Normally his sparkling blue eyes were brimming with mischievousness and were almost always accompanied by a hint of pride and self confidence. But now as I stared into their depths I saw that they were full of anger, despair and the last emotion that made my stomach heave; fear.

Nonetheless, his icy orbs held mine in an almost hypnotic trance and for a split second, I almost forgot about the life ending situation I had been thrust into. I could feel myself being drawn into those familiar spine tingling cerulean eyes; a warm, comforting feeling starting to crawl its way through my body. But the sound of a blood curdling shriek from behind immediately brought me back to reality.

Before I even had the chance to peel my eyes away from his imprisoned figure, the screaming stopped and was instead replaced by a wet, gurgling sound. A shower of scarlet sprayed across the room in a messy stream and I forced myself not to think about the warm liquid that had begun creeping its way through my now torn and stained sun dress. Some of the blood was mine; I had scraped my knees on the unforgiving concrete floor and had pierced myself upon the many broken splinters of wood scattered around us, but I could barely feel the pain.

In the dim light I sat staring at the now bloody wall when I heard a sickening crunch of bone and a wet slurping that made me feel light headed. I felt a single tear roll down my cheek and found that I couldn't wipe it away. It was as if my muscles had decided to die before I did.

I heard a faint jingle in front of me and my eyes flickered to him automatically. His face was expressionless, but I could see the pressure along his jaw line as he clenched his mouth shut, trying to conceal the searing agony. He said nothing but carefully inclined his blonde, blood covered head a fraction of an inch to my right, and soon his eyes pleadingly followed.

Following his gaze, my eyes rested upon a small but very sharp wedge of splintered wood lying just within an arms reach.

A sudden bubble of hope swelled up inside me, then almost as soon as it had appeared, it burst into a million pieces. I realized no matter how fast I grabbed for the stake, he would be ten times faster.

I sat deflated, terrified and defeated, my arms falling uselessly to the floor. I looked back up at him and found him grimacing at the shiny silver chains that burnt into his flesh like a branding iron. He saw me staring at him and tried to smile weakly. I could tell by the way he kept examining his chains that he still thought there was hope; that he could somehow break free and save both of us. He was wrong but I tried to keep my face expressionless.

The ravenous slurping behind me continued and I knew I would be next. The thought didn't bother me as much as I figured it would; probably because my brain was too numb from the day's events. But with a sudden pang of anger and frustration, I wondered where I would have been instead if I hadn't met Eric Northman five months ago at his bar in Shreveport.