Lost Girl

I came to with a splitting headache, pain throbbing behind my eyelids so strongly that I whimpered. 

‘Demi! Fucking answer me!’ Sawyer’s angry voice screamed in my head and I grabbed my temples in agony. 

My eyes snapped open as the memory of everything came crashing down on me. I kissed that other guy… thinking it was Sawyer… and then he announced he was taking Meredith as his new wife! 

He didn’t believe me… and then the vampires kidnapped me. 

Oh God. 

The necklace. He’d been wearing some kind of ugly-ass necklace that was no doubt magically affecting him.

I peered around the room to find that I was lying on a cold concrete floor. There was a water bowl, like you would set out for a dog… and that was it. The room was tiny, more like a jail cell, but with a normal door and handle. The walls were plaster and I wondered if I could somehow peel at the plaster and break through into the next room or the outside. My eyes flicked down to the cuffs at my wrists and I whimpered again. 

‘Demi! Enough with this shit. Where are you?’ Sawyer thundered again in my head and tears filled my eyes. 

‘Fuck you,’ I managed to send before the cuffs sent an electrical jolt up my arms, causing me to cry out in pain.

Talking to Sawyer mentally must use magic, and that triggered the cuffs to hurt me.

Great.

‘Demi!’ Sawyer’s voice threaded with annoyance at hearing my reply. ‘Where are you? I’ve got half the damn campus looking for you. Eugene says he lost you and—’

‘Fuck you,’ I said again, and the pain shot up my arms for a second time, but this time I clenched my teeth and pushed through the discomfort. My current anger at Sawyer was making this pain bearable. It was nothing compared to the ache in my heart.

I felt him bristle; we were tied together emotionally through the imprint, and it was hard to tease his emotions from my own. 

‘Demi. Why do I feel pain from you? Where. Are. You?’ 

What the hell did he care? He chose Meredith. Magical necklace or not. 

That motherfucker.

I sighed, realizing he was my only link to the outside world. ‘Vampire City, I think. Kidnapped. Can’t talk much. Cuffed. Electric,’ I sent back as shock after shock ripped through me and into him. 

‘No!’ he screamed, before I felt a possessive surge overcome me. My wolf bristled as Sawyer’s alpha presence overwhelmed us both. It was as if he was trying to jump through our imprint and join me here.

‘I thought you were lying about the vampires…’ he said, his voice devoid of emotion. His actual emotions were something else completely. 

Something wasn’t right with him. He felt off, as if anytime he had a normal emotion it was tamped down. I had nothing to say to that so I stayed silent, deciding to sit up and have a look around. How long was I out? Were there drugs in the water? I didn’t want to drink from the bowl like a dog; it seemed like an interrogation tactic to make me feel less human. But I was thirsty. I scanned the ceiling and then the air vent, zeroing in on a tiny red blinking light. 

Camera. 

I peered right at it and gave whoever was watching the middle finger.

‘I’m coming for you,’ Sawyer said, but I ignored him. 

Fuck him. Fuck everyone right now. 

The clickity clack of footsteps echoed down the hall and I bristled. Maybe the middle finger was a bad idea. Before I had time to prepare, the door burst open and two men in lab coats entered with Queen Drake. 

I froze upon seeing Vicon’s mother. After what he did to me, and knowing she was trying to get Sawyer arrested for his murder, it made fresh hot rage surge inside of me. Her black hair was pulled into a tight high bun, and she wore a white silk blouse that nearly matched the color of her skin.

“What do we know?” she asked the man in the white lab coat, ignoring me as I stood, fisting my hands together and preparing to fight them. I might only be a useless human with these cuffs on, but I was a decent fighter and I wouldn’t die without at least breaking her nose. 

“Lay back down!” the second vampire in a lab coat said to me, producing a long stick with two blue glowing wires at the end. 

Hmm, that looked a lot like—

He shoved the prod into my stomach and I fell to my knees screaming as searing pain jolted my entire body. My teeth clacked shut so hard I thought they would break. 

‘Demi!’ Sawyer cried out, having probably felt that through our bond. 

Queen Drake looked at me like I was a nuisance, like my scream was too loud for her perfect ears. 

“I’m hypothesizing that we need to take off the cuffs in order to bottle her power,” the first lab coat dude told her and showed her a tablet screen.

Bottle her power.

He said bottle… in relation to me.

