"What am I doing today?" I asked Gerrard as we walked down to the dungeons for my training session for the week.

"Really advanced magic," he replied.

"Seriously?" I asked. He nodded, his face grim. "What's wrong?" I asked as we descended the four flights of stairs.

"Nothing," he muttered, his jaw twitching.

"Gerrard..." I said.

"I'll tell you later," he said, looking at me with those piercing blue-grey eyes of his. I nodded and fell silent.

When we got downstairs, I heard the sound of jeering. I glanced at Gerrard, who's jaw was squarely set. Whatever it was, it was bothering him, but he wasn't letting on. He was good at hiding his emotions, something I needed to learn how to do.

We stepped into the dungeons and I looked around to see where the source of the laughter was coming from. I was shocked and angered when I saw what was going on.

There were figures clothed in black cloaks with hoods over their heads. In the center of the room was a woman who looked like she was some sort of professional. She looked as if she had been wearing a suit dress, with her hair up in a tight bun. But now, her blouse was untucked and partially unbuttoned and her skirt was unzippered. Her pantyhose were ripped, showing pale exposed skin. Her face was blotchy and there were angry red marks on her cheeks. Her eyes had a vacant look to them, looking distant and empty. I felt my anger bubble up; she had no idea what was happening to her.

"Enough with the play. Let's get down to business now," Elijah said, standing up from a chair that was set at the side wall. So he was instigating this behavior.

Elijah strode towards the woman with his proud gait and stood directly in front of her. She swayed back and forth on her feet, her head wobbling around and her eyes whizzing about. Elijah looked at her with a cold and eerie smile and she screamed, her knees bending down forcefully to the hard stone floors. Elijah smirked and looked up, his blue eyes meeting my own.

"Oh, Caley. Nice to see you," he said. "I want you to meet Roberta Isles, Vice President of the Trinity Government," he introduced. "Say hello, Roberta," he said, smiling manically at the woman.

Roberta's head, which had been sagging before, snapped up and her vacant eyes met mine. I felt my heart rate speed up and Gerrard closed his fingers around my wrist, assuring me that he was still there.

Her mouth hung open and she let out a scream.

"That's no way to greet a person, now, is it?" Elijah asked. She shouted in pain, her back contorting, making her twitch abnormally.

"What are you doing to her?" I demanded, unable to watch any longer.

"Well, you see, we've finally managed to get into the Government, as I have been planning all along. Only we made it very discreet so that no one gets suspicious. We forced Roberta here to resign and withdraw from her post due to an unsuspected illness that she just found out about," Elijah explained. "With some interference in the Senate, who are supposed to appoint the new temporary Vice President until the next election, we managed to get Isaac to take the position," he continued.

"Isaac is the new VP of the Trinity Government?" I asked, incredulous.

"Why do you sound so surprised? Did you not think we could do it?" he asked.

"Why are you torturing her, then?" I asked.

"Well, because she thinks it's so important to live by tradition. I'm trying to convince her that a revolution is occurring," Elijah said, outstretching his hand, making Roberta shriek in agony.

"STOP IT!" I shouted, moving forward. Gerrard grabbed my wrist and held me back, sending me a warning glare. Elijah looked at me, his eyebrows raised. He let Roberta fall to the ground, and limp, pathetic mess.

"Does it bother you to see someone get tortured, Caley?" he asked me, walking towards me.

I couldn't take my eyes off of Roberta's weak body on the ground. It was so deeply disturbing, even after seeing countless tortures. I should be used to this by now. It should seem normal now.

"I don't understand why it's necessary," I replied, tearing my eyes away from the body that was now being pulled away, out of my sight.

"Why it's necessary?" he repeated, standing in front of me and staring at me with those cold eyes of his. "Because those who are disobedient and those who disagree with the way things are need to be punished. What kind of new era would we be if we didn't have rules?" he said.

"What kind of new era tortures its citizens?" I asked. He smiled sympathetically at me, as if I were some innocent child that didn't know any better.

