I fluffed my long skirts under me, trying to create a layer between my exposed legs and the cold floor – which absolutely suckedto sleep on. I was stiff all over, both from lying on the floor and from the pain yesterday, caused by Fenton using his powers. As I fixed my dress, I noticed something. The spot I had thrown up on yesterday had been cleaned.

I thought of the ghost girl; the one who had scared me during the night. Had she been cleaning? If she had been, that meant that she probably wasn't going to hurt me. It would also explain why she had been here in the middle of the night. Maybe she was a servant of Vlad's. I knew he had servants. Whether some of them were dead or not … That, I didn't know.

"Are you okay?" Fenton asked me.

He'd been quiet for the hour or so that we had been awake. I'd wondered what he was thinking about, and had almost asked him once or twice before stopping myself. Fenton was the closest thing I would have to human contact until I was rescued, but that didn't mean that I had to go out of my way to interact with him. I had no intention of doing that. Just because he was there to talk to, didn't mean that I liked him any more than I had before we ended up in this position.

"Fine," I answered shortly. "And you?"

He shrugged. "I was thinking about Jazz and whether or not she woke up."

"Was Vlad the one who attacked her?" I replied.

"No," came the suave voice which I knew belonged to Vlad.

I turned my head to the side and there he was, looking very human, eyeliner and all.

"I did not," Vlad continued.

"Vlad's not the type to do things for himself," Fenton explained to me. "He'd send a minion to do it."

"Minion," Vlad laughed. "My minions were above such a role. Would you like to know who did it, Daniel?"

"Very much so," Fenton growled.

"I sent a clone."

A what?

"I thought you stopped after Danielle," Fenton squawked, pain flashing across the face as he mentioned the girl.

"A hideous mistake that was," Vlad mused. He faced me, ignoring Fenton, and explained the situation. "I was trying to make the perfect clone –"

"Using my DNA!" Fenton interrupted, "You sick freak."

"It was only because I could not use my own and you, young Daniel are the only other halfa." Vlad waved his hand, as if he were batting at an annoying fly. He then turned his attention to me. Confusion was surely evident on my face. Vlad smirked and continued to explain. "That is beside the point. I was trying to create the perfect halfa. After a long string of disasters, there was Danielle. I thought she was perfect. She could transform from human to ghost; she seemed to have control of her powers. Alas, it was not to last. She became unstable, like all of the clones before her. I was going to terminate her before she could do any damage, but she ran away. She ran to Daniel and he tried to protect her; he tried to make her think she could control herself. She couldn't. I knew she couldn't. When Danielle had her final meltdown, she exploded. She killed four people." Vlad shook his head, as though he were sad about the deaths, but I could sense no sympathy in his eyes. "I didn't know if I would ever try again, though I still wanted that perfect halfa. Finally, I gathered my courage. The mix of ectoplasm within the DNA is what makes it so unstable, you know. I created another clone. He was not perfect, but he was stable. He didn't have powers – he was only strong and fast – and he couldn't change between two appearances. Still, he is serving his purpose and well."

"And you sent him to attack Jazz?" Fenton clarified.

Vlad smirked. "Would you like to meet him?"

Fenton nodded.

As I heard footsteps begin to approach – the clone – I suddenly wanted to shout 'stop'. There was a dark feeling overcoming me. I remembered my dream, where Fenton had emerged from Gregor's features. I remembered how, when I first saw Gregor, I had mistaken him for Phantom, even though there were slight physical differences. When the clone rounded the corner, I suddenly knew who I would see and I didn't want to. It was too much. It was far too much.

Still, I couldn't help but watch the corner.

I felt like I had been punched when I saw Gregor, though I'd been expecting it.

"Hello, Sam," he purred.

I grabbed one of my heels from where they were beside me and flung it at him. I knew I didn't have a prayer of actually hitting him – not only were the cell bars in the way but it was a lousy throw. Still, there was a moment when the shoe was in the air that I could picture it hitting him in the face. It was an incredibly satisfying mental image.

"What the fuck?" Fenton exclaimed. "He's a fucking clone?"

"I thought you would surely notice," Vlad commented. "Or at least suspect. You seem to have more of your father in you than I originally assumed."

"I'm going to tear you limb from limb, Gregor," Fenton threatened. "And then, Vlad, I'm going to slit your motherfucking throat."

"My name is Elliot," Gregor corrected, all traces of his Hungarian accent gone.

All of that had been a lie too.

"I thought an 'E' name fit," Vlad said, "since Danielle was the last one."

"I will kill you slowly," Fenton continued. "Just so you feel every bit of pain you caused."

Vlad laughed. "If you ever get out, Daniel. I have different plans for you than I do for Samantha."

I pulled my knees up to my chest and then I laid my head down on top of them. I couldn't look at Gregor anymore, nor did I want to listen to the mentions of murder. I wanted to close my eyes and wake up in my bed, with all of this being a bizarre nightmare. I would wake up to texts from my friends and from my sweet boyfriend, who was certainly not a clone and who definitelywouldn't hurt anyone, let alone put Jazz so close to death.

