to come out. Do you understand?" Ridge growls, barely holding back a smirk.

"Yes master Ridgedog" Deamon gasps-even with his breathing being cut off by Ridge's powerful grip he could still manage to be sarcastic. Like me.

I really, really liked this guy.

Ridge lets him go, and Deamon slowly walks by, making Ridge curse when he trips him up before flying away, giggling loudly.

Ridge stands up, muttering curses beneath his breath and dusting himself up. I glance at Snowball and Silva who were all staring at me with the exact same expression I had on my face.

"As I was saying" he continues, "we're going to London for a few weeks. Deamon's holding the fort for a while until we get back. I need to take care of some business there. We have a one hour flight tomorrow, and we're staying in a five star hotel so make sure you look...decent" he smiles.

"Don't I always?" I ask innocently, knowing my clothes were torn and I was still bleeding from the very recent fight I had which I had almost completely forgotten about thanks to a certain flying flirt machine.

He looks me up and down which makes me...slightly uncomfortable, before he rolls his eyes.

"I'll have to get those cuts sorted out" he murmurs, and I shake my head.

"I'll do it" I sigh, but my sentence is cut off when he throws me over his shoulder.

"Hey!" I yell, hammering on his back but he just laughs and carries me away down the corridor.

"Put me down!" I wail, flailing in his grip. He passes my bedroom, and pauses. I glance in, before erupting into laughter.

"Draw me like one of your French girls" Deamon purrs, lying on the bed in a dress from my wardrobe.

Ridge stares at him in shocked silence for a moment, before shutting the door and continuing to walk down the corridor.

All the emotions I had been feeling this past day, the adrenaline rush, the insane moment, the part where Ridge got stabbed, and finally Deamon dressing up in a sexy dress- all of it built up inside of me and came out in a massive laughing fit.

"You're crazier than me. That's worrying" Ridge chuckles, throwing me on a spare bed. I keep laughing-even him blinking at me slowly made me double up.

"Oh! My stomach...hurts" I gasp out, holding it weakly.

He then proceeds to start tickling me. Which I hated.

"No! Stop! Please!" I laugh, attempting to back away from him, unconsciously moving up and up the bed before hitting my head hard on the headboard.

Note: I can see where this is going xD

He was laughing too, finally stopping as I rub my sore head, wincing, still chuckling lightly. He wraps his arms around my waist, and for once I don't feel uncomfortable. I sigh, relaxing into his touch.

Maybe this was where I belonged.

Note: There is something I need to say, it's nothing serious or anything but it's about messaging me. A lot of people have been contacting me, people I am friends with and talk on a daily basis with, and they say I'm ignoring them or I don't reply for ages. The reason for that is I'm not purposely ignoring you, as I have three main excuses. 

One, I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I do not get messages until I refresh the page, which is hardly ever, so I don't know if I actually have a message or not. Two, some of you send messages when it is around afternoon in your time and about 11 at night in my time, so sometimes I will fall asleep and not answer you. And three, although I love talking to you guys, it is slightly annoying when you're writing and people are popping up in your inbox all the time. Sometimes I get 11 messages per writing session and it cuts into my time of writing to either open up a new tab and talk to you or save, stop writing and talk. So in the future, I will post on my status when I am writing, and if I am, please try not to message me unless it is urgent or you have a question :) Oh, and if you want to talk to me, feel free! I'm best friends with a lot of you now ^^ Love you guys! -Valleycat

P.S. Is ANYONE uncomfortable with...flirting scenes? And when I say that, I mean leading-up-to-doing-the-dirty-in-the-bedroom scenes? I need you guys to answer this 'cause...well....SOON XD

Obviously it won't be too explicit... xD