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She'd had this dream before. God, how many times had she had this dream since he first started following her? How many times had she suffered through the suffocation? She started out this time in her lover's arms. Strong arms, lifting her in the air, holding her tight. He laughed at her, he smiled; his teeth gleamed white in the monochrome scene. His hands on her hips were gentle. He loved her, he didn't say it- oh no, he didn't say it, that would ruin the purity of the dream!- but she could feel it down to her bones. He let her go. She went home. Violet eyes closed, to go to sleep, only to open in the dark of the night, at her parents home. It is how, logically, Jada knew that she was not awake. This time, eyes did not open to her familiar bedroom. Eyes opened to the hospital. Jada gave a choked scream, grateful that the dream was black and white. Her blood pressure was rising, she could feel the fluttering of her desperate heart. The scraping noise was the same, outside the window, where Fallon rested peacefully, unaware and unassuming. Jada slipped out of her bed, feet bare on the hospital floor. It had never felt cold to her in these dreams. She had felt pressure, but never truly temperature. Not like this. She reached out, ran her hands over Fallon's skin. For the first time, she realized that though she heard the sound of breathing, it wasn't coming from Fallon. The dark-skinned face was cold, no breath passing her lips. Where was the breath coming from? Then it was hot on her neck, hands clenching around her throat.

She struggled, fighting, saw the cloth going for her mouth. Him. Desperation fueled her. “What will you do, Princess?” it was Drew's voice, a hot whisper in her ear. She gripped at the hands, digging her nails into the skin, jerking until she could hear bone break. “Not good enough. Try harder.” His voice from the front, a chill counterpoint to her captor's breath on the back of her neck. She tried to scream, to beg, as the hands lifted her from the floor, implacable. If only she could get closer to Fallon's bed? She could try... Please. Help me. She didn't care who. She was mouthing the words, her throat being slowly crushed even as she scrabbled.

“Beggars can't be choosers, baby doll.” A voice in the other ear. Jada thought she could see a flash of gold, from the corner of her eye, and twisted. Twisted, and thought she felt her neck snap. But it wasn't her neck. It was her captor's hands. She struggled, twisting the other way. The other hand broke off. How silly, Jada thought. All I had to do was go sideways. Well that didn't make much sense. The hands fell onto Fallon's body, turning to dust. Still, the sound of breathing. Nothing under the beds. Nothing in the small closet. Monsters didn't breathe like that. It was like the air was moving with the breath. In and out, like a hot breeze. She'd felt it before. The remembering it made her back ache. She reached back to touch it, but the skin was smooth. Unmarked.

That was when Jada realized she was naked. She stared at herself in a mirror, disconcerted by the fact that she wasn't in the hospital gown. There was only one hospital gown in the entire room, in fact. On Fallon, covering her from face to toe. When had the gown covered her face? Jada reached out for it, reached out to take back her gown, and the entire bed shifted. Scylla? The Scylla dream? She watched the massive limb tear through her friends body, shoving it through the ceiling and carrying it away.

“One of Eight.” Scylla said cheerfully, behind Jada. “Seven more to die, until you find the answer.”

Jada jerked the door open. Total silence. No one was moving in the hall, just that hot in and out breathing. She ran through the halls, past the still figures, looking for something. Anything. Another figure sprang at her from the stillness, hands outstretched. She shrieked, punching out. “When you're punching, shift your weight forward.” Drew's voice whispered in her ear. A flash of red from the corner of her eye. Her fist crashed into the attacker, sending it back. She spun on her heel, looking for the cause of that red flash. No one was there.

Still, she moved through the hospital. She moved for the coma ward, pushing open the door to Vivian and Laney's room. Here, the stillness was natural. Everything, from the faint beeping to the soft breathing. “Monster's out there.” someone murmured. Jada moved past Vivian, past Laney, past Jane, Elizabeth, Caroline and Mary, pushing open the window. It was high up; higher up than she remembered.

Jada jumped. “Three of Eight.” Scylla said, floating next to Jada. “You're killing everyone who loves you.” Two? Just for jumping? A glance up told Jada that Scylla was right. Three tentacles wrapped around three limp bodies. She hit the ground hard, feeling breathless. But she didn't die. How odd; she'd only jumped from the second floor, but it had looked further. Outside, she was dressed. For now. “This is all an exercise in futility.” Scylla told her. “We're eating you alive. You can't run from what is inside you.”

She could try.

As she walked, she realized where she was. The park, where her stalker ripped out her heart. Her pulse sped up and she turned in time to see him, gray eyes peeking out from under his hood, hands almost twitching. But she'd killed him, in the hospital. “He lives in you.” Scylla's hands were hot on her body, tracing up her arms, settling on her shoulders. “Your fear feeds them, you know. You can't kill him, not here. All you can do is ride the dream, and recognize what you are seeing.”

