Trigger warning: Self-harm is described in this chapter.


It was another near sleepless night. At least this time, I hadn't woken up screaming. What I dreamt, I couldn't remember, but I woke up, trying to catch my breath as if I had been running from something. I sat there in the dark, and the room was pitch black, except for a dim light coming from underneath the office door. Even still, I couldn't see six inches in front of me.

I had assumed Caius was in the other room, but when I felt a cool breath along my neck, my shoulders tensed, and I froze, the sensation sending a shiver down my spine. Caius's hands clasped over my shoulders, his icy thumbs at the back of my neck. I swallowed. One of his nails scraped down, but they didn't cut into my skin, though I had a feeling they could have if he had wanted them to. Aro had proven that point.

"Are you afraid?" He whispered in my ear. My heart was pounding. Was he really asking that?

"Do you want me to be?"

Caius hummed against my neck. Why was he so close? What did he want? "You're different from the others."

My head was quickly pulled back, his arm going around my throat as if he were ready to snap my neck or maybe my head clean off from my body. I couldn't help but whimper slightly. I was afraid, but at the same time, I knew he was only toying with me. Caius had said that I shouldn't trust him, but I did trust his loyalty to Aro. I willed myself to calm down. Besides, if he was going to kill me, I couldn't stop it anyway.

"Not even a struggle." He released me, and I fell forward as he did. I saw the hint of his silhouette sit down on the other side of the sofa. "Go back to sleep."

The next morning, Caius escorted me to the kitchen to eat breakfast. This was after he had taken me to Aro's quarters for a more modest choice of garment beside his button-down. Food had been waiting like it was every day. Caius sat across from me like Aro would, and I opened the paper bag to retrieve the pastry inside. I would have preferred fruit, but Aro kept commenting that I needed something more substantial than only a piece of fruit. Eventually, he told his secretary to start bringing me breakfast from one of the local cafes on her way in.

I picked it apart, Caius staring at me, the edge of his lips tilted up in a smirk. "It seems I'm not the only one who sometimes likes playing with my food."

I looked up at him, biting the inside of my lip. That wasn't really something I needed to know about. It put images in my mind that I fought to get rid of. "I'm not very hungry."

"You didn't eat yesterday or the day before that if what my brother said was correct. Do you plan on starving yourself indefinitely?"

"It makes me feel ill," I replied.

"Then perhaps you are ill. Should we call a doctor to check in on you? I could always use a dessert afterward," Caius said, the smirk he wore even wider now. Shaking my head, I picked up a small piece that I had torn off of the pastry and put it in my mouth and chewed. "That's better. I'd hate to see Aro's reaction should he return to find out that you had refused your meals."

Slowly, I ate a few more bites and then stopped. My stomach felt sick, anxiety perhaps, but either way, I didn't like the feeling. I heard a noise at the door to see Marcus entering the room. He spoke to Caius quickly in one of the languages I didn't recognize, and Caius departed from the kitchen, Marcus taking the seat he once occupied.

"Finish your meal," was all Marcus said to me. I took a few deep breaths before doing so, not rushing, and hoping he wasn't becoming impatient.

When I finished, I glanced up at him and asked, "Is Caius coming back?"

"Aro needed to speak with him."

"Aro's back?"

Marcus shook his head. "No. He called. He won't return until late tonight or early morning." He took a moment, studying me like he was peering into my soul or something. "Were you missing him?"

I swallowed, a bit taken back by the question. Was I missing Aro? "He said he'd be back in a couple of days if things went well. That's all."

"Ah."

I followed Marcus as he stood, and after tossing the paper bag the food came in, we left the kitchen and went to the elevator, heading back downstairs. When we exited, we were on the same floor as Caius's rooms, so I thought Marcus was taking me back, and perhaps Caius was waiting like the previous time, only hopefully not with another body. I wasn't quite sure I believed what happened the previous day. At least, I didn't want to believe it, and I firmly told myself that it had all been a dream.

Instead of taking me back to Caius, we entered the music room, and Marcus brought me over to the piano. He told me to sit on the bench, and I did. However, unlike Aro, Marcus pulled a chair from across the room, placing it next to the bench before sitting. While he was up, he had picked up a small book with what I recognized to be music notes on the pages. He placed the book on the piano, so I could see it, but I had no idea what the notes were or why they all looked so different. Music class in elementary school had been a very long time ago.

