Her Beloved by Emachinescat

A Hardy Boys Fan-Fiction

SUMMARY: A freshman at Bayport U, Joe is having nightmares that grow more vivid the closer it is to Halloween. He and Frank must solve a 100 year old mystery of a brutal murder. Ghosts and killers lurk around every corner, determined to keep the truth hidden.

A/N: Happy Halloween! Please read and review! :)

Her Beloved

Chapter One

October 31, 1864

The handsome blonde man gazed deeply at his lover with dazzling blue eyes as they floated slowly across the ballroom floor. Around them swirled other colorful, masked dancers, the men in their best formal wear, the women in flowing, puffy gowns. The dancers were beautiful, but none were as graceful or elegant as the couple in the center of the room. The man leaned closer to the raven-haired beauty intertwined in his arms. As he held her close, he gently pressed his lips against her silky hair. She leaned into his embrace as he huskily whispered, "I love you."

He felt her tense in his arms, and this was when Joe Hardy knew he was dreaming. Despite the fact that his subconscious had recognized that he really wasn't in a ballroom, but in his bed, asleep, his mind refused to wake up and there was, once again, no escape from this nightmare. A sense of absolute dread filled him and he knew what was going to happen next almost as surely as he knew that there was nothing at all that he could do about it.

The blonde man drew the woman close to his heart and whispered imploringly, unrestrained emotion in his wavering voice, "Marry me."

The woman spoke then, with unsuppressed rage and venom dripping from her voice. "I don't think so," she snarled and from somewhere within the folds of her dress she pulled a large butcher knife. With no hesitation whatsoever, she drove the knife into the man's heart and wrenched it downward with surprising strength. Blood poured from his chest and abdomen as she stabbed him again…and again...

All the while, the other people at the ball just stood there, staring at the pair, one living, one already dead at his lover's feet. He was lying in a pool of his own blood and she was holding a knife, blood seeping through her clenched fingers.

While the guests at the party stared in shock, not roused into action quite yet, the woman lightly leapt over the prone, lifeless body of the man she had intended to marry and disappeared out of the ball room and into the night.

October 30, 2009 ~ 11:55 PM

"Joe! Joe! Wake up, man!"

Eighteen-year-old Joe Hardy woke up tangled in moist blankets, realizing that they were soaked with his own sweat—and tears. He took a deep, steadying breath and tried to push the vivid, haunting details of the horrendous nightmare out of his mind. His hands were still shaking badly as he glanced at the brown-headed, green-eyed young man standing over his bed. "Sorry, Matt—did I wake you?" Joe asked softly as his roommate, Matthew Parson, stifled a yawn.

Matt cocked an eyebrow at Joe and snorted in laughter. "You're kidding, right? It's not like this hasn't happened every night for the past three weeks!"

Joe sighed, knowing Matt was right. It was Joe's Freshman year at Bayport University, and he was glad to have been assigned a roommate as forgiving as Matt, especially with the recurring nightmares he had been experiencing. Granted, even though Joe and Matt had become fast friends and got along fairly well, Joe would still rather have his brother there by his side in the middle of the night, helping him deal with these irrational nightmares. That wasn't possible, however. There was no way he was going to run down the hallway to his brother's room every time something happened that unsettled him. He hadn't mentioned the dreams to his brother, insisting that his increasing weariness was a result of too much homework and stress—which was somewhat true. He did have a lot of homework.

As for the nightmares, Joe had no idea what they were about or why they had been plaguing him for three weeks. About mid-October, Joe had had a dream about a beautiful woman brutally murdering a blonde-haired man. The dream had disturbed him, but he had eaten Chinese takeout with a bunch of friends before going to bed that night, so he dismissed the dream as just that—a dream due to sushi and egg rolls, albeit a very disturbing one.

