I watched him walk over the bridge and up the path towards the back of the home. I had to stop him, I didn't care what it would take.

I ran to the bedroom door and stopped for a moment to tell if there was anyone close by. I didn't feel the presence of anyone around so I opened the door a sliver and peeked out into the hallway. It was perfectly silent.

How much noise would I make if I slipped out the door and out on the balcony?

Quietly I made my way, closing the bedroom door behind me with just a slight click and edged towards the balcony door. I looked over my shoulder and looked down at the stairs to make sure no one was coming up them.

I moved smoothly out the balcony door and stood watching Mikael walk into the back.

This was it, my chance to ask him... to try and jog his memory... I wouldn't stand here any longer, nor was I going to stay put as Chris had wanted me to. If I could, at least, get some acceptable reaction from Mikael, I would indefinitely leave with him and never return to Central again.

I jumped from the balcony, landing on my feet behind Mikael and wrapped my arms around him. I didn't speak but the action made him stop in his tracks and look back at me. I had spooked him on my decent, and he tried jumping away from me.

“You!”

“Don't you know who I am?” I sighed.

He turned around to face me, not saying a word for what seemed forever.

Please, damn it! Remember me!!

“From that night at Serena's,” he said. “Other than that... I haven't seen you before.”

His voice was weary, undecided, almost as if he was lying to me.

“Mikael,” his name came wandering from my lips. My voice low in a hush, and I felt my heartbeat thump. “Think back... back to before Serena's... am I there at all?”

He was silent again, standing with a confused look on his face. He studied my features yet I caught his eyes wander to the ground below his feet and back up again.

“Damn it! Remember!” I demanded of him, the tone of my voice growing louder.

“I don't know!” He grabbed at his temples in frustration.

I took a deep breath, since upsetting him wasn't my intention. “I'm your creator... Mikael. I made you what you are, remember?”

His hands slid towards his face and he covered his eyes. “Impossible,” he whispered. “That's not true!”

“It is true. I bit you... left you... I found you again and cured you of denial.”

“No!” He removed his hands from his face now and looked at me in outrage. “Serena's my creator.”

It had been what I feared, she had told him lies all along. It was wrong of me to trade him for my supposed freedom. I hadn't been freed of anything and I lost him to her deceitful ways. How could I believe that he was better off in her care? I would have rather been drained of all my life in his waking moment than to stand back and allow her to brainwash him.

“Mikael...” Once more, his name came rolling off my tongue and I felt my heart pound deeper now. “She lied to you.”

“How can you say that? She takes care of me. She does everything for me,” he claimed angrily. “She found me and turned me... she said so herself.”

“Feeding you that elixir is taking care of you?” I couldn't stop what I had said.

He froze suddenly.

“Light....” His voice shifted, “It's been her salvation...”

“Does she share it with you or give you a separate dose?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” His voice grew angry again.

It was everything, actually. Knowing Chris, he was tainting the elixir so Mikael would lose his consciousness. He would forget who he really was and me in the process. And to Serena, that was what she wanted all along.

“Have you ever seen her drink from the same vial as you?” I wondered.

“.... no,” he admitted.

What was their plan? Serena and Chris... I was invisibly chained to both of them, being pulled each way by their strings. When I really just wanted to...

“They want you to forget me, Mikael.” I sighed. “That night at Serena's, how did it feel to be there in my arms again?”

He looked at me in shock. His eyes sparkling that crimson red and I looked back at them imagining their blue hue they once possessed before his turning. I missed the way his eyes seized me in, but no matter their color, their sparkle always stayed the same.

“I... don't know.” He faltered. “It was like... like...”

I walked up closer to him slowly.

Maybe it would jog his memory more if I...

“Like this?” I questioned, carefully wrapping my arms around his neck.

“Stop.” He pushed me away. “I must go.”

I lowered my hands back to my side. He began to walk a few feet away from me, his head down as his eyes focused on the ground.

“Wait!” I hollered but hesitated to grab him again.

He paused a moment. Slowly he turned towards me, yet his eyes didn't meet mine. He poised himself there studying the ground.

I was silent, hoping he was deliberating this short moment that I had tried to jog his memory.

However, he turned around, his back to me and left me standing there.

“Mikael!” Chris called to my left. “Ah, so there you are...”

I jumped and looked at him. He stood with a devious grin, his arms folded on top of each other.

“What are you doing out of your room?” He questioned.

“I...” I couldn't come up with an excuse. He must have seen Mikael leaving. He could have even seen when I had tried to embrace him. “You should know.”

“Indeed. Never-the-less you shouldn't be away from your room,” he said. “Have you been getting your feedings from CiCi?”

“Yes, why do you ask?” I wondered, as if the topic had changed.

“She is to come to your room daily with your rations, how has she been allowing you to feed?” he questioned, walking up closer to me.

I didn't understand what this was all about. Was it all a part of his wicked plan? I looked at him in wonder but didn't answer his question.

“Okay, just tell me one thing... is she allowing you to feed personally from her?”

“Yes?” I was baffled.

“That bitch!” He exclaimed looking out towards the manor.

I was correct, I thought to myself. His plan, whatever that was, did not go as exactly as he had wanted.

“I should have just done it myself!” He grabbed me by my hair and pushed me towards his house.

“Fucker! Let go of me!” I demanded, yet he grabbed hold tighter.

“This ends now, Lucious... no more bullshit.”

We walked up the bridge that ran over the pond and to the deck. He held onto my hair the entire time, as if it was a handle for him to grasp. I felt the sting of the hairs in my scalp being pulled. The discomfort causing me to squirm in his possession.

“Let go!” I ordered but he didn't listen, insisting on pulling me along into the house.

What was his plan... I couldn't be sure what he had in mind for me, but I knew just by how he pulled me along, that I indeed was weaker than him.

I hadn't wanted to admit it before, powerless and vulnerable under his grasp, and tried to conceal it to be just a difference in age, as he was an elder vampyre, much older than I. However, I hadn't asked him of his age nor of his past.

Had my consistent battle to control my animosity cause me to become weaker physically... mentally? And my battle with Mikael... those emotions that crept up on me oh so instantly... they debilitated me, weakened me emotionally.

I thought of these things as Chris continued to drag me by my hair up the stairs and towards the bed room he had banned me to.

Just what was his intentions?