Chapter XIII: 1, 2, Dakota's coming for you…
"But […] I am an instance to prove the contrary:
For I am damned, and am now in Hell."
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
[ Seven hours before ]
WHAT ALL THE tragic heroines said about happy endings, how the only realities were the never-happens and ends-poorly, were proven accurate. I knew it, too. I knew I was kidding myself walking home all elated, thinking stupid thoughts. Who was I fooling? Sure, maybe in a perfect world Paul and I would work out. We'd have picnic dates and laugh at other sappy, bubbled-up couples. We'd swing hands to see who tired out first and kiss behind closed doors. We'd be in love.
I was reminded of the images I held during our parking-lot domestic spat, of this so-called perfect world. One where I wasn't prey or breaking at the seams. Dakota wasn't real. He wasn't tangible.
Here, he was.
And he wouldn't get the fuck out of my head.
Guardians testing you? Sorry, sweetheart. Taste your fear.
We'll talk later.
I'm sure you'll feel a little more accommodating then.
Talk later. Where later?
Sweetheart, touch, fear… touching me, hurting me, taunting me.
Dakota, the ever-mysterious monster behind my current fears. He was a predator without any sort of apparent weaknesses. He was marble-cold, marble-hard, near-unbreakable. I couldn't see any outcome where I'd be the victorious one on the other end. Nothing good would come from our next meeting, I was sure.
Wait, wait, wait.
Where am I?
I opened my eyes—previously clenched shut—and surveyed my surroundings. I was in school. I was slumped against my easel. I had paint matting my hair. It was all over my clothes. My head ached, as did my chest. And everyone, from Mr. Meadows in the doorway to Mrs. Johnson at the front, was staring at me. I was probably a ghastly sight.
When I'd returned to school, I hadn't bothered hiding my true state of mind. I let the fear, fatigue, and anger show. I came here pale like Casper and sleep-deprived like an Elm Street kid doped up on Hypnocil. I couldn't get Dakota out of my head. He was stuck there, a permanent part of my memories now.
Don't forget about his visit, I reminded myself. He was a memory. An unwanted memory, but that didn't make him any less real. Don't put your guard down.
"Come on, Alissa," said Mr. Meadows from his place at the doorway. I had no other choice but to get up and follow him, like a pig to the slaughter.
I was mute, a shell of a human-being, as Mr. Meadows urged me to his office. Everyone from Kallie to Jeremiah stared at me while I left, sick and fatigued, the very image of a "Don't do drugs, kids!" poster.
Mr. Meadows's office was familiar. I'd been here dozens of times, sometimes because I'd lashed out and other times because my teachers thought I was depressed. Hardly ever did I avoid spitting out the truth, so the strict, dark-haired man knew more about me than most—including Kallie. He knew all about my Jared drama and I'd even mentioned Paul and I's dynamic a couple of times. I was like a skeleton to him now. He knew everything.
In that monster's voice, my mind hissed, Not everything.
When Mr. Meadows sat me down, situating himself on the opposite side of his desk, I couldn't help but fidget. I felt on trial, with the Big Man staring down at me. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be home, bedridden, alone and watching flimsily-thrown-together horror movies. My father made me come to school. He was still angry with me, thinking I was the reason behind Jared's disappearance. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't.
I definitely was. Everyone was mad at me.
Judging by Mr. Meadows's glare, he was, too.
"You really do have a knack for disruptive behavior, Alissa," he told me, voice far from exuding warmth. He sounded annoyed. I barely remembered what had got me here in the first place.
I blinked at him. "Why am I here?"
"Do you not remember?" When I shook my head, he mirrored me, expression twisting into a scowl. "You fell asleep and knocked over three cans of paint. Why were you falling asleep in art class, Alissa?"
"Can you just give me my slip and let me go?"
Mr. Meadows's gaze softened. "Not until you tell me why you look so tired."
I didn't have to tell him anything. I wasn't obliged to this. He wasn't my fucking therapist, and he sure as hell wasn't my father. He had no right to pry into my personal life. Even if I was a public disturbance, my reasons behind looking tired and doing reckless things didn't require his assistance. He wasn't going to help me.
He can't know about Dakota anyway, I reasoned with myself. He couldn't know. I wasn't allowed to tell him the truth. He had no part in this world.
"It's nothing," I said.
