RECAP:

Alix shook her head as if to refocus her thoughts, "Jax is right. I had a vision, a very disturbing one. There was a group of people, they sounded like they were in a lot of pain. The place they were at was really dark and cold, I couldn't see much except dirt and metal bars. I think these people might be Roberto's Dark Ones, but I can't tell where they are."

Caddie's eyes enlarged, "I know exactly where they are! The dungeon!"

That made perfect sense. The dungeons were used to contain Dark Ones. It'd be perfectly easy for a certain deranged heir to slip under the radar and colonize an army of psychotic soldiers. Alix, Caddie and I smirked at each other, knowing exactly where the next destination of our tour should be.

"Wait," Jaxon said, completely bewildered. "Nox Haven has a dungeon? How did I never know about that?"

He turned to his sister, "How did you know? And why didn't you tell me I was sleeping above hordes of Dark Ones!"

Alix patted his shoulder. Her emerald eyes twinkled with mischief. "Now is not the time brother. We have dungeons to visit and people to kill."
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CADDIE's POV:

I could feel him staring at me. He hadn't stopped staring at me since I entered the dining hall. There wasn't an ounce of curiosity or contempt within his stare, it was impossible for him to feel that way. Instead, his stare was filled hunger. I felt like a mouse being stalked by a cat. A big cat.

I tried my best to ignore him. Especially when important things were being discussed, like the return of Alix's visions but he had piqued my own curiosity. What was it that he wanted from me? I had made it obvious that I was not interested in family bonding. I wouldn't be visiting the Magicry late at night, to trade depressing stories of our childhood. I wasn't going to be changing my last name to Acosta and dawning the title of the Dark Warlock's little sister. Perhaps Aleksander and Adeline would be able to form a family bond but I couldn't. Not even if it was the only way to get information from him.

I wasn't like the others. I couldn't manipulate people to get what I wanted. Maybe that was because I grew up being the girl who was easy to manipulate. I was the sheltered, naive  girl who didn't realize that if someone was being uncharacteristically nice, it was because they wanted you to do their homework. Alix and Aleksander and probably Jaxon were the ones who just had to smile kindly and someone would come rushing to their aid. I didn't hate any of them for their past habits but I wanted to make sure they stayed in the past. Or future. The timeline was confusing me.

"We should go now," Alix's hostile tone broke my train of thoughts.

Aleksander and Alix were having another stand off. Alix stood in front of my boyfriend, her posture rigid, arms at her side with clenched fists, her lips were pulled back into a snarl. For being as beautiful as she was, she was also terrifying when angry. The students who were close enough to see the expression on her face, leaned as far away as possible but still managed to gossip anxiously with their friends. Aleksander, on the other hand, was completely unaffected by Alix's tough girl charade. He stood behind me, with one hand stuffed in his pocket the other one was inching closer to my hand. His perfectly beautiful features were slack with boredom.

"We can't go now, Alix," Superiority rang in his voice, "People will become suspicious if we suddenly disappear."

"What would they think we're doing? Honestly, it's not as if Roberto's plans are public knowledge," Jaxon interjected, naturally taking his sister's side.

My head was pounding again. All they did was fight! Every second I turned my head, they're ready to rip each other to pieces.

"I'm going to ask nicely for all of you to shut up," I plastered a fake smile on my face.

Alix's eyes darted to my smile. The severity of the situation seemed to settled in. She relaxed her stance, giving Alek one last scathing glare before controlling her anger. Aleksander didn't react to her childish taunts. He knew how close to the edge I was. One more word from his mouth would lead to me exposing all of us. Jaxon, however, stood off the side completely creeped out by my slightly psychotic smile. He had been gone for a year and didn't know about my goal to stay nice and calm when a situation went awry.

"We're installing a new rule. No one talks about the plan unless we're alone," I hissed as quietly as possible.

Leaning towards Alix, Jaxon glanced at my warily before whispering, "When did she become such a tyrant?"

