A/N: Triggerwarning. 

This chapter is a bit darker than the rest. Nothing to dark, but maybe still worth mentioning, as it contains themes of: 

* child abuse (mainly talked about/insinuated, barely depicted)

* trauma/shock/catatonic state

If I missed anything, please let me know, so I can update this list. Now, without further ado, please enjoy!

James.

Who else could it have been?

Always. James.

He had been lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to appear, and in the very same undead breath that he used to curse me, he lunged forward. In one swift, brutal motion, he knocked out the terrified girl with a blow to her temple, just after she had screamed my name at the top of her lungs. The sound of her scream would be forever etched into my memory, haunting my nightmares. A shiver ran down my spine still, goosebumps prickling my skin as red-hot anger surged through me, all of it directed at James. But he merely chuckled at my growl of fury and my attempt to charge at him.

"I can't believe it—Mama Ash to the rescue. This might actually be easier than I thought. We needn't have gone to all that trouble..."

He had already yanked the girl up by her hair and hoisted her onto his arms. As I took a step toward him, his fangs flashed out, sinking into the girl's neck. He drank deeply, and whatever shred of respect I might have still held for him was utterly obliterated. When he finally withdrew his teeth from her dainty throat, to warn me not to interfere, thick drops of blood dripped into the limb girl's blonde hair.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Ash. Behave yourself, or she dies."

I froze in place, and James grinned with satisfaction.

"That's better." As a "reward" for my compliance, he licked the open wound, his saliva barely stimulating the healing process. Then, like she was nothing more than a sack of wet potatoes, he slung the girl over his shoulder and gestured with a flourish for me to lead the way. My stomach churned, and it took me a moment to get my feet to move. What choice did I have? It was obvious, that James was capable of anything. Whether I had the strength to fight didn't matter in these circumstances. James wasn't attacking me directly; he was using a child as his shield. So, I followed him, where he shoved me into a car and dumped the girl onto my lap. We drove through the dark night to a complex of buildings. The little girl in my arms was breathing so shallowly that at times I feared James's blow to her temple had been too severe. But the growing lump and her racing heartbeat, which made her small chest rise and fall rapidly, reassured me otherwise.

"Don't worry, I'll get us out of here," I tried to convey mentally, repeating the words like a mantra in my head. It was more to calm myself than the girl. The truth was, I was at a loss.

Sure, I could have fought. My body was still battered from the previous days, but I felt stronger and more energized than I had in a long time. But I had no idea how to protect the girl under these circumstances. In a twisted way, I was almost thankful that the girl seemed to be unconscious. For the moment, she was spared the reality of our dire situation.

The real fun began when we reached the parking garage. Two gorillas—figuratively speaking, not actual apes, but two massive, muscle-bound men—had been waiting for us. Before I could register what was happening, one of them had ripped the girl from my lap while the other yanked me out by my hair and twisted my arm behind my back. The barely healed injury flared up again, threatening to pop back out again. I yelled in pain. Unfazed, James locked the car.

"Take the girl to the others. Goldilocks here can stew for a while until everything's ready," he instructed the two men, glancing at his phone. "Has Monroe arrived yet?"

"No, sir!" grunted the gorilla, who seemed oblivious to the fact that he was nearly dislocating my arm as I struggled in his grip. I froze when I heard the man call James "Sir." James noticed and grinned.

"Well, that's a surprise, isn't it, Ash? Didn't see that coming, huh?" He chuckled, that infuriating noise grating on my nerves more each time I heard it. "If only you knew what's still in store for you..." James licked his lips as he eyed me. "I'm really curious to see if it works."

He snapped his fingers and headed for the elevator, while I was shoved into what seemed like a boiler room on the same floor. Here, I was left to wait. Furious with myself, with the world, and of course, still with James, I impatiently tapped my foot on the concrete floor. The chair I had been more or less thrown onto was so bent that the cold metal frame pressed uncomfortably into my spine. My hands were tied behind my back with rough packing tape, leaving me little room to maneuver—a discomfort that paled in comparison to the itch on my nose. It was driving me mad, almost as much as the boredom and utter helplessness that was slowly gnawing away at my sanity. Waiting for judgment after surviving a danger is a particular kind of torture.

Like in prison, I suppose I was meant to reflect on my misdeeds and imagine all the terrible things that could happen to me. Often, in my experience,  the imagination was worse than anything reality had been able to devise, making the waiting the real punishment. It's a marvelous method of torture, and it probably works wonderfully on others. But not on me, because I'd been hardened by the foster system. It would be nice to claim that I had only been locked in a dark room once by a foster family to wait for my punishment. But that wasn't the truth.