"You know I don't like to spill magical blood, Caley," he said. I nearly snorted at the irony of the statement. "But sometimes it's necessary. We don't need bad blood," he said. I glared at him and he stared back, his blue eyes haunting.

"When did you make the decision to take over the government?" I asked.

"I told you we were trying to infiltrate it--" he started.

"When did you make the final decision?" I asked, raising my voice above his. His eyebrow twitched slightly at my demanding tone.

"At the last Sanguine Circle meeting," he replied.

"From now on, I want to be present in these meetings," I said.

"You don't need to come to those meetings. You're already the spy," he said.

"If I'm going to be your little spy, then I'm coming to the meetings. I get to have a say in what goes on if it's affecting me," I told him, my voice low and serious. I could see a vein in his temple throb. I guess he didn't like that I was ordering him around.

"Fine," he hissed. "The next meeting is tonight. Gerrard will bring you after your training," he said.

"Good," I replied. He glared at me a little longer before sighing.

"I'm done here. Gianna, begin her training for the day," he said. And then he retreated upstairs.

I glanced at Gerrard, whose face was hidden in the shadows.

"I'll be back in two hours," he whispered in my ear before leaving as well.

Now it was just Gianna and me.

"You know, you start being careful about how you speak to Elijah," Gianna said to me. I rolled my eyes.

"I'll speak to him however I want," I said.

"He can kill in a matter of seconds," she said.

"But he won't," I replied coolly, raising an eyebrow at her. "He needs me. I'm the secret weapon, remember?" I said.

"You act as if you can't be replaced," she said.

"Oh, I know I can be replaced," I said. "But no one else will be as good or convincing."

"Whatever. Enough of this chatter. We need to get to work," she said.

"What am I learning today?" I asked.

"The theory of manipulating elements," she replied. My eyebrows shot up.

"That's really advanced magic, though," I said.

"And you're ready for it," she replied. I stood back a bit. Maybe it was just me, but that sounded a lot like a compliment.

"So what does manipulating elements entail?" I asked. She pulled out a box and from it extracted several items: a rock, a leaf, a vial of water, and a stick.

"As you know, the elements that witches can control are fire, air, earth, and water. Each witch or wizard has the ability to control each of the elements, but only witches with the appropriate eye color can truly master a given element," she explained.

"Right; I know this already," I said.

"I'm just reviewing," she said, annoyed with my back-talk.

"Ok, continue," I said. She sighed heavily.

"Since your eye color is blue, your element is water, which means that once you have trained and practiced enough, you can become a true master of water," she said.

"What does that mean, though? What does truly being able to control water mean?" I asked.

"It means you can manipulate all forms of water, whether it's in liquid form, crystal or solid form, or even steam. You can control every aspect of the water and make it bend to your will. The only thing you can't do is create water out of nothing. The natural laws of science still apply. You can't create something out of nothing. You can, however, multiply a single amount of something to make it more," she told me.

"For example, if there is but a single droplet of water around, you can use a spell to multiply that droplet to many more and then use your manipulation powers and control that water however you wish," she said. I nodded.

"And the same works with fire and earth and air?" I asked.

"Precisely," she answered.

"But air is always present," I pointed out.

"Which is why air masters don't need to multiply oxygen atoms," she replied.

"Is it possible to do that, though?" I questioned.

"It is, but it is very difficult," she answered.

"So how do you go about learning how to manipulate the elements?" I asked.

"Extreme and complete focus," she answered.

"So why is that considered so difficult?" I asked.

"Because it is very, very difficult to become so completely separate from the outside world, but know that you are in it, and at the same time feel every molecule of the element you are trying to manipulate," she replied.

"Every molecule?" I asked. She nodded.

"It is impossible to fully control an element unless you are completely one with it. That is why witches and wizards can only be masters of one element," she said.

"But what if someone has multi-colored eyes?" I asked, thinking about Trey's extraordinary eyes.

"That is an extreme rarity, but when it does happen, it is not to be taken lightly," she replied. "Why are you asking this?" she questioned.