As if I I couldn't hear every word they uttered, Alix turned to her brother's ear and whispered, "It's been like this ever since Chernobyl. I'm just waiting for her to snap." 

The veins in my neck were bulging. My fists were clenched so tightly my nails were painfully digging into my palm. I wouldn't be surprised if my face had gone completely red.

I couldn't handle them!

It was all just too much. Everyone wanted too much from me. They wanted me to save the world, know every spell ever created, kiss babies and shake hands. And of course everyone expected me to become some great leader. As if one day I would wake up and be perfect.

I still didn't know how to work a damn microwave!

"Why wait Alix?" I laughed humorlessly, "I think just did. And you know, you guys can blame yourselves. Find someone else to save the day."

I marched out of the dining hall, pushing a shocked Moria to the ground as I went. The ridiculous Bo Peep dress, bounced with every determined step forward. The second I was alone, I had every intention on shredding the crinoline and setting the corset on fire. A loud boom echoed through the halls as the doors slammed shut. The noise was oddly therapeutic. It started off loud, like a shout, and then faded into a whisper until there was nothing left then pure silence.

Silence was better than gold. My family had tons of gold and from what I observed, gold came with power and with power came a mob of people. And people were never silent. Everyone always had something to say. Whether it was a critique, a compliment or insistent chatter; they always found something to say.

In mere seconds I knew my friends would ruin my peaceful moment. They would come to me, crying out half-hearted apologies in order to get me to do their bidding. If they wanted to save the world, they could do it on their own. Afterall who wants a tyrant to lead them. They had a psychic, a mind reader and an empath- with that amount of power they could take over the school before nightfall.

The black mist of teleportation cocooned my body. In the background I could hear someone call my name but it was too late, I was being taken somewhere far away from them. If it were possible, I would have been content to stay in black abyss for a while. But my subconscious had other plans for me. My boots hit the ground much too soon for my preference.

The ground seemed to crunch under the weight of my feet, as I weren't standing on dirt or gravel. I had thought the teleportation spell had left a lingering affect on my eyes, since I couldn't see, but after waiting for a short while I deduced that the spell had already worn off. I was just in a really dark place. Reaching out towards nothing particular, my hand brushed against something hard and cold.

Possessing a fire that wasn't pitch black would have been more convenient in that moment. But I had other ways to figure out what the object was. I balled my hand into a fist and reeled my arm backwards. A strangled cry escaped my throat when my hand made contact with the the object. It was a stone wall.

My knuckles throbbed. The stinging in my hand became increasingly painful but it wasn't unbearable. I had been a very clumsy child. Broken bones and muscle bruisings were just a part of growing up. A fractured knuckle was hardly something to freak out about. So, I let my hand rest on the wall, ignored the pain and trudged forward. After every third step my boots would get caught on the back of my abnormally large skirt. Staying true to my promise, I grabbed the top layer of my skirt and ripped it off by seam. Layer by layer the dress came apart. It wasn't easy, the fabric was being stubborn but in the end I was left in nothing but the thin dressing gown.

Goosebumps appeared on my arms as a chilly draft swept its way through the cavern I was in. The draft meant there must have been a way out, an opening of sort but I wasn't interested in leaving. I was quite content to stay in the dark cavern until I absolutely needed to leave. I was being childish, I knew that, but I couldn't bring myself to care. When was the last time I acted recklessly? Never. There wasn't a single time in my life when I didn't act out of purpose.

I had walked about thirty steps from my dress when the golden glow of a torch appeared came into view. With every advancing step, details about the cavern unveiled themselves to me. I noticed two things that disrupted my moment of peace. The first, was that the cavern was extremely familiar. It looked exactly like the entrance to Nox Haven's dungeon. The second I noticed was, him. Roberto was holding a flickering torch in hand as if he were the Statue of Liberty. He looked like such an honorable young man wrapped in his expensive fabrics and glittering jewels but no honorable man would be lingering in the shadows of an underground dungeon.

He took a step toward me.

