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| Aurora & Nik’s dinner interrupted by Baxter |
It was a busy night in the village. The gas lanterns that dotted the cobble stone streets glowed inside the late spring fog and floated in suspension like fireflies in a murky mist.
Inside the just as busy Gramercy Cafe, Aurora Ashby-Jordan and her son Dr. Nikolas Jordan tried to enjoy a meal together, one that was marked with the sting of their missing family members Evie and Gabriel who had left town under dubious circumstances with Sebastian.
The worry on Aurora's face spoke volumes. She worried, as any mother in this family's situation would, that Evie and her son did not go on their own accord. Nik, for his part, felt this too but tried to keep his mother's hopes up that everything was fine with this sister and her child.
Suddenly, like a shark smelling blood in the water, Welshport's notorious reporter Baxter Murphy entered the cafe. Clocking the worried look on Aurora's face, he pounced. Rumors of Evie's departure hit The Globe's newsroom like a title wave. This coincidental run in at the Cafe made Baxter light up like one of the lanterns in the street in hopes of a Jordan family scoop.
He quickly made his way over to the pair who did their best to avoid eye-contact.
"Well, what a wonderful coincidence." The reporter said, as Aurora and Nik slowly lifted their eyes from their meal. She smirked passive aggressively and asked how Baxter was. "Better now that I've run into the two of you, Mrs. Jordan." He answered.
Aurora shot a look at Nik.
"Whys that?" Nik asked.
"You see, there's a bit of a rumor swirling around our newsroom over at The Globe that, perhaps you two could squash -- that is if you'd be so kind." Baxter replied.
Nik narrowed his eyes "You want a quote from us on a rumor?"
Aurora reached over and gripped Nik's wrist. "We don't have anything to say, Baxter."
"You don't know what I'm going to ask yet, Mrs. Jordan." He smirked. "With all due respect." He added motioning for a waiter to bring over a third chair.
"With all due respect," Aurora returned "we have nothing to say about anything. Whatever it is."
The chair arrived; Nik put his hand on the seat "Mr. Baxter will not be joining us." Nik replied.
"You don't have any idea why Matthew Winterborn suddenly went on some sojourn to Scottland? At all? It has nothing to do with his former paramour, your daughter Evie, suddenly leaving with what people say is a strange circumstance?" Baxter asked as the waiter confusingly took back the chair.
"Look, Baxter, I thought you'd have already learned your lesson with getting mixed up in village gossip as news. You were, for better or worse, responsible for some very uninformed material in your column not too long ago." Nik replied, reminding Baxter of the disastrous columns linking Sebastian to the Moon wolf that created mass hysteria in the village.
Baxter arched a brow and smirked at Nik who'd just tried to one-up-him.
"Last question..." Baxter asked unrelenting as Aurora scoffed at threw her napkin onto her place.
"Nikolas, let's go." She said standing up.
Nik stood up too.
"What about Caspian?" Baxter blurted out, freezing Nik in place as his eyes darted over to Aurora.
"What about him?" Nik asked, still staring at his mother who's face turned white.
"Another rumor is that Mr. Mysterio -- " Baxter joked of Caspian's mysterious past, "Caspian -- and his marriage to Welshport grande dame Rebecca is over. And he's back in someone else's arms — yours Aurora."
"Mother, we should go." Nik answered.
"Caspian and Rebecca's marriage is their business, not yours Baxter. And certainly not mine." She said.
"But is that how it's done? He's left her for you? Because I heard she kept some very important info from him and it was just too much for the ol'man to take. He's left her. Again. For you." Baxter replied.
It was true, Rebecca's lies about and keeping Caspian's true identity from him, is what severed their once solid marriage. Aurora did take Caspian back in, despite their volatile passed, but she had no intention of giving Baxter any juicy comments.
