update!! this has been my favourite chapter so far, so i hope you like it! let me know what you think. also, for those asking, awake will be about twenty chapters plus an epilogue. thanks for reading!

"She's awake."

I heard the words before I even knew it myself. One moment my mind was basking in the serenity of silence, and the next words were filtering through my consciousness.

"No, she's not."

"I swear she just blinked."

"Her eyes are closed, dumbass. You can't blink with your eyes closