Guys, I'm going to be actually meeting Jamie Campbell Bower, and I've been hyperventilating since yesterday and see no end in sight to that. WTF am I gonna say to him that doesn't make him think I'm too weird? I couldn't even fall asleep until 4AM because of the anxiety. Seriously, this is a dream come true!

~~/~~

Dean woke up crying into her pillow. She could still taste Caius on her lips, and feel how his hands held her. Her heart ached, and as she turned to lie on her back and peer up at the ceiling, she felt a loathing she'd never felt before. If it was misdirected, she couldn't care less. She hated the walls around her, the ceiling above her. She hated this entire cave and all of its inhabitants. She hated Father Karras, and how Gabriel had left her to fend for herself. She hated Hecate, and the Fate sisters, and this stupid metal bed frame.

She hated how she felt like she'd been ripped away from someone she barely knew, and her role in his life. Dean's lips parted as the lower trembled to keep her sobs mute. Her breath stuttered and she grew uncomfortable with how her tears traced down her face and matted her hair to her neck. Sucking in a deep breath, she sits upright and uses both hands to push back her hair, then wipes her face clean with her palms.

How long would she have to wait for Caius to get here? There had been many twists and turns in the dark, but she thought she might be able to find her way back to the mouth of the cave. How many vampires were here? She'd had luck on her side when she got out of Volterra, but something told her she'd have a harder time here. And that one vampire, Zsasz...he could morph through walls. It had been excruciating while Caius had been pulling on her, and she could still hear his maniacal cackle the crocodile like vampire had breathed into her ear.

He truly hadn't cared if she lost a limb, had even expressed his disappointment that she'd come through in one piece. If the others were anything like him, she wasn't sure she'd make it out of this unscathed. They had no intention of letting her go before she contacted Hecate for them...but she had no intention of staying here, either. She'd talk to the witch, beg and plea to be released from the curse if she had to, but she didn't much care for being forced to be an accomplice in someone else's plans.

Slowly, she placed one foot on the dirty floor, wincing as the metal bedframe creaked when she moved, then placed the other. She stood fast, hoping that the sound would pass for her shifting in her sleep. Unfortunately, she only made it two steps before Jessica was standing in front of her, wearing a bright grin as she struck a match and lit a candle faster than Dean's eyes could track.

"You're going to hurt yourself wandering around in the dark, silly," said Jessica in a sugar sweet voice that sounded more like a high school mean girl than someone who was actually concerned for her well being.

Dean jumped, having not expected to be caught so swiftly. "Jess! Wow. I think I'm more in danger of getting hurt from vampires popping out of nowhere."

"Sorry," Jessica says, shrugging it off. "Where you going? I thought you were supposed to be doing something for Papa."

"I was hungry," Dean quickly lied. "Couldn't sleep."

"Oh, I forgot. Humans need greasy stuff. Nasty. Do you know what that stuff does to your blood?"

"I'd take an apple," Dean says, trying hard not to imagine a double cheeseburger. Salted fries, a vanilla milkshake to dip them into...her stomach growled loud enough that Jessica started giggling.

"Come on, Abraham keeps some food here when he stays with Papa."

As she followed after the redhead, Dean was tempted to ask why they kept a human around, but decided she really didn't want to know the answer. There were considerably less eyes on her now as they made their way back up through the cave, but when they came out into the wide open space, she found out why. Six other vampires, plus Arban, were congregated around, lounging on what sad furniture there was.

"Ugh, I'm bored," said a young looking vampire who couldn't have been older than thirteen. His black hair was tousled, his skater shirt torn, the Tony Hawk logo fading from being washed a dozen or more times. The male vampire next to him was built like a brick house. His shoulders were broad and his arms muscular, his jaw a strong square and he had dark bushy eyebrows low over her worryingly dark eyes. The boy looked up at his companion. "Can't we go have some fun?"

"No," drawled the big vampire. Dean almost laughed as the boy pouted, an indignant, petulant look morphing onto his youthful face. The bigger mans lips twitched, but then as he looked up at Jessica and Dean, he went stone faced just as quickly. They passed him by to where Arban was sitting with a pale human boy sitting on the stoop at his feet.

"Abraham."

"Jess," said the human, offering her a timid smile.

Jessica tilted her head at him. "Dean's hungry. You got any of those cup o' noods you were eatin' yesterday?"

"It's cup o' noodles, Jess. And yeah in my bag." Abraham went to stand but Arban held his hand out to stop him.