"Baxter, listen, and listen well: find a better way of getting something out of someone. Confronting them at dinner, like you have, will only alienate you from more people you seek for your little columns. When you find that good journalist hidden deep, deep inside the snake that always seems to slither out first, send me a note and then maybe we'll talk." Aurora said. "Let's go Nikky."
As the Jordan's left Baxter standing there in the middle of the cafe everyone stared. They could see how unembarrassed Baxter was, his gall shined like the sun, his behavior infamous and some Welshportonians were frankly sick of him and his slithering around town for scoops on the most influential family in this corner of New England.
As Aurora replaced her leather gloves and walked with Nik down to an area where a taxi would pick them up, Nik could see his mother's concern.
"Don't let him bother you." Nik said. "He's trying his best to get a reaction out of us. He has nothing, and a reaction from us will be his story."
Aurora sighed and hugged her self for warmth in the foggy cold air. The moon reflected its gloomy light on her peach skin that made her almost shine. "I know you’re right. I'm just glad Caspian was late. To have Baxter there and Caspian at the same time would have been much, much worse." Aurora noted, revealing Caspian was supposed to have been at the dinner too.
"By the way, where is he? He's over 30 minutes late." Nik wondered.
Aurora shook her head "Probably still at home. Let's get there before he gets here and finds Baxter."
Nik agreed and they both jumped into a shiny black cab.
****
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| Christopher & Genevieve making love |
That same night, in a small bungalow in the village hidden under several beech trees, a fire crackled in a hearth of the single bedroom. The smell of Gardena and floated in the air like French perfume; an invisible romantic fog cloaked the slick nude bodies of two lovers intertwined passionately in the white sheets as the fire warmed them.
The hearth itself was a Victorian design; built of the same beech tree wood that grew outside and was painted forest green. On either side of the firebox were two large lions standing on laurel bushes silently roared into the room.
Genevieve and Christopher stared into each other’s eyes in the glow of orange light from the fire and candles that lit the room. He felt silly when it realized just how strange it was to have just made love to a woman who was the exact double of his late wife Sabrina. It wasn't the first time he'd felt this way, and he knew it might not be the last.
But his feelings for Genevieve were singular, and genuine no matter her closeness in appearance to his late wife.
Yet for all those similarities the two women were extremely different. It could be that Sabrina died so long ago and was so young — Genevieve was like the living embodiment of who Sabrina may have become had she never met any of the Lords and died on Bellmore Beach. This was never far from Christopher’s mind.
While still in the afterglow of their loving making and his deep thought on her connection to Sabrina, Genevieve ran her finger down Christopher’s naked thigh. She could feel the prickly hairs tickle her fingertips. She licked her lips and kissed him again, the warm kiss quickly pulling him out of own min.
"You ok?" She asked.
He smiled and nodded then pulled her close. Every fold, every soft patch of her skin felt like soft silk. He smelled her hair that was still freshly scented from her bath.
“We’ve come a long way from London.” He said, recalling their introduction.
“Strange, isn’t it?” She replied. “On paper maybe we shouldn’t even be together. At least maybe on your end.”
“Why do you say that?” He replied although he already knew the answer.
“Chris,” she said, her voice a whisper under the crackling embers in the hearth. “It has to bother you, even a little, that you’ve fallen in love with someone that looks this much like Sabrina. Doesn't it make you feel even the slightest bit odd? Staring into her eyes? Kissing her lips? Touching her naked flesh once again?”
Chris looked at the beautiful raven haired woman and shook his head. He reached over and gently wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled in for another kiss, even deeper than the one before.
“She’ll never be gone from my life. Whether it’s looking at your beautiful face or a painting of her or looking into my grandson’s eyes who has his father Sebastian’s eyes — who has Sabrina’s eyes. She’s all around. But you’re you Genevieve and only you. I’ve fallen for the woman whose spirit is hot like the sun, who never gives up and who is relentless in her love for the people in her life. Especially her son.” Chris said.
She smiled and curled into his arms as he held her. Their bodies warmed each other as she pulled the white sheets over their naked skin.