The dream had returned the next night, however. And the night after that. After a while, Joe had begun to notice that each night, they began to get more detailed and graphic…and longer. The dream had just started out as the murder, the intoxicatingly beautiful girl stabbing and gutting the blonde haired young man who always had his back facing Joe so he could never see his face. Then there were dancers…ball gowns…other people…music…

Each night, the dream had gotten just a bit more detailed, leading up to the one Joe had just experienced…the worst of all. He had seen the malicious look in the woman's eyes as she stabbed the man—the man that he had not previously recognized as her lover, but now knew it without a doubt. He had smelled the aroma of fresh baked bread and seen the sparkling glasses of wine. And—for the first time—he had been allowed to see the man who had been murdered, and it had made his blood run cold.

It's only a dream, it's only a dream.

The man was Joe.

"Joe. Hey, snap out of it, dude!" Joe started as Matt jerked him out of his reverie. "Hey, you're kind of freaking me out, man," Joe's roommate admitted, looking at Joe with a concerned look in his olive eyes. "Do you need me to get somebody—the R.A…? Your brother, maybe?"

Joe immediately shook his head. "Nah, don't worry about it, Matt. I'll be okay. It's just a nightmare."

Matt snorted as he crawled back into bed and turned off the lamp. "Yeah. Just a nightmare that's woken you up in tears for the past three weeks. I don't care what you say, Joe…psychology may not be my major, but even a business major can tell when there's something screwy going on in your brain—no offense."

"Nonetheless, I'm offended," Joe countered with a coy, yet shaky, grin that Matt couldn't see in the dark but could hear in his voice.

"Look, man," the concerned roommate said wearily. "I just think you need to tell someone about this. You and your bro are really close…just—just mention it to him tomorrow, maybe he can help you sort it all out…?"

Joe thought for a moment, then mumbled sleepily, "I'll think about it…"

When he woke up half an hour later screaming, Joe decided he had no choice—he had to talk to Frank. Tomorrow.

October 31, 2009 ~ Halloween Day

The next morning Matt's phone alarm woke Joe up at 6 A.M. Joe groaned as a screeching heavy metal song assaulted his already pounding head and he hoped fervently that Matt would just hurry up and turn the stupid thing off. He was exhausted.

Luckily, Matt rolled out of bed fairly quickly and shut off the alarm, mumbling a hasty apology to Joe before hastening into the bathroom. Five minutes later, Joe could hear the sound of the shower and Matt's off-tune rendition of the song that had woken them up just moments earlier.

Sighing, Joe dragged himself out of bed and quickly got dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt. He remembered the weather report for the day and slipped on a Bayport U sweatshirt. After lacing up his tennis shoes, Joe left his room and barreled straight into Frank, who looked more than a little surprised to see his "hibernating" brother out of bed so early.

"Uh, hey Joe," Nineteen-year-old Frank grinned at his "baby brother". "What gives? Your first class isn't until eleven; I should know because that's the one class we actually have together."

Joe stifled a yawn and nodded. "Yeah."

"Everything alright?" Frank was looking genuinely concerned.

Joe thought about his resolution he had made last night to tell Frank everything. It was easy to get worked up and scared at night, right after a particularly nasty recurring nightmare, but out here, in the lit hallway of Cunningham-Bryer Hall with Frank looking at him so concerned, so worried…in full over-protective big brother mode, it all seemed so silly…so juvenile.

"Joe?"

Joe shook his head forcefully. "No, everything's fine. Matt's alarm just woke me up early and…" He stopped, realizing he had made his fatal error. Now Frank knew something was wrong.

He gave Joe a searching, anxious look and said in a clipped tone, "Joe, you could sleep through a flippin' earthquake! The only thing that gets you up in the morning is your phone set on full volume going off right beside your head! There is no way on earth that Matt's phone could have woken you up if you were okay." His tone softened. "Joe, what's up? You know you can tell me anything."

Joe shook his head again, weaker this time, in protest. "Look, man, I've got to go…" he mumbled something about breakfast, but Frank just shook his head in amazement.

