"Emma?"

Liam whispers softly in my ear and I swing my fist, sending him flying to the ground. He looks up at me, rubbing his face, but with the most satisfied and mischievous look he can muster through the pain in his jaw. Where has this sudden power come from?

"You are ready." He says lowly, barely loud enough for me to hear. He laughs and I fall to my knees in shock, staring at my hands that have never seemed so disconnected from my own control. I scramble to my feet and turn back to my reflection in the monitoring machine. I've now got two golden eyes instead of just one. Any trace of the blue eye, the only thing that makes me share a physical resemblance to Alice, is gone. What drug has Liam I netted into me and has made me like this?

...°...

I'm thrown into the darkest of rooms, the silence suffocating me from every direction. I squint my eyes and my vampire sight takes over. The room is completely bare, except for a sort of machine and glass pieces around it. My eyes scan over it once more and my breath gets caught in my throat. I can't think, it's not possible. She's standing, completely healthy, and not a scratch is visible on her body. But what scares me the most is the two golden eyes, eyeing me in the dark, as clear as two stars in the night sky.

"Glad you could make it." The voice belongs to the man that started all of this, the man that I would torture without a second thought, for all of the pain he inflicted upon me, upon Emma.

I stare up into her beautiful pale face and my mind snaps back to reality: fangs. Her face is inches away from mine and her soft blond hair cascades down her back, creating a curtain around us in the front. I ache to take a strand of the light strawberry-blond hair and twirl it around between my fingers, but the bright stare of the golden eyes stare into mine in an entrancing way. I send her a pleading look but her fangs come closer to me and I back away. Not because I'm afraid of her, but because I'm afraid of hurting her.

She isn't herself; the look in her eyes is glazed over, as if she was in a hypnotizing trance. But how? How come she's got fangs now? Is she a vampire?

"I control her. She is mine." Liam's voice is fueled with passion and excitement but I don't have the strength to fight him.

-What have you done to her?" I utter softly, gazing up Emma's angelic features that were once filled with joy and love. Now, they are immobile, frozen, dead.

-I'll let you hear it from the Visioner herself." He declares, clapping his hands enthusiastically. Before I have time to register his answer, a furious bang echoes through the room and a cell door opens in the back. Guards appear and a silhouette squids hesitantly into the room. A silhouette that I know all too well.

Lily.

She stops when she sees me and my unbeating heart contracts when I see the tears pouring from her eyes. Her clothes are torn, her once perfectly manicured nails are bitten to the root, her hair filthy and her skin... it looks like she has been burnt alive. With all the strength I can gather, I run to her, am by her side and two hunter heads are ripped from their bodies besides us. I don't know what came over me, but seeing Lily so tortured just fueled me to kill any Hunter that I could get my hands on.

Except for one.

In all that time, Liam looks at us all with pure admiration and curiosity, not at all disturbed that I just ripped two of his men to pieces. Emma hasn't moved from the spot and stares into nothingness.

I turn to Lily and take her burnt face in my hands. "Shh..." I whisper, biting down on my wrist. Her eyes widen in alarm when the blood stars to flow but I can see the difficulty she is having to restrain her hunger. "It's okay... drink." I command in a firm voice, bringing my wrist up to her mouth. She takes it with her hands and sends me a gratified look before biting down with desperation. At each gulp I feel my energy weakening but she needs it so much more than me. I sigh with relief when the burnt patches begin to mend up and she is left with only dirt and crust on her skin. She pulls away and her head falls onto my shoulder, sobbing loudly and her tears slipping through my shirt to wet my skin underneath.

"As much as I love family reunions we need to get this going, so I suggest that you tell your dear brother what really happened to his... well his past soulmate. I'd hate to be one to break the news after all." Liam stands back and sends us a look. I snarl but my features soften when I look back at Lily. She needs all of the consolation she can get. How did they even get her here?

My answer immediately jumps to mind as I notice the look of utter sadness and betrayal on my little sister's face.

Drake.

"I'll kill him." I whisper lowly, so that only Lily can hear. She widens her eyes slightly before casting them back down and nodding with sorrow.