A sickness rolled into me as I started to glean why they might have kidnapped me. I thought it was in retaliation to Vicon’s murder, but no… they knew what I was and they meant to… bottle my power?

Oh hell no.

I jumped up, lunging for them both, when the second lab coat guy met me halfway, shoving the electric stick right into my chest.

The prods pricked my skin and my heart squeezed like it might burst; blackness danced in my vision, pain shaking me like nothing I’d ever felt before. Wetness pooled between my legs and I blinked, realizing I’d peed my pants. 

How did I get on the floor? Where were the lab coats and the queen? I must have blacked out…? I looked down to see a red dot on the inside of my arm, like they’d taken blood from me. 

No. 

A sob burst from my chest as I realized how incredibly screwed I was. 

‘Demi…’ Sawyer’s voice was much softer this time. ‘What happened? You went dark. Where are you? In a building? A house?’

The absolute heartbreak of Sawyer choosing Meredith over me, of him not trusting me, it all came down on me like a pile of bricks, crushing my soul. 

‘You didn’t believe me. How could you not believe me!’ I whimpered as the pain from the cuffs lit up my arms. ‘Take off that fucking necklace, Sawyer. It’s spelled.’

‘I have eyes! You kissed another dude. What was I supposed to think?’ he shot back.

‘You were supposed to trust me.’ I didn’t even feel the pain anymore, I was numb. ‘Take off the necklace,’ I whimpered, repeating myself.

‘I’m coming for you,’ he repeated. ‘I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I… still love you.’

I scoffed at that. ‘But you’ll marry Meredith?’

Silence. 

‘I have to protect my family,’ he said finally, and the pain in my heart somehow got more intense. ‘And Meredith loves me,’ he added, sounding confused. 

‘Take off the necklace, Sawyer!’ I shouted, crying at the pain that talking to him was causing me.

‘No. Meredith gave it to me. It was a special present.’ He sounded like Smeagol protecting the one ring.

‘You don’t love me.’ I spoke it like the fact it was.

‘Yes I do.’

‘This isn’t love, Sawyer! Love and trust go together. That guy I kissed was you. He looked and talked like you. I was tricked, and someone who loved me would believe me.’ I could smell burning hair and skin from the cuffs as they singed my arms. And I wept as this current hell became reality.

Silence. 

‘I want to believe you…’ he said. ‘I’m… confused. I feel… off.’

That fucking necklace was a love spell. I just knew it. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t my Sawyer.

‘Get Sage. Show her the necklace Meredith got you,’ I whimpered as black dots danced at the edges of my vision. Maybe someone with some sense would rip that fucking thing off of him.

‘If I kissed Meredith, and then you caught me, and I said I thought it was you, would you believe me?’ he growled, ignoring my comment about the necklace.

‘That’s different, you’re dating Meredith, you’re dating half the goddamn school, Sawyer!’ A cry ripped from my throat and the pain became too much.

‘I never touched any of them,’ Sawyer growled. ‘Ask around, I didn’t kiss a single girl since I met you that day at Delphi.’ 

My heart couldn’t possibly break any more, but it did. I realized in this moment that the bone-crushing heartache I felt was part his. Through the bond, his heartache and mine had merged into a single beast that felt like it would kill us both.

‘You think I would kiss some rando knowing you were right outside? How stupid do you think I am? Take off that necklace. It’s spelled, you idiot!’ The cuffs were so hot, I half wondered if they would catch fire and burn me alive. 

His pain and agony laced through our bond, wrapping around me like a snake. 

‘Demi, I spoke to the high priestess of the Witch Lands. She says there is no magic that could make another look like me.’

My heart fell at those words.

‘Then she’s lying!’

Silence. I was in too much pain, holding on to too much anger to deal with any of this anymore. 

‘When I free you, we can talk more about it, but—’

‘But nothing,’ I whimpered. ‘Your family curse has fucked you up. You’re broken and you don’t know how to trust people. It’s not my job to convince you of something I didn’t do wrong. If you can’t trust me... it’s over.’

‘Demi, wait—'

‘No,’ I whimpered. ‘In what reality would you ever be this mean to me, Sawyer? Think about it. Your necklace from Meredith is spelled and you’re a fucking asshole. Goodbye.’

I couldn’t deal with spelled-necklace-Sawyer anymore. I tore myself away from our bond so fast that I felt something fracture inside of me. A headache slammed into me at the same time the cuffs ripped so much electricity through me that everything went black again.