"Joe, c'mon. Let's go to the caf and grab some breakfast together. We can talk then, alright?"

Joe sighed, knowing Frank wouldn't rest until he got a straight answer from Joe. "Alright," he said, his voice subdued. "Let's eat."

Frank Hardy stared at his younger brother from across the table. Despite Joe's insistence on having to eat breakfast earlier, he was picking at his food and hadn't eaten a single bite. Frank sighed and looked at Joe more closely now that there was better lighting. He barely contained a gasp at his brother's appearance.

Joe's eyes were red and puffy, indicating that he had been crying very recently. There were dark circles under his eyes and Frank wondered how he could have missed them before. He mentally chided himself on letting his "brother hen meter", as Joe had so affectionately coined it a few years ago, slip up on its duties.

Joe noticed the scrutiny and glared at his brother. "Frank, will you please stop staring at me? I'm fine."

"Ah, baby brother," Frank sighed. "You are a horrible liar when it comes to your big brother…why can't you just tell me what's going on?"

At that moment, Matt sauntered up to the table along with his girlfriend, tan, honey-haired Clarissa Standifer. He looked at Joe with a satisfied smile. "So you decided to tell Frank, after all," he congratulated Joe airily, either oblivious or blatantly ignoring Joe's none-too-subtle gestures for him to shut up. "I knew you'd do the right thing, man." He clapped Joe heartily on the back, slipped his arm around Clarissa's waist, and strutted off to greet one of his business club buddies.

Joe seemed to be avoiding Frank's gaze. He only looked up at his brother when Frank said, ever so softly, "Joe."

"Frank, I'm sorry I didn't tell you!" Joe blurted in a rush. He was going to say more, but he a group of his friends were headed in their direction and he groaned in frustration.

Frank gently tugged on his brother's arm and guided him out of the cafeteria, leaving both plates untouched. "Hey, bro, we've still got an hour until class. Why don't you come up to my room and we'll talk, okay?"

Relieved that he wasn't going to have to bear this burden alone anymore, Joe Hardy meekly allowed his brother to effectively steer him away from the group of friends and back toward the dormitory.

From across the cafeteria, ignored by all who passed her by, almost as if she didn't exist, a strikingly beautiful, black-haired woman in a flowing ball gown adjusted the mask over her eyes and watched hungrily as the blonde boy left the cafeteria with his brother.

Soon enough, you will be mine…as you were always meant to be…

"…and then last night, I finally saw who the person being killed was, and it was—it was me," Joe finished telling Frank about his crazy barrage of dreams feeling distinctly crazy and angry at not understanding why he was going through this. His eyes wandered around the room that Frank and his roommate, Kevin, shared, from Frank's neatly framed photos of Joe, their parents, and his girlfriend, Callie Shaw, who was attending college out of state in New Jersey to Kevin's somewhat rumpled posters of ripped WWE wrestlers.

In fact, Joe seemed to look everywhere except at his brother. The truth was, he needed Frank more than ever now, needed his logic to refute every terror that had been present in his dream and was threatening to return full force this very moment. He needed Frank's comforting gaze, but he was afraid…afraid that instead of seeing compassion and a spark of enlightenment about the situation, he would see doubt…and laughter…in his brother's eyes.

He knew that Frank wasn't one to laugh at Joe (unless, of course, it was in the nature of good-ole fashioned "sibling war" teasing), but even Joe admitted that what he was telling his brother was ludicrously crazy. Morbid, even. Maybe he shouldn't have told Frank. Maybe…

He felt someone's finger under his chin, gently lifting his head up. Frank's warm brown eyes stared into Joe's haunted blue ones and there was not one trace of anger, laughter, or pity in those chocolate-colored depths. Joe felt himself melt into his brother's warm embrace…and knew that somehow, everything was going to be okay.

A few minutes later, Joe looked at his brother worriedly. "What's wrong with me, Frank? Why've I been having these awful dreams? And if they're just dreams, then why are they affecting me so badly?"