"Doesn't look or sound like 'nothing,' if you're falling asleep sitting pin-straight." Mr. Meadows had a fatherly look to him, and I was reminded that he had children. He had a daughter my age, and two boys in middle school. He saw me like he saw his daughter. He could see straight through my act. Usually, I let myself succumb and revealed everything. But this time, I was holding onto a secret that wasn't my own. The repercussions of blurting out the truth weren't ones I wanted to experience firsthand.
"I was just tired. Does everything have to get you Sigmund Freud-ing the shit out of me?" I glared at him. "I'm not your patient."
He stared calmly back at me. "I never said you were."
"Then stop treating me like one."
"Alissa, you were never so adamant on being difficult," he said, eying me up and down. Just like a psychologist would his patient. "There's something wrong. I care about you, and I want to help you to the best of my ability."
"Stop caring then," I said, aching with guilt—especially when his eyes flashed. There was hurt in there. I was being rude. And my face made it seem like I didn't feel guilty. You are. "The bell's about to ring and I didn't bring my shit. Can I go now?"
His eyes were calculating and careful. He stared at me, like he was my father. I wished my own father was like this. I wanted him to look at me the same way Mr. Meadows did.
Like he cared.
"I guess so." Mr. Meadows stood up, and I resumed a similar stance. I held out my hand expectantly. But Mr. Meadows just stared. He looked confused. I shook my hand multiple times, growing more frustrated the longer I continued, before he pushed my hand down. "No slip."
This was new. Unlike my customary response, where I'd said something crude and out-of-place, I didn't comment on it. I gave him a frown. And I quickly vacated his office.
No one cares, I thought.
Really though, everyone cared too much.
[Five hours before]
I picked at my lunch plate, viciously stabbing my roll. Kallie was beside me, slathering butter. I hadn't spoken to her the entire time she'd been here. She asked how my visit with Mr. Meadows had gone, but I gave no reply. I didn't feel like talking. The urge had drained from me during, and after, my "appointment" with Mr. Meadows. I wanted to go home and sleep. My jaw ached and itched, the memory of Dakota's touch staining it bloody.
Kallie knew something was wrong. She'd known it since I first walked into class. She hadn't tried contacting me when I was in bed and aching something terrible, so seeing me in person cemented her worries about me never contacting her. I learned that she'd tried calling. I learned that my father never picked up in my place. She was so worried, floundering about and asking me how I was the moment I came in.
She followed me from my third period (waiting outside to accost me) to lunch, through the lunch-line and to our usual table, and she sat beside me, staring instead of eating. It became uncomfortable after the first ten minutes. Then it became annoying. Only now did she even bother to attempt ingesting something, after my eyes caught hers and I gave her a pointed glare.
She can't know. She was my best friend, though. I hated keeping secrets from her. It's not your secret to tell.
But I wanted to tell someone about Dakota. I wanted someone to know I wasn't okay, and I was fearing for my life the longer I went stuck in my own head.
"Alissa, please say something," pleaded Kallie. We were five minutes away from the end of our lunch period, and people were already trickling out of the cafeteria. She sounded desperate. She looked desperate. She had her eyes trained on my own, flickering around like they were part of a pinball machine. "Please. You're scaring me."
I was scaring myself, I wanted to say. But instead I said, "It doesn't matter."
"It does! It does!" Kallie grabbed onto my arm, and she shook me. Instead of her eyes, it was my body being pinballed, and the whiplash that came afterwards was… unpleasant. "Please, Alissa—I just want to help you."
I took a deep breath and tried not to look sick. I felt sick. I wanted to throw up. Dakota's face wouldn't leave my head, regardless of how many times I rearranged my thoughts. I couldn't tell if it was a side-effect of his powers. Could he make me think about him? That sounded crazy, even by supernatural standards.
I swallowed down the scream that wanted to escape me, and I said, "I'm sorry. I just don't feel well. I didn't sleep good last night."
I didn't sleep at all after I woke from Dakota's visit, but no one needed to know that—not even Kallie. She'd worry to death and try getting me help. Help from someone who didn't know the first thing about how to help me, like some psychiatrist. And I didn't need a fucking shrink on top of my worries.
"Have you tried taking melatonin?" Kallie asked.