I felt my heart rate increase and immediately shut my mind off to her. I couldln't let her know that Trey had multi-colored eyes. I didn't know whether or not Elijah's crew knew he did, but if they didn't, I didn't want to be the one to rat him out.

"Well, I was just curious," I said. She looked at me suspiciously and then continued to lecture me on how to reach complete oneness with an element. After her lecture, she told me it was pertinent to continue to practice my concentration since it was vital that I was in complete control of my mind in order to do this sort of magic. I thought it was pointless telling me this; I was already practicing everyday. I didn't need her to tell me to learn how to focus better.

                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"How was training?" Gerrard asked when I met him in my reserved room later on.

"Informative," I answered. He chuckled.

"You hated it," he said.

"I did," I admitted, sitting on the futon next to him.

"You sure you want to go to this meeting?" he asked me. I nodded.

"I want to know what Elijah's doing. He wants me to spy for him, but I don't even know what to spy on just yet. I want to know what's going on if I'm going to a part of this," I replied.  He sighed. "What? What goes on at those meetings?" I asked.

"Just a lot of talking and discussing and planning," he answered. "I've been going to them since I was a kid," he added.

"He really trusts you," I said. He nodded, resting his head back on the couch, gazing up at the ceiling.

"How are you and Isobel doing?" I asked, nudging him in the side. He turned his head so that he was facing me.

"We're doing just fine," he replied, nudging me back. "What about you and your boyfriend?" he asked. I felt my cheeks flush thinking about what had happened between the two of us over the weekend.

"Umm...you know...we're...uh...good..." I mumbled, looking away. I could feel his eyes studying mine and to make sure, I snuck a peek at him. He was looking at me, his blue-grey eyes mischievious and a smirk on his lips.

"You guys crossed that line, didn't you?" he asked. I smacked him in the stomach, making him laugh.

"Stop it! And shut up!" I exclaimed. He continued laughing.

"Look at your face! You're so embarrassed!" he said. I crossed my arms over my chest and grumbled to myself as he continued to laugh at me.

"Done yet?" I asked after a few moments. He bit his lip to keep from continuing.

"Yeah, I'm done," he said, pretending to wipe away tears of laughter from his eyes. I punched him in the shoulder and he smirked at me. God, how I hated his smirk.

"I don't get why you're so embarassed. It's about time. Haven't you two been together for like, a year now?" he asked.

"Why are you so interested all of a sudden?" I asked.

"I'm not. It's just hilarious watching how uncomfortable you get," he replied. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Well what about you and Isobel?" I asked.

"What about me and Isobel?" he asked back.

"Have you two...you know.." I trailed off. He cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Look who's interested now," he said.

"Oh, shut up. Forget it," I said. We were silent for a few moments.

"We have," he said after a brief silence.

"You have?" I asked. He shrugged.

"It wasn't the first time for either of us, though. So it wasn't that big a deal," he said. "But you are no longer that innocent girl I kidnapped in the woods half a year ago," he said.

"No, I'm not," I sighed.

"It's not necessarily a bad thing, you know," he said.

"In six months, I've learned about a whole other side to magic, I've joined the dark side, and I've agreed to be a spy," I said.

"Additionally, you've gained an enormous amount of knowledge on magic and the history of magic, you've become more powerful both physically and mentally, and you've become a really amazing witch," he added. I looked at him and he looked back.

"You think I'm an amazing witch?" I asked. He nodded.

"No one else was able to ground me using only a light spell," he replied. I chuckled, thinking back to my first training lesson.

"I'm glad you're not the douchebag you seemed to be when I first met you," I said.

"How do you know I'm not?" he retorted, winking at me.

"I know," I replied with a smile. He pinched my cheek and I swatted his hand away, glad that I had someone to confide in.

                                                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"First off, I'd like to welcome Caley, our secret weapon, to the Circle," Elijah said. "She so kindly asked to join the meetings, so here she is," he added, a dark look on his face. He wasn't happy about this. I wondered why. Was he afraid I'd stir up some trouble?

