A/N - DP et Beauty and the Beast n'est pas mine :)

sorry for the long update time - but this chapter turned out longer than I expected it to be

hope it's okay!!!

Ten

Mussed and completely out of breath, Sam threw her body off of her horse. Not bothering to even lead the animal into the stables, she left it in the driveway in her dust as she ran as fast as she could to the front door. She pressed the handle down and felt the door give in before her.

She darted through the doorway and sprinted through the dark, empty house. She skidded around a corner, her feet sliding far out in front of her as she tried to slow herself in Jazz's ridiculous heels. The rest of her hair fell out of its clasp at the sharp motion.

She ripped the old oak door open and, ignoring her fear of the horrible place that she knew so very well, scurried down the steps into the blackness. At the foot of the wooden staircase she paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimness.

And then she could see him. Her father was curled up on the grey stone floor just off the center of the room, his knees drawn up to his body, his arms twisted uncomfortably behind his back and bound tightly with a thick rope. Her fingers stroked unconsciously against the fading scars on her own wrists that were inflicted by that very rope as she took a timid step forwards into the place that embodied her hell.

She swallowed her rising terror and flew to his side, falling to her knees. She pried open the loosened knot around his wrists, then rolled him gently onto his back. His eyes were lidded and rimmed with black. His lips were cracked, his face unshaven. His hair was matted and covered in filth from the basement floor.

She chewed her lip in anger as she brushed her fingers across his face.

"Father?"

His eyes flickered weakly. "S-Samantha?"

His voice was cracked and rough from lack of water.

"Yes, it's me. Don't worry, father; I've come to get you out of here."

She swept her arms under his armpits, and dragged his ungainly form across to the steps. She didn't think she could lift him, but she knew she had to try. She put one arm under his knees, and the other under his back, the way Phantom – Danny – had held her. But she could only barely lift him. There was no way she would be able to get him up the stairs.

She frowned, then turned. She pulled his arms over her shoulders, heaving his body onto her back. She groaned under his weight, thin as he was, and put her tiny foot on the first step. She climbed agonizingly upwards. Half-way up the stairs she was beyond exhausted, actually able to feel her strength ebbing away.

When she finally reached the top she collapsed in a gasping heap right there in the doorway, unwittingly allowing her father to fall roughly to the floorboards beside her. She lay there until she heard something that made her whole body tense.

The front door creaked.

She heard his footsteps thumping staggeringly towards her, but was too drained to react. And so when he stood over her, swaying slightly, his hands on his hips, all she could do was blink stupidly up at him.

"Ah, Samantha. So decent of you to return to us."

His voice was heavy with the biting sarcasm that she supposed she had learned from him over the years.

She swallowed her pain and exhaustion and scrambled to her feet before him. Under his bloodshot stare, she could feel the strength and confidence she had been building in herself fade away. The fear was returning.

But with an inner cry, she called it back, feeling it flood through her limbs, into her core and her heart. She called upon the courage of the girl who had taunted the vicious – as she had thought him at the time – ghost, the might of the girl who had, with the help of said ghost, found a place inside herself she had never really thought she had.

Bravery.

Her fists curled at her sides and her shoulders drew backwards. Her frown at him became steely.

"You monster," she hissed.

His glare intensified. "Where have you been, Samantha?"

"Sam." She corrected him automatically. She knew he would not believe her if she told him where she had been – and besides, she wanted to keep that to herself. It was a part of her life in which he had no involvement. She wanted to keep it that way. So she ignored his question.

"I've come to help my father. I will be taking care of him now."

With that she turned her back to him and pulled her now slightly more conscious father up onto his unsteady feet, draping his arm across her shoulders and holding it there.

Philip watched her leave, unsure or not of whether she was actually swaying and reeling, or if that was just his vision swirling again. She wanted to help her father? Fine. He didn't care. But he was not going to let her get away with talking to him like that. Wherever she had gone she had obviously gotten ideas above herself.

She was still under him, and she needed to be reminded of that.