"Get on with it bloodsuckers." Liam warns vehemently, to which I turn and snarl. What I hadn't expected was for Emma to take a threatening step forwards towards me with her fangs bared, only stopping her advance when Liam raises a hand.

My heart clenches.

But she's not herself, I have to remind myself.

"You have to tell me..." I whisper to Lily softly, and she nods in my shoulder. She takes a deep breath.

"Emma... Emma isn't human anymore Jay. But she isn't a vampire either." Lily says and we both turn to look at the robotic being in front of us. Emma smiles wickedly with empty eyes and her fangs glisten in the pale moonlight flooding the floor from a cell-like window above at the sight of my bloody wrist.

"Tsst tsst Emma." Liam chants and the fangs immediately retract. He steps over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. I growl with anger and am about to spring forward but Lily holds me back. "Please... don't, Jay." She whispers with sadness and I slump back with surrender.

"Good... now, you must tell him Lily, we really need to get this started as you know." Liam says. Lily nods and looks me in the eyes with pain.

"Remember when she took in your vampire blood and her eye turned golden?" She begins hesitantly. I nod and shudder at the thought of the past events that lead to her 'coma'. "She should have completed the transformation back then, and become a vampire. But the hunter genes in her blood made it impossible. Her soul was stuck between two worlds and she couldn't chose."

A million questions make their way forwards in my mind but I don't get a chance to voice them.

"Great! Let's finish this." Liam declares and I snarl at him as he brushes a finger tentatively across Emma's cheek and encircles her in his arms from behind. She remains impassive, her eyes fixed on a point in the dark. "Oh don't be rude now, Jay! If you'd like, I'll even let you be her first kill." He smirks and chuckles slightly, and all I want to do in that moment is smash that arrogant look of his face and stand over his broken bones. But I know that if I even breathe on a single hair on his head he'll harm Lily in the most torturous ways possible.

"Why?" I utter, slowly taking a couple of steps across the floor with enough weight to keep me up on my feet. "Why have you turned her into... this?"

-I'm sure you know that a hunter only fully completes the transformation when they've killed their first vampire. And what better way to do this than let her kill her own soulmate? It gives it that poetic touch don't you think?" Behind that arrogant smile, Liam's eyes are filled with something dark, something evil and something much more horrid than just one vampire kill.

-That's not what I meant." I spit and he sends me a look of disgust.

"I know what you meant." He hisses, taking a step towards me. "After her transformation, Emma will be completely loyal to me, much more than the rest of the clan anyway. I will make her my queen, mine, and together, we will make the vampire race extinct, turn it into nothing more than a myth, a lost religion. Blood will flow from their liveless bodies, their faces will be ripped into agony, they will feel the exact same pain as my dad did when he died! And all of this will be the cause of a poor innocent girl, who just happened to step into the wrong world."

"Why the fangs?" I breathe out, regretting the words as soon as they come out. But I need to hear this, I need to know what deadly creature that arsehole's turned her into.

"When your Visioner of a sister told you that Emma had been stuck between two worlds during her coma, she forgot to mention that she uttered something from both. The fangs are simply signs of her choice to join the vampires, but the hunter gene took over before the turning was completed. This of course, is merely another asset to me." Liam finishes lowly, studying my reaction carefully. Lily has frozen behind me and places a comforting hand on my shoulder. Emma hasn't moved from her robotic stance by Liam's side. Her eyes are empty, gone, two golden but lifeless orbs looking at me impassively.

My mind clouds over with flashing images of my Emma's soft face as she sits besides me in Maths class, a look of pure curiosity crossing her features. If only I'd known back then... I would never have started this, I would never have lead her into all of this.

Liam gazes at me and grins with satisfaction. "I trust that all of this will be much clearer for you if you assist the first kill yourself."

Silence fills the room and suddenly a torturous scream fills my ears. A metallic screech resonates and footsteps echo through the darkness. Liam steps over to Emma and whispers something in her ear. She smiles a sick, wicked smile. His voice fills the room with an evil prediction.

"Bring it in."