Bloodlines, Vampire Academy, and all of the characters belong to the wonderful Richelle Mead.

Sydney's Point of View

It was dark.

It was always dark here, in my prison. The only visible light came from the moon, shining through a tiny window. The moonlight cascaded across my pale and purple skin. My skin was purple from all of the bruises.

I spent so many hours of so many days staring at that moon. It was my hope, my shining green light. That moon was my promise of freedom, the only thing that helped me get by day after day here.

When I first was captured and brought to this lonely and miserable place, I thought "at least I can still dream," but I was pumped with drugs to prevent even that solace. I never found out if they knew just how valuable dreaming is to me.

I'm not sure how long I've been here, I've lost track of everything. I don't even know what year it is, time just stretches on.

But, at least, as time passes, the Alchemists grow more and more disinterested in me. Now I'm mostly left alone, which makes living a lot easier, but the constant isolation hasn't done much for my mental health.

Sometimes I believe I'm going crazy. I forget who I am, I hallucinate. But I guess being stuck here for so long will do that to a person. Or maybe it's just the drugs.

The concrete is cold beneath my skin, and I tug my blanket closer around me. A shadow passes over the moon, blocking out its light from my view and inside of me I feel something break. I'm overwhelmed with the feeling of hopelessness.

Then I realize it. That shadow wasn't a cloud, it was a person. A person was peering in at me through the window, and I knew who that person was.

I scrambled to my feet, feeling a rush of dizziness, and paused to steady myself. I pulled a wooden chair, my only piece of furniture, toward the window and climbed onto it, desperate to see this person up close.

One of his hands was banging against the window, but he stopped once I was facing him. He then simply kept his hand pressed against the glass, and I placed mine against his. I stared into his emerald eyes in astonishment. Part of me thought I would never see that face again. His eyes were stormy with emotion, a mixture of joy and pain.

He was repeating something, over and over, at first I was unsure of what it was, since it came out muffled through the glass, but then I realized he was saying my name.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. My heart was pounding against my rib cage. I began to motion towards the direction of the entrance of the building; it was through a root cellar.

Adrian took off in that direction and I lowered myself from the chair and back onto the floor. I was still dizzy, even more so now, and my vision was getting spotty. I reached out to grab at something as I began to lose consciousness.

Adrian's Point of View

I ripped open the rotting cellar door and tore my way toward her. I got to her easily, the security was much better on my last attempt to free Sydney. Maybe they thought I'd given up, or maybe Eddie's diversion was working.

When I reached her cell, I bent the bars apart to get to her. She was sprawled across the floor in a raggedy dress. She was semi-conscious, looking at me with a puzzled expression on her pretty face.

She looked so lifeless, her skin was pale and her hair was pale and her bones stuck out everywhere. Even her aura looked dead, it had hardly any colour, and the colour that was there was faded. Where was my purple?

Cautiously I picked up her fragile body, careful not to break her. She slung her arms around my neck and I carried her out of that hell she had been living in for the past six months. Finally, Sydney was safe, and free, and with me.

I placed her in the back of the vehicle and tucked my jacket around her before sliding into the driver's seat. Eddie came running towards us a moment later and hopped in. He glanced back at Sydney and a smile flashed across his face. "Time to go," he said.

Before putting the car in gear and driving away, I glazed into the clear night sky. The moon looked huge tonight, illuminating everything. I thought about the many times that I had stared at that moon, hoping that Sydney was staring at it too, so that however miles apart we were, we were still connected to eachother.