His leather-sleeved arm caught her sharply in the side of the head, and both she and his brother fell silently into an ungainly heap on the floor. He snorted at them both and turned to the staircase, needing some recovery sleep.

"You did what!?"

Danny winced at both the unearthly note and the ridiculous volume his sister had managed to reach. But he still did not look at her. His gaze was married to the road leading away from his castle, down towards the village.

"I let her go."

He repeated himself. His voice sounded calm – belying the agony burning beneath his skin. He was leaning sideways against the post of the double door leading out onto his balcony, his arms crossed and one leg tucked behind the other. His pose was nonchalant, hiding the sorrow he was feeling.

"B-but, how, you, she, how could you, things were going so, you, you let her go?"

Her last word was almost a whisper.

"Danny! How could you?"

Valerie's voice was not as high as his sister's – just loud.

"Dude – I thought you liked her!"

"I do, Tuck. That's why I had to let her go. She needed to leave."

"B-but," Jazz was still unable to complete a thought without stuttering. "You were supposed to talk to her and make her want to stay and fall in love with you and break the spell and now…you let her go?"

"Yes, I let her go."

Valerie was giving his back a strange look. Who was this person that they were talking to? It wasn't the grouchy, snappy Phantom that they had grown used to over the past hundred years. And it wasn't Danny – the sweet, naïve boy they had grown up with. Was it someone new – or was it just a shell of the other two? Where was the anger? The fire? The sadness?

Anything.

"Danny?" She interrupted Jazz's spluttering. He did not turn, so she walked over to him and stood to his right. "Do you love her?"

He didn't say anything, but she felt a surge of emotion from him. It gave her her answer.

"Oh, Danny," she sighed, turning away from him to look out over the village in the distance.

The sorrowful faces of all the ghosts in the room mirrored those of every ghost in the castle. A gloom had settled over the whole place that had not been seen since the very beginning of the curse.

It was the realization that their hope was gone.

It was twilight. Alone she wandered through the forbidden forest. She refused to listen to her father. There was nothing wrong with the beautiful place as far as she was concerned.

The wind rustled her red hair, and she closed her eyes in happiness. Her pink dress swirled around her ankles in the growing wind.

The sun was falling further and further each second. Suddenly before her she saw a glint in the ground. She smiled and ran forward. She looked at the object in the dirt, but she couldn't quite make it out. She looked reluctantly at her impeccable hands, then at the dirt surrounding her find.

She sighed. The temptation was far too great to resist. She pushed her fingers into the earth, pushing the brown muck aside to lift the object from its place.

She straightened back up and cradled the object in her hands. It was a necklace.

"Oh, how lovely!" she exclaimed.

It was silver, and shaped like a full rose. The edges of the petals were remarkably thin, and the chain was long and fine. It looked expensive, though it was dull and had obviously been out in the forest for quite some time. She picked off the dirt with her fingernails, her eyes wide and her lips curled into a pleased smile.

"Now why on Earth are you out here?" She mused out loud, twirling the object in her hand. She suddenly noticed tiny hinges on the side, and moved her fingers to try to open the locket. She could not, but it did not faze her.

"An heirloom," she smiled. "I never did have one. Maybe I can pass it on to my daughter. When I have one of course."

The sun had just crested the horizon, and golden light swathed the whole countryside. Birds were chirping, and trees were rustling in the tiny breeze that was descending from the towering mountains, far beyond the sleeping town. Spring had come, and flowers were blooming everywhere in a riot of seasonal joy.

Sam half-lay on the bed. Her father was on it, asleep under the thin, ragged sheets that had once been hers. Her head and arms were up on the mattress, the rest of her body curled up on the floor. She was not asleep, just dozing. Presently she reached up and wiped the cool cloth clutched in her hand across her father's face.

It had been months, and her father was almost fully recovered. She had been feeding him heartily, waiting on him constantly, taking care of him as best she could. She had been inordinately relieved to watch him recover from his ordeal.

Her monstrous uncle had avoided the pair for the most part – although when they did encounter he would not even hesitate before striking her. Bruises and welts crisscrossed her body. She had not left the house in months – sending out servants to get supplies for her and her father. She had immersed herself in caring for her father, not allowing herself to dwell on the home she had left behind – for the enchanted castle had been more of a home to her in those few weeks she had resided there than this terrible place – or perhaps even the house she had lived in with her father all those years ago – had ever been.

But it was in moments like this, when there was nothing else to occupy her time and mind, that her thoughts drifted to that place she had thought she had left behind her.

Right now she was no longer perched on the edge of a bed in a house where every creak and groan of the floorboards and doors made her start in fright. She was in her garden. Not that pathetic collection of flowers under the willow on the path that she had weakly claimed as her own: but the rolling expanses of lawns, and flowerbeds, and trees, and waterfalls, and benches, and that magnificent maze, at the castle on the mountain. She was sitting on one of the white stone benches in front of the waterfall. Her eyes were closed, her pose relaxed, her hair being gently blown about her shoulders by a light mountain breeze.

Someone was beside her. He was comforting and familiar. She felt herself innately drawn to him. She knew it was Phantom – Danny. His fingers were intertwined with hers, and her head was rested against his chest.

She turned her face to look up at him, and the black-haired girl dozing in her bedroom was suddenly shocked out of her reverie by his bright blue eyes.

"Ah!" She gasped, jerking upright. Blue eyes? Had she forgotten him that much?

Suddenly her eyebrows shot up, and she whispered her thoughts to herself. "I was touching him in my dream. I touched him in the garden…how was I suddenly able to feel him?

But more importantly – do you love him? Her traitorous mind posed the question that had been gnawing at her since she was left all those weeks ago, no matter how hard she had tried to ignore it. She couldn't answer.

She was afraid of either possible one.

"Samantha?" Her father mumbled.

"Yes, father?"

"Who, who were you touching?"

Samantha's face flooded crimson and she looked down, screaming inside at the incredible innuendo that her father had completely missed.

His face suddenly fell into a frown. "Not that terrible Phantom? Samantha?"

"Sam," she corrected huffily. "And he is not terrible, father."

Her father looked up at the ceiling. "From what I know of him."

She scowled. "So he was not the most congenial of people when you encountered him. So he was incredibly unpleasant and, mildly insane." She winced, realizing the hole she was digging herself, but continued. "After living as a damn ghost for God only knows how long do you honestly think you would be the most amiable soul on the planet?"

"Watch your language Samantha."

"Sam. And my question? Can you really blame him for treating you so cruelly? Do you not think that after years of being rejected and ostracized by everyone who saw you that you would not treat strangers with overwhelming civility?"

Her voice was poisoned with sarcasm, snappy and impatient. Unbeknownst to her, she was in fact scolding herself for her previous opinion of someone she now knew was so much more than anyone in this town.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you cared for this creature, Samantha."

"Sam!" She shouted, rising to her feet. "And he is not a creature! I don't have to listen to this!"

And with that she threw the cloth into his face and stomped from the room. Her back against the door, she huffed silently to herself, her chest heaving. She didn't quite know why she had exploded like that. She slid quietly down the door panel and sat on the ground.

Suddenly she heard a noise outside. It sounded like a banging. On her front door?

Her heart fell into her stomach.

It had spread around the whole town within minutes that the young Miss Manson had returned home. Rumors as to where she had been were circulating in earnest. It had not been until one of the servant girls from the house on the hill had come down into Amity Park and informed them that Miss Manson had, in fact, been away from home that anyone really came anywhere near to believing what that older man from the tavern had said that night.

Nobody had seriously considered that she had been missing, and most of the villagers had decided that she had just been in seclusion up at the house. She was certainly weird enough to do something of that vein. But now they knew that she had in fact been away from home.

The old man had been right.

But what did this mean? Did it mean that everything that old man had said was true? Was the ghost on the mountain really now going to attack them?

The more astute among them realized that the beast might attack just to reclaim the prisoner he had lost – though none seemed to realize that the old man may have been lying. Some suggested taking her back to the castle just to appease the spirit. Others thought that if they gave her to him he might begin to take others and expect them not to put up a fight. Nobody cared about the freaky Manson girl – but what of the other women and children in the town?

The plan the old man from the tavern had suggested was beginning to sound more and more appealing.

Meanwhile in the center of the town, there was one man for whom this dilemma held no horror. As soon as he had learned of his dear fiancée's return, he had known that it was time for him to claim her. Although he had not believed at first that she had really been kidnapped (or so he had managed to convince himself) he now had a certain wish to marry her before she could disappear, or go into hiding, again.

After all, if he did not marry her his father – and therefore he – would be disgraced. That just would not do. Today was the day. He had already spoken to the priest, and all his friends were ready to accompany him to the house on the hill to claim his bride, right then and there.

All that still needed finishing was the tying of his necktie. He finished and grinned at his handsome reflection in the mirror.

"You lucky girl," he said crossly. "You don't deserve me."

Sam peered out of the side of the window in the light that was only just beginning to wane. And groaned.

"Oh no."

Coming up the drive was her beloved fiancé and his posse, along with many other people she did not recognize. She swore. And then she noticed the village priest! She swore foully.

She glanced behind her through the house. The back door opened out onto the garden, but to get out of the garden she still had to go out the front anyway.

She was trapped.

"Dammit," she hissed, running up the stairs, hoping upon hope that she could just sit in her room and wait until that infernal pest went away. She didn't think she had the strength to get rid of him herself – and over her dead body was she going to marry that moron.

The slamming started again. Her whole body jerked with each knock as she skidded up the stairs. She shut the door to her room and listened. The slamming continued, more earnestly now.

A sudden pang in her stomach prompted her to hurry over to her wardrobe, within which lay a small object, wrapped in a black sash. She unraveled the heavy material, and then she stood completely still, holding the chilly crystal in her hand. She let the sash fall to the floor.

"Phantom," she sighed, her voice almost quivering. "I miss you…"

Inside the crystal she could almost see the stoic face of the ghost of whom she had become so fond. It would be so easy just to say the words she longed to, the words that were all set to fall off of her lips if she let down her control for one second. And she could not do that.

Because if she saw him, there was no way she could stay here and look after her father, still lying asleep on the bed behind her.

Her mouth trembled as the resounding knocking sounded through the house, angrier now. Her control was slipping with her incredible longing to escape this place.

"Sh-show me–"

"I'll get it!"

Her heart stopped, her head jerking up as she heard quick footsteps downstairs moving towards the door on which the blond horror was still banging.

"Anna!" She cried. "No!"

She threw the door open and rushed down the stairs, slipping the round crystal into the cloth belt around her waist. Her bare feet slapped against the wooden steps as she willed herself to go faster. She saw the maid standing just in front of the door.

"Anna!"

Anna turned and smiled. "Don't worry milady, I've got it!"

And with that she unlatched and swung open the door.

"Why, Master Dash," she beamed. "Whatever are you doing here?"

He pushed her out of the way, ignoring her indignant squeal, and grinned at the girl on the stairs, her eyes wide, frozen in place.

"Why, I've come to claim my lovely bride!"

He stormed over to the stairwell and grabbed her arm roughly, glaring into her violet eyes, though his face remained pleasant.

"Before she can hide from me again."

Hide? Ha! Oh how she longed to punch that smug, self-obsessed little weasel in the nose and back to his adoring whores and idiot friends. But there was the problem that he was gripping her arm painfully like a vice. As much as she needed to escape, somehow she could not see that as an option right now.

"What are you doing here, Dash?" She snarled; though the fancy clothing of the crowd and of the cocky little pest gripping her arm, and the presence of the priest, coupled with the statement he had just made, rendered that one of the most redundant things she had ever said. But she was in too much pain to realize.

Dash wasted no time in making her feel idiotic for it.

"My, my. Stupid as well as ugly," he sneered.

"Wow, that's rich, coming from you."

