...beneath my soul – beneath my skin...

~....~

Time held no more solidity to her. Jenny could never tell what time of day or night it was. Sometimes she didn't know the difference between the two as Julian would keep her trapped in his embrace, away from her friends, invisible to the realm outside the window. What felt like hours could have been days for all she knew. She never complained, or questioned it – the more time she spent with Julian, the faster she would reap her revenge.

The act of making love had become nothing but a physical deed of lust, and a means to release the pent up aggression writhing inside of Jenny. She never thought it would be possible to hate – truly, deeply, purely hate – the shadow man cradling her against him that moment. Their sweat drenched bodies clung together, heady breaths caressing one another's burning skin, and Jenny thought she'd never felt so inwardly cold before. Her blood was like sharp, icy streams circulating through her core. When she gazed up into the beautiful heavy lidded eyes, dark with insufferable passion, she somehow expected him to see right through her.

He didn't. Julian's lips were soft and warm, leaving a trail of shivery sparks over her lips and along her jaw line. Completely caught in the moment – blind to any ill intentions Jenny might have. He had to know she didn't mean it when she reciprocated his devotion to her, though; he had to know that she was thinking of all the horrible things he'd done to her while she was smiling up into his eyes. He had to, but Jenny knew he didn't pay it any heed. An involuntary quiver of pleasure washed over her when his lips nuzzled in the crook of her neck, and Jenny's arms tightened around him.

She closed her eyes, and pretended with all her strength that it was Tom she was holding onto. It was Tom who was kissing her so tenderly; it was Tom caressing her with a touch so cool and soft that it left her trembling and weak. She didn't quite succeed – she pictured Tom's raking charm in her mind, and her pleasure drew up short when she saw the stormy look upon his handsome face. This was wrong. She shouldn't be doing this. That's what his expression said.

Jenny pushed Julian's hands away from her and opened her eyes, avoiding looking at him altogether. She propped herself up on the bed, and scanned the elegant room in silky rich colours for her clothes.

"What's the matter?" Julian asked.
Jenny nearly succumbed to his captivating gaze and his wolfish smile. His entire persona emanated an unbendable trust in her. She knew she had him where she needed him – entirely enthralled with her, putty in her hands. He was vulnerable, blind, and stupid. She didn't have to prolong the warm up anymore, she was ready to face him in battle, and she knew she would come out triumphant. But then, Jenny had her doubts. Was her delay of the inevitable war due to fear of failure? Or was it that she'd played her role at sabotaging Julian's defences so well that she believed she was in a comfortable and safe place? He would never know better, and no one else would have to get hurt.

What is it...what...what...
Jenny frowned hard when Julian's fingertips danced down her back. She stiffened, and swatted his hand away.
"I'm tired." Jenny said curtly. Her eyes found her clothes draped over a tall Victorian chair, and she made no show of getting dressed.
"Jenny," Julian sighed her name. It still held that ability to turn her stomach into a mass of fluttering pixies, but Jenny didn't turn toward him. It wasn't real. None of it was.

The feelings he evoked in her were purely hormonal; her body responding to his, his words digging into the holes in her defences and weakening her even more. She knew this, because she was playing him the same way. There was no love in it though, not from her. Julian might be able to turn her mind to mush with a bat of an eyelash, but he couldn't move her heart the same way Tom did. There, Tom had no rival. He had her core in his grasp, and he'd taken it with him when Julian killed him – but instead of having a void inside of her because of his demise, Tom's absence had unleashed a white-hot fire that Jenny never knew she had.

It was the fire that drove her to play this dangerous game; the memory of what had been taken away from her that spurred her on to seek justice.
Oh, Julian was going to pay.

Jenny turned back to flash him her most seductive smile. Or rather, what she hoped was seductive – she'd never actually had practice at flirting with guys. She never had to, because Tom had been her everything, and he'd been enough.
"Julian," She sighed his name back, and nonchalantly strolled to the door. "I'm going out. Where are my friends?"
"Downstairs," Julian grumbled, dropping back on the bed and glaring up at the ceiling.
Jenny skipped down the stairs – and there were a lot of stairs – until she finally reached the ground floor. Sunlight poured through the windows and warmed the neutral coloured carpet beneath her feet. She poked her head into every room, and frowned in dismay when she found no one.

Her eye caught on the door that led down to the basement, and she stared at it for a moment.
"There's a game of dungeons and dragons under way outside," Julian's voice made her whip around sharply. He was standing on the bottom step behind her, flanked in a suit of glossy white-gold armour. She could see her startled reflection off his chest, and gathered her composure.