"Nonsense. Those things are nothing but a Styrofoam cup of sodium," said Arban. "Go out into town and get her a balanced diet. She will need to be in good health for what is to come."

"Yes sir," said Abraham as he resumed his journey to his feet. He scooped up his bag near the far wall and Dean watched dejectedly as he wove around the vampires and slipped out of the cave. She sighed, wondering what was taking so long with Caius. She'd half hoped he'd be here by now. Had she distracted him by accidentally pulling him into the dream? She didn't even know how she'd done it.

Her cheeks heat up again, remember what had happened in that dream. The memory of it wouldn't go away, and she wondered how they would react once they saw each other in the flesh. Was she expected to run to him? Would she? Dean usually had a head on her shoulders and could think things through before acting or making assumptions. That's why she hadn't made the foolish decision to run yet.

She had a very vague memory of her mother telling her 'if ever you are lost, stay right where you are and mom and dad will find you'. It was a random thought, and she barely every took the time to remember her parents. It was strange how such a distant memory brought her comfort.

Arban suddenly stood up and lowered his face so that their eyes were level. His ruby iris' bore into her blue ones with the intensity of a man who always kept his word. He inhaled some air so that he could speak, and it puffed back into her face in a waft of stale death. "When you have filled your belly, you'll be going back into dreamland." He tilted his face as if the motion would help capture the seriousness of his words. "You're too smart to do anything stupid, am I right?"

Dean bit her lower lip in an attempt to swallow her fear. Arban was the type of man that never had to raise his voice to convey his threats. She bet that most of the people around him could feel the power he radiated off of his aura, and he probably didn't have to utter a single syllable for everyone to know they were in trouble. He held himself as a king would, an untouchable force. It was almost unbelievable that he had expressed no desire to dethrone the Volturi.

"I...I don't understand how you think just forcing me to sleep is going to somehow get me to do what you want. I don't know how to control it."

"That's why I've brought you and expert," says Arban. "Jerry," he says while waving his hand. The bushy browed vampire with an aloof disposition from earlier stood from his seat and disappeared. Dean turns slightly to see where he'd gone off to, not liking the idea of him being behind her back. Jerry was only gone a moment, and then he was back again, holding a man by the collar of his torn black turtle neck.

"Father Karras?" Dean gasped.

Cassias's eyes found hers and the resignation that was there a moment ago turned to fear. His lip was split and blood was smeared across his temples and his chin, a large, painful looking bruise taking up the majority of his right cheek. "Dejanna, no." His voice rasped, sounding like he'd chain smoked cigarettes all day.

"Ah, so you're acquainted," Arban clapped his hands once, excitedly. "Perhaps this will go off easier than expected then. Why don't the two of you have a chat while we wait for our friends to join us?" It was phrased as a statement, more than as a question. Jerry roughly shoved Cassias away from him and the exorcist stumbled before losing the battle with gravity and falling onto his hands and knees in front of Dean, who hurried to help him stand.

"Why are you here?" She asked him. "What happened?"

Cassias breathed harshly through his mouth, pink spittle flying from his mouth. "Dean," he sighs heavily, looking up at her with sorrowful eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"You will teach her what she must do," says Arban. "And you will do it before the Volturi arrive."

"Why?" Spits Cassias as he stands up straight and turns to glare at Arban. "What difference does it make? Hecate will not take back her curse! All this is going to do is anger her!"

"Do you think I've not tried other means? This girl and her lover hold her attention now. This is the only way. She will see reason."

"You're a fool," Cassias says glumly. Dean follows the argument with her eyes, trying to understand. What was the point of all of this? Why did he want Hecate so badly?

"Are you in love with her?" Dean asked, the romantic in her piecing it together. It was the only reason she could think of for him to be so desperate to meet with her. He'd had the cure for vampirism and given it back, so that couldn't be it. Was he talking about her curse? He couldn't be...why would he care so much?

Arban laughed bitterly, as if it were the most exhausting thing he had ever heard of. "With Hecate? As if anyone could love such a meddlesome, hot headed, black hearted witch!"

"Then why...?"

The older vampire's laugh died down to a chuckle, eventually fading completely until he was left with nothing but a far away look. Arban shook his head and turned away from her. "My reason's are my own. Don't make me hurt you or your lover to get it done." He sounded so earnest, like hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do, but she knew he would.

"I thought you couldn't hurt Caius?"

"I can do whatever I want. I am the sire."