Not one of her finer comebacks, but the best she could come up with as she tried to writhe out of his grip without him realizing she was doing so.

His eyes flashed, and he turned around, dragging her unceremoniously behind him. He stood them right in front of the priest, who did not look best pleased with the situation, and snapped at the poor man.

"Marry us."

The trembling elder made no sound, just looked worriedly at Sam, who was now craning her head to try to bite into Dash's forearm.

"Now!"

"Uh, Sir, sh-she does not look like your, um, 'dearly betrothed'."

Sam's head shot up, her mouth open. "He told you what?"

Dash snorted. "So I exaggerated. She is mine as surely as if I loved her. Now marry us!"

Sam's own eyes flashed now, with incredible indignation and fury.

"So if you loved me that would automatically make me yours?" She spat, trying once again to wrench her arm from his grip.

"Of course," he deadpanned. He turned to the priest, who was looking less and less happy with each passing second. "Marry us!"

The poor man quivered under Dash's yells and opened his mouth.

"D-dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…"

Sam stopped listening and looked around her wildly. Escaping from Dash's death-grip was not working. There were precious few other options here.

"I will."

"And will you, Samantha Manson, have this man to be your wedded husband, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor him, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others keep thee only unto him so long as you both shall live?"

She snorted. "Uh, no."

Dash whipped his head to her. He obviously had forgotten that she could do that. She smiled victoriously up at him, knowing she had him there, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Samantha? What's going on?"

All heads snapped up to the balcony of the upper floor, where her father stood, in his raggedy bedclothes; his eyes wide at the strange ceremony ocurring downstairs.

Dash grinned horribly, and turned to one of his friends. "Get him!"

The other young man darted up the stairs and fastened his grip around the arms of the old man: whose eyes were wide, his mouth open in shock, turning him and pushing him before him as they descended back down the stairs. He scooted her father right up to the unhappy couple and then wrapped his thick arm around the sickly man's throat.

Dash turned back to Sam, who was shocked at how low he had stooped. "Now, Samantha, will you take me as your husband though sickness and heath and all that crap?"

She gritted her teeth. She didn't know what to do. She looked at her father's wildly fearful face, then at her fiancé's horribly smug one.

"N-no," she croaked out, shaking her head.

Dash's eyes narrowed and he signalled to his friend. The other young man's grip tightened around her father's frail neck as the vice-hand around her own arm dug further into her flesh.

"You won't kill him," she spat at the horrible man in front of her. "You'd go to jail!"

"For killing the village idiot? I think not."

"Th-the village idiot? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, didn't you hear?" His face twisted into a smile. "Your father came into town one night absolutely raving about a twelve foot glowing monster…the 'Phantom', I believe? Wasn't it – Mr Manson?"

His voice was dripping sarcasm, and Sam grimaced.

"It's true, I tell you!" Jeremy cried, trying not to think about the grip on his neck, wriggling and appealing to the crowd gathered in the downstairs hall. "And Samantha can tell you!" He turned desperately wild eyes to his daughter. "Sammy! There was a beast! Tell them, Sammy! Tell them!"

"There is a Phantom – but a beast he is not." Her voice was quietly low and dangerous.

"Samantha?" Dash said, shocked. "Th-there really is a monster?"

"He is not a monster!" she shouted, exasperated. She was sick and tired of hearing people talk about Danny like that.

"Of course he is."

The voice coming from the back of the crowd was deep and rich, noble and cunning. All heads snapped to the well dressed man moving towards the commotion at the front of the crowd.

"Excuse me?" Sam said, folding her arms, hardly registering that Dash had released her.

"This ghost is a menace to the town!" The man said, speaking to the crowd, practically ignoring Sam. "She is proof! He kidnapped her – and she escaped! But he has some sort of mind control over her! Why else would she not think he was a monster?"

The crowd began to murmur in agreement. Sam gnashed her teeth angrily.

"Who are you?"

He grinned and leaned in closer to her face than anyone besides Danny had ever been allowed.

