He gave me a serious look. I knew it was phony. “Does it really matter at this point? I’m your only salvation.”

"Can you ever just be serious?"

"I'm always serious, Aimee."

I shook my head and climbed off the bed. I walked to Shane. I bent down and inhaled the sea air on his skin and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Shane.” It was true. With the option of being with him removed from the table, I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do except leave him a note. He had never lied to me, he had never wanted anything but to be with me, and he had never done anything but love me.

I wrote quickly,

“Shane,

I’ve been taken to a special hospital that is offering me the best treatment. It’s exactly what I need to heal. I am excited for you to join the police force and become a police officer. You’re an amazing person and I will love you forever. No matter how this ends, know that I too have loved you since grade two.

I loved you when you started to bring an extra-huge lunch. Everyday you brought it to share with Nathan Anders. You knew he was poor and never had food, and you conned your mom into bigger lunches so you could feed him. You pretended she just packed big lunches and you couldn’t eat it all.

I loved you in grade eight, when you were riding your bike past my mom, and she had a flat tire, and you changed it. She had no clue how to do it. She told me you did it. You never told anyone that you had done it.

I loved you in eleventh grade, when the Smith girl got sick with cancer, and you started that change jar at your parents’ store to raise money. It was to help pay for the medical bills. You acted like it was your parents’ idea, but your mom told my mom it was your idea. I know you raised twenty-five thousand dollars for them and never even asked for recognition for the deed.

You’re the most amazing man in the world and you will be the most amazing police officer. I can’t wait to see it.

I’ll call you when I’m strong enough.

Love always, and by that I mean—I love you, Shane Bagley,

Aimee xoxo”

It broke my heart to write the letter. I folded it and put it in his pocket. He needed to know how I felt. I walked out of the hospital room, looking at my dad one last time. I left my cell phone on his lap and kissed his cheek. I didn’t know what kind of danger I could become to my family. I felt like my heart was left in the room as I followed Dorian's darkness down the hall.

I stopped, only to look in on Giselle. She was asleep and completely yellow. I looked at Dorian for a moment and waited for him to answer the question burning in my eyes.

He frowned. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. She is very sexy. I might be back for her in about a year or so, when she is strong again. Mmmmm.” He watched her sleeping, no doubt thinking all sorts of unsavory things.

I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Hey, stop that. Does your brain function on any setting beyond sex?”

He looked at me as if I were a bug he could squash and smirked.

He leaned in very close. “No, this is my only setting.” He turned away from Giselle’s room and walked down the hall to the big elevator doors. I walked behind him in my gown.

“Uhh, am I going to change?”

He nodded. “I thought we covered this, yes.”

I frowned at him. “Clothes, idiot.”

He laughed. “You’re sort of awful, aren’t you? Not fun and flirty as I imagined when Aleks told me about you. Yes, my dear, I have this all worked out, so please stop worrying.”

We got into the elevator and I thought about Aleks. “Where did he go?” I asked after a few moments.

Dorian shrugged, completely disinterested. “To cool off, I imagine. He’s free now, so he will want to figure out the next step.”

I gasped. “You freed him? From his curse? How?”

He shook his head. “You freed him, love. Not me. I enslaved him.”

I stepped right into his face, well, chest and looked up at his face. He was a stone-cold killer, I knew it the second I looked into his eyes. I didn’t flinch as I thought I would. I stood my ground. “Enslaved him how? If you…”

He pushed me roughly up against the wall of the elevator.

“You’ll what, little girl? Kill me?”

He burst into laughter and bent down to my face. He kissed my neck, dragging his coarse whiskers across my sensitive skin. I tried to push him away, but I had nowhere near the strength to make an attempt at him. He ran his hands up my sides and pressed hard on my right side, making me wince.

“You’ll do exactly as I ask. I have gone out on a huge limb for you, Aimee—be grateful.”

His cold gaze lifted to mine as he slid his hands up my breasts and into my hair. He pulled forcefully on the back of my head, causing me to cry out.

“This is our floor,” he spoke, hovering above my face and then releasing me. He walked off the elevator calmly, as I stood shaking. I was scared of him in every way possible.

Why had Aleks left me to suffer at his hand? I knew I had offended him and had been horrid, but I had been frightened when Jaime died.

I started off the elevator when an idea hit me. I heard the elevator ding, and I stepped back on as the doors closed.

