Hello my lovely readers! I appreciate the support, and all the good reviews I am receiving to continuing this story! You don't know how excited I get when I get a review, especially long ones. So don't be afraid to be a little lengthy! This chapter has some Dan of course and a little something else. I really hope I can keep up the pace with this story. You guys really inspire me, and I appreciate it loads!

Enjoy! :)

~Mz. Jinky 3

Chapter 14: Sitting by a Pond

I concentrated hard as I watched my vines grow, intertwining themselves around each other. I grew to find maternal connections to my vegetation. They were mine. And I could tell what they were feeling, as abnormal as it was. As an example at this very moment, my plants were having fun. I was letting them bloom freely and wildly in the backyard and they were enjoying themselves quite well doing so. I sighed. I still didn't want this. No matter what joy these vines gave me, or what challenges and struggles I did to be at this point in my power, I didn't want it. Not anymore than Vlad wanted me to be here.

"Fancy meeting you out here this evening," I heard from approaching footsteps. I shook my head.

"Not really considering the fact that I'm out here every day, Dan," I responded at his greeting. "Really, you must get that brain fixed. At the pace that it's working, it's very unlikely that you are thinking very much often."

He grinned. "And the sarcasm continues…"

"Sarcasm? That was the damn truth. Can you leave me be now?"

He sat beside me silently our arms touching just slightly. Guess not, I thought.

"You're getting very good at this," he complimented. I blushed… Why'd I do that?

"Flattery gets you know where, Dan."

"By the color of your cheeks I say it does," he said picking up my right hand to my cheek and stroking it with his own. I slapped them away in annoyance and stared back at my vines. The moon was out and the stars twinkled here. That was another great aspect of living in Vlad's mansion. The stars. You don't get this in the polluted air wastes and car exhausts. Jake called me a dork for wishing for things like that when we were little… God, I missed him.

"Samantha…"

"Don't you dare call me that." I told him sternly, letting my vines shrink into the ground and be still from their movement.

"You're sad," he stated.

"We've discussed this before. Isn't it your job to assure of my misery for Danny's demise? Why should it matter to you?" I snapped at him standing up abruptly.

His eyes flashed. Interesting…

He glared at me deeply and stood up also and stepped closer to my body. I glared right back. "I don't appreciate being spoken to like that."

"That kinda sucks, don't it?"

Clenching his fists, he stormed away his boots crunching into the dirt.

I exhaled deeply and ran a hand over my face. I was exhausted and just sick of Dan's confusing signals to me. I didn't understand, nor did I wish to stick around long enough to actually do so.

I walked over to the pond by the garden that Dan had me visit a few days ago and sat crisscrossed. I day dreamed for a short while picking up and a flower and creating trails in the water with it.

Jake would've hated it here, I thought for a moment, He's so much like Mom and Dad.

Flashback:

"Don't be such a baby, Jake," an eleven year old me said floating on my back in a pond.

"I'm not being a baby, that water is just dirty. Who knows what animals and others have peed in there?" Jake responded snotty-like with his head held high.

Stood up in the water and smiled at my elder brother. "It's the circle of life, embrace it!"

"You're such a hippie."

It was the summer of '05 and I made a bet with Jake that if our parents had kicked us out of the house in less than 2 days, he would have to take me camping. They kicked us out after 29 hours.

"Is somebody chicken? Is the big bad brother chicken?" I shouted for anyone to hear. A vein appeared to the side of his head and I giggled at the bulging line.

"I'm not chicken," he muttered gnashing his teeth. Then he grinned. "Who knows what kind of fish you are infesting with your human diseases."

I widened my eyes. He can't be serious about that right? I don't have any diseases, I thought frantically. I take showers, and I brush my teeth, I don't eat fish…

"Shut up Jake," I commanded him sticking out my tongue. "I don't have any diseases."

"Who knows, you haven't gone to the doctor in about a year anyhow…"

I scampered from the pond and crouched over the water, looking for any human germs I may have spread to infest the fish. I really hoped that they were okay…

Jake suddenly began laughing fits rolling around in the dirt, gasping for breath. I stood up dumbfounded and aggravated at my gullibility.

"You are so stupid sometimes, Sam," he wheezed in between his laughter. "Bet if I told you the sky is falling youd believe that too, huh?"

I breathed in and out, trying my best to contain my anger. Counting back from ten in the attempt of calming down. "Are you finished?" I shivered, the temperature difference was much colder now after coming out of the pond.

Jake's eyes softened and he straightened his posture, smiling softly, "Yeah, I'm through," he admitted walking over to me and draping his arm over my shoulders, his body heat ridding away my goose bumps.

"Thanks."

I stared into the pond that I was sitting in front of and moved my toes into the water. Taking in the coldness, the numbness in my feet, the loneliness. How a person could live on their own n a mansion such as this, was beyond me.

"Samantha," I cringed. Couldn't help it. It became habit, my nature. Samantha was the name of a little girl who wore pigtails and did whatever she was told. Sam…is a young woman. However, that's a story for a another chapter. I turned around and found Vlad in his human form. What was he holding?

Was that a..?

A telephone?

"You are entitled to one phone call."