"An acquaintance of Phantom's," he said into her ear, quiet enough so that only she heard him, his breath touching her skin. She pulled back in revulsion. But she was not stupid, and from his tone she could easily figure out that he meant Danny no goodwill.

"If you dare–" she hissed.

"We must make a move!" He turned around, throwing his arms out to appeal to the crowd. "Before that monster – that ghost­ – can cause this town any more harm! We must fight!"

For an absolute psychopath who Sam was completely and totally certain was completely and totally wicked, he sure knew how to rile a crowd. The people were shouting concurrence and starting to punch their fists into the air.

"No!" She yelled into the mêlée, pushing the God-awful man aside. "This is wrong! The Phantom is not evil! He means you no harm!"

"Oh yeah?" The grey-haired man said snidely. "Prove it."

Prove it? She frowned worriedly. How?

Then suddenly her hand flew to her waist, where the crystal was secreted. Before thinking, she pulled out the gem, its reassuring coolness not registering in her mind, and lifted it before her face, flat on her palm.

As she leaned in and spoke to it, the people around her backed away, as if they thought something terrible was going to happen. She had overheard many of them during her infrequent trips into town talking about her as if she was some sort of witch. Well this should give them food for gossip.

"Show me D-Phantom," she whispered, suddenly understanding the strange way the people of the castle had referred to Danny in front of her at first.

The light beam shot out of the top of the crystal, accompanied by shocked gasps and whispers from the crowd. It fanned out and showed Danny.

Only Sam's gasp mixed with the rest of them now.

Danny was slumped in the corner of his room, his white head hanging down over his chest. His knees were bent up, his arms resting on them. When he raised his head to look out of the double doors, his eyes were not glowing. They were completely dulled, shells; hollow and black. His face was gaunt once more; his eyebrows looking as though they had been slanted that way for quite some time. His clothing was mussed and crumpled, as though he had not changed them since she had left.

"Danny," she whispered, horrified, pained. What had happened to him?

Vlad gritted his teeth. Dammit, the girl has me here. Now what? Think, Masters, think.

Dash dragged his eyes painfully away from the image, to the face of the exasperating girl holding whatever that creepy thing was.

"Samantha!" He had meant for it to come out as a reprimand, but it ended up as more of a whine. "You have to marry me now!"

Her eyes snapped to his, and she closed her fist around the thing in her hand, making the picture disappear.

"I will. Not. Marry you." Her voice was lower than he had ever heard it, her weird purple eyes sparking at him. "Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Now get out of my house!" She dug her palm into the groove of his shoulder and shoved him unceremoniously towards the door. "Get out!" The crowd turned and began to obey her, almost in fear.

Sam, overcome by the pain of seeing her…Danny…like that, fell to the ground, her arms clutched around herself.

"Stop!"

All eyes whipped to the grey-haired man still standing just in front of Sam; everyone stopping before they could exit the house. Nobody was quite sure why they listened to him – but his voice, and his manner, everything about him ordered them to comply: and promised retribution if they did not.

The man walked over to Dash, shaking slightly from Sam's death-glare.

"You have lost your promised," the man said quietly, for Dash's ears only. "You will be humiliated before the entire town." His words caused the young man to tremble and moan faintly. Vlad's hate for the buffoon grew. "Your honor lost. But there is a way you can get it back." Dash's eyes connected with the red ones of the man before him. "This ghost. It is a menace to the town – a danger to all who live here." He grinned internally at how gullibly this boy was soaking up his lies. "But think; just think of the honor that the one to take down this ghost would receive. He would be a hero – adored by everyone."

A strange light began to grow in Dash's blue eyes. "Adored…a hero," he muttered idiotically. Vlad was suddenly reminded of an animal. A great, stupid animal, and he almost smiled.

"And all you have to do is lead a mob up to the castle – and kill this 'Phantom'. And your future will be sealed."

As will mine, he added mentally, controlling his urge to grin. "So – what do you say?"

Dash's face broke into a grin, and he wheeled to face the crowd, which had begun to mutter amongst itself.