Dorian looked back at me in a panic as the gap in doors lessened. I pressed every button after three floors and decided I would get off at the first stop, three floors above us. I needed clothes. I was feeling stronger than I had in a year. I knew he could poof around the hospital and find me, but I hoped there were at least a few limitations to his abilities.

Panic filled me as I stepped off the elevator and looked around me. I saw I was on some kind of surgery floor. I walked along silently, looking behind me and in front of me in an alarmed state.

I didn’t know where I was going, but I figured he would go back to my previous floor. I assumed I was on the fifth floor, which Giselle had been on previously. I walked looking sick and limping, in case I ran into someone. My heart raced as I looked everywhere for a plan or answer to my situation. I didn’t know where to go. I knew I needed to stay away from my family. My only guess was that I would turn into Dorian. I would soon be a destructive force to be reckoned with. It scared me, not knowing what to expect. In the back of my mind, I knew Aleks would find me somehow. Whether I wanted to see him again or not.

I saw a door that looked ajar up ahead of me in the hall. Nervous of Dorian jumping out from behind the small slit in the open door and killing me, I pushed it open.

The room was a supply closet full of things I desperately needed. I stepped in and turned on the light as I closed the door. I peeked through the crack as I closed it. I didn’t feel smarter than Dorian; he had more than likely been around since the dawn of time. I knew, however, that I was smarter than the average teenager, well, average adult too. He would underestimate me. Of that I was certain.

I changed into surgery scrubs, a mask, a cap, and booties. I tripled my booties, to appear as if I had shoes. I knew I would be walking in them and three booties were going to be better than one.

I sat down in the closet for a while, wondering if he could find me with a smell, or if he was able to pop to wherever I was. I was starving, but my stomach was starting to hurt in a funny way, as if I had food poisoning.

I couldn’t run into my family without ruining Dorian's excuse as to where I was. I couldn’t run into Shane without him dragging me back to the hospital bed. I definitely couldn’t run into Dorian without him doing horrid things to me and possibly hurting me in ways I might never heal from. I shivered remembering his assault in the elevator. I slowly opened the door and peeked out into the quiet and empty hall.

I wondered what I would eat if I was a threat to Shane? I wondered if like Aleks, I would need regular food every now and then to be strong, or if like Dorian, I ate something else. I wasn’t sure why I was certain Dorian didn’t eat food. The black blood told me he was not exactly functioning inside quite the same way Aleks was. Truth be told though, I had never seen Aleks bleed. It was possible he was full of molasses as well.

I slipped out into the hall and ran down the emergency stairs to the bottom floor. I crept in the boiler room and ducked, looking around.

I saw a door in front of me about twenty yards away. There was steam blowing out of a vent of sorts, between the door and me. I felt my bravery coming to a head as I was nearly at the door. That would be the moment in a scary movie worth its salt, where the bad guy would show up. He would smash me in the head with one of the pipes in the room. My heart raced as I scared the ever-loving crap out of myself and made my way like a rat, scurrying to the door. I looked both ways as the safety of my wall had ended. I nearly dove out the door when I saw no one there.

The light from outside nearly blinded me as I made my way up the concrete staircase. I didn’t know where I was, but the drizzle of the rain and cars parked all around me told me it could be the staff parking area. I ran from the building, not even looking. My feet pushed along the cement, driving me out into the parking lot.

I stopped running and began walking amongst the vehicles. I walked until I finally found an unlocked car and climbed inside of it. I sat and took a breather.

I needed to be as far away from there as I could get. I searched the car for money and found about twelve dollars in change. I found a pair of black ballet-styled flats a half a size smaller than I needed, but I squeezed my feet into them. I found a blue fleece, which obviously belonged to a woman a lot more rotund than me. I didn’t care. I pulled it on over my scrubs to hide that at least. I felt guilty for stealing her things and imagined she loved the fleece. I wished I didn’t need to take her stuff, but I knew it was life and death. I hoped if she had been there, she would have helped me under the circumstances. I locked her car for her; I felt it was the least I could do.

I walked along the cars, hoping to find at least one more of them open. It was tough going and security nearly saw me once, but I ducked behind a large SUV and hid for a while. I finally found another open car, which had thirty dollars in it and some granola bars in the dash. I stole a hair tie, ditched the cap and mask, and locked the car door. I ran from the parking lot into an alley around the corner.