A huge thank you to all of those who have reviewed, I appreciate it ever so much, and I never thought I'd be cranking out as many chapters in such a short amount of time as I have (I can only hope that this is a good thing, but I'll let you all be the judges of that!). Again, there's not much dialogue between Silva and your protagonist, but it'll happen. And at some point I'll even have a little go at making this an M rating ;)

For a few hours, I just laid there, my body not needing much more sleep, but unable to face waking to the world quite yet, dozing in and out of a dreamless, composed dormancy, unworried about facing where, what and who faced me when I rose.

I awoke slowly, begrudging my pained body the fact that it was still alive- although only in the strictest medical sense. I most definitely did not feel as if I were anywhere near living, nor did I feel blessed at the blood coursing through my veins. My death had been as unsuccessful as the rest of my life, and I rued the day I first glanced at the tumultuous body of water that had ruined me. As the hours of waking went by, I became more and more aware of my immediate surroundings; puzzled by the environment I was in. As my eyes (apparently unused for while; according to the amount of pain forcing them open incurred) adjusted to the light space, I knew I was not on the concrete. The pillow supporting my head was far too cool, and the blanket wrapped around my numbly fragile body must have belonged to a somebody. A worry that had been creeping about in my mind for some time poked at my thoughts again, rearing its ugly head, gradually gaining unwanted momentum.

Someone helped me; why am I not in a hospital? Where did I end up?

I addressed these ones lastly, for the sake of my nerves:

Who else is here?

Why have they not shown themselves?

My questions were not soon answered, and as the lightness of the room darkened, I was taken under once more by the welcoming darkness of sleep.

Footsteps.

Slowly confident, measured footsteps came nearer, but my hopelessly out-of-practice eyes struggled to open as urgently as they would if I were back inside my own bed, and not the disfigured hospital cot of another's. As they fluttered rather pointlessly, the steps grew closer and closer, finally ending up somewhere near my hips, and I heard a chair being pulled ungracefully around, before the other in the room sat down.

Slightly disturbed and panicked, my weak physique struggled upwards pathetically, with my mouth making tiny, frantic, questioningly inhuman sounds I would have been embarrassed about if only I could have given a damn.

The masculine figure hushed me, resting one powerful hand on my front and carefully pushing downwards, whilst a joint one was placed on my tender back, guiding me backwards into the comfort of the bed as I spluttered, coughing and choking, tasting salt in all my sinuses. Pulling in all the air that I could, I drank gratefully from the cup of water that was handed me, swallowing down the liquid like a dying child. Ha.

My spluttering soon gave way to a silence, both of us ignoring the obvious questions that neither of us were in a hurry to discuss. I have never been the sort of person to demand answers, to fly off the handle as soon as things became to frightening or puzzling, and I was happy to sit in the quiet for as long as needed.

"All better?"

Glancing away coyly, I nodded quickly. It was an odd sort of voice, low with a certain sort of light-hearted grumble, and his face naturally squirmed as he spoke, even though to all intents, he was by far the most composed and confident in the room. Twenty minutes must have passed. (I had long since gotten used to the telling of time without a time-telling device.)

He was still looking at me.

I was looking everywhere but him. I couldn't. I wouldn't know what to do, or say. I wasn't good like that, I couldn't turn that on. In my peripheral vision, his pale head leaned towards me, hinting of an interest in the eye contact I refused to deliver.

"I would like,"

His eyes roaming across the room, with a beautifully warped, yet genuine open smile, he halted slightly in his words.

"…I would like...to ask you some questions, Miss Stevens."

I fainted.

Sighing, the blonde man stood up with evident frustration, dropping the ceramic cup onto the cement underneath his shoes, marching away from the sickly girl who couldn't look him in the eye.