I had 24 hours to plan and I announced my plan. That was taken care of. I went to collect my supplies and set out to drive the next day. The gig would be at night. We went over the plan with the whole crew again. In these gigs, no two gigs are the same because of the victims. You never know what condition, how many, and who the victims were. Whether it was humans, werewolves, vampires, or shifters. You had to be prepared for everything. That's why I, like all rescue team members, had tranquilizers with me in case someone had to be tranquilized for safe transfer in the form of injections and also a pistol. Because sometimes there was someone in a room somewhere not tied up and completely distressed. Then the pistol was in place. All the other groups were much clearer. They knew roughly what to expect. But that's what made the gig fun. We drove up and started getting ready to go in. The destroyers would go ahead and guarantee us entry, then I would have to start finding the victims. I set the drone in motion. This was a thermal camera and this was the latest in military techno-science. Not so easy to spot. I tried to locate the victims first. Bingo. They were on at least three floors and now I knew where to go to begin with . The rest of the teams would start going through the other floors and let me know if we were needed. There were four of us rescuers.

The exterminators moved in after I had called the drone back and recovered it. A few minutes later I got the go-ahead to move. Showtime. We crossed the courtyard in the shadows quickly and unnoticed. I went to the stairwell and started to trot up the stairs to the fifth floor. I had my gun ready in case there were guards waiting for me as I entered the floor through the fire door. Oh, the door was locked. Fine, I took a small ball from my thigh pocket and pressed it against the lock. I attached a detonator to the explosive and backed away slightly when I pressed the button. The explosion was just enough to break the lock and get the door open. I went to the compartment and there was still no one there. I said into the microphone " Flea, clear, no movement for now, I'm starting the rescue. " I heard a couple of grunts to signal that my message had been heard. I went silently into the room and started on the first one. This was a young boy, a person maybe 16-17. I put my hand over his mouth and squeezed his ear. The boy opened his eyes. I said "I came to rescue you. I'm going to take my hand away now and you shut up or I'll stun you." The boy nodded and I removed my hand from his mouth. I helped him sit up and the movers came to guide the boy away. All the rescuers on this floor were people, young boys, and from what one boy explained to me, children of politicians.

Apparently, some politicians had been blackmailed at the expense of children. When I got to the next floor there was already another rescuer there putting the victims in order. I continued to the other end of the corridor and started there. Vampires. Same again, break loose, wake up, get cooperative. These vampires were feeding on humans and my blood would have been a full anesthetic so I didn't give it but would direct them to the transporters. There was a lot of human blood in the cars. We continued through the entire facility and the final victim count we rescued was 304. It was another day's good work done. I got a crack at the gun to go when we had gotten almost everyone free then the guards started coming. And die. We had bulletproof vests as standard equipment and everyone knew what could happen if you decided to be lazy and not put on a vest.

Eventually, we got away and I watched the series of explosions with satisfaction. They had had some nasty experiments and had plans for me too. No more. We went to the headquarters after the show and that's where the base was, but that's where we left our gear and chatted through the show. Then we went to the bar at the end for drinks and a toast to a job well done. Finally, I went for a drive back to the house. It didn't take more than three days in total and had a fucking good effect. When I got to the house, I looked at the clock and knew it was time to eat. I didn't feel hungry anymore. I had developed a routine of when to eat. In the morning and at certain times. But I didn't eat because I was hungry. I don't even remember at what point the hunger had disappeared or faded. Eating was wonderful because I did taste everything and it was really enjoyable.

I was eating again when the phone rang and it was Nick " What Nick?" I asked and he replied " Nothing, are you free, I'm a bit bored and I'm looking for painting inspiration, would you come and model for me for a couple of hours, you can have the paintings for yourself," I thought I had time and agreed. I went for a drive to New Orleans and got there in 5 hours. I spent 3 days as Nick's guest and tried on the most wonderful dresses while I was a model. I drove back to the house and continued putting the house up and Mimosa had a new goal, to eat. I would always put a wicked helping of meat on mimo and she would jump out of my head to eat, eat herself into about a coma and jump back into my head.

I thought to myself a week later when Damon was still nowhere to be seen that yeah, it must not have been a small gig. He'd been gone a month. The paintings had just arrived and I admired them. Interesting. Somehow I didn't think I'd look as beautiful as what Nick had painted but he had a little twist. Every painting had a bite of vampire fangs on my neck, bleeding a little. I thought it was quite a personal feature of the paintings. Also, when I looked through a magnifying glass on my right wrist there was always written in very small, "Yours, always and forever, Nicholas." There were six paintings.

It took a couple of days and I had left the paintings in one room to show Adam and Samuel when Damon came back. He was passionate and we kissed. Then I made a mistake and decided to show the paintings. "Damon, come and see what you think, Nick must have painted them a week ago or so. Isn't that blood droplet funny?" Damon was quiet and walked calmly into the room. He looked through each painting. Then he took out his vampire claw and began furiously shredding each painting to shreds. He completely destroyed them and collected them and threw them into the fireplace and set them on fire. He didn't say a word. When the paintings were burnt and he walked out coldly and didn't say a word to me. I only saw the car leave the yard.

Well, I guess we wouldn't have to wait for the wedding just yet. I called Jarod and told him everything. Again Jarod was wondering and he couldn't get a grip on Damon, no way. I also told Adam and Samuel and they just said that Damon and Nick have a very long-standing enmity almost in existence. It's nothing to get upset about. Fine. It was three days after the incident when Damon was talking in my head. "'You won't learn then, darling, you won't learn at all. But fine. I will. This time you'll remember. You'd think a week would be enough, but nothing's enough for you, nothing. But I won't let it bother me. I'll teach. " And there it started again. The chase. The feeling of being stalked, hunted. I went to the store and I felt like Damon was there even though I didn't see him. Inside the house, every time I woke up there was a black rose on the nightstand and I had some kind of drug in me. The syringe was always neatly left on the table. There was no point in running away. Adam and Samuel were swearing and neither of them would come to me because the Alpha crisis was so bad. Some alpha had gone completely mad and was now attacking everyone.

