Michelle Smith was still nervous, she was still shaking, she was still afraid. The encounter with him and his new bitch, Viper, was almost too much for her system to bear. Even Sam, who had been brutally forced to relive his most painful memories, wasn't as distraught as she. At the time, she hadn't been so terrified. She had been more angry, more confused, than anything else. But after she had elbowed the bitch in the gut, blown a spell straight through his face, grabbed Sam, and teleported….she was nearly in the middle of a panic attack.

Now, as Sam and Michelle were in their new lodgings, an abandoned warehouse, she was trying to hide her post panic attack shaking and get ready for bed. She was searching around for her backpack. She could've sworn that she had it when she teleported.

"Sam…" She muttered, her hands in her pockets, face downcast.

Sam, who had been polishing his beloved shotgun on a couch, looked up at Michelle, his eyebrows raised slightly, "Yeah?"

"Have you seen my backpack?" She murmured, brushing some of her very messed up chocolate brown hair behind her right ear.

Sam pursed his lips and shook his head, "No, you left it at the campsite."

Michelle let out a huff and crossed her arms, "Are you sure? I could've sworn that I had it and now I can't find the stupid thing."

"That's because you forgot it."

"Well, sue me. It's not like I wasn't trapped by a homicidal maniac and his bitch or anything." Michelle replied in a bleak, sarcastic tone, looking away from her on again, off again boyfriend.

Oh, you mean your current boy toy.

Michelle gasped just as Sam was about to apologize.

"What's wrong?" He inquired and Michelle just shook her head. Like she was trying to shake something out of her mind.

"I swear I just heard….heard him. In my mind. I'm probably just imagining it." She furrowed her eyebrows, giving her head a good shake again.

Michelle was waiting to hear the voice again. But it didn't come. She exhaled a breath she hadn't known she'd even been holding and sat down next to Sam.

"I think I just need some sleep. That's all I need. I've got to clear my mind of this bullshit." She sighed, putting her head in her hands. Sam sat his shotgun on the ground in front of the couch, along with his pistol, and gently started to rub Michelle's neck.

"Just calm down, relax….okay?" Sam said as he loosened up the taught muscles in Michelle's back. Michelle nodded and relaxed into his touch. She hadn't had a good back rub since Alex.

As Sam worked his way up her back to her neck, Michelle gasped and pulled away, shocked at a sudden pain in her neck. It felt like a bruise. A really huge ass bruise.

"Woah woah, you okay?" Sam questioned, putting his hands in front of himself like he was saying, 'I did nothing!'.

"I knew he wrapped his hand clean around my neck, but….I just realized how hard he squeezed." Michelle explained, shaking her head, "It must be bruised and neither of us noticed it because my hair covers it up. I was wondering where it was. It didn't seem like him to not leave his mark somewhere. I'm just surprised he didn't carve it into me."

Sam made a soft, "Ah" sound and Michelle turned her head to look at him. She could tell that he was mad and who could blame him? A murderous psycho had just tried to kill his girlfriend!

"Why would he even want to mark you as his anyway? You're not." Sam grumbled, his jaw set in a harsh line.

"Because he sees me as his." Michelle snapped, surprising herself. There it was again. That unexplainable, irrational anger. She sighed angrily and kicked off her boots and socks and laid down on the couch, across Sam's lap, "Let's just go to sleep…"

And go to sleep, they did.

Michelle awoke with a start. She gasped and shot straight up from her sleeping spot, covered in sweat. She couldn't remember exactly why she had woken up, but she knew it wasn't a particularly nice reason.

She shook her head, wiping the thin layer of sweat off her pale face. She reached over and shook Sam's shoulder.

"Sam. Sam!" Nothing. He didn't move a muscle. She furrowed her eyebrows, but then she saw a small figure run by in her peripheral vision. She gasped and turned toward it and in the doorway, leading to another room full of junk, was Rachel. The little psychic girl that had become her only true companion in the orphanage for those terrible three months.

She was distorted, though, glitching in and out of focus like a bad reception on a TV.

"Rachel?"

Then, the little girl started to sing.

"Sweet dreams are made of this…who am I to disagree? Traveled the world and the seven seas…everybody's looking for something…."

She was slipping away and Michelle couldn't let that happen. It was almost like something wouldn't let her pass up the opportunity to see this little girl again. She didn't notice how her breath could be seen, how much darker the room into which Rachel was going became. She was in a trance-like state, like Christine Daae from Phantom of the Opera whenever she saw the Phantom.

"Some of them want to use you…."

"Rachel!" Michelle was off the couch and jogging toward Rachel's receding form.

"Some of them want to get used by you…"

"Rachel!" Michelle didn't seem to notice the deeper, much darker voice that was echoing behind Rachel's own.

"Some of them want to abuse you…."

"Rachel, please! Come back!" Michelle was nearly running now. She couldn't see how the young girl's blonde hair darkened to black for barely a second.

"Some of them want to be abused….."

And then, like a light switch turning off, Rachel's pale form was gone.

Michelle was in the dark, she was alone.

She reached back to where the doorway had been seconds before, but felt nothing but a brick wall.

"What…?" She murmured, furrowing her eyebrows. She squinted her eyes, trying to see in the dark, to no avail. Her eyes weren't adjusting.

Then….there was a laugh.

His laugh.

That had never been Rachel.

Michelle had never been alone.

It was him all along….and she was trapped.

Michelle did the only thing that she could think of. And that was back up against the wall, as far as she could from where the laugh came from, and side step to try to find some sort of exit. After a few steps, she realized that her efforts were futile. He was obviously controlling her dream world, not her. He could do anything he wanted, and that meant no way out.