"It's not—" I cut myself off. There wasn't a logical explanation besides insomnia, and I wasn't an insomniac. I was afraid. The shadows were playing tricks on my eyes, and every which way I looked, in every fucking corner of every goddamned room or landscape, I saw a predator. Even in the light I wasn't safe. I couldn't just outright say that though. I'd sound crazy. I was crazy. "Melatonin doesn't work on me."
Kallie shook her head. "I don't think you've even tried it."
"Melatonin isn't the only sleeping pill out there," I said, rolling my eyes. Her own lit up, thinking I was back to my snarky self. Close, but not quite. "I'll get something for it. Dad'll help."
Sure he will. Right after the bastard tells me I got myself into this mess, and I'll get myself out of it.
I transferred my attention from Kallie, the girl saying something about pharmaceuticals I didn't quite catch, to the big clock in the center of the cafeteria. I stared at it, watching the second hand as it ticked, ticked, ticked. I stared until the clock read 11:45. That's when the most miraculous of miracles occurred. The overhead bell rang.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I told Kallie, getting up from the lunch-table. I was expecting to leave and pretend this conversation never happened. What I wasn't expecting was to turn around and catch a nose right into Paul Lahote's delectably-hard chest.
Oh fuck, I thought immediately, rubbing my nose, staring up at him—knowing this wasn't going to end well.
I was proven right.
Paul scanned my face, my chest, my arms. His gaze flickered back up to my eyes, and I knew just by his expression—he was worried. "You look like shit," he said, in a subdued voice, agitation clear in his posture. He wanted to touch me, but he didn't know if I was comfortable with it. He didn't know how. I pointedly looked over his shoulder, at the nearest exit. Follow me, I said with my eyes. I brushed past him.
He followed like a dog, not stopping until I did outside of the cafeteria, in the middle of a crowded hallway.
"Not very private, but oh-fucking-well," I muttered, turning to face him. He looked confused. That confusion grew when he noticed me wearing make-up—something I hardly did, unless for a formal occasion. I was much too lazy for it. He reached up and brushed a hand against my jawline.
I flinched. He noticed.
Paul's gaze hardened. "What? What's wrong?" he asked me.
I didn't want to tell him here, so I shook my head. "It's nothing," I said. I sounded like I was hiding something when I took that tone of voice—one that implied, Just drop it. I wasn't trying to sound innocent, not in the slightest. I looked guilty as hell, too.
"Yeah, okay," Paul said. He didn't try to hide his anger, nor did he try pretending like he believed a word I said. Neither of us were triers, just doers. Everything that came out was without effort, and it showed. "That's a crock of shit, and you know it."
"Believe what you will, Paul," I said in return, avoiding his gaze. I was susceptible to him, finding it difficult to lie directly to his face. I had to look around and lay attention elsewhere, lest I fall right into his trap—the very one that'd wind up getting me into even deeper shit. I refused to tell him anything, not here, not anywhere. I was terrified, but not enough that I'd go running to the nearest hulking, dominant male.
Besides, Dakota wanted to play games with me. Hurting others in his way to the prize was all a part of his fun. It wouldn't surprise me if my running mouth got him interested in sprinkling out some pain, all in the name of retaliation. And during his next visit, wherever and whenever, he wouldn't want to leave empty-handed. He wouldn't just come and go like the fucking rain.
We'll talk later. He never said a time or place, or who was allowed to drop in.
"I believe you're lying to me," Paul said angrily, voice loud and rough. "I thought we were through with this bullshit, Alissa. Or was that just me? You can tell me as little or as much as you fucking wish, but I can't do the same? How's that fair?"
It wasn't that. Not at all. I wanted him to know there was nothing he did to make me avoid him. And me tying my tongue was dumb. I was dumb. Everything about this situation was dumb.
It wasn't him.
It wasn't him.
It wasn't him.
I felt caught, like a puppet without its strings. Like I was in eternal free fall. My mouth opened and closed wordlessly. And when I looked Paul in the eyes, when I saw the hurt swimming in them—that's when I broke.
My jaw fell open, mouth ready to spew out my deepest, darkest secrets. Only to notice—
Nothing came out.
Paul stared at me dubiously. "What?"
I shook my head. I tried saying my lips were sealed, but even that refused to leave. My brain was telling me, You don't need to tell him anything. I agreed. I didn't need to tell him anything.
"Nothing," I said.
