Chapter 1

I felt like it again. I had the knife poised above my arm. I needed to cut. Chris had stopped coming. I couldn't call for Leo. I hadn't done it for so long. I needed it now. I needed to cut, to release it all again. It made it all go away, just for that one second.

Tears flooded down my face and built up in my eyes making my vision go all blurry, but I could see well enough to do it.

Suddenly I saw the familiar blue light of a whitelighter orbing into my room.

It was Leo. His eyes flashed from me to the knife in my hand to my out stretched arm.

"Hand me that knife," he said calmly.

I looked at it. I needed to hurt. I had to.

"Please" he said

My hand was shaking. I slowly moved it towards him and dropped the knife into his hand.

He put the knife on the table and then knelt down next to me and hugged me.

"Why did you let it get this bad?" he asked "why didn't you tell me sooner?"

I just cried. I knew why but I couldn't tell him.

He lifted my head off his shoulder with his hand and looked me right in the eyes and said "I am your whitelighter you can tell me anything"

"No I can't" I whispered in between tears.

"What is it Cass?" he whispered

"It's…" I wasn't meant to say anything "it's complicated" I finished.

"Why is it complicated?" he asked.

I bit my lip. I didn't dare look at him as if I did I knew I would tell him. "I can't tell you" I sobbed.

Leo looked so understanding. I knew he was only trying to help but I couldn't tell him anything.

"It's ok" he whispered and rested his hand on mine. "Woah" he yelled and pulled his hand away as though he had just put it in a pan of boiling water.

"What" I gasped and my eyes travelled towards the spot where is hand had just been. My stomach.

"Let me see" he said and placed his hand back on my stomach. He indicated for me to lean backwards. He closed his eyes in concentration.

Fear over came me. What was he doing? What was going on?

After a few minutes Leo pulled away. "You're pregnant" he stated blankly "and it's half whitelighter.

I stared at him in horror.

"Now I think we need to talk about this," he said kindly but sternly.

"I…It's complicated" I sighed.

"Why is it so complicated?" Leo said "Cass please talk to me, it's obviously pretty bad otherwise you wouldn't be cutting yourself again"

"It's…" I didn't look at him because I couldn't bear to see his face when I told him, "It's complicated because of chris."