“We can finally walk around town and not worry about anyone seeing us too. Finally — out in the open.” Genevieve replied happily.
"And maybe soon get married start a family of our own. We both have to amazing sons, maybe one day..." He paused.
"Married and a mother again." She said, filling the void of silence. "I don't know. I love you, and it would be wonderful to share a child with you, a symbol of our love like that is a gift any couple would be lucky to have, but I feel that maybe we should repair our relationships with our sons before that. Don't you?" Genevieve replied.
Christopher sighed, "I don't know. Sebastian isn't the same, and in a way neither am I. He's moved on in ways that I can never understand, and I know he doesn't expect me to understand. But -- you would like to be married, wouldn't you?"
Geneveive blushed. "Is this a proposal?"
"I don't have a ring. Oh god, this is embarrassing. I didn't plan this right!" He laughed.
She grabbed his head in both hands and kissed him "Very unconventional--- I'd say its very 'us'."
"Yes, very us." He laughed. "I just hope Sebastian sees it that way.:
"He will." She said.
"And Morgan?"
"Morgan is a different story." Genevieve digressed. "I know he'll be happy for me, but still I don't know if he'll ever truly forgive me for leaving him here alone while I searched for you in London. After his father Steven died, and I came here with Johnathon I had promised I was building a new life for us. I've failed."
As the two lovers lay in their warm bed, their naked bodies clinging to each other, a person slipped a tiny cook and pick into the lock of the front door of the bungalow. The person easily slid into the quiet front room and looked around picking things up and examining them.
The bungalow was quaintly decorated, sweet family photos and books of all sorts. Then, they turned towards the low murmur of talking in the bedroom and follow it into the hall standing outside the barley cracked open bedroom door.
The light shined on their face in a long stripe showing Coralina Taylor listening in. She had a job to do: spying on Christopher and Genevieve for Jacob.
Back in the room, Christopher lifted Genevieve's chin so that their eyes met. His moved a sliver a black hair that crossed her pale skin and shook his head. "You've done your best, and I would never say you've failed. Imagine, you were gone a few months form Morgan's life and I was gone years. You still have time to repair with Morgan. And I think you're right. Working it out with him first would perhaps be best for us all. I'd like to be closer to Morgan too."
"I'd love that." She said, reaching up and combing her hand through his hair.
He slowly rolled out from under her and lay over her again. His eyes meeting hers, locking in place. "I love that you love that." He smirked.
The fire continued to warm them. He kissed her neck, she moaned with delight as he slowly moved his head lower and lower down to her chest, her navel, her thigh and then to a spot that felt like the world exploded in her mind, like firecrackers in the summer, like waves crashing up against the cliffs.
They made love again; in the small bungalow they now called their own home.
And just as silently as she came in, Cora had gone -- the hallway empty again. She'd gathered enough news for Jacob as she could on his back from the dead brother.
 |
| Baxter being followed |
The evening seemed to have come quickly, faster than he'd expected.
He made his way half a block on the strangely quiet street and checked his pocket watch again. Without paying attention in his direction, Baxter moved onto an even quieter, more residential part of the village. There were less gas lamps on this street. He lifted his head, finally, and realized his wrong turn.
When Baxter turned back, directly behind him in a blur of shadow was a person that launched a left punch to Baxter's face.
Baxter fell to the cobble stone street that was slicky with the moister of the sea and fog. Blood spilled from Baxter's nose, pooling in the cracks of the stones on the street.
The pain stung center in Baxter's face, so much so he couldn't make a noise. Within seconds of falling, the shadowy person then pounded Baxter's body even more fiercely. To his ribs, his back, his ribs again, his head. Blow after blow the shadowy person continued to grunt and lunge at Baxter's twisting body.
The person grabbed Baxter by his coat lapel, the bleeding Baxter reached over and bit down on the person's hand, large as it was.
The person groaned in pain and launched yet another blow to the Baxter's face knocking him unconscious.