I heard his teeth grinding together—fucking heard them—and I could only watch when he took me by the arm and wrenched me forward. He was as gentle as Paul Lahote was capable of, but there was still a darkness to him, to his face and posture. He was looking at me angrily. He didn't want to hurt me, per se, but he definitely wanted to wring me until I came out pandering to his wants. My lying, my deceiving, my deflecting—they weren't fun and games for him. They were frustratingly impossible to process, and even harder to read between.
"You need to stop lying, or we can't help you, goddammit," Paul growled. I'd never heard someone's voice so guttural before. It didn't scare me, but it definitely discomforted me. I stared at his throat, where a normal voice should have originated. But he sounded beastlike. Pure animal. Angrier than a bear. Fed up with me.
" You couldn't help me anyway," I said. "You're not certified in psychology."
Paul looked around the emptying corridor. He dropped his voice an octave before saying, "I'm your fucking boyfriend. That sure certifies me for something."
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, alright. For what? To lock me in my ivory tower and feed me walnuts until I 'tell the truth'?" When his face continued to reflect a lack of amusement, I took an alternate route. "It's nothing, Paul. I'm not avoiding you, or whatever. That's part of a rom-com script, and my life is sure as fuck not a rom-com."
"You look like shit," he said bluntly.
"I always look like shit. I'm just a special case of it today," I said, scowling at him. Wasn't he supposed to shower me in compliments? Where were the lies about me looking pretty when I was nothing but? He was doing this whole 'boyfriend' thing wrong. And the angry, don't-make-me-hurt-you glares were not romantic in the slightest. I shouldn't have cared anyway. I was being hypocritical. Tongue-tied, deflective Alissa Cameron. "Fine, Paul. Maybe I'm just anxious for when Jared decides to grace us with his presence again."
Paul snorted. "That's bullshit."
"It's true!" I actually hadn't thought about Jared until now. But when he did appear in my thoughts, it was anxiety that crept up on me. He'll want to talk, won't he? Jared was a confront-first-regret-later kind of guy, so he'd definitely want to talk it all out when he got back from wherever the hell he was. I was anticipating his visit, like I was Dakota's. I didn't fear it, though. And I was sure Paul felt my fear, knowing its cause as something other than Jared's impending return. "Okay, look. I'm hiding things, but you hid things from me too, so let's agree to disagree, yeah?"
Paul glared at me. "You know I can't—"
BRRRRR.
Overhead, the tardy bell rang. I immediately tugged my backpack straps downward, gripping them like a scared schoolgirl, avoiding Paul's eyes. I was so fucking stupid, to think he would let this go. And it made me just as naïve in assuming he wouldn't find out the truth. "It's nothing, Paul. Jesus fucking Christ. I told you. Just—drop it."
He reached out for me. "Alissa—"
I ran away from him, as I found myself doing pretty regularly.
And when I got to fourth period, I asked myself why me and Paul were always fighting. I also wondered if we were broken-up now. I didn't understand relationships. I didn't understand anything. Everything was so fucked.
Do you ever stop arguing?
We didn't. And I was starting to feel drained.
[Two hours before]
Humans have a knack to do the exact opposite of what they say they will.
I fell asleep. Just as I'd warned myself not to.
I spent all these hours fearing what lay in the beyond-realm of sleep, thinking my dreams would turn to nightmares, thinking Dakota would manifest due to my deepest, darkest fears. I was wrong to think it'd be my own head that did me in. I was wrong to think I could avoid one of my body's most vital functions.
I forgot that Dakota was the game-maker. This cluelessness showed when I jolted awake in a forest and thought I was sleepwalking. Regardless of concurrent memories, ones in school.
What the hell? I fruitlessly freaked out upon my arrival in the strange environment. Looking around, staring down the trees, searching for lifeforms. This forest didn't look familiar. It didn't even look like the forest I was in during previous dreams. Maybe it was part of the preserve I'd never been to, out in the Forks area. But that didn't make any sense. I was very confused. I was very terrified. I wanted to be home, in my bed, watching movies.
Not horror anymore, though. Maybe a rom-com. Anything that took my mind off what I was experiencing. Off the tension, off the fear. Off the unknowing.
There was no escape from this shit, as I was coming to slowly realize. So I stumbled up from my fallen position on the ground. If the danger wouldn't come to me, I'd find it myself. This was a dream, right? I couldn't be hurt. I'd be okay every which way, in every which alternate universe. When I touched my own arm, I didn't feel it. Did that mean this was just a normal dream? Did that mean this wasn't a nightmare?
