I never wanted to be back here, back in the recesses of my mind in the dark, cold and dank. In the area where the wicked and evil lurk and fester like a cancerous mold, consuming and demanding. In the place that I have only been once and worked extremely hard to never go again after that first taste. It was chocolate dipped strawberries, it was lollipops, it was ambrosia; it was terror and delight. It was the cusp of sanity and fuck it. I was on the precipice of salvation and damnation and I wasn't gonna stop myself from going either way this time.

I fought for sanity before, fought the monster within and won. I fought for a chick that I didn't even know and spent a year under the dirt, literally getting walked all over and being taunted and pushed the brink of losing it. I would never say it to him, and I didn't have to, but it was only because of Jasper that I kept hold of a sliver of mind, if you can call it that. No one can stay like that for that long and come out unchanged and completely intact. I am like I am because of that time in the dark and I cannot say that I don't like it..

This time... this time it was for salvation in the form of damnation. The last girl was a face that passed through camp and was gone before I was put back together. This time the girl was mine and I was about to show Jasper just how little he really knows about me and my demon; the demon he created almost a century ago with a single order.

I drug the monster of a vampire by a foot behind me, not giving a fuck if it hit something or anything like it. I wasn't even sure, at this point, how long it was going to stay in its present state of intact. I drug him through the trees, across my back yard when we broke the line and up to the outside door to the cellar. I had the keys to it in my pocket, but instead I chose to crush the padlock in my hand before kicking the doors open and throwing the body in, smirking as I watched it bounce down the concrete steps. I didn't care that every one the body touched crumbled. That was an easy fix.

What wasn't was what I was about to do to the body.

Bounding down the steps in a near skip like movement, I leapt over the body, leaving it where it landed and turned back to Jasper, clapping my hands and held them up for the head, missing it on purpose when he tossed it to me, watching it bounce and roll across the floor. Looking back at Jasper, I grinned, "oops."

Turning away from him on my heel, I strolled across the room to the light switch on the other side, flipping it on. Glancing over my shoulder, I watched as the lights kicked on, lighting up the space, taking a moment to check out Jasper's expression to my little man cave, almost giggling when his eyes widened at the sight.

There was a wall of T.V.s that came on with the lights showing different areas of all my properties. There were work benches covered in tools, wood and other shit used for fixin' or in this case, breaking. Lockers of various sizes lined one wall and a fully stocked bar on another. This was the house that I was currently residing in when I got the call to play knight in shining armor so everything that was normally put up wasn't.

Moving over to the security system, I took a seat and pushed a few buttons and the pictures on the screens changed to show the cameras within this house. Humming in my throat, I scrolled the different channels until I found my girl and Garrett. They were seated at the kitchen bar, my girl with a bottle of bourbon and Garrett with a beer talking about whatever the fuck. With a flick of a switch, the microphones came to life. Leaning back in my seat and crossing my arms, I listened in a few minutes to gauge Izzy's comfort level to make the determination on whether or not to bring her down here or if I had enough time to get the worst of it over with before that happened.

"They've been gone awhile. Do you think they're alright?"

I heard Garrett snort, "no. I know they. What you don't know yet, Young Lady, is that there is very little that those two together cannot overcome." I glanced over my shoulder at Jasper when he came to stand behind me, giving a shrug and turning back to the screen as Garrett leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, "You will simply have to trust me when I say they are both perfectly alright."

I watched Izzy chew on her lip a moment before dropping her eyes to the counter, "But what about Mexico?"

Garrett cocked his head to the side, "you refer to the first day, yes?" When she nodded, he shrugged, "Circumstances being what they were, living to fight another day was the motto to live by then. I have never seen Peter truly angry before, but I have seen Jasper lose it on more than one occasion in the past. Again, you are just going to have to trust on this."

"So what is the plan, Captain?" Good, the fucker remembered the way this worked. My house, my rules.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose as I cocked my head to the side. I wasn't really doing her any favors keeping my darker side from her nor was it a good idea to leave her there much longer to stew in concern and worry. After a moment, I cut the feed and brought back up the surveillance of the other properties and stood, "Go get her. This something that she need to see."

He nodded and headed for the steps as I went over to the head that was just chillin' in the floor where it stopped at. Picking it up by the hair, I held it eye level to me and smirked, not saying anything. I could feel the red draining from my eyes again as I looked into the rapidly darkening gold. After a moment, I chuckled as I turned and made my way over to the wall of lockers, opening one and pulling out a wooden box and taking it over to a work bench.