It had now been a week of stalking and chasing and I was already in a complete panic. I was nervous, I wasn't sleeping. A voice in my head said, " You should try to get some rest, darling, I want you to be at full strength for your lesson." I didn't even bother to try to answer. I tried to watch everywhere and all the time. I was on the move and I couldn't see where the fuck the whole fucking guy was. I was in one room when there was a crack. I turned around, but nothing. I went into the kitchen and now I heard someone fall from somewhere. I was alert. The same thing went on for three days. Noises, distinct noises that Damon was in the house and yet I never saw him. I was in the kitchen and I looked out the window because I had just heard another noise outside. My hands were shaking now from sheer nervousness. I didn't know why this was happening to me, I'm immortal, nothing can happen to me, and I'll be fine, but the anxiety didn't ease. I was on my way to the other room to take a shower when suddenly Damon grabbed me against him again. I felt a needle in my heart. He pushed the plunger slowly and said "Sleepytime darling, your lesson has already begun.." Finally, I felt my legs start to give out and I blacked out.

I woke up tied to the table, I was naked. Damon was sitting on the bar stool watching me. " Good morning, student. You're almost ready so let's get started. This is simple. I have three daggers here. One silver, one platinum, and one gold, and all three will inject that metal into you every time I strike. You get ten strokes each, then I break all your ribs and another stab, ribs. Let's see how long you last. If I get bored with your ribs we can move on to your thoracic branches. " Damon stood up and started. Every blow was hard, fast, raw and the pain rippled through my body like wildfire. He enjoyed breaking my ribs and twisting them out of place so they didn't immediately come together. At some point, he started sending out fear and terror and at that point, I realized that Damon had been sending some kind of panic into my head the whole time he had been chasing me. I didn't know which knife hurt the most, everyone was shoving metal into me which hurt and racked me like crazy. Damon didn't say much.

He did let me know how many times he'd stabbed me. We'd already had 330 stabbings. As my healing ability began to fade. He was still cracking my ribs, not quite with the same enthusiasm as before, but with enough enthusiasm that I almost fainted from the sheer pain every now and then. When he noticed that my healing ability was fading. He took the medication. "darling, 390 strokes and you're not healing very well, but don't worry, we'll continue the lesson. Now I'm going to give you a little extra medicine, it'll add a nice little spice by taking you away from reality." He'd stick drugs in the liver, the pancreas, and the spleen. And drained half a liter into my stomach. I was starting to be in other worlds.

I was standing, and I was hurting, and badly. Somebody held me and reassured me, "It's okay", again it hurt badly. I couldn't stand it. Somebody held me and it hurt so bad. I was hurt in the sides and I couldn't breathe properly. I had to gasp superficially. My stomach hurt terribly and the pain didn't stop. My heart was so sore I couldn't breathe. My thighs hurt, and my back was sore. I was so confused and someone always made me calm down so that the fear and terror didn't get the better of me and still, it hurt.

"I said, darling, you'll learn, you see, it's all right. Good girl, just listen to the heartbeat, calm down, it's all right." And then I felt the now bigger knife plunge into the middle of my stomach and Damon really twisted it there, holding me still. " Maybe not right away hopefully at least you're not going to be a model again. Won't you darling?" Oh my god, he could really hurt and hurt hard. Stomach, chest, thighs, and back. Everybody got hit with one big knife after another. Then Damon put me back on the table and waited for me to come back, stabbing all the time. Sometimes he would bite his wrist and spill his blood on my stomach to heal me for a while and then it was good to stab again. Mimosa said she didn't dare jump out and I realized that Mimosa was also affected by fear and terror. I told Mimosa not to.

Damon stopped stabbing and healed the wounds on the front again. Then he came and put both his hands on my rib cage and started to squeeze my rib cage with sheer force. I felt rib after rib crack and the squeeze was even harder as he noticed my rib cage starting to give way. He watched me carefully to make sure I stayed conscious. Then there was more stabbing and slashing. Now the knife was plunged deep and pulled upwards slicing my stomach open. In different places each time. Then another chest squeeze. He broke my sternum with his fist and continued to squeeze. And the stabbing and slashing. Finally, I didn't react to anything anymore as I couldn't take it. Damon stabbed and smashed my chest three more times. Then he looked at me and said " I hope, darling this lesson was enough for a while. but don't worry, you'll remember this."

He got some big bandages and covered all my knife wounds but it didn't heal any. He bandaged my thighs and my back, my front. Didn't fix the ribs or heal the wounds. Then he picked me up wrapped me in a blanket and took me to the car, he drove back to the house and carried me to one of the bedrooms, to the bed. He sat on the side of the bed and looked at me, almost smiling again. "Now you rest, darling, and then you let the lesson sink in. If you ever go to bed with any of the originals. We're finished. Understand. Then I never want to see you again. Then you're no longer my wife, not a vampire, not even a normal one if we ever get married. Eternity is a long time, and I'd spend it apart from you. This darling, this is a promise. I promise you this. You understand. I don't promise easily. But this, this I promise. " He gave me two capsules and said "Swallow them, they will help you sleep, in the morning or when you wake up, it's already a new day, new ideas. I don't know how wild it's going to get." He made sure I swallowed the capsules. I took them gladly because I was in a hell of a lot of pain, but I was so exhausted I couldn't even make a sound if something hurt and badly.