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Word Count: 2168

~Thea

Dad was sitting at the dinner table when I walked back inside.

Despite the fact that he is slightly balding, and the scuff of dark hair on his chin suggests something like a beard, we look alike. Everyone says we have the same nose, and our eyes have the same dark tint around the outside.

He smiles, setting his newspaper down on the table, letting me get a glimpse of the front page. Jessica's face was printed large scale, with a daunting title and most likely a degrading passage on how she was depressed and how it was suicide. If the town believed that, then no propaganda would surface, and everything would be okay.

"Hey honey," he greets, peering at me from behind his reading glasses. I smile at him warmly, dumping my backpack on one of the dining room chairs as I go to sit in the seat opposite him.

"I was just at June's," I lie. No point bringing Casper up.

Dad stands, tucking the newspaper under his arm as he wanders to the kitchen. "You look cold. Would you like a drink?"

"Sure," I say, rubbing my hands together. He had no idea I showed up here in someone else's car, rather than walked all the way from June's. I knew he hated the fact that I took a route so close to the Phantom Forest.

Dad rustled around in the kitchen for a moment, boiling the jug, getting the tea ready. In the meantime, I kicked my shoes off, and hung my jacket on the back of the chair.

"Someone else went missing today," Dad told me from the kitchen, making my blood run cold. "A boy, this time."

This is the third person who has disappeared from town. It can't be a coincidence. "Who?"

"Ryan Connolly," Dad tells me. I close my eyes, a mental picture of the young boy clouding my vision. Another I went to school with. His family were very wealthy, living in the best neighbourhood, providing the boy with the best clothes and car. He wasn't a jock, but his money bought him popularity, and even girls.

"What do his parents think?" I ask warily. Prominent figures in this town society, Ryan's parents were known to hold the town on a leash. Sometimes, we think his father believes he is the substitute Alpha, since no one took over the role since Jasper's father.

Dad chuckles. "Your boyfriend and his father, along with half the town are out looking for him."

My father loves Luca. Loves him. The two get along so well they should be the ones dating. My father was the one to introduce me to the boy, letting us date straight away, unlike other boys I had interest in before.

"Apparently a man recently moved into the estate in the Phantom Forest. He might be brought in for questioning," dad says, setting my tea in front of me. Casper...He wouldn't be the reason why they have gone missing, right?

I sip my tea. "I suppose it is the only lead."

I look down into my cup, taken back by the sour taste it leaves in my mouth. Not the refreshing, tannin taste I was used to. And just as I swallow, my heart sinks in my chest as I assess the contents in the cup.

Thick, black...almost like I was drinking straight oil.

I set the teacup down slowly, trying not to scream. Trying not to cry out. Casper had warned me...But this is my father, he wouldn't poison me.

"Like your tea? It is new, meant to calm nerves," my father tells me. This struck my heart with full frontal force. He was lying to me, straight through his coffee stained teeth. My own father just gave me a sedative, and won't admit it.

I won't react. I can't.

"I think I am going to go to bed," I say carefully, already feeling as if my tongue was heavy and pasty in my mouth already.

He really did it. He really did drug his own daughter.

"Tired?" he asks innocently, catching my gaze within his own. I nod, standing slowly so I wouldn't fall.

Whatever he has given me, it is working fast. And it seems to be starting at my feet, sinking them to the ground like a weight, before crawling up my legs.

He says goodnight but I don't reply. All I can think about is why. Why would he drug me? What does he want to do with me? I need to get out of here, now, before these questions are answered without me even knowing.

I slam my bedroom door behind me, stumbling over heavy feet, feeling as if my body is wading through something as dense as water. I fall onto the bed, my arms struggling to pull myself up enough to grab my phone.

Luca would come here...He would save me.

I try to text, but my eyes are blurring, and my thumbs refuse to move, as if my brain has cut itself off from my body. I have to crawl on my hands and knees to the bathroom, bending over the toilet to stick my fingers down my throat to throw up the tea.

After I washed my mouth out four times, I dragged my numb back legs to my room, before dizziness hit me like a truck, and I tripped face first into unconsciousness.

I woke once. I fought through a heavy haze hovering over my mind, catching the sound of two familiar voices. Still on my bed, I stare through the crack in my bedroom door. Luca and my father stood there, deep in a heated conversation.

"Now?"

"I had no choice."

"Why? Why rush the next stage so fast?"

"He is here. That goddamn man will ruin everything if he finds her. He will take her from us, because she belongs to him."

I didn't need to hear anymore. I need to get out of here. And the window poses the only option.

The one sip I took must not have been enough to keep me unconscious, because I could feel myself coming back to normal, as I forced my window open with absolute stealth. Still talking, Luca and dad didn't notice me rather ungracefully make my body maneuver through the window.