I looked around the table and saw a lot of faces I didn't know. Actually, the majority of the faces I didn't recognize. The only people that I knew were Gerrard--who was sitting next to me--Isobel, Dom, and Gianna. Everyone else was a stranger.

"I guess we'll need to do introductions since our guest clearly doesn't know anyone here," Elijah huffed. He was really annoyed about me being there. Too bad I didn't care.

"This is Vincent," he said, pointing to a man with dark curly hair and a strong, chiseled jaw. I bet if he stood up, he was over six feet tall. "Victoria," he said, pointing to a pale woman with platinum blonde hair. "James," he said, indicating a man with peppered black and grey hair and striking amber eyes. "Byron," he pointed to a man with slicked back golden hair. "And Nashaa," he indicated a woman with dark colored skin and bright green eyes.

I nodded at each person, taking in their features and noting their eye colors. As expected, none of them had blue eyes.

"Now, we can get started. The topic of discussion, of course, is what we will do with Roberta, but more importantly, how we will utilize Isaac's new position," Elijah said. "Since Caley has a problem with torturing Roberta, I suggest we give her the job of killing her so that we don't need to prolong her pain," he said, looking at me with those vicious blue eyes of his. I felt my heart beating faster and anger fill me.

"You think that's a suitable alternative?" I asked him. The others gasped, looking at me disapprovingly, but staying silent.

"Seeing as you think it is morally wrong to torture someone, I figured you'd like to do the right thing by ending her pain," Elijah said, leaning back in his chair and putting his fingertips together.

"And you think it's morally right to kill an innocent person?" I asked. He slammed his hands down on the table, making everyone except me jump.

"Enough of this!" he shouted in his calm, haunting way. "You have agreed to follow me and you have taken up our philosophy and beliefs. You are not going to ask questions of morality, do you understand?" he hissed.

"I didn't sign up for killing people mercilessly for no reason," I shot back.

"Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice a few people for the greater good," he replied coolly.

"Isn't that a little hypocritical?" I asked.

"Would you just shut up?!" Isobel hissed at me. I glared at her. Gerrard leaned forward, coming in between the two of us, shooting us both warning looks.

"You agreed to this, Caley. You cannot turn back and I will not tolerate disobedience," he said.

"Oh, you won't? And what will you do if I say no?" I asked.

"Oh, I can think of a lot of things I can do to make you cooperate," he replied.

"Like what? You can't kill me. You need me," I said.

"You are not as irreplaceable as you think," he threatened. I squinted my eyes at him.

"You're bluffing," I said.

"Caley!" Gerrard muttered to me, telling me to stop talking with his eyes.

"Oh, so you think I'm bluffing?" he asked.

I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms over my chest. I was sweating and my heart was beating a million times a minute. I was nervous. I had no idea if he was bluffing or not, because now, all of a sudden, I felt like he wasn't and he would kill me or torture me in a second.

"Well, we'll just have to show you how replaceable you really are, then," Elijah said.

"Cain, don't. I'll talk to her," Gerrard said, intervening. I opened my mouth to say something, but I decided against it after seeing the look Gerrard was giving me.

"She needs to learn how to respect her elders and obey orders. Her disobedience will not be tolerated," Elijah said, raising his voice slightly. He sounded manic, crazy, serious.

"I'll talk to her," Gerrard repeated. Elijah glared at him.

"No, she needs to learn what happens when you go against the ideals. Every mistake must be punished and just because she is a secret weapon, doesn't mean she is an exception," he said.

"What do you plan on doing to me?" I asked, trying and failing to keep my voice steady and even.

"Whatever it takes for you to stop questioning my every move," Elijah responded, his voice a barely audible whisper.

I looked at Gerrard and from the look on his face, I knew Elijah wasn't bluffing.

___________________________________________________________________

A/N: Ohhh snap. What's going to happen to Caley?

A much more interesting part. The magic in this will get a lot cooler once she learns how to manipulate the elements. It's going to make for an epic battle scene when the time comes.

Who likes the Caley/Gerrard scenes? I just LOVE them.

Please comment and vote!

XOXO