It was one of my deepest fears, reliving the torments of childhood, and I was almost impressed by how strategically James was playing with me. I also knew that after this ordeal, his torture would leave some mental scars. But for the moment, I could keep it together and handle the situation. Distance myself. Shut down.

Okay, technically, I had followed him willingly as soon as he knocked the little girl unconscious right in front of me. I had always known James was a psychopath, but hitting a child? I had thought he would draw the line there. But his vampiric nature seemed to have stripped him of any remaining boundaries. I sighed again and shifted the leg I had crossed. It seemed that every single desperate step I had taken in the past weeks and months had been leading into this trap.

After what felt like an eternity, the light in my small chamber flicked on again, and I blinked against the sudden brightness. Dots danced before my eyes, and I had to squint to regain my bearings. I could almost feel the color draining from my face as my vision finally cleared.

"Tom."

Blood rushed from my head to my feet, leaving my face tingling. My voice was barely a whisper, my throat feeling oddly constricted. I felt like I had forgotten how to breathe, how to blink or swallow. When Tom snapped his head around, throwing me a look that was both shocked and filled with hatred (by snapping his own set of very vampiric fangs) I began to hyperventilate like the damsel in distress I had always despised in every Hollywood production. 

I knew, in theory, that I had too much air in my lungs and didn't need to take in more, but that didn't stop my body from gasping for breath again and again. The room started to blur. 

I was hallucinating, right?

Most likely, the couch cushions on Eric's sofa had simply swallowed me up, and my brain, overwhelmed by the strange surroundings, my endless encounters with vampires, and my guilt towards Tom, was now concocting this sick scenario. Right?

RIGHT?!

Tom stared at me in disbelief; I stared back at him in disbelief, and the little girl he held in his arms, with a massive bump forming on her temple, looked over his shoulder in disbelief at the newcomer stepping through the door, laughing quietly to himself.

"Tsk tsk tsk, such drama. Did I miss it? Her reaction?"

James, who had just entered the room and was now looking around with curiosity, whistled through his teeth. "Now that's what I call a kick in the teeth kind of surprise, Ash sweetheart. And you're speechless. Someone call the Guinness World Records, this needs to be documented!"

Tom growled, which only made James laugh harder, before he snatched the girl from his brother's arms and tossed her onto another metal chair they had brought along. The girl screamed. James bent over her, his fangs gleaming as he leaned in close.

"You don't make a sound until I tell you otherwise."

Instantly, the girl fell silent, as if someone had stolen her voice, and panicked tears streamed down her cheeks. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't intervene. I had lost all connection between my brain and my limbs. Instead, the room seemed to tilt slightly to the side.

Wait. Nope. That was me. 

"I think she's about to pass out..." Tom murmured, giving me a strange look. The moment he spoke, it felt like someone had driven a hot knife into my heart and twisted it a few times for good measure. His voice sounded familiar and yet so foreign—completely different from my dreams, my memories. Hot tears welled up in my eyes, but I still hadn't found my voice. His theory might be right. The only thing keeping me upright seemed to be the bonds around my wrists, while the voices of the two men reached me as if through a fog.

I could feel James studying me more intently, but then he shrugged. "Huh, would make things a lot easier, wouldn't it? Ash can be a real bitch when things don't go her way. You, of all people, should know that. This way, we skip the drama." James nudged his brother playfully in the side, though Tom's eyes were still fixed on me. Still silent. Still a haunting mixture of unmoving stillness and wild mixture of emotions brewing in his eyes. I couldn't move, couldn't blink, couldn't breathe, couldn't look away or call for help. I was trapped within my own body, caught in the gaze of my not-so-dead-after-all boyfriend, who looked at me with a mix of sorrow and concern.

James groaned and rolled his eyes. "Stop eye-fucking each other already. Tom!" He jabbed his brother again, finally breaking his gaze from mine. A tear escaped the corner of my eye, but neither of them seemed to notice as James grumbled on. "Monroe doesn't like to be kept waiting. Go get him!"

Tom started to rise and leave the room, which somehow triggered my brain to snap back into gear and switch into overdrive. A flood of questions bombarded me: Was that really Tom? Could it be someone else? Was I still dreaming? Was maybe I the one who died  and in some sort of hellish waiting room?