Then, just as fast as it started the shadow left in a hurry back into the shadows and the night fog leaving Baxter writhing in pain. Finally, like a dam breaking his was able to scream in pain. His roar echoed between the small houses on the wrong street he turned on alerting frighting neighbors who hurried to his aid.
****
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| Jacqueline encounters Verity at the cabin |
Later that night, under the cover of darkness, Jacqueline Gray returned to Goode Island where she had been staying since the end of the witch trials. She had been spending her days in the village at Churchill Green reconnecting with her estranged husband Johnathon and putting her shapeshifting abilities were put to good use.
The Goode family cottage on the small satellite island had become her own home now that Mary and Filipe moved in with Fatima in the village. It was her refuge now, her safe haven. Her coven's den.
As she walked through the dense woods that encircled the cottage her mind floated back to her hopes for her marriage with Johnathon. Their connection for her was mostly one of opportunity. She could somehow manage to get him back in her good graces she could eventually return to the village as herself, but only with Johnathon. The village and the Lords themselves would never accept the witch that turned the town upside back into society without Johnathon by her side. They needed each other.
And as these thoughts of Johnathon swam through her conniving mind, she thought too of Sebastian. The man she believed would have made her perfect partner. The vampire that stole her heart and eventually stomped all over it -- the reason her child died.
Her calm walk home quickly turned to a furious one. She could feel her heartbeat face as the night fog choked the woods all around her. Her dark dress against the white low clouds made her look as if she were in silhouette, a living breathing shadow portrait darting through the dense trees trying to make her way home.
Jacqueline's concentration on her self-serving reunion with Johnathon and true wish to forget all about Sebastian suddenly vaporized in her mind when she came upon the cottage in the center of Goode Island. She stopped in her tracks. Her heart, however, did not stop it's racing beat. There was light within the home. The hearth had been burning. Chimney smoke filled the air above and mixed in with the fog. Through the front window, a shadow figure stirred in the home.
Jacqueline slowly made her way to the porch. One step after another until she got to the front door and in a quick motion, she yanked the door ajar to find the Mary Goode standing in the center of the front room with a cup of tea.
"What are you doing here?" Jacqueline asked, the alarm in her blood dropping significantly as she feared no other witch beside herself.
Mary did not answer, she only looked at Jacqueline as if she'd seen a ghost.
"Mary? I asked you a question." Jacqueline pushed as she slowly made her way into the warming front room. "What are you doing here?"
Again -- Mary did not answer, in fact she seemed almost as if she refused to speak. Or could not speak. There was something about her energy, Jacqueline noted internally, that seemed -- different. Something was off about her one-time coven sister, her one-time partner in magic and then she saw it.
The eyes. Mary's eyes were blue; this woman's eyes were green. Like Verity's.
With this realization, Jacqueline stopped in her tracks frozen with shock. Verity was a body, a body Jacqueline was forced to inhabit by the witch council to relieve Mary of the crime of witchcraft, she was burned at the stake to save Mary--- how was she now, standing before her as her own person sipping tea?!
"How?? How are you here? TELL ME! How is this possible, you burned!" Jacqueline recalled.
"Things are not always what they seem." Verity said, her voice exactly as Mary's. "You shouldn't be here either."
"I don't understand, I was in this body and they burned it, and when I came to, I was in this home back in my own body. The witch council --- they --- they said you were just a shell, a casing for me to portray as Mary. You can't be real." Jacqueline replied, practically talking to herself.
"As I said, things are not always as they seem." Verity replied. "There was much more to what the council had in store for me than they led on. You should know a sorceress always has a double plan, and they certainly had for me."
"No this is a mistake -- everyone in this village believes Mary's twin was the true witch and she paid with her life. It's the only way Mary could be saved -- you'll destroy everything if you are discovered." Jacqueline replied.
