A character concept picture for Olivia is now up on my concept page. Just visit my profile and click on my 'homepage' to see, and even comment, if you like.

And thanks so much to those wonderful people who reviewed! Especially to those who are reviewing this AND my other Covenant story—you guys so rock. Anyway, on to the story:

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Chapter 2:

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When Liv awoke, she was very confused, since she didn't remember ever falling asleep. She was still in yesterday clothes, and her room was just how she left it. She put a hand on her head and breathed a long sigh of relief, trying her best to excuse the events of last night simply as some sort of strange nightmare, but in her heart, not truly accepting it as fact. She went on to her classes for the day, and began to wonder if it really had been just a bad dream. No one seemed to be looking at her any different, so she assumed she appeared the same physically.

But no, not everything was the same. When she went into Chemistry that day, the one named Pogue was nowhere to be seen.

"Give Mr. Parry your get-well wishes," the teacher explained. "He's had a motorcycle accident and will not be joining us for some time."

Liv gasped, her hand going to her mouth in surprise. No dream? Then that meant… could she really have been resurrected from the dead?

Liv began to freak out, and pat down her person to see if she was really here or if she was just a ghost. She noticed the boy sitting to her left eyeing her strangely, at which she immediately decided to stop her nonsense.

"I… lost something," she struggled to excuse her abnormal behavior to him. He just shook his head and went back to spending his attention on the lesson.

When class was over, Liv gathered her books and rushed out as quickly as she could. She hurried through the halls to her only refuge: the library.

Once there, she rummaged through the shelves of books on supernatural things, picking up the Chronicles of Paganism once more. Frantically she sifted through the words, trying to find something that sounded like what had happened to her.

"In some events said Covenant brothers had an ability to summon recently dead spirits, usually in purpose as messengers to send a warning signal to other members. Due to the ghastly appearance of the spirits, they were dubbed 'darklings'."

That didn't sound like her at all, since everyone around her could still see her and not scream for their lives.

"Turn the page," a male voice said behind her. She inhaled abruptly in surprise, whipping around to see that creepy boy from last night, hovering over her shoulder to read the book along with her.

"You have to flip it," he explained, then reached over her to do it for her, obviously smelling her hair as he did so. "Read here," he instructed in a low, husky voice.

Shaking in her fear and her heart still racing from the surprise, she bent over the book and kept reading:

"There were rumors of some such cases of darkling resurrection that were given a human-like reform, so lifelike one could not tell the difference between the truly alive and the once departed. These beings were almost entirely human in appearance, and performed all the same personality traits, wants, desires, and actions, walking among others as normal human beings, never having a distinguishing attribute signifying they had ever been deceased, save for an occasional heavenly glow. The source or direct cause of this glow was never determined."

Liv stopped reading, unable to catch her breath and feeling a little lightheaded. This was quickly becoming too much for her to take in. The boy's body was still pressed against her back, patiently waiting for her response.

After a few moments of her panting in fear, he put a hand on her left breast, feeling her rapidly racing heart.

"It beats so fast!" he observed with amusement. Did he delight in her terror, or was he just boyishly giddy over groping her? She had enough composure to flick his hand away from her, since that was unquestionably an obstruction of her personal boundaries.

"Just wait, it gets better," he urged, seemingly unoffended. "Keep going."

She feared the words in that book by now, and felt that nothing would be worse than going on with reading it. Even still her fear of the boy overcame her fear of the information, so she went on:

"They were only suspected spectrals for their unbreakable ties to the 'summoner', and were thus bound to personal slavery unless otherwise released from their hold and allowed to live freely as human individuals once more or sent back to their deathly state. The 'Eidolons' were usually in the form of a woman and served the temporary purposes of carrying on the bloodline, performing tasks too risky for the living, or in turn resurrecting the summoner in case of his imminent death of unnatural causes. Both Eidolons and Darklings can only be summoned within a day of their death."

The chapter went on to explain some past purposes for the spectrals, but Liv had quite enough. She shoved the book away from herself with disgust, as if it had turned into a very horrid plate of mealworms.

"Don't act like that, my dear," Chase said, wrapping his arms around her waist and stomach like she was his new girlfriend. "After all, that's you."

Suddenly Liv jumped away from him, so abruptly she stumbled a bit from the hasty action.

"Get away from me!" she yelled, so loud that the librarian shushed her.

Liv quickly gathered her books and scurried out of there, away from the terrifying boy.Liv went straight back to the refuge of her dorm room, and closed the door behind herself. She leaned her weight against the door, trying to catch her breath. She was so scared, so confused. Charlie laid in her own bed, her yellow hair stirring slightly from the breeze coming through the open window.

But there, on Liv's own bed, sat the same creepy boy.

"I like the accent," he said like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be laying on her bed. "I'm guessing southern Britain?"

"What? How…?" she began, but couldn't find the words to ask; she was so surprised.

"I told you last night," he said, impatience now entering his tone. "I revived you, so now you belong to me. You have to do whatever I say. Part of the package."

Charlie began to stir at the sound of voices, and rubbed her eyes, trying to awaken fully.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked rudely, seeing the boy on her bed. He got up to shake her hand politely.