“This is insane.” Jada whispered. “I want to wake up.”

He was fast. He went for her and she had to almost skip out of the way. He caught her with his hand, spinning her around and almost throwing her into the dirt. “Wishes aren't horses, Jada, able to help you run away.” Scylla clucked her tongue, watching the figure shove Jada into the dirt, ripping and tearing at her. “The only one to save you is you.” The girl fought furiously, using nail and tooth to try and fight her way free. He was stronger than she was. She was just a girl, after all. Her mother had told her this all her life.

Scylla watched, the expression on her face almost sorrowful.

Something warm touched Jada's hand. Another hand, gripping her own. Nothing there, just heat, even as cold drops of his blood fell on her face. “Four of Eight.” Scylla murmured. “Jada, please.” the body of the person who had attacked her fell to the side. “Learn to surrender.”

Warmth, holding her hand. Jada shuddered. Kept walking. Where was she going? Where was the exit?




She still hadn't found it when she finally woke. When she stumbled to her feet, tugging on her robe, and moving silently down the hall, following the path of her nightmare. Slipping into the coma ward, to collapse between Vivian and Laney, resting her head on Vivian's bed. "I don't know what is wrong with me." she confessed. "I never thought I'd miss you." She shuddered, in the cold silence of the coma ward. Her hand was still warm. "I'm afraid Vivi."

Jada stared at her father over the desk. “Oh.” it was a strange word to be saying, one that didn't ever seem to explain enough. It was a stupid, silly word, meant for people who couldn't understand what was happening to them. At the moment, she was one of these people. “Well...” she paused, eyes blinking. Her heart was thumping rapidly, confusion making her start to shake. “I see.” A job? She had to get a job? When did she have time for it? Her father was cutting back her allowance? Taking away her credit card! Limiting her to exactly what he gave her every month? Why? Had she done something wrong?

“Calm down.” Michael frowned at his daughter. She was pale, with wide and startled eyes, discomposed to a point he'd rarely seen in her. “It isn't like I am making all of this an order.” Not all of it. However, he had realized that his daughter knew nothing about the value of money. She was spoiled. And it was his fault, his and Szelem's, for cosseting her and giving her everything that struck her fancy. Jada was a younger version of her mother, down to the way she tilted her head when she was humoring her parents. “You don't have to move to New York.” he said it lamely. But he had a reason for what he was doing. He did. Jada was almost eighteen, and she knew nothing about money or how to handle it. Oh, she could spend it like a pro, but in terms of using it responsibly, she was a child. Michael looked down at the papers on his desk.

The seventeen year-old swallowed, looked down at her hands. Perfectly manicured fingernails, and underneath her hands a pair of jeans that cost her $500.00. Beyond that, shoes that cost her over $1000.00. And she was being told she would have to give this sort of thing up, even if only for a while? Gone her shopping sprees, gone the little things that made her so happy. Not for long; she was eighteen in just two months and twenty-something days. But that was two months and twenty-something days in which her spending was cut in more than half. “I know I don't have to move.” It was redundant to say it.

“It would make Zora and Lucas happy if you would come with us.” Michael watched his daughters face, blank and expressionless.

“I know.” Jada did know. Far too well. Lucas would be helpless with his support system cut in more than half. Or he'd be shipped off to a boarding school. Same with Jada's fears for Zora. Then again, Zora could fight her battles for herself. Lucas was like Jada.

Yes sir. No sir. Anything to make you happy, sir.

“If I go to New York...” Jada felt her voice catch. “Will you fix the issue with Mother and...”

“That is already being dealt with, whether you come to New York or not. It isn't good parenting, now is it?” Marrying your daughter off to an old man was poor parenting, and Michael was using it in the divorce like a hammer. He would have his children. All of them. Whether they wanted to be in his care or not. Minus the one who could make her own decisions, but he had his own devices to control Jada.

Purple eyes met purple eyes over a desk that had been covered in a lifetime of paperwork. A desk older than both of them, that had been used by men who built companies. An unusual situation. Michael had spent his life working, and now he was realizing what he'd neglected. The wife who had left him long ago, the children to whom he was a stranger. And this was all he could think of to try and help his daughter now. Take away her money. Teach her responsibility.

The harm of parents who meant well would be the end of her.

“I see.” She was a weapon. Nothing more. Against her own mother, Jada and her situation was being used as a knife, to twist and turn and take those few things Szelem treasured.

“Just think it over.” Michael looked down at the papers on his desk. “There is no hurry. You have to graduate, after all.”

Jada turned in her resignation as a student employee at the library the next afternoon. She needed to look for a job.

Not to mention she was facing other, greater issues.