"You're worrying too much." Verity answered as she sat to sip her tea. "I haven't returned to cause any harm to anyone you care for. But the council has given me free will, a life to live and I intend on pursuing it as they've designed."
"Verity, listen to me, you cannot make yourself known in the village. Do you understand that? They saw you burn to ash, practically everyone in Welshport believes you're gone and forgotten. Should they find you -- they'll start all of that all over again. We'll all be in danger."
Verity could see Jacqueline's panic almost as if it were the very dress she was wearing. It was plain to see. She was new to the world but had learned quickly what it was to have human emotions, worry, fright, anxiety and stress. All of which were bleeding from Jacqueline's pours like water from a sieve.
"That's not going to happen, I assure you." Verity replied.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because the only person who sees me as Verity is you. Everyone else has seen me as Mary." The Spencer twin explained.
"'Has' seen you? Verity have you already been in the village? Have you already gone to the Welshport and been seen?? Do you understand what the council will do to me if they discover this? They'll destroy me! They gave me strict instructions about you, and me, and --- my god, this changes all of that. You were never to be your own person!"
Jacqueline turned and faced the wall. Her stomach was in knots. The Council had been very clear with her about Verity's existence and how secret it needed to be. No one on earth could know Mary magically created twin sister was not a real person in her own right, they had to believe she had been burned at the stake and was dead. If revealed Jacqueline too risked further sanctions by the witch council. She knew this to be true.... but it was yet another game.
Verity chuckled and sipped her tea.
"This is not funny." Jacqueline replied, turning back to her new blonde roommate. "They'll have my head."
"They won't." Verity answered quickly. "They won't."
"You've set me up -- THEY'VE SET Me up!"
"Jacqueline that's enough. Your paranoid. If the council truly had any intentions of punishing you further, they would have by now -- besides, you think I am here anyway? Do you think I was somehow more powerful than the witch council themselves? Do you think I would usurp their powers and just recreate myself from ash?"
Jacqueline stood in silence when the realizations suddenly flooded her panicked brain.
"This is what they wanted." Verity continued. "Eliza Goode conceived two daughters, one lived to be Mary, the other died before she could be fully formed. I wasn't just some made up being from their own imagination, Verity Spencer, had at one time in this unjust world had a purpose that nature, for better or worse, cut short. But the second chance has come."
As this settled into Jacqueline's mind, she wondered "What do you intend to do with this second chance?"
Verity's face suddenly shined with glee. Her green eyes sparkled in the low glow of the Goode family's hearth. It was as if Jacqueline had asked where they cat put the canary.
"I intend to live fully as the person who I should have been all this time. I'm starting soon. And you, sweet coven sister, will never tell a soul. Because if you should, then -- and only then -- will the full weight of the witch council come down on you. Reveal me, speak my name out loud to anyone, and prepare to cease to exist."
"No -- you cannot ask me this! I have my own plans, my own redemption that I deserve. Knowing you're alive, know you're here and --- and --- and plotting something may risk everything for me. You have to leave Welshport. Find a place of your own and start over, don't do it here." Jacqueline begged.
Verity stood firm. She would not be moved. "No."
"Verity, listen -- " Jacqueline began before she was interrupted.
"NO!"
Jacqueline said nothing more.
"This place is where I was meant to have been born and this place is where I will finally find my destiny." Verity said.
Then before Jacqueline could say anything again, she Verity had one final statement that chilled her to her bones.
"My destiny to live ---- as Mary."
Jacqueline's eyes widened, she let out a small gasp of air when it all came together for her. Verity intended on taking over her twin sister's life, and Jacqueline was bound by the witch council from doing anything about it, locked in her own web of lies she could never ever expose Verity.
The risk of doing this was sure destruction -- and Jacqueline herself had too much planned and too much to live for.
****
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| Father & daughter meet face to face |
Later that evening, over at the Bellmore Beach home Evie was gifted by Rebecca, Danielle Holten took a few steps down a pebble stone path. There was a silence in the foggy air broken by the crashing waves just beyond the home's porch where the sea launched great white waves on the rocky beath. Aurora and Caspian had taken up refuge there, while Evie and Garbriel were away.
