It starts with a dream. I'm running through a garden. It's wild and overgrown. Someone is watching me, they know I'm here. I keep running, my eyes are fixed ahead upon a large yew tree looming in the distance. Behind me I hear footsteps, soldiers. They're coming after me, they've been sent by him to get me. I press forward, running through the dead branches and undergrowth until I reach the yew. I stoop down and begin frantically digging with my bare hands, clawing and raking at the earth, trying to find what is mine.

It's here...I know it's here.

The grief is overwhelming, it's like nothing I've ever felt before. Tears are pouring down my face and I want to scream. Suddenly, the footsteps grow louder and then everything goes black...

I couldn't understand what happened until I has the strange realisation that there is something inside my chest. It's hard and sharp, and pushing into my rib cage, through my lungs and into my heart. I can't see anything, so I lift my hands over my body and feel the rough wooden edges of a stake, buried deep into chest. I start to scream and I suddenly feel icy cold fingers closing around my throat; crushing and squeezing the life out of me. I can't call for help ... I don't know what to do ... I'm dying.

"Mia?"

I open my eyes and find myself lying on the floor, next to Laura. She's sitting in front of me, her legs crossed, wearing a bored expression. "Finally," she said rolling her eyes, "you've no fucking idea how boring death is."

Sitting up, I look down at my chest, searching for the stake that was buried inside of ist, only seconds earlier. But to my confusion, I see nothing. There is no stake, no blood, not even a mark on the skin that'd indicate I'd been injured.

"What's wrong, Hayden?" Laura asks.

I cradled my head feeling muzzy and disorientated. I couldn't put my finger on what I was currently experiencing. It was a strange and almost impossible feeling to describe. It felt like I was awake and asleep at the same time, and like I was here but not really here.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"You're back inside your head," she replied nodding towards the two familiar doors that represented my connection to the dead and Luc.

"Wait," I said rubbing my sternum, "am I dead?"

She shook her head and said, "No, you passed out from exhaustion. I saw the whole the thing, and I have to hand it to you, Hayden, you were pretty impressive standing up to that nurse and tearing her throat out. I never thought you had it in you."

"I don't," I snapped shakily, "I'm just doing what I need to do to survive."

"Well, just be happy that you're alive and well, and peacefully sleeping in the arms of our incredibly hot sub-lecturer," she chirped.

My stomach dropped and I felt ill. Trying to keep calm I asked, "You mean to say, that I'm with Luc?"

"Yip. You're snuggled up against his chest, sleeping sound as a baby," she said, then lamented, "I accidentally got stuck watching the whole thing, as I've now got nothing better to do with my afterlife."

My eyes drifted down to the gaping bloody whole in torso, and I was painfully reminded of her untimely and gruesome end. Quietly I wondered if what I'd seen and what I'd felt earlier was a premonition of my own future. I remembered once having a dream like that before, when I first met Luc. We'd been sat together when he suddenly turned on me, steaking me straight through the heart.

"Oh God," I whispered, "I think he wants to kill me."

Laura's eyebrows drew together in confusion and she asked, "What do you mean?"

"I think I've seen my future, and I think Luc is going to kill me," I said numbly.

"W-what," she replied,

Frustrated I raked a hand through my hair and explained, "I found the old queen's journal. She'd written an entry where she confessed she suspected Luc of being Celia's true murderer. I didn't want to believe it but then I accidentally blurted the truth out to Nico and, oh God, he said he thought the same thing ... Do you know what that means - I'm married to a monster!"

It was more painful to say those words, than it was to feel that stake being driven slowly through my heart.

"Wait, let me get this straight," she said rising off the floor, "so, your husband, Mr Tall Dark and Handsome, is some wicked evil murderer."

"Unfortunately," I nodded.

"Okay," she said scratching her head, "but if he is the monster that you say he is, then why did you not let that other vampire shoot him?"

I bowed my head and muttered shamefully, "I couldn't let Nico hurt Luc. I don't know why, I just know that when I saw Nico reaching for the gun, something in me snapped and I couldn't allow him to hurt Luc."

"It sounds like you're still in love with him," she replied.

I lifted my head and looked her straight in the eyes and said, "I could never, ever love him. Not now, not after discovering what he did to poor Celia."

My heart protested at this declaration, refusing to acknowledge the words that were coming out of my mouth. It screamed at me, 'You belong to him and he belongs to you, for forever and eternity, in this life and the next. You will always be together.'. I shuddered in horror at this statement. I could never belong to that man - I could never let myself love a murderer.

Laura watched me on the floor mentally struggling with myself. She leaned next to Luc's door and asked, "Do you want to give his door a try again and see if it's still locked?"

I shook my head and said, "No, it can stay shut forever."