Please review, friends! I would like to know what ya'll think! And lately this story hasn't had much in the way of reviewing… The last two chapters have been nearly void of reviews. Sorry this one is short!

Thank you for reading Prisoner as always.

The soulless Sarah had laid Jareth back across a soft bed of moss. Her hair fell low and tickled his face while she leaned over him and kissed his forehead. She had removed much from his person: his amulet, his coat and his boots, so that he was dressed only in his pants and shirt, bare feet dirtied with the earth. He never would have let something like this happen, but it was Sarah, his glorious Sarah, who had him flattened and open to her touches. Under her control, he could do nothing. Submission had never been a part of his personality; kings were the dominant. He had the compulsion to follow her commands; a promise that lingered in the air enslaved him joyfully to her.

"Jareth." She said softly.

He reached for her, fingers brushing her cheeks before she drew herself up and away so he couldn't grasp her. She smiled at him, and it was just a little too wide. He was beginning to notice the slight differences. Her lips were too puffy, but only a little. Their color was deeper, a purplish red, like a bruise. Her teeth were quite ordinary, but perhaps too sharp.

He experienced the sheer bladed quality of her teeth when she bit into the flesh of his neck, drawing blood and making him whine. It was a monstrous appetite this Sarah had. While she began to suck the blood from his neck Jareth began to realize his mistake.

The wild bog was scentless, or smelled like Sarah's own musk so well that she could not detect it. It was dark and calm, there was for sound only the hush of her bare feet on the ground and the gentle thud of her heart in her ears. She saw when the stone path ended a weak bridge of rock. Recalling her first experience with a bog bridge she searched for some other way to where the path continued. The bog itself was a great, black bubble, with pale fumes rising silently and warming the air with scentless clouds. Sarah kneeled down near where the bridge started so as to see over the edge. She peered down into the water-like pond, and saw that the bog moved slowly, like a sleepy sea beast, whose flesh was rippling gently with chills. It was black, but she could detect some traces of colored bodies beneath, rolling through the gurgling waves. There proved to be no other way to the other side of the bog but the sighing bridge.

Tremulous and weak-looking, the bridge swayed gently when she first stepped on its stone body. It made her freeze with nervousness.

"Come on feet." Her voice shook gently. The first bog had not seemed nearly as frightening as this one, though it may have smelled enough to make her hair curl, there was nothing about it which seemed all that terrifying. But the way strange figures moved beneath the surface of this bog water, so black that only the faintest forms could be seen within. Before she could take another step, either forward or backward, there was such a loud crack that her hands flew to her ears and the bridge spiraled down beneath her feet. She tumbled downward and crashed into the icy, thick bog. And she sank.

Linda was sitting in a waiting room with Jeremy at her side holding her hands tightly in his own

"You're going to be fine." He was saying. "They will just give you some sleep medication."

"He is punishing me." She said quietly

"I know." Jeremy was answering honestly. She had grabbed hold of him the night before and told him the terrible story of Sarah, the baby she gave up and the old family friend who took her off her hands. He had sat through it all, stomaching the shameful story.

"But he gave her to her father…" Jeremy had recalled awkward dinners where Sarah, silent and solemn, had sat across the table from him. He could recall with depth the way her chilly green eyes had looked at him, with the hint of jealousy.

"Yes." Linda confirmed. She was watching across the waiting room where a dark haired boy was poking the glass of the shining fish tank, his dark haired mother sitting beside him and reading a magazine. "And he took her back again, a few years ago. He's had her now for almost four years."

"But she's a minor still… Does he have custody of her? Legally?"

"Yes, he can do anything, legal or otherwise. But… She is happy with him… She is attached to him."

"What do mean by attached?"

"He has a way of making anyone like him, mostly… He has… wealth."

"Is Sarah a materialistic girl?"

She hesitated. "I actually don't know. I know nothing about her."

Jeremy was quiet then, puzzling over Linda and her daughter. It had seemed through all of his experience with the girl, who was fifteen last he saw, that she was at the very least awkward. Sarah had been quiet, with her mother's raven hair and a wild set of green eyes. She spoke very little when she visited, and her focus was set only on Linda. She adored her, with a visible, glowing passion. Her eyes followed her when she moved through a room, she followed her like a duckling, so closely that Linda would give Jeremy frustrated stares.

Whatever partial lies she had to tell, Linda still felt relieved for actually telling Jeremy some truths.

In the doctor's office Jeremy was violently trying to soothe her guilt. They were safe now, she was not to blame for mistakes of her youth.

Linda tried hard to believe him but her body was cold and heavy. She felt as though she was drowning.

Sarah broke the surface and accidently swallowed bog while she gasped for air. It clung to her in large sticky globs, pulling at her clothes and tearing at her hair, hard enough to rip some from her skull. She felt large curling bodies hard and warm, swimming and knocking at her feet and rubbing at her calves. Everything was heavy and freezing.

She surged through the pool, struggling against its hardness and choking on the black sludge that clung to her throat. The banks of the bog were drawing nearer, but when she thought that she may make it. Something wrapped itself around her leg. She was, at one moment drawing near the shore, where she could see a forest begin, and then the next moment she was blinded and without breath.

She fumbled in the water, arms wild, mouth gaping and nasty bog filled her and she grew furious with pain. She continued to flail.

She wished that she could break away. She wished the monster m holding her thigh would fall away and she could escape. Her eyes flew open and she fought violently against her captor.

What at first looked like nothing but a pale splatter of light through the water, came swimming into focus a tan face. The blackness fell away and detail come over its features. When the peculiar eyes and strong features came into focus through the murk, Sarah could see that it was Jareth there, naked body glowing gold in the darkness. He swam to her through the bog darkness and when he reached for her the creature holding her thigh let go of her and slide away. She was drawn through the thickness and the painful daze was overtaking her now. She could barely feel the kiss that he laid on her lips as gently as possible before she closed her eyes and lost consciousness.