Danielle snuggled herself tightly in her wool coat and adjusted the small hat on her head just before she appeared in front of the beach house gate where she saw Caspian at his front door.
"Viktor." She said, stepping into the gated garden.
Caspian lifted his head from the door knob, one hand under a coat that had been draped over it, the other latched on to a key. The name and voice familiar yet alarming to hear out in the open, like a secret spoken loud.
He turned and saw the voice matched the face he had in his mind, his estranged daughter Danielle.
"Miss Holten, what are you doing here?" He asked, droplets of sweat glistening in the light of the gas lamp in front of the house.
She sighed and stepped closer, Caspian seemed out of breath, a bit pale and in a rush.
"To be honest," she replied walking up the path to the front door, "I don't really know. I guess when I heard you and Mrs. Lord were no longer living together I just -- I wanted to see you. To see my father."
Stepping down the three front steps, Caspian smirked, "Your father," He said, "that's still something hard to really put into perspective. Miss Holten --" he continued as she interrupted.
"Please, call me Danielle."
"-- Yes, Danielle. I hope you know that I do hope we can be friends, first. I don't know when or if I'll ever regain my full memory of being Viktor, but perhaps, knowing you as a friend first will bring things back slowly. I'm open to that if you are."
She smiled. "Friends." She said, extending her gloved hand for a friendly shake. He chuckled and shook her hand.
Once they touched, Caspian suddenly felt a stink to his right temple. He ripped his hand out of Danielle's grasp and made a deep bellied sound of pain that Danielle, a nurse, had never heard come from a man before.
Caspian doubled over in pain, his headaches were coming now more frequent than before.
"Are you alright?!" Danielle asked, coming to his and helping him back up to the front door.
"I -- I .... It's hard to see." He said, his eyes blurring in the pain.
"Sit here." She said guiding him to a front step. "Should I get Aurora?"
"She's not here." Caspian replied, lowering his head in his hands. "I was about to leave to -- uh -- meet her for dinner with Nikolas."
Caspian clasped his hands behind his head hoping the pressure would help the sudden pain in his head. As he did this, the coat around his arm slipped slower down locking in place around his elbow. Danielle then noticed a slight stain on the cuff of his sleeve. She reached for his arm but Caspian pulled away.
"What is -- " She began but was quickly interrupted by Aurora and Nikolas arriving by Taxi.
Aurora rushed to the front steps of the beach house.
"What's happened?" She asked, reaching for Caspian's arms. He quickly regrouped, hiding the stain with this coat.
"He said he's having one of his headaches?" Danielle said, unsure if Aurora was aware of his condition.
"Headaches??" She asked.
"Let's take him inside." Nik said, as he winked at his new love Danielle.
"Please, please everyone, its fine, really." Caspian said.
"We should get you to lay down, Caspian." Nik urged helping Caspian up and into the house.
The group shuffled around getting a sofa comfortable for Capsian who refused to be treated like a hospital patient. Aurora, huffed, and physically pushed him down on the sofa and covered his legs with a blanket.
"A headache that knocks you to your feet doesn't feel like just nothing." Aurora said.
"How long have you been having these headaches?" Nikolas asked, examining Caspian's pupils as best he could.
Caspian did not answer.
"Caspian? Answer him." Aurora demanded.
Caspian sighed. "A while. Dr. Ward has been treating me, I didn't want anyone to worry."
"I'll call Dr. Ward." Nik answered. "He'll give me an update."
"Why haven't you told me this? This -- this feels serious. If you've been seeing Peter about these headaches you're worried too." Aurora said.
"I won't lie to you they're very intense. But Peter has been helping me and if I told you what was happening I worried you'd think -- well the worst." Caspian confessed.
Danielle re-entered the room with a glass of water "The worst?" she wondered out loud as she handed the water to her father.