I just wanted to go home.

"I just wanted to introduce you." Vlad finished. "I have other business to attend to. Come along, Elliot."

They left. Fenton spoke as soon as they were gone.

"I'm so sorry. I had no idea that he was a clone. I really thought that he was just from Vlad's family. I never suspected. If I had known that Vlad was going to hurt you like –"

"Shut up," I ordered him. "You don't get to comment on people hurting me. You were the one that lied to me for how long?!" I paused, waiting for an answer from Fenton that never came. "Exactly. His actions sucked. Your actions sucked worse."

I stood up, beginning to pace out my anger. My bare feet slapped the floor as I walked, angry words flying from my lips. I told him everything that I hadn't the chance to before. I laid all my feelings out on the table, like I had never done for anyone, not even myself.

"I was in love with you!" I shouted at him, facing Fenton for the briefest moment before I resumed my pacing. "I would have done anything for you. I poured at my heart to you. I let you in. I'd never let anyone in before and you knew that! You knew how much I was hurting on the inside and how much I tried not to let it show and you decided to be an asshole to me anyway!

"You decided to play me, lie to me, and manipulate me. You cheated on me. No, worse than that: you used me to cheat on your damn girlfriend. You made me doubt myself. You made me hate myself. You caused my whole world to crumble around me and for me to second guess everything."

Taking a deep breath, I stopped moving and looked at him. "You know what the worst part is?" I asked him.

Fenton shook his head.

"The worst part is that I would have understood. If you had come to me, before you kissed me and before you got so deep in your lies, and told me the truth, I would have forgiven your negative actions, provided they didn't continue. If you had told me that you were just trying to protect yourself but that you realized it was time to tell me the truth, we really could have been together, as a real couple, without the lies. If you had done that, we might have still been together. And we certainly wouldn't be here. But you didn't do any of that. You decided to screw everything up! You're the reason I'm in here and you're also the reason that my second chance to have a good relationship with someone turned out to be a lying clone. What kind of a fucking life is this!?" I screeched, stamping my foot in frustration.

"You took so much away from me," I sobbed. Though I was trying to hold everything in, I was beginning to break down. Tears were forming in my eyes and my entire body was starting to shake. "Falling in love for the first time is supposed to be beautiful, even when it ends there's supposed to be something wonderful to take away from it but there was nothing. It was just awful. And that's how I felt when it was over: awful. I felt awful and stupid. I thought you might have been lying to me but I believed you when you promised that you weren't. I trusted you and you just threw it all away. I … I hate you, so don't you dare offer me sympathy and don't you dare say you're sorry he hurt me. In the end, he hurt me becauseof you. If you hadn't done what you did, I never would have been here. If you would have been a good enough person to stay away from me instead of being a jerk, Gregor … Elliot … whatever, wouldn't have had the opportunity to come in and destroy me. Damn it, he's even you. He's your damn clone. In the end, it's always you hurting me.

"So shut the hell up!" I finished.

Then I turned around and collapsed to the floor. I buried my face into my hands and fell forward into the folds of my dress. I couldn't reign in my emotions, nor did I have anywhere that I could hide. I just had to sit here and let him listen to me cry.

And cry I did.

I thought I would choke on my tears and the gross phlegm that was created when you cried as hard as I was. My entire body felt hot all over as I shook painfully.

I hated him. I hated him so much.

I barely caught the whisper above the sounds of my pain, but I did hear him.

"If I could go back, I would. I'd save you from this."

We couldn't go back, though. I could never reclaim the parts of me that I had given to him when I had invested so heavily in our relationship. I had fallen in love with Phantom, had given him my heart and he had turned out to be nothing but a lie. A lie that I had so foolishly fallen for, time and time again. Sometimes, I thought that I hated myself more than I hated Fenton.

I lifted my head as something soft touched my hand. It was a folded piece of white cloth. I looked up further to see the ghost girl that had startled me last night.

"I heard," she whispered. "Boys are such awful creatures."

My mouth twitched. I didn't think I could speak without crying.

The girl picked up the white cloth she'd laid on my hand and gently started to wipe my eyes with it.

"My name is Maheen," she told me. "I'll be around if you need me."

My lip turned out into a pout, overwhelmed by the kindness she was offering me.

"I'll get some food for you. You must be starving."

I hadn't thought about food – too many other things on my mind – but as soon as she mentioned it, my stomach began to growl.

"Thank you," I whispered. "So much."

"I feel sorry for you," she confessed. "I know what it's like, to be kidnapped by Vlad."

"He's holding you here?" I guessed.

"Yes. He has ghostly servants for this level of his mansion. I am one of the lucky ones," her mouth twisted with sarcasm.

"He can go to hell," I growled. Then, I thought of the entire male population. "They can all go to hell."

I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky.

~TLL~