"The Phantom has poisoned the mind of my fiancée!" He shouted, catching their attention. "And no doubt he intends more hurt on this town! I say we kill this monster – once and for all! Who's with me!?"

The roar of the crowd was deafening. Fists were punched into the air, and Dash smiled, both of his joining them. He quickly scanned the room and spotted a sword hanging across the mantel in the other room. He strode over to it and ripped it from its moorings, returning to the crowd with it held above his head.

The crowd, still cheering and shouting their support, exited the house and began to move down the street, Dash at their head, and a grinning Vlad bringing up the rear.

Sam was still crumpled on the floor, a dreadful pain beginning to race through her arm from where Dash's fingers had dug deep into her skin. Five blackening welts were appearing in her pale but reddening skin, but her eyes were shut, and she did not notice them.

Danny, Danny – what happened to you? Was it me? Was it my leaving? I know it sounds so vain but…when you kissed me, I felt…I felt…

Love?

Her head was shaking, the pain in her heart outweighing that in her arm. Suddenly she was aware of her surroundings. Her father had been dropped by Dash's lackey and was collapsed on the floor beside her. And the crowd was moving down the path form her house, screaming about killing the Phantom.

She could see Dash at the front, holding her uncle's sword above his head.

Her teeth bared, she leapt to her feet and ran from the door, leaving her father behind her without even noticing. He had never really loved her. If he had how could he have sent her away to live with his brother?

But someone she knew truly loved her, and as long as she lived she would not sit by and watch him be hurt. Especially by her idiot ex-fiancé and his mindless group of followers.

And that grey-haired demon.

She ran alongside the crowd, ignoring their shouts and cheers. It was dark now; the last rim of the red sun not visible over the mountains. Stars had crept out, and they watched her as her fast pace drew her right up next to the leader of the mob.

She shoved both palms into the center of his chest, jerking him backwards, the sword flailing behind him. She didn't know if it struck someone – and she did not care.

"Dash I will not let you do this!" she shouted passionately, her eyes radiating her hate for him.

"Oh, you won't?" He mocked her. "We'll see about that." He clicked his fingers and pointed at her. She looked at him in disgust. What did he think he was? Some sort of…

Suddenly two big arms wrapped around hers, and they began to drag her. She was thrown into a furious frenzy and began to kick and flail. One of her unshod feet caught the man to her left in the groin, and he dropped to his knees and released his hold on her.

She turned all of her attention to the other one, punching him in the nose, ignoring the terrible pain that shot through her delicate hand and her injured arm. He reeled backwards and dropped other arm.

She wheeled around, but was just in time to watch her almost-husband's head descend to her waist, his large arms hurling her up onto his shoulder. She shrieked in anger and began pounding his back with her fists. But the agony in her arm flared up again, and she had to stop to cradle it. She heard the horrible mocking laughs of the crowd as she was carried back up to her house. They were starting to light sconces as the final light from the unseen sun waned away.

Dash threw her to the ground in her home, on the other side of her father. Her arm was burning now, but she leapt to her feet anyway. She was just about to launch herself at him when something struck her ferociously in the side of her head.

Her tiny dark frame flew back to the ground, and her hair splayed itself all over her face and shoulders. She saw her uncle walk over to Dash, looking worryingly sober, and shake his hand. The two men turned to her and laughed.

Her anger simmered, but the thudding pain in her head and in her arm incapacitated her. She just lay there helplessly. She saw Dash go to pick up her father, and then was vaguely aware of her uncle's corded arms slinging her onto his shoulder. She was taken through the house, and then a door was opened.

She was suddenly flying through the air, and then landed with a jolt on a stone floor. Incredible pain, like nothing she had ever experienced before, seared through her whole body, the throbbing of her head and arm glaring out above the rest. Her vision was swirling, becoming a dark tunnel.

Her father landed beside her, and just before her vision left, just before she lost sight of the two men in the doorway above her, just before she lost consciousness, one last thought shone through her mind.

Danny…

review!!! please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FunkyFish1991 xXx