"You and yours like to play games with the lives of others, do you?" Opening the box, I flipped a switch on the lid and chuckled again when the bright as fuck heating lamps inside kicked on. Holding the head in both hands, I locked eyes with him, "Well, let's see how you like this one."

I dropped the head in the box and shut the lid and doing the latch to keep it closed just as the door to the main house opened and my girl came down the stairs. She paused to give the room a once over before moving across the room to me, her eyes landing and staying on the headless body at the base of the other set of steps, but not pausing her stride. When she reached me, she looked up and cocked her head to the side, brow drawn and a little scared, "You're alright, right?"

I smiled at her and nodded as I dipped down and brushed my lips to her, "perfect Sugar." Pulling back a little, I cocked a brow at her, "Are you?"

She smiled a little and nodded, "yeah."

Giving her a wink, I nodded over at the bar, "Have a seat, Sugar. This is gonna take a while."

She nodded but then seemed to remember the body, "who's that?"

"All in good time, Mate, now git." I gave her a swat on the ass to get her moving. She giggled a little and went over to the bar where Garrett was already seated and handed her a drink once she was as well. I picked up the box holding the head and put it back in the locker it came from for now. I would get to that, but a few other things needed done first. I was gonna get my answers straight from the fucking source.

Nodding at the body to Jasper, he gave me a hand picking up the massive body and putting on my workbench. I went over to a different locker and pulled out a pile of chains and tossed them on the floor next to the bench before I pointed to yet another locker that contained my tools. "Get the drill and the stone bit attachment."

He plugged in my drill as I jumped up on the table, putting my knee between the body's shoulder blades to hold it still and took the drill when it was handed to me. Pulling the trigger a few times, only because I love that fucking sound, I looked over at my mate and locked eyes with her, "Cover your ears, Sugar. This gets a little loud."

She blinked at me but did as I said and I put the tip of the bit on the back of the bastard's neck, shifted my weight and pressed down, pulling the trigger again and drilling a hole right through the fucker. As long as there is brain activity, it feels what the body feels so I knew he was feeling this even if he couldn't react to it.

I chuckled when I heard Jasper whisper 'Holy shit' and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye a quick second before turning back to the task. It took a few minutes to accomplish the task of drilling a hole, but once it was done, you could see the table through it. Tossing the drill to Jasper, I stood up and took a few steps back, setting my foot between his legs, I picked one up under each arm before pulling back and kicking forward, removing the legs and pushing the torso off the other side. Leaving to torso go for now, I dropped one leg and took the other, knee cap down, and snapped it in half with my knee then doing the same to other. Calling out to the head in the box, "Are you having fun yet? Cause I sure as fuck am." There was an attempt to speak I was sure, but the lack of lungs made that shit impossible.

After the legs were taken care of, I hopped to the floor and went back over to the torso, removing both arms and breaking them at the elbows. Crouching down, I reached for and grabbed a length of chain and threaded it through the hole I drilled. Leaving the limbs where I dropped them, I pulled the torso by the chain into the middle of the room. Leaping into the rafters, I hung upside down and pointed to the chain, "Hand me that."

Jasper, looking a little pale for a vamp, tossed one side up, waiting for me to hook it up before tossing me the other side. Lifting myself back up to sit on the rafter, I draped a length of it over the side, before dropping back to the floor, pulling the chain with me and hoisting the torso up, suspending it in the air. Pulling on the chain a few times and raising the body higher, I used a foot to pull a screwdriver to me and, threading the tip through a link, dove it into the concrete, keeping the torso where I wanted it.

Once that was done, I went over to a corner and grabbed the handle to a truck that I have not so much as touched in over 50 years and pulled it into the center of the room. With a flick of the wrist, I broke the lock and opened the lid, reached in and pulled out a headless vampire body. that was chained many times over, and tossed it haphazardly onto the floor.

There was a choking noise from the bar drawing my attention to my mate. I cocked a brow at her and waited a minute for her to get it out. It took her 47 seconds to get passed the shock. "Who the fuck is that?"

At that I shrugged, "No idea. Never asked for a name before I obliterated his head."

"How long has he been there?"

I hummed in my throat as I did the math. "54 years and seven months."

"Why?"

Again, I just shrugged as I went back to what I was doing, "he irritated me."

I swallowed the chuckle when I heard Jasper whisper to her, "Told you, you have no idea the kind of guy you're mated to. I wasn't lying when I said Peter was one of the worst. Just relax and watch the show, Darlin'."

There was a grunt but otherwise no response.

Taking a little break before the real fun began, I went to the bar and grabbed a beer, hopping up and sitting on the bartop and took a long pull from the bottle. I needed her to know who the dismembered body belonged to so that IF any memories returned at seeing the head, it wouldn't come out of left field for her.