She froze, her breath catching in her throat. She may not have been able to see worth a shit, but that meant her other senses were on high alert. He was close, she could feel it. She felt that if she moved one inch to her right, she would touch him.

"Hello there, princess." Her instincts were spot on; his lips were brushing against her ear. She couldn't help but to jump a little bit and immediately catapult herself forward a few feet and spin around to face him.

She could see now, since as soon as he had spoken, the room had gotten a deep red tinge. Like a light bulb filled with blood.

Sure enough, there he was. The red light made him look all the more sinisterly attractive. It made his red tie look redder, made his black suit and leather trench coat darker, made his now long black hair look like there was blood dripping from its ends. The only thing that hadn't been altered by the light was his stunningly ice blue eyes. And said stunningly ice blue eyes were piercing into Michelle's quivering soul.

She found herself unable to look away, like during their encounter in the woods merely hours before. Her deep brown eyes were steadily fixed on his brilliant blue ones and, try as she might, she couldn't look away.

"What do you want from me? If you wanted my soul, you would have taken it by now. What…do you…want from me?" Michelle tried to say it like she was a determined, strong woman. But it came out more like a five year old trying to sound tough.

The Dark Man…..Syris…..merely chuckled insidiously and took a few steps toward Michelle, who took a few steps back in return, "You're a smart girl, I'm sure you can figure it out."

The way he said those words and the smirk on his face made Michelle's insides quiver. But….was it from fear…or something else?

Michelle tried to find some sort of comeback for his words, but before she could say anything, her lungs felt like they were going to burst. She gasped and put her hand to her chest, but what she found there was not her normal attire of a blue shirt and leather jacket, no.

She finally mustered up the strength to tear her gaze away from his and looked down to find that she was wearing a black leather steel-boned corset, tied with thick rope in the back and chains in the front. Her rather good sized breasts now looked twice their normal size. She was also wearing a pair of black velvet booty shorts and black sheer pantyhose. And no shoes, which surprised her. She was half expecting to be wearing leather boots with sky high heels.

Before she could look back up, she felt herself being yanked backward. She hit the wall with a thud and let out a yelp of pain as she felt chains wrap themselves around her thin wrists and torso. It made the overwhelming tightness of the corset even worse.

She looked up to find Syris no more than a foot away from her. My God, he walked like death. She glared daggers at him and struggled with all her might against the chains, which he obviously controlled like everything else.

"Let me go. Let me GO." She demanded, trying not to sound like she was pleading, begging. She really was, but she didn't want to sound like it.

Syris tilted his head to the side, like he always did, and he looked over Michelle's body. He obviously didn't care if she noticed or not. In fact, he knew she would notice, he just was interested in seeing what she would do.

"Do you not have any decency? You FUCKING bastard." She growled, trying to get at him, but the chains merely tightened to the point of being extremely painful and she let out a piteous whimper.

Syris grabbed her face harshly with his hand, forcing her to look into his eyes once again, "That's not very nice, now is it, dollface?"

"BITE ME." And, with that, she spat in his face and yanked her own out of his grip.

She had no way to prepare for what came next. She had never been hit so hard before in her life. It felt like she had been punched by the hand of God. Or worse yet, the hand of Satan.

Michelle coughed and could feel blood pooling in her mouth. The taste of iron wasn't as disgusting as people made it seem, but there was no way that she was going to swallow it. That could very well be a turn on for the evil man standing in front of her, so she spat the blood to the side. Thankfully, no teeth had come out with it.

The whole left side of Michelle's face was numb, her cheek was probably broken. She wasn't about to dare to look back to Syris, but it didn't take a genius to be able to tell that he was waiting for her to, so he could do something else.

But, Michelle wasn't stupid. She kept her eyes downcast, face turned to the side. It was like she was frozen. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Syris move closer. Michelle flinched away before she could stop herself. A low chuckle rumbled out of his lips and Michelle went to clench her jaw, but found that she couldn't without immense pain. Great. A broken jaw too.

"Easy there, princess….I'm not gonna hurt you." Michelle couldn't help but to let out a huff and roll her eyes, like she was saying "Yeah, right!".

Next thing she knew, Syris was grabbing her face (gently, mind you), and turning her head to face him.

"Can't have your pretty face all ruined, now can we?" It was a rhetorical question, so Michelle didn't answer, she only looked at him, confusion clouding her eyes. He had to have something up his sleeve.

He raised his other hand and put it to the numb side of her face and Michelle expected there to be some sort of excruciating pain, but there was only the light, sort of fuzzy feeling of her broken facial bones mending themselves and the large gash on her cheek closing up.

Michelle was so very confused, she had no clue what was going on. The look on Syris's face had been blank and monotone, so she couldn't tell what he was thinking, what was going on inside his head.

Syris smirked and the blank look was replaced by his usual cocky, evil facial expression, "There…now we can continue."

What.

The chains that were around Michelle's torso and wrists suddenly moved, her arms were being held above her head and the two chains from her torso were wrapped around her slender, bruised neck.

She let out a strangled, "Eurgh!" sound and thrashed around. She was nearly in a panic again. Her hosed feet were barely touching the ground. The lack of air in her lungs was going to get to her soon. It was too much. The tightness of the corset was enough and now she was practically being hung.

Next thing Michelle knew, Syris was running his hand up her thigh. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Michelle's breath caught in her throat and she lashed out with her legs, trying to kick him back, but all he did was catch her calves in his hands and force her legs to wrap themselves around his waist.

"Now that's much better, wouldn't you agree?" The cocky smirk on his face was driving Michelle crazy. She just wanted to smack it right off him, but she couldn't very well do that in this predicament.

But, as much as she hated to admit it, it was much better. It took a lot of the pressure off her neck and she could breathe a hell of a lot better.