I fall on my stomach, the ground almost winding me. The moment they realize I am no longer in that room, they are going to come for me, and do Goddess knows what.

I find my feet, as my head clears, the drug I had thrown up fading into the distance of my veins. I was free...But where do I go?

My own boyfriend has betrayed me...And my dad. I don't know what is worse.

June's. I can trust her. I circle the house, finding the path that leads to her house. I would run there, and never look back. Then in the morning-

But the police is behind what just happened.

Tears flow without me being able to stop it. My mind can't put together any proper thought that would make sense to me. Except one...Casper. He knew about the tea, and that someone would give it to me. He even tested me, and I failed.

Suddenly, a jab of nausea hits me. The drug is still in effect, and it is as if its on wave two of its infection of my system. I fall to my knees in the middle of the path, confusion hitting me every second.

And then I see him.

He stands between the trees, shadows curling around his limbs, eyes more violet than I have ever seen. He doesn't look real-like the personification of magic itself. It seemed to emit from him, in the form of dark tendrils of night.

Casper.

He almost looked disappointed that he was seeing me here, in the middle of the woods at night. Striding forward, Casper knelt down in front of me. Gleaming leather gloves were wrapped around his hands, almost melting into the sleeves of his dress shirt. Why is he dressed so neatly in the middle of the night?

Wait..."Why are you here?"

My voice is raspy, sounding bizarre next to the gentle sounds of the night. And the moment Casper's silky smooth voice could be heard, I sounded deranged.

"Why did you drink that? I warned you," Casper muttered, brushing my hair away with his gloved fingers. I shiver. He wasn't telling me why he is here, and for some reason, I know not to press it.

"I didn't know," I tell him, staring directly into those violet eyes.

Casper sighed, glancing over my shoulder, standing as he did so. I joined him, making it to my feet, but not without swaying dramatically first. Luckily, Casper steadied me, hands gripping my shoulder to stop me from falling onto my butt again.

"Why him?" I question, my voice weak. "Why my father?"

Casper looks grim. If he happened to wander into the woods at the same time I did, then he might know why my own father decided to drug me. And maybe why Luca happens to be apart of it as well.

"Because of me," he tells me. "He was going to take you far away to somewhere so desolate, so alone, you would never escape, nor see the sun again."

His words take me back for a second. So callous, with no holding back. But what frightened me the most was the fact that he did not once flinch, instead staying true to his words of pure honesty.

"Why because you you? What did you do to him," I question. For a moment, it doesn't look as if he is going to tell me, by the way he begins leading me down the path.

"I did nothing to him. It is about what I will do to him," Casper says cryptically. I frown, not quite understanding what he means.

He looks down at me as we walk. "I have been lying to you about  a few things."

"Like what?" I ask warily.

I have been lied to by many people, and now, I don't know who I can trust with anything today. My own father lied. By boyfriend. Everyone I love and care about is turning against me, and I don't even know why.

"My name, for a start," he says. Casper isn't his real name?

Suddenly, the sound of someone shouting resonates through the forest. We exchange glances, instantly becoming aware of who is in the forest with us.

"We need to go," Casper, or whoever he is insists. He grabs my hand, the leather if his glove feeling foreign.

He begins pulling me away from the sound of the shout. The suddenly change of direction, and insistence for movement has my head spinning, the drug I had taken earlier rearing its ugly head once again.

"I can't," I breath, my feet skidding against the path. "I might pass out again."

And I was right. Because as Casper turned, a vignette of blurriness shrouded my vision, and I knew at that moment, that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from being unconscious.

And the last memory I had before darkness hit, was Casper catching me in his arms.

"I won't let anything bad happen to you. I'll protect you, I promise..."

💙••💙

Don't want to wait for the next update? More of Jasper is available now on Radish!! (:

⭐️••⭐️

So I wasn't going to update today, but I decided I would since I can't update Grayson.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to write the chapter because I was the goddam emergency room last night :p

I was going out to celebrate the finishing of my exams with my family, and I realised I forgot to eat all day. (I know)

If you suffer from my type of eating disorder, you will know what I mean. I don't really feel the want to eat. I honestly just couldn't be bothered eating because I was so busy.

And due to previous suffering from unintentional starving myself, I was in so much pain my brother had to carry me two blocks from the restaurant to where the car was parked.

A taxi even pulled over because they thought I was drunk.

After the strictest talking to by the doctor, I now have a dietitian. And then the rest of today was spent with my niece...So that's why I didn't update, in case you were wondering.

Thank God Jasper my Queen is pre-written.

Nonetheless, I'm really sorry for otherwise not updating. I'm an idiot, I know, and I feel super bad because I know people look forward to these.

~Midika 💜🐼