Frank sat still for a moment, pondering his brother's difficult questions. When he didn't answer right away, Joe pressed on in a rush, "I've woken Matt up every night for the past three weeks screaming because of them. He seems to think that I'm starting to go crazy…and maybe he's right…"

Frank instantly shook his head. "You are not crazy, Joe," he said adamantly.

"How can you know for sure?" Joe asked stubbornly.

Frank opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, his roommate, music major Kevin Torez, burst into the room singing Dust in the Wind. He stopped abruptly when he saw the brothers apparently in the middle of something serious and looked a bit uncomfortable. "Hey, guys," he said awkwardly, feeling even more nervous at Frank's raised eyebrows. Little did he know, they were raised in amusement.

Frank loved having Kevin for a roommate; the guy was twenty-one years old, wacky, fun to be around, and always had a song in his head—a song that he seemed determined to get stuck in everyone else's head as well! Kevin never ceased to amuse Frank, and although Joe seemed to think he was a bit too feminine in nature, Frank periodically reminded Joe that he was engaged to the beautiful and talented Tanya Whiteheart—the most gorgeous girl at BU. Joe would usually scoff and mutter something about "weirdoes" getting the hot girls, but Frank knew it was all an act. In Joe's eyes, there was no girl more beautiful than his own steady girlfriend, Vanessa Bender, who was currently a Freshman at Florida State University.

Kevin squirmed under his younger roommate's gaze for a few more long seconds—not long enough in Frank's humorous point of view—then finally said quickly, "I…um…gotta go call Tanya. Tootles!" He disappeared into the bathroom.

Joe gave Frank a look. "He said 'tootles'."

Frank rolled his eyes. "He was giving us privacy, brat, and you know it." He turned serious once more. "Listen Joe, I may not know why you're having these messed up dreams or what's going on, but I do know one thing—you are most definitely not crazy! You've proved that time and time again, with each case that we solve!" Frank and Joe were detectives, and when they both graduated with their Criminal Justice degrees, he and Frank intended to start their own investigation service and actually get paid for their detective work. Joe couldn't think of a better career than to spend every day with his brother, solving mysteries and facing danger…and knowing Frank would be there for him every step of the way.

But what if he was crazy? There was no way that dream would ever become a reality!

Frank's next words made Joe feel a little bit better. "Trust me, bro, it's probably the stress of college life that's getting to you. It's a big transition. When I first started, I had dreams for months about my calculus equations coming alive and eating my soul and Spanish conjugation grids slicing me up into tiny pieces that we'd dissect in Biology instead of those frogs."

He grinned at seeing a bit of relief on his brother's face. "For some reason, your brain has taken your stress and personified it as a beautiful woman, which makes sense, because that's what ninety percent of your thought process revolves around." This wasn't necessarily true, but at least it managed to coax a small smile out of Joe. Frank continued to joke, "But don't worry, I won't tell Vanessa! You'll have to square with that on your own!"

Finally, Joe grinned widely, determined not to let the previous events bring him down today. Frank was right. He was just stressed out, and what better way to de-stress than to get through his classes of the day and then go to the big Halloween party in the student activity center later on to hang out with his friends? He was determined not to let any dream, no matter how morbid, ruin Halloween for him.

Still, as he and Frank hustled out of Frank's room to go to World Literature, their first class of the day and their only class together, Joe felt eerie…almost as if someone—or something was watching him.

She watched him leave with his brother, beaming behind the mask that covered her face. He was more beautiful than ever, with his strong jaw, muscular, finely chiseled body, golden-blonde locks of hair, and those stunning, intoxicating blue eyes…she had known…known without a doubt that he would return to her someday.

It had taken over two hundred years, but her love was finally within touching distance once again. She would have him…she would show him the truth, no matter what it took…

You are mine…no one else's…my precious love…

A/N: PLEASE review! Chapter two will be posted as soon as possible! :)

~Emachinescat ^..^