He was a white knight – and a breathtaking one at that. Jenny still couldn't get her head around how he managed to look more eccentric, more beautiful, every time she saw him. Maybe her memory of his appearance faded as soon as she looked away from him, because of course, there were no words to describe just how beautiful he was, no memory sharp enough to retain the vivid details of his dazzling exterior. That had to be why he was a shock to her senses every single time, Jenny mused.

"A knight? I would have expected you to go for the role of a villain, like one of the dragons." Jenny said, blinking away the immediate dazedness his presence caused in her.
Julian shrugged and leaned against the banister, luminous blue eyes darting from Jenny to the basement door in front of her, and back. "I wanted to play the hero and save my damsel in distress."
"So?" She responded to his expectant glance.
"You don't feel like playing." Julian stated unhappily.
"No."
Julian blinked. "I could always force you."
"You could try." Jenny said and tried to swallow the lump of fear in the throat inconspicuously.
Julian stared at her for another moment with piercing gaze, his shoulders stiff with tension. Then, very slowly, the strain melted away and a disturbing little smile curled across his lips. "Fine. Next time, you will join me."

His tension seemed to have rolled off him and onto her. Jenny rigidly watched him stroll to the front door. He turned back as he closed the door, and sent her a disconcerting wink before disappearing from her sight.

"Temperamental, no-good, arrogant little wraith..." Jenny muttered under her breath, twisting the basement doorknob and wrenching the door open. "Audrey! Michael, are you guys down there?"
"Jenny?"
"Jenny, help!"
The feeble cries mangled with unmistakable, breathless terror had a magnetic pull because Jenny found her body acting on instinct. She nearly flew down the stairs into the basement. Her heart was suddenly pounding in her head, and she found a scream of horror storming inside her chest. What did he do-?

The scream ripped free from her chest and filled the room when she saw the closet door bulging – like the one at the haunted mansion in Disneyland, like the one back in the paper house. The only difference was that something was coming through the cracks around the door. Something as black as coals and with what looked like enormous bloody perforations in the slimy skin. A giant squid, Jenny thought, or an octopus. Those were tentacles.

What caused her to freak out was the sight of one of those colossal tentacles wrapped around Audrey. Michael was standing just out of their reach, swatting at the monstrosity with a chair, weakly trying to bat the thing away from Audrey. His rumpled face was ghastly pale and crunched up painfully, his lips were quivering, and silent tears were racing down his cheeks. Andrea was at the door, pressed up against it, straining to keep the monster from coming out.

"Mike, get out!" Andrea sobbed.
"Audrey..." Michael choked out with a slight shake of his head, and swung at the tentacles again.
"It's too late... and I can't keep it back for much longer. Get out!" Andrea nearly shrieked. "Jenny, get him out of here!"
Jenny stepped forward, swallowing the rest of the screams that wanted to follow. She looked around for any kind of weapon she could use, but there was nothing. A desk, and a lamp. Nothing else. Michael was still swiping at it with the chair. And Audrey was horribly limp as the monster swung her around. Jenny hoped she was just unconscious.

"Enough! Let her go!" Jenny said loudly over Andrea's panting and Michael's quiet sobs.
It didn't seem to work. Jenny would have thought it was Julian playing this game, his way of making a point to her that he didn't like her rejecting him. She thought that he would do as she said without question though, but the monster didn't let go. Maybe this wasn't Julian's doing...

Sheer insanity breathed through her. Jenny bit down hard on her lip, stepped into reach of the beastly tentacles, and managed to grab hold of Audrey's arm. She forcibly tugged her friend toward her, and the tentacles allowed her. And then Jenny was pulling the heavy slimy thing off of Audrey, yanking at it with both her arms, unwinding it. It yielded to her touch, and withdrew back into the closet. The bulging ceased, and Andrea slumped down to the floor in exhaustion.

Jenny was staring at Audrey, lying flat on the floor in front of her. Michael dropped to his knees beside her, curled into a ball, and wept. His sobs echoed eerily off the basement walls – it was one of the most horrible sounds Jenny had ever heard.

She was dead. The tentacle had crushed her to death; bone protruded through her cashmere blouse, along with pink flesh and drops of crimson. Her auburn hair was in disarray, her porcelain complexion drawn tight over bone. A little stream of blood had left a red trail from her cherry-clad lips down her chin, and her brown eyes were open and as glossy as fish eyes.

Jenny leaned closer with a trembling hand and carefully closed the dead girl's eyes. Then she wrapped her arms around Michael's shaking form, draping herself over him like she had with Tom, and she cried.