"Aro mentioned he had taught you the notes in middle C," I heard Marcus say.

I glanced at him and nodded. "He tried to anyway."

Marcus only gave a sad smile and helped me position my hands back the way Aro had placed them previously. "Your thumbs are on middle C. The notes go up from there to G. Use your right hand."

I gently pressed my thumb down on the middle C, and then, in turn, pressed each finger down on my right hand going up what Marcus called a scale. "Now, the other way. The notes go down from C until you reach A, and then they start over with G." I did what he said, and listened to the letters as he recited them out loud.

"Good," Marcus praised me. He pointed to the page that he had opened up in the book. I at least knew the notes were on something called a staff, but instead of introducing me to the notes themselves, he discussed their timing.

He pointed to one, colored in black, a stem going up, and said, "This is a quarter note. It gets one count." The next note he pointed to also had a stem, but it wasn't colored in. "This is a half note."

Marcus continued pointing out the different notes to me and their timing, ending with eighth notes, and then he showed me how to play them, counting along in beats of four. The way he taught was much easier to learn than the way Aro explained. Marcus didn't seem bothered if I had a question or if I made a mistake. He simply showed me again.

All in all, his voice was quiet, firm, but monotone to a fault. He was the complete opposite of Aro and Caius. Aro loved to speak and changed moods so quickly that it was hard to keep up, and Caius… I still didn't have him figured out yet besides the fact that he understood my purpose for pain.

However, the thing that I had the most trouble understanding was Caius's comments about Aro. It wasn't lost on me when he questioned what Aro had told me about killing me one day. Even when I first met Aro, Caius brought up other motives. At first, I thought it was the fact that Aro really wanted to keep me for my blood, and then I realized it was actually for his game. Now though, was that wrong? Was there something even more, or was I overthinking it? Maybe Caius said it to keep me on edge. He had a tendency to put me there more often than not. Can I trust you? You shouldn't. That's what I had asked and what he had said.

I couldn't stop myself from asking, and the question spilled out of my mouth. "Is there something else that Aro really wants from me?"

Marcus looked at me, his eyes gazing into mine before replying. "Caius said something to you?"

"Not exactly. He made a comment, and it got me thinking that maybe there was something else that Aro still hadn't told me."

"I would speak to Aro about it when he returns. His connection to you is something I've rarely seen before." I looked at Marcus, curious as to what he meant. "Aro is attracted to the scent of your blood, but he's also intrigued by your mind and thoughts."

What did Marcus mean by my thoughts? I didn't have much to say when Aro and I did talk, and when we spoke, it was usually about whatever he wanted me to study. "Is it the whole game he's playing? Trying to see how long it'll be before I give into him? Is that what intrigues him?" I paused. "Last night, or early this morning maybe, Caius said I was different from the others. Aro never told me that there were others, but I've known for a while. How is it that I'm different?"

"Why do you ask such questions? Are you not happy to still be alive?"

I shrugged. "I'm tired of being used."

Marcus sighed, a sound really unnecessary for him. Whether he was already bored of me or not, it would be hard to tell. Every time I had seen him, his expression was never much different than it was now as if he had seen it all, and he was only waiting for an end to come. "Aro does have further plans for you, but whether he will be able to act on them is so far untold."

"What sort of plans?"

"That I cannot say. I am unaware of what these plans are. He has only spoken of such to me."

At that moment, Caius entered the room but stayed in the doorway where he was leaning against the frame. "Telling all of his secrets, brother?"

"She should at least know that she's not merely here for his entertainment. The bond between them has grown, as has yours."

Caius scoffed at this, whatever Marcus had said meant. "I have no attachments to that human, but her tolerance and enjoyment for pain does entice me."

His words made me very uncomfortable, especially as Marcus turned to look back in my direction. I didn't enjoy pain. Who would? But there was something about it that was freeing, and that feeling I enjoyed. It was better than the memories.

"You should have seen her yesterday. Her performance was exhilarating," Caius added, a leer in his eyes.

My eyes hit the ground with those words. It was hard to pretend it never happened when Caius brought it up like that. All of the blurry images hit me again, and it made me dizzy. Marcus took his hand and placed it on my shoulder, a comforting gesture, unlike Caius's earlier.

"What performance?" Marcus asked with worry etched in his tone, the first time I had really heard any sort of inflection that I could recall. It wasn't that which surprised me, though. The fact that he had sounded worried did. Could he actually care? No. I put that thought aside immediately.

"Nothing to be upset about, Marcus. She quite enjoyed it."

The sickening thing was that he wasn't lying. I really think I had enjoyed it while still in the moment. Now, however, now that I was being forced to think about it again, I felt guilty. I wasn't sure if he was even dead when I was through with him or merely unconscious. Had Caius been the one to kill him, or was it actually, truly me?

My chest squeezed tight, and I was finding it difficult to breathe again. Marcus and Caius both noticed, and Caius appeared in front of us, saying, "I'll take her."

Caius grabbed my arm and pulled me along beside him, practically dragging me back to his rooms, Marcus saying nothing behind us as he disappeared around the corner. Caius sat me on the sofa and went to his office, and when he returned, the scalpel was in his hand. The last thing I expected him to do was hand it to me. Obviously, I was no threat to him, but what did he want me to do with it?

"You need to feel pain. It calms you, doesn't it? Seeing the blood, feeling the sharp cut of the blade." His voice was very calm, very soft, and my heart continued to pound in my chest as I tried to stop the panic that was rising in my throat. "Do it."

Concentrating on the scalpel in my hand, I brought it up to my arm, just above the faded line of the previous which Caius had marked me with, and pushed it into my arm, sliding it across. It did help, as much as I wanted to stop myself, as much as I hated what I had just done, it was helping. I made another mark above that one, deeper this time.

Caius sat and watched, holding my wrist in his hand to keep my arm steady. "Careful, not too deep." I made a third mark right under where his hand held my wrist, and Caius wiped up a bit of the blood with his finger and placed it in his mouth.

The next thing I knew, Caius had pushed his sleeve up his arm, took my hand in his, and still with the knife, guided me into making a cut just below his wrist, the same place I had put mine. He bled, more slowly than I, more slowly than Aro, but he bled. He relaxed back on the sofa and examined my face as he spoke. "Do it again."

I glanced at him, confused, but he only nodded. With a deep breath, I did what I was told and cut him again just below the first. He sighed, not in pain, but almost as if it had felt good. I dropped the knife into his lap, no longer wanting to hold it or have it near me. What was wrong with me? Something seriously had to be. This wasn't normal.

Caius's wounds healed up quickly, all that was left was a streak of blood, which he licked from his wrist. The blood on my arm had spread and kept oozing out. It wouldn't heal quickly this time. I would have to wait for my body's healing processes to kick in on their own without help.

Caius hummed next to me and took my arm back into his hands. "Your blood is appealing, but I imagine it is more so to Aro seeing how he's so protective of it." Was that why Caius was only staring and not doing anything else? He took a small bit earlier, but that was it.

He stood quickly and left to go into the office, taking the scalpel with him. When he returned, he carried a towel from the bathroom and used it to dab at the cuts on my arm, putting pressure on the cuts to help the wounds to clot. When the bleeding stopped, he threw the towel on the ground and reached over me to grab the other book Aro had wanted me to read, which was now sitting back on the side table. "Perhaps the language in this one will be simpler for you."

Caius handed the book to me, and I opened it up, the first play listed was Antigone, which I apparently pronounced all wrong. He chided me when correcting, and I sighed. There was no way I was getting through this play if I couldn't even pronounce the title. I began to read slowly to only once again be stopped by mispronouncing Ismene's name, and within the same sentence, stumbled on yet another word.

I heard Caius sigh before he took the book from my hands. "I will read. You follow along."

And so I sat there next to him, my head eventually falling against his arm, listening to words he read, while I chased after the words on the page, trying to keep up with his speed. At some point, my eyes closed, my breathing leveled, and my sleep for the next few hours was quiet.


A/N: Thank you all again for reading and reviewing! This is a really difficult story for me to write because of the reasons I'm writing it. I know it can get intense at moments, at least it does for me, so please take care of yourself by engaging in positive activities such as meditation or yoga, speaking to a trusted adult, or doing something that you enjoy.