I wanted to leap up, throw my arms around Tom, sob, scream, cry, kiss him, hit him. The wave of emotions surging through me was overwhelming, too much to bear. My heart felt as though it was about to shatter. Tom glanced at me one last time, his face blank, his eyes glowing, and then he left the room, leaving me alone with his prick of a brother, James.

"And then there were two," James hummed, kneeling beside me as if we were about to have a casual chat. He either ignored or truly didn't notice the girl's presence, who had remained utterly silent since James had glamoured her with his vampire abilities. James strolled to the door, leaning back against it with his arms folded behind his head, while I sat there, nearly catatonic, feeling as though I were wrapped in cotton. I must have been in shock. He watched me with his head tilted.

He clicked his tongue. "You know, Ash, there's something I don't get. I thought you'd be thrilled to see your Mr. Lover Lover back on his feet. With all the moping you did over him all this time, I was expecting a little performance I could watch over the security cameras," James pouted. "Or have you moved on to Viking vampire dick?"

Eric. The mention of him opened up a whole new set of questions. He hadn't killed Tom. At least, not entirely. My mind struggled to make sense of it all. It felt as though my brain was being electrified, or at least how I imagined a brain might feel after electroshock therapy. Everything tingled and ached, pressure built in my temples, and I. Was. BURNING.

James pushed off the wall and raised his arm in the air, indicating Eric's height to jog my memory. "This tall? Blond? With a thing for leather?" James grinned. "Shame you didn't pick up on his style. You in tight leather pants..." He whistled through his teeth. "That could give a guy a hard on."

I barely registered his words, brushing off his lewd jabs. Instead, I tried to navigate this new reality.

Eric. Tom.

Both vampires.

Both alive.

Neither was responsible for the other's death.

The shock began to wear off, crumbling away like a sandcastle left too long in the sun. The knot that had been holding me together for weeks started to unravel. I began to cry.

James laughed. "See? There we go. That's more fun. Now come on, we've got a lot to do tonight, and time's running out." James cut the ropes binding my wrists, grabbed my arm, and yanked me up to start moving. I obediently followed, but as I passed the girl, I came to my senses enough to stop when she looked at me with wide, tear-streaked eyes, silently pleading. But she remained mute.

James hissed.

"I'm warning you, Ash. Our little Maddie here is already in enough trouble, even without you causing a scene. She's also our insurance to make sure you don't do anything stupid." James grinned proudly, as if the vile plan was something to be admired for. "Let's say you try to escape and stab one of our guards with a knife..." James brandished said knife, waving it in front of my face. "Our little Maddie here gets the same wound."

With a flourish, he twirled the knife through the air and slashed the girl's upper arm. Her tears flowed harder, but her mouth remained shut, not a sound escaping her lips. The powerlessness, the sheer level of helplessness that the little girl was subjected to, was so intense that I could almost feel it myself. I saw my reflection in her eyes. She was being abused. Unable to even react, fight back against someone stronger. Someone old. Someone, who just as easily could have chosen to help her. 

I should help her. Instead, I was causing her pain, hadn't protected her, when it counted. It was all my fault. I felt sick.

James licked his lips, laughed, and then looked back at me with a piercing gaze. "Got it?" For the second time, I watched him lick the girl's blood, and I saw a new hunger, a greed, flare up in his eyes. I stared at my almost brother-in-law in horror. Abyss, oh such a deep, black abyss, opened up before me. How had I not realized before just how sick James really was? 

He wanted the girl. He wanted more than just her blood. The panic I felt mirrored in the girl's face, confirmed my gut feeling. She had seen it too. It was time for James and me to leave the room. Fast.

"Take me to Monroe," I whispered, defeated, using the name I had overheard earlier. James seemed to wrestle with himself for a moment, glanced at the child again, but then nodded curtly. With the knife, he pointed at the girl once more, making her flinch. "I'll deal with you later."

I barely noticed as James placed his hand on my rear, guiding me out of the room. Perhaps it was a test to see if I would react. Maybe he just wanted me to fight back so he'd have an excuse to punish the girl further for my actions. Or maybe he was channeling his newly awakened urges onto me. I should resist... But I was at the end of my rope. I couldn't and wouldn't fight anymore. That familiar, blissful numbness began to settle in again, as it had so many times when a situation became too much for me to handle, and I gratefully, I let myself fall into the creeping nothingness. Here, nothing mattered. The anger and pain that had sustained me for the past weeks, even months, were gone, leaving a dark, deep void that I welcomed with open arms.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

A/N: Tadaaa. There's Tom.

Hands up, who saw that coming?

Any ideas on what happens next? Who Monroe is and what his deal is? What Ashley has to do with it?