Draping my forearms over my thighs, I leaned forward and looked at her, "Listen to me Sugar." Nodding at the swinging torso, "That belongs to a member of the Cullen coven. I am telling you this because I don't know what seeing the head, more so the face, will do as far as your memories go. You need to prepare yourself for anything. Keep in mind though, that for all the chances that seeing it will surface some things that I know you would rather not remember, there is just as much of a chance that nothing at all will happen. It's a coin toss on the way this is gonna go."

She blinked at me a few times before looking over at the body. After a moment she looked back, "where's the head now?"

I tilted my head to the locker, "in there in a hot box."

"Hot box?"

I nodded and hummed as I took another drink. After swallowing and licking my lips, "Heat lamps, like in a human tanning bed, synthetic sunlight basically, line the box, drying out the venom that is still present after decapitation. What it actually does it speed up the process, getting the same result of being decapitated for years in a few minutes. He's been in there for about twenty minutes which is roughly the equivalent of so many years without a body, give or take of course."

Jasper choked a little on the beer he was drinking, "what the fuck, man? When in the hell did you come up with that?"

I turned to look at him to answer, "about twenty-five years ago or so. Only used it like, ten times maybe."

Izzy gagged pulling my attention back to her in time to see her pull a face at that, "you're an asshole."

I smirked wide before getting nose to nose with her, "I believe I have already told you that before. This is nothing new." Giving her lips another peck, I pulled back, finished my beer and hopped down and turned to look at her, "The choice is yours, Sugar. I won't force you to stay and watch what I am about to do to this guy." When she looked a little unsure, I went over to her, put my hands on her thighs and bent down to look in her eyes, "Remember what I told you in Canada before we left? I ain't got a lot of morels on a normal day, but when it comes to something that's mine, even those go out the window.

"This mother fucker, even if I don't know exactly how much, was involved with what happened to you. Given that he was not only found trespassing on my property, but was caught spying on you for whatever reason, I am not really in the mood currently to ask politely and find out his side of the story. Plus, you get better answers this way. Vampires are far more inclined to tell the truth when they know they're fucked and the truth being the only thing to, MAYBE, set them free."

She looked at me a long moment, searching for something that I couldn't name before smiling a little, "I'll stay."

I winked at her, "that's my girl. Just remember, be prepared for something to surface."

She nodded and I went over to get the hot box. Going over to the body on the floor, I sent the box down and hooked the the chain that was around the body to the floor to keep it right where it was. Once that was done, I glanced at my mate and cocked a brow at her, making sure she was ready for this and once she nodded, I opened the lid and pulled the head out by the hair, keeping my eyes on her.

She just looked at it, her eyes going blank. I waited with bated breath for her to resurface and when she did, her face was blank of everything and she shrugged, "I got nothin'."

"It could still happen so don't let your guard down just yet."

The body and neck began to fuse making a sizzling sound and that was when Jasper called out to me, "Careful Captain. That son of a bitch is a strong mother fucker."

I snorted hard, "Yeah, strong in body but weak in the head. Plus, that is a body that hasn't had a drop of blood in over a half a century. It'll be fine."

Once I was sure that the fuse took hold. I dropped the body face first onto the floor and went back over to a different locker, pulling out a sledgehammer. Kicking the broken limbs over towards the body that was slowly picking itself up, I walked over and dropped the heavy tool right in front of his nose.

Crouching down, I grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head and hoisted him up before dropping him to sit on his ass. I snapped my fingers and Jasper tossed me a bag of blood from the fridge. Holding that in one hand, I leaned on the handle of the sledgehammer like a cane. Clearing my throat, I waited for him to look up, tossing the bag in the air a few times until it caught his attention.

Once it did, I popped the bag, letting the blood splash on the floor and drip down my arm. When he dove for it, I kicked him in face, knocking him back a bit and away from the puddle. "You wanna eat, you earn it." He growled and I smirked at him, "This is how this game is played. I ask you a question, You answer. A right answer earns you points towards feeding. Answer wrong..." I picked up the sledgehammer and twirled it in a circle, looking at it and not him, "I take this beautiful creation here and smash a part of your own body into gravel. When I run out of limbs..." looking back at him now, "I use your torso as a fucking pinata and I aim for your dick. Ya got it, or do we to run through the rules again?" He snarled at me and took that as he understood.

Bending at the waist, I locked eyes with him and smiled wide, "Remember, the amount of body parts left at the end of the game is completely up to you. Now, let's begin."