I was hoping so. Courtesy of my own idiocy, I was just a normal human. About as foolish as a blacked-out drunkard. And about as courageous as a background hero.
I didn't have shoes on, so it was a relief to feel nothing as I stepped on broken limbs and rocks. Maybe it was cutting into me, but I wouldn't know the difference. I was intent on finding the cause for me being here. I wanted to know why my brain wanted me here, of all places. Was this part of Dakota's game? Taha Aki's? My own fucking head?
The darkness seemed to intensify and thicken the more I ventured into the forest's mucky resolve. It creeped on me, followed me, a plague in the midst of a black hole. Black on black on black. The moon in the sky was surreal. It didn't feel real. Nothing about this place felt real.
How could it? I kept touching shrubs, trees, fallen limbs, poison ivy—searching for one of my five senses. I couldn't smell. I couldn't hear. I couldn't touch. Many of these senses were ones I could try initiating, ones that called for interaction and a reaction, but they didn't manifest into something I could feel. I was able to see, but nothing looked or felt tangible. This couldn't be reality. It had to be unreality. I was daydreaming.
Where am I? I thought stupidly.
I was grabbed from behind. And then, I was spinning. Not like a ballerina. No, this feeling gave me whiplash. Sick, intoxicated, wriggling like a dying worm.
Feeling. I was feeling.
"Welcome to Hell, darling," a voice responded from beside me. Suddenly my world was burning.
I screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
I grabbed my arm, where something had seared my skin, where the horrible feeling originated. Thoughts came flying back to me, the ones about being safe. I remembered touching the ground and looking around, seeing the dream-world as an oyster. Everything felt whimsical and imaginary, from my own body to the landscape surrounding me. I didn't feel like I could be harmed. I didn't feel like I was being hunted.
The disembodied voice had a hand on me. A fucking hand. How could he touch me? How could I feel him when I couldn't even feel myself?
He was holding me. I was still screaming.
Teeth, razor-sharp and like pin-needles, grazed my neck. How did I know they were teeth? Were they fangs? Were they canines? Were they human? This wasn't real, it wasn't real, it's not real. "Is this to your satisfaction? I did promise we would talk soon."
His voice was silk. Soft, deadly, wrapping around me like a noose.
You promised nothing. He was going to kill me and keep my insides as a trophy. But that was no promise, it was a threat. A threat he'd fulfill, if I continued to be a foolish, useless human. You're not real.
This was all in my head.
"Am I? A figment?" He laughed. It was both a purr and a yowl, inhumane in an animalistic way. I knew that voice. I knew that laugh. "You're disillusioning yourself, darling."
He was disillusioning me. He was driving me insane. I hadn't known of his existence for very long, but in the time that I did, I'd lost a lot and gained nothing. I felt my sanity drain the longer I went thinking about him. And now he was here—wherever and whenever I was. His hand wasn't on my jaw, though.
His long, scalpel-like nails were digging into my shoulder. His mouth was on my ear. His body was cold and slight on my backside.
"You're not real," I whispered.
I'll show you real.
When his fangs sunk into my neck, that's when I did what I knew best.
I screamed.
[One hour and a half before]
Like a drowning child coming up to the surface, I gasped for air. And I clawed my way out of the darkness, succumbing to the light that met me at the end. The fog cleared. The white noise popped. Everything felt real again.
I pushed myself away from it all, only to find my body fumbling, falling. I cried out. I lashed out. I only narrowly avoided my head hitting a nearby desk. My voice came out as a scream, thinking myself in danger. But someone—something?— caught me. That someone/something was unfamiliar. A someone—a concerned-looking boy my age.
I wasn't in a forest anymore.
But I was under assault by a dozen pairs of eyes, all staring me down, all looking strangely horrified. I realized too late that my scream had been real, evidenced by the painful feeling in the back of my throat. When I reached up, I pressed down. Ouch. Just another injury to add to the expanding list. A hoarseness that would stick to me like glue for days.
"Ms. Cameron, are you quite alright?" asked Mr. Sommers. He was two feet away, his dark head of hair obscuring his eyes. I saw the spectacles, though, and they glinted under the fluorescent lighting. He had a hand hovering over Melissa Reyes's desk. He looked just as horrified as the rest.
I stepped out of my male helper's grasp, a frenzy of hands (I had two, but they were quick and frantic) going in multiple directions.