"Don't," I warned him.

Roberto didn't listen to me. He took another seven steps forward until he was standing directly in front of me. The reflection of the flames appeared in his coal black eyes, making him look even more menacing.

"What are you doing down here," Roberto worded his question in a way that made me think he wasn't really looking for an answer, instead, he was just voicing his thoughts. His eyes dropped to my thin, translucent dressing gown. "Dressed like that."

"I could ask you the same thing," my voice was thick with unwarranted fear.

Roberto picked up on my fear almost immediately. He cocked his head to the side and raised a brow. I knew that gesture quite well. Aleksander did that often when he felt as if a question wasn't worth his time to ask but still wanted an answer. It was an arrogant, entitled rich boy move and on Roberto's face it made me feel uneasy.

"No one know about the tunnels, apart from the heirs and Council members," Roberto stated. "How did you know about them?"

I could feel his hot breath on my cheek, it smelled revolting. Never once did I think I would miss something as trivial as toothpaste but I did. It made conversations a bit more bearable.

"It was an accident. I didn't intend to come here." Or maybe I did. My subconscious worked in wondrous and complex ways. It was for the safety of my sanity that I never tried to figure it out.

"Did you now? This is an awfully hard place to stumble upon."

Biting my tongue, I forced myself to stay out of his little game. If he just wanted to chat casually, I would leave. If he wanted to kill me, I would tell him to take his best shot. I just wasn't interested in any bullshit today.

Roberto took my silence as some form of admittance. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Obviously, there was something he was hiding in the dungeons. Something he was paranoid about other people finding. I, of course, already knew what that secret was but he didn't know. There was only a silly hunch forming in his head. He had no real evidence to prove that I knew he was up to no good. If he did know, I would have been lying on the cavern floor- dead.

"When hiding from others, you'd be surprised what you can stumble upon," I told him earnestly.

"You're running from your friends."

It wasn't a question but I answered nonetheless. "I'm not running from them, I can't run from them forever but I can hide for a decent time."

I rested my shoulder against the cavern wall, hoping he'd think I was opening up to him. It seemed to work. The skepticism in Roberto's stare evaporated. A smirk tugged at the edge of lips. It was another infuriating rich boy quirk. I wondered if people born into wealthy families were naturally accustomed to those mannerisms or if they had be taught to act a certain way. There was a chance they all suffered from hive mind, as well.

"They must have said something awful. You did not look to pleased before you left." Roberto followed my actions and leaned against the wall, his head was inclined towards me.

"Why does it matter to you?" I whispered bitterly, knowing that it didn't matter to him at all.

"I can see you already have an opinion of me. Rumors, are the only thing that can travel faster than light. Though I may not have emotions, that doesn't mean I don't have a heart. I could feel your pain and anger, nobody should have to feel that way. Especially not with people who are supposed to care for you."

I agreed with him wholeheartedly even if his sentiment wasn't sincere. They were using me. Never once did they ask about what I needed. They only asked about I could give them.

"This all your fault," I hissed, "If it weren't for you I wouldn't be in this mess. I'd be free. I could have been anything I wanted to be." Roberto didn't say anything. He just watched with a sympathetic look as I began to fall apart.

"You're a bad person," I whispered. I wrapped my arms around my waist as if I were trying to hold myself up.

Neither of us knew exactly who I was referring to.

**Honestly I cannot stand authors who create 'perfect' characters. We all know what kind of character I'm referring to. I'm not talking about the beautiful kind of perfect but the morally just character that can never do anything wrong. That's just not humanly possible. We are all made up of bad and good. And once in a while even the good guys do something a bit selfish- like have a nervous break down when the entire world is counting on them. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Though Caddie has grown a lot and she has become stronger, this just proves she has a long way to go. Please tell me in the comments if you think Caddie was right or overreacting.

Thank you for all the love and support, it truly makes my day!
XOXO,
Ro.**

(Please excuse the errors, when I'm done writing the series I will go back and edit.)