"Chase Collins," he replied. "I'm Olivia's new boyfriend."

"Geezes, Liv," she retorted to her roommate. "You sure move on fast."

"I didn't find him," Liv replied quickly. "He found me."

"Sure did," Chase agreed with a broad smile. "We still have a few bugs to work out, but I'm sure this is going to be the start of a long and glorious relationship."

He looked at Liv when he said that, as if hinting strongly in her direction.

"Liv, let's leave Charlie to finish her nap," Chase said, taking Liv by the hand and leading her towards the door. "Com'on, we have important things to discuss."

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Liv sat beside Chase out at the quad, with her hands clenching together in her lap, and her body fully tensed. He, on the other hand, lounged on the wooden bench like it was a lazy-boy armchair, his legs spread comfortably and his arm stretched across the back of the bench behind her.

"You're scared shitless, aren't you?" he said abruptly. Liv, in turn, nodded.

"Don't be. I think, given time, you'll grow to like me. Well, ideally, I suppose. Do slaves ever grow to like their masters? I can't remember."

"Why me?" Liv asked in a small voice.

"You just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I was going to kill a girl soon anyway, but you seemed rather more… shall we say, convenient, given if circumstances take a turn for the worse."

He pulled out a large, thin book, and Liv realized quickly it was a yearbook. He opened it and flipped through the pages.

"Do you see these boys?"

He pointed to the individuals in turn, which happened to be all four of the 'Sons' she had seen in the alleyway that fateful night, the very boys that had gotten her into this tangled web.

"This one here," he pointed to the one named Caleb. "On Saturday, during the night of the Fall dance, he's going to do what they call 'Ascend', when their powers fully mature."

So that was the meaning of that 'Ascend' code word. Things began to become clearer to Liv, and she nodded to confirm that.

"I'm not expecting him to be able to stand against me," Chase went on confidently. "And if all goes well, he'll will his Power my way to save what's left of his pathetic family and dear friends. I'll get to them soon enough. This one here," --he turned the page and pointed to the one with long hair-- "He's already been taken care of. But listen good; here's where you come in…"

He turned back a couple pages and pointed to the blond.

"This one here Ascends around the end of February. That gives you plenty of time to get him hooked. You'll use your 'feminine wiles' for that, of course."

"Hooked?" Liv repeated in confusion.

"The Power is addictive, darling. Try to keep up. Reid is obviously very susceptible to the enticement that the Power has, so he should be pretty easy to throw over the edge. Get close to him, be charming, all that. I'll be secretly helping you, of course. Then, when the time is right and he trusts you, get him to Use. A lot."

"What will happen when he gets 'thrown over the edge'?" Liv asked with concern. She didn't like the way this was sounding.

"We'll get to that later, pet," he said with a smile. "Just do your job for now. Can you handle that?"

Liv frowned worriedly.

"And what will happen if I don't agree?"

"It will cost you your dignity and your life, my dear."

He said it so smoothly, like it was nothing too terrible at all, which scared Liv out of her senses.

"Know this," he said, his voice going harsher so that she would know he was serious. "I own you. You're just a little puppet to my every whim, dead to everyone except me. I now say where you go, what you do, what you wear, and how you think, and you don't do anything without my permission first. Do you understand?"

Tears threatened to escape Liv's hold. How in the world did this happen to her? She was now under the Roman rule of an evil tyrant—losing her life and her freedom all in a single day. It was enough to make her drown in misery. She somehow managed a nod.

"The dance is a few days away," he continued. "Reid's sure to be attending, so I suggest you wear something…" He scanned her body down suggestively. "Pretty… Do some research in the meantime; you're good at that. Find out what kind of girls he likes."

Liv gulped down the lump in her throat, not daring to cross him in fear for her life. He just grinned eerily, a smile seeming unnatural on his frightening face.

After that, he got up he tossed her the keys to her car, informing her it was fixed, and walked off, having said all he needed to say. Liv grasped her heart to try and steady it. After all she had heard, she didn't think it would ever calm again.

-

She plopped down on the pullout aluminum stadium stands, resting her chin on her hands as she watched the Sons of Ipswich swim in an indoor meet. Her subject in question was off to the side with his buddies, standing around in sweatpants to cover the black speedo he surely wore underneath. He wasn't as toned as his friends; in fact, standing next to them he looked rather scrawny in comparison.

She found herself strangely disappointed at the sight of him. Maybe it was the dread of the task before her that brought the dissatisfaction with the boy. Maybe she wanted him to be a heinous, ugly brute to make it all the easier to 'throw him over the edge'. Then again, if he was as gorgeous as his friends, it might be easier to pretend she was in love with him.

Either way, this was what she got, and she couldn't change it. He was it.

She watched as he applauded his friend who had just won the breaststroke run: the smallest of the bunch named Tyler. The boys patted him on the back in turn, but when he came to Reid, the blond playfully pushed the kid back into the water with a large splash, much to the amusement of all.

Liv sighed for the hundredth time that day. Not only was he mediocre in the looks department, he was a punk as well… and she didn't like punks. She knew now that this was going to take a lot more work than she had originally assumed.

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Please review.
Signed,
--RedRogue