I touched my neck. Dakota bit me there.
I touched my shoulder. He burned his nail's imprints into my shoulder.
I touched my jaw. It still hurt from last night's visit.
"Alissa?" …
"Alisa? Alissa." …
"Alissa!"
"Alissa."
I snapped out of it. "What?"
Mr. Sommers looked scared and uncomfortable. "Go to the nurse's office, please," he said. "You look horrible."
He thought I was on drugs, probably. No wonder he wanted me gone.
I grabbed my bag and stumbled out of the room.
I left thinking about my father. My father.
My father would have answers.
He'd have to.
Last time we talked was yesterday evening, when I was bedridden and bored out of my mind. He was keeping me company, only to explode when I didn't deny that Jared was at fault. Everything was my fault, and I admitted it, too. I told him I regretted it. My crying and sniffling were evidence enough that I felt horrible.
I needed to talk to Jared. I needed to talk with Paul. I needed to talk to Sam. Kallie, Mr. Meadows, everyone.
Most of all, I needed to talk to my father.
[Thirty minutes before]
I was out of breath and shaking by the time I reached my house. Looking at it felt surreal. Thinking about it felt surreal. That word, my favorite word, echoed in my head: tangible. Was it tangible?
It was right in front of me, just barely in reach. The white-picket fences that implied a stupidly-normal family dynamic, the dying grass, the two adjacent dead trees at the front, the wood-and-brick siding. I felt relieved just by looking at it, even if it was small and irrelevant to most of the rest of the world.
I flew past the gate and fell atop the red-brown door.
My fist pounded into it.
I flashed back to all those days—weeks?—ago, when I knocked on the door to Billy Black's home. The dying wood of his home, the wrecked garage. The silence that awaited me after my first three knocks. The waiting game.
That was then. This was now.
But everything, anything, felt the same. Because he didn't answer.
I waited multiple minutes, hundreds of seconds. It all felt like light years to me. Until a thought registered to me.
One that broke my resolve in half.
He's at the archives, isn't he?
He was at the archives.
I needed to go to him.
[Your time is running out, darling]
1, 2, Dakota's coming for you.
3, 4, he always knows more.
5, 6, every feeling's a trick.
7, 8, what decision should you make?
9, 10, he's here. You're dead.
[No time left]
A/N: As long as you guys show interest, I'll try doing 1-2 uploads per month. Here's my monthly upload. At the moment I'm undergoing a "I don't give a fuck about school" crisis so once I forego that, I'll be on track to uploading twice a month. Maybe—depends if my advisor gives a fuck and helps me get interested in graduating again. Not to mention… I went three days without sleep. And I had to go to the ER because I looked and felt like a zombie. Life sucks, guys.
Any-who, we're approaching a point in the story where I'll have to warn you all about violence, gore, and character deaths (yes, character deaths). There will be a lot of fighting, and one of the major subplots in the next few chapters is Dakota's Gift. Since I'm not the kindest person when it comes to characters, he'll be a bit of a killing machine and I won't be shying away from the psychological and physical damage he's capable of. As we've seen already with Alissa. And another thing—if anything feels rushed or strange, remember that I plan on revising and changing the story in the near-future. And I don't really DO plot holes, so if something confuses you, just ask. And remember: not everything is as it seems. And things will be extremely fast-paced and headache-inducing in the upcoming chapters. Alissa's character will be evolving, her relationship with Paul will be tested, we'll get the long-awaited Alissa-Jared reconciliation (maybe; if you all want them to remain enemies, just say so), and Jacob will be shifting. Dakota's current presence is very Candyman-like. "Be my victim" and all that. He's NOT REAL and he's NOT IN FORKS. We'll learn how and why he's able to access her consciousness in the next chapter.
Don't shy from feedback! I really, really appreciate all that's been said so far, and even criticism is more than welcome. It helps better me as a writer and gives me insight on what you all would like to see more of. There will be more Paul-Alissa (SMOOCHING) next chapter, and maybe Jared will appear again? Tell me what you guys think about Dakota! Is he interesting? Are you excited to learn his history and motives? FLASHBACKS GALORE IN THE FUTURE DUDES
And if anyone's interested in knowing more about the lore I've made myself, PM me or email me at kaitlynthekitkat . I'll tell you allllll about it.
Till next time! Ta-ta.
