Beep. Beep. Beep.

Sounds swam through my head, blurred and murky. I tried to focus on each in turn but it was difficult. They rippled and warped; they became meaningless and twisted. Somewhere, there was an incessant, rhythmic beeping. Elsewhere, a dripping tap. Opening my eyes proved an impossible task. They burned and my eyelids fought back against my desire. The light. I couldn't handle the brightness of that white, clinical light. Panic seized me. I was still there. I was still in that room.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I tried to keep my breathing under control. Tried my best to stay calm. My eyes and ears seemed to be of little use to me at that moment, so I tried to think through things logically. What exactly had happened? It had been a regular morning, even if I had decided to go practice in the early hours of the morning. Had it all been some bizarre hallucination? Maybe with all the stress of the performance, I'd had some sort of breakdown? Crap. The performance. Maybe I could still be ready in time. I still had a day, after all.

Voices. Growing louder. I focused every bit of me on listening. They were still muffled by the blanket of confusion that had settled over me.

"Them..."

The word echoed, as once more I tried to pry open my eyes. They prickled as the first hints of light touched them, forcing them shut once more. I swallowed dryly, my lips feeling like paper as I drew a breath between them. As the voices came closer, the cloudiness in my ears began to clear.

"You know it was them."

"We can't be sure of that."

"They fucking branded her, Charles. They haven't branded anyone in almost a hundred years."

"Look, the hospital said that it could be some sort of gang activity or a random attack or-"

"Wake up! You've been avoiding the reality since the day she was born. I should never have made you stay. Hiding away like this... It was bound to bring trouble."

"Alright. Just... just give me some time. I'll contact the order as soon as I can. As soon as it's safe."

If what they were saying wasn't confusing and worrying enough, the fact that I recognised their voices was. These weren't strangers. Which meant I was no longer in that room with the strange men. No, these voices were certainly not strangers. These voices belonged to my parents.

I opened my dry, papery lips. I took a small breath and forced my throat to obey. The sound that came out was distant and alien to me. But I managed to say it. And they heard me.

"...Dad?"

The next day I was allowed to leave the hospital. It hadn't all been a horrible nightmare or hallucination like I'd hoped. I really had been drugged and kidnapped and, even more sickening than that, I had been branded. The day I awoke, my parents hadn't said anything more about their mysterious conversation, instead feigning ignorance whenever I mentioned it. I refused to leave the house after that. A letter came lamenting my absence at the performance but I didn't care. All I could ever think about was that pair of striking blue eyes.

Christmas day came about quicker than I expected. I pulled a hoodie on over my pyjamas and turned to go downstairs. As I reached for the handle, the tip of the shiny mark edged out from beneath my sleeve. I pushed my sleeve up and looked closely at the shiny crescent moon that had been branded onto the delicate skin inside my wrist. I ran the tip of my index finger over the shape. A random attack. That's what the police put it down to. For a week or so afterwards, they'd been in regular contact with me but after that, the interest in what had happened to me had cooled off. My mother had been even more cheerful than usual, trying to convince me to go out with her, even buying tickets to my favourite ballet in London, but nothing she did could make me step over that threshold and out the house. My father had taken a turn in the other direction, becoming more distant, always making phone calls or sending emails or out for a meeting.

As I made my way downstairs, that was how I expected to find my parents. I expected to smell a turkey roasting from the kitchen, see presents scattered under the tree and my mother and father watching TV with large mugs of coffee as they did every year. But it was quiet. The TV was on but the sound had been muted. My parents were talking to each other in hushed tones but they stopped abruptly as soon as they saw me.

"Mum? ...Dad?" I looked at them in turn, worried that they looked so... concerned. "What's going on?"

"Sit down." My father's voice was cold and clipped.

"Oookkayyy... You're kinda scaring me." I tried a nervous smile. "Why all the silence and frowning?"

I slid into the armchair and pulled my knees up to my chest.

"What happened to you... well... it was..." My mother seemed to be struggling to find the words to say.

"It was messed up, yeah, I know. I was just unlucky." I shrugged. It had taken me nights of cold sweats and nightmares but I had finally come to accept the truth of what had happened to me. Shit happened to good people all the time. It could have been anyone. It just happened to be me.

"No, Callie. It was more than that. It wasn't an accident."

A/N: Sorry, sorry! I have been very bad and not updated (-_-') Truth is, I have been struggling with morning sickness and working extra hours and I haven't worked on new material until now. I'm now on maternity leave for the next 8 months or so and will try to work on plenty of new chapters in this time :) Thank you for sticking with it. XOXO