Aurora sighed. "I'm sure you know Caspian's history. It probably better we don't speak it out loud."
"You mean..." Danielle too didn't want to say it out loud but the room was pregnant with the past. Caspian's past of demonic possession. It was the reason he couldn't remember being Viktor Holten, Danielle father, and why he called himself Caspian Casador, the name the monstruous demon gave him.
"Please let's just all take --- UGH!!" Caspian began before yet another tight pain to his right temple. He once again bowled over in pain, he came from behind his eyes and forced him to make fists with his left hand. It was tightly wound that his knuckles turned as white as snow. The other hand crushed the glass of water shattering it in his bare hand and cutting him.
Aurora gasped and quickly tried to hold him, but his rage with the headache shook her away. She fell back on the other side of the sofa. Danielle yelped as the glass crumbled before her eyes and she stepped back as Caspian's aggression became like a hot oil boiling over.
"Is everyone alright???" Nik asked, rushing back into the room hearing Danielle's scream.
"WE'RE FINE!!" Caspian roared.
The room fell silent. Caspian, embarrassed by his own outburst excused himself to the bathroom to tend to the wound from the broken glass of water.
"Caspian, let Danielle or Nikolas clean it for you." Aurora asked, her voice small and tender, almost fearing his reaction.
"I'LL DO IT!" he yelled back.
Caspian disappeared into the bathroom leaving Nik, Danielle and Aurora frozen in silence.
"What's going on?" Danielle asked, she most of all still slightly in the dark to who and what Caspian really was before she's returned to Welshport.
"I -- I don't know." Aurora said in a worried tone.
"Dr. Ward told me on the phone that Caspian's been having these headaches for a while now. He's been treating him in secret because Caspian was worried how everyone would react thinking that it was happening again." Nik explained.
"It?" Danielle asked. "You're not saying what I think you're saying." She added.
Nik had filled in Danielle about Caspian's past, a past that she had slightly heard about here and there, but with Nik's explanation and a deeper and more frightening understanding had planted itself in her mind. It hurt her, knowing her father's history while she was away believing him dead. She could have saved him or helped him, she thought, but in truth, only the most powerful prayers on earth saved him.
"Dr. Ward is certain these are just unresolved issues from his head injury at the coves all those months ago when the mob shoved him and he fell on the cove rocks. Nothing more. But Caspian -- well he worried, I think more than he should." Nik explained.
"But what do you think?" Aurora asked.
Nik shrugged "There's no reason to believe Caspian is reverting back to anything -- and I mean anything -- that we need to worry about. He's injured and needs to be treated. Head injuries are very delicate and difficult to remedy. They take time."
"Of course." Danielle replied, realizing her worry was silly. Of course, Caspian wasn't returning to the darkness that over-took him all those years ago and for all intents and purposes killed her father Viktor, in spirit, if anything. "This is a medical condition."
Aurora arched a brow "If Peter believes it, and the two of you think so, then... I'll believe it too." she replied unconvincingly.
In the bathroom, Caspian stared into his own reflection. He was sweating. Dark circles fell below his eyes making him look gaunt, skeletal and in truth -- devilish. He washed the cut on his hand from the glass in the sink. Blood swirled in the drain and Capsian watched as the crimson liquor circled and circled the stainless-steel drain.
The sweat at his brow returned. His pale skin could not be unnoticed. His breathing was like a panting panther searching for water. He could not feel his lips, he could not feel his heart beating faster and faster. It was like he was watching himself from outside his own body the body that Viktor once held and was taken over by the darkest monster from the depths of a place no human had ever been.
The lips he could not feel quivered with fear. The sweat dripped down his spine. There was more than just the bleeding hand he was worried about.
He rolled up his sleeve, the same sleeve that Danielle noticed the stain, to reveal a bloody bite mark left there by Baxter Murphy's bloodied mouth.
Caspian Casador was not well.