Understanding sunk in, mixing with horror. She'd been under the impression that vampires had some sort of familial code between their sires and the one's they created. If it only went one way, that left Caius vulnerable. She hated that feeling. It was almost as if she were the one inferior. Arban wasn't interested in talking anymore, that much was clear, when he fled from the mouth of the cave, leaving Jerry's cold eyes on her and Jessica standing awkwardly behind her with Cassias leaning most of his weight on her.

Forgetting her hunger, she pulled Cassias back the way she'd come from, turning her head to address Jessica from her side profile. "Can we go back to the room I was asleep in? I think we'd like some privacy."

"There's no privacy here. Everything echo's," tittered Jessica, trying to bring a little cheeriness back. It didn't really work, though, and she nodded, following them back the way they'd come in.

~~/~~

"One more time," Cassias said as he drug the sharp side of the knife across his forearm. Blood pooled quickly around the irritated skin and dripped down his already stained arm. They'd been going through this for the better part of thirty minutes. Cassias cut open his arm and Dean tried to heal it. Each time she'd failed and he'd had to do it himself. "Really concentrate. Feel for the magic within you and direct it with intent to heal the cut."

"I'm trying," Dean growled through clenched teeth. She grabbed his arm with one hand and gently placed her free hand over the bleeding wound. The first couple times she had winced and squirmed at the icky feeling, but by now she was frustrated and could probably have shoved her hand in a bowl of slime and not cared.

"You're frustrated," Cassias corrected. "Try to let that all go."

"I can't," she hissed, releasing him from her hold and standing up from her seat on the bed. She wiped the blood off on her already soiled night gown. If anyone saw her they'd think she had fatal wounds. Her once white gown was now stained brown and red from the dirt and gore of the past twelve hours. Her brain was fuzzy, a headache pounding behind her eyes. Her stomach hadn't stopped growling since she'd woken up and Abraham had yet to return to feed her.

Not only that, but she had picked up the sound of grumbling, hissing, irritated and hungry vampires since the first cut had been made on Cassias. She was on edge, expecting someone to lose control and charge them.

"Dean, if you can't clear your mind to do a simple Healing Hands, you won't be able to do something as complicated as a purposeful Dream Walk."

"We haven't even tried that," she complains. Cassias touches his bleeding arm with his nonbleeding hand and a warm glow emits from his palm, sealing the gash up and leaving nothing but residual blood and fresh, pink skin. "I've done it by accident, maybe this will come easier?"

"There's a big difference between control and accident. Your body already knows what to do, yes, but you need to be able to harness it and direct it in a productive manner. That takes training and patience."

"We don't have time for patience. They could be here any minute!"

"They'll be strategizing first," Cassias disagrees. "No matter how badly Caius wants to, his brothers will not allow him to just storm the hideout. Come, lay down."

Dean looks around the flickering shadows cast by the candlelight in despair, but manages to pull herself together and sit back down on the bed. "What would happen...if he did kill Caius?" The guilt for even thinking the question pooled in her stomach. Shame she didn't understand. She could still feel the ghost of his lips pressed against hers, warming her entire being despite the chill of his skin. It felt like a betrayal, and that annoyed her just as much seeing as how she didn't want to be bound to him.

"To you? Probably nothing. Hecate is rather fickle. She could simply lose interest and you'd be reincarnated with no purpose. She could end the curse, but I doubt it. You'd be like a child's doll that she grew too old to play with but too stubborn to get rid of."

Dean paled at the comparison. He'd said no purpose with such an emptiness that she wasn't sure whether it was better or not than her current situation. Would she find a new purpose in her life? Would she risk it? "But if I'm an angel, isn't there always a purpose?"

Cassias shook his head. "This is the first time you've been born an angel."

"Why?"

"To give you a chance," he answered simply. Dean locked eyes with him, seeing his sincerity. "God hoped that if you were born of a different species things would be different for you. Never before had he had a soul come back to him hundreds of times, weeping over the same love they've lost. He's an impatient being and as fickle as Hecate at the best of times, but even he can take pity on one of his children."

"So when you abandoned me it was God's will?"

Cassias sighed, running his hands through his shaggy brown hair. "It was. My conscious was eating at me for days afterwards, believe me. You'll never know how sorry I am."

Dean swallowed and looked down into her lap, rolling his words over and over in her head. "Well, I'm alive...and at least mostly unharmed. At least compared to some." She looked pointedly at the blood that still stained his face, hands, and arm. Cassias smiled thinly, still feeling his guilt the longer he stared at her face.

"Let's keep it that way and get back to practicing."