A/N: well hello again, I hope you're enjoying my story (even if the fabulous characters don't belong to me...disclaimer) I also hope that you enjoy this chapter and as always comments, reviews and ideas are welcomed and enjoyed... Read away!

Whispers when you're out cold...

Lucy's P.O.V

The world spins zooming in and out of focus within seconds.

What had I done?

Oh God...

Was the world shrinking?

Was the sky falling?

Would it all come crashing down on my head?

Could it?

Why was it so hard to breathe?

'Lucy?'

Was it me or was the water getting warmer?

It had to be me right?

Why was I sweating?

'Lucy?'

I was so stupid.

How would I fix this?

Could I fix this?

What was she going to do to Eli?

What wouldn't she do?

Oh God

Oh God

Oh God!

'LUCKY!'

Quinn stands in front of me, hands on my shoulders trying to pull me from the sand.

How long had he been here?

'Lucy who is Eli?'

Oh Eli...

'Lucy look at me. Was Eli with you yesterday?' Quinn's eyes search my face for any form of response but my voice is lost, my mind reeling further and further away from my body. Reality had a cruel way of knocking the confident sarcasm right out of me sometimes.

What had I done?

What had I done?

What had I done?

What had I done?

What had I done?

What had I done?

No!

What was I doing?

What use was I when I could barely keep myself from drifting away somewhere to far to return from. How was my pity going to save Eli? I was better than this.

No!

I am better than this.

I was going to save Eli, kill this blonde bitch and ram her primped up head on a spike to keep outside my door as a warning. This was the last time any vampire willingly decided to fuck with me; I'd make sure of that.

I don't know how long my eyes had been closed for, how long I'd been locked away in my own pity party. The warm water had become a cold desperate damp that clung to my body, weighing my limbs down into the soft caress of the sofa that had replaced the solidity of the sand. Quinn had brought me inside and right into the many gazes of an audience.

'It's time to come out of hiding mum, it was all for nothing.'

'It's not me you have to convince, it's your father. You know I've never been one to shy away from a confrontation.'

'Helena I used to wonder where Lucy's drive to fight came from and I fear you have had too much of an influence on her. But we cannot simply throw ourselves out into the middle of the chaos.'

Quinn, Helena & Liam were all furiously whispering but whisper or not I could hear it all.

'Like hell we can't this is our fault!'

'Quinn your father has a point, there was a reason we decided to move away from all the fuss. We can't just go putting ourselves in danger like that'

'Since when have we become cowards? Since when did our lives become more worthy than an innocent who was dragged into our mess?'

'Quinn our family will always be our top priority, above anything and everything. You know that.'

'And is Lucy not our family?'

A heavy silence fell on the room; the only sounds of life were my own ragged breaths and the quite squeak of a hidden spectator as she tried to stay hidden.

Sol was behind the couch listening as intently as I had been, only when Quinn had asked if I were family or not Sol had lost her balance letting out the tinniest squeak as she caught herself on the back of the sofa.

'Sol come out from behind there you'll wake Lucy up' Liam sounded both tired and conflicted, as though this conversation was one of many he'd been having ever since they left.

'And I suppose you have an opinion on this too?' Helena's voice was barely a whisper drifting over the dust moats to fall on our ears.

'Of course I do, you made us pack up our entire life to hide in some batch. Did you honestly think we were going to stay here forever? This boy real or not needs our help, Lucy needs our help and I for one am not going to turn my back on her like you did the last time. Anything she needs me to do, I'll gladly do. I'm not going to lose my best friend after only just finding her.'

Before I could stop it, a small smile crept onto my lips. That speech wasn't just for her parents; I wonder how long she'd known I was awake for?

After all this time she still knew when I was faking.

I could feel my fingers and toes itch with the need to get up, to back Sol's argument even though she was the one backing mine up. But I needed to remain still, this conversation wasn't done there was one crucial pawn who'd remained just as silent as Sol, someone who's say would ultimately shut my fight down with one foul swoop if he so wished.

'Nicholas? You've remained awful silent; do you not have an opinion?' Liam's tone implied that he knew what his son would say.

But what came out of Nicholas's mouth sent the whole room into silent shock.

'We never should have left, I said that in the beginning and I stand by it now because if we had stayed Lucy wouldn't be this thing she's become. There wouldn't be this argument.'

Thing?

What the hell did he mean by thing?

Sol was the first to speak, anger and sadness thickening her voice.

'If we had stayed she would have died and you know that. They were outside her house, following her every move. They would have ripped her to shreds in front of our eyes. In front of you, and not just her they'd start with her parents. They would have tortured them in front of Lucy. How could you say that?'

Something inside me twisted, and I felt sick.
My parents?
They were following me?
Rip me to shreds?

What the hell was this?
Some freaking horror movie?

'Death would have been better for her than this, if the courts knew of what she'd done. Of what she had become they'd hunt her down. Not to mention no one knows the dangers of this kind of black magic, what kind of price will be paid for the unholy reckoning she has caused? What will happen to her when this starts to consume her huh? We all read the stories, we all know the history. There will be hell to pay. And that hell will burst from her. So yes I said death would have been better for her. Death would have been so much easier than what Lucy has to face now.'

Okay I was dreaming. I had to be, I mean why else would all of this be happening?
What was going to consume?
Why did Nicholas want me to die?

What the hell was happening?

This couldn't be real right?

This was what books and movies were made out of, not life. And especially not mine.

The room emptied pretty quickly after Nicholas's profit spasm. Liam had gone after Nicholas who had disappeared outside in a hurry, Sol and Helena decided the best thing to settle this was to call Logan.

God knows why Logan had become the pinnacle of sanity?

Leaving me and Quinn, and at this point Quinn was one of the only people I'd heard making any sense.

He was just about to disappear into a room when I bolted upright, the room spinning around me with enough speed to send a fresh wave of nausea to roll over me, causing my knuckles to whiten as I grip the frame of the sofa with a little too much zeal. The wood creaked as my fingers made a perfect indent.

Quinn spun with enough speed that the room froze, settling into an almost state of normalcy.

'Lucy, How much of that did you hear?'

HA, how about everything!

'Enough to know you're all freaking crazy, especially Nicholas. He seems to have sky rocketed to the preacher kid from children of the corn crazy.'

Quinn grimaced, crazy or not Nicholas was his brother and was clearly upset.

'Seriously Lucy'

'Look it doesn't matter what I did or didn't hear. I only have one focus at the moment and that is finding Eli. And to find Eli I need to find the Blonde bitch you all so lovingly call Gretchen. So if you don't mind I'm afraid I need to gather my belongings and start hunting her down.'

My feet find the ground and I hoist myself up having to rely on the couch to steady myself before I head to the kitchen where my stake was bound to be. I needed a plan of course, but did I have one?

Not yet

Sol and Helena were nowhere to be seen when I entered the kitchen. The clamp around my chest eased slightly, it would be so much easier to leave without worrying about goodbyes. I had no idea what I would've said to Solange if she had happened to be here.

Surely enough my stake; hunting knife and flexi cuffs were in a bowl on the center island, waiting for me to claim them back. Ready to go.

I hated leaving Sol behind, especially when I'd only just found her but this wasn't where I belonged. Besides that door could never be opened again, not fully. There was too much to that part of my past that should never resurface, ever. I'd spent too much time repressing the memories, the pain.

Out the back door I walk, crossing over the sand and into tree line. Letting the wind bite at my cheeks and the rustle of the leaves whisper into my ears filling my mind with nothing but determination and fear.

How much time did I have left?

Would I be too late?