Hello hello! And welcome to the newest addition to Heart Veneer. This actually isn't the last chapter, it was going to be, but then I found myself at a semi-cliffy type thing. So the next chapter will probably wrap everything up in a neat little package for you. I don't want to rush, but I do want to get this story done because I want to move on to other things! Yay.

I apologise if the format is messed up, this is the first time I'm trying html document.

I thank you all so much for your reviews!! I really hope you like this chapter!

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iThey screamed for me... and then there was silence.../i

Tortured screams came from the room across the hall, yelling her name in agony. She heard their choked cries and the slashes and blows being delivered to them.

She stood frozen at her bedroom door in shock, trying to will herself to run to them. She finially mustered the courage, but just as she started to sprint the screams suddenly stopped.

A deafening silence engulfed her entirely. She wanted to scream, to cry, but she didn't. She just sat there, slumped in the hallway, frozen.

A man slowly approached her. She didn't look up at him, if he tried to kill her she wouldn't stop him. There was no reason, no will to live. Nothing was left, everything she had ever loved was suddenly desroyed.

But instead of killing her, the man bent down, looking her in the eyes. His gaze was searching and sorrowful.

She pleaded with him, begging him to kill her, to just put her out of her misery. But for some reason, he wanted to not only let her live, but to grant her ...immortality.

Forever is a very long time, she didn't think she would last another day after what had just happened.

"What," she asked, growing weary of this conversation, "could keep me going for eternity, when I have nothing to live for anymore?"

The man stood up, straightening is posture. "Revenge," he said. "To do to those beasts what they have done to your family."

~~~~~

She wished he had killed her that night. She wished she would have been first, so that she would not have had to see them like that. Their partially severed heads, limbs strewn about; it was her last memory of them. The strongest of them. Every time she thought of them, inevitably she thought of that.

Selene felt that in some way, Viktor was torturing her all that time, and he knew it. He knew that it had always pained her just to live, if living is what you wish to call it. He knew that killing never did and never would truly bring her any satisfaction.

The only kill she felt was just was when she killed him.

But it gave her no solace, nothing could. Nothing could neither settle nor rouse her swimming thoughts.

She heard their cries again, relived that night every time she dared to move. It frightened her. She didn't try anymore. Trying would bring their voices back. Trying would destroy her from the inside out.

***

It had been days since Michael had brought Selene to the lycan den. They tolerated her, for the most part. Most of them never once laid eyes on her, for she was in her room the entire time, never moving, never sleeping.

He couldn't bare to leave her alone in there, couldn't bare not to be with her. But he also couldn't bare seeing her that way. Her eyes shifted every once in a while, but that was all.

She wouldn't feed, had no response to the blood given to her. Her skin grew ghastly pale, more so than it usually was, if it was at all possible. But it seemed possible nolonger held meaning. All bets were off on that. Everything she embodied pushed the limits. Immortality had not been possible before he had met her. Anything was possible, and only those unfavorable played out.

She pushed the limits of what he thought suffering could ever be. Watching her made his heart turn inside out, how painful it is to walk in the room and to have the woman you love not even look up, not knowing you're there, perhaps she would never know he was there.

But one day he opened the door only to find her in the corner of the room, not where he had left her. His heart leapt but was quickly crushed when he neared her.

A pool of blood lay under her, dripping down from her arms. Her eyes were just barely open, still an icy blue.

He rushed to her, fearing the worst, fearing he would lose her forever. He had a plan for what he would do if she were to die. It was the only option for that situation, none other entered his mind.

For if Selene were to die, the only thing he could do was to die too.

But she was not dead. Just barely alive, she was, still bleeding and not quite conscious. He gathered her up and rushed her to the infirmary, hoping that there was hope.

Her wounds were deep and they had to be stitched, they had also hooked an IV to her, pumping blood she was lacking.

Days later she had recovered, in a physical sense at least. He took her back to their room, but still she did not move.

***

She had meant to end it, meant to finally put herself out of her misery. It had taken all her stregnth just to get that far, and now she was still stuck alive and unable to move. It angered her, but that was all, really. Her thoughts were never clear, just emotions and sometimes ideas. The world around her was a blur, held no meaning but forms moving about and shifting of light. The only clear thing she ever saw or felt or heard was when she was taken back to that night.

***

More days, and still nothing.

***

She was back in her house again, it was that night. Only this time it was different. She was in the yard, holding Viktor's sword, her family was safe in the house. She sliced his head apart, just as she had done centuries too late.

She felt calm now, she went inside to join her family. The huddled around her, saying they loved her. None of them seemed as happy as she had always imagined they would be.

One of her nieces looked up at her, her eyes large and sad. "Aunt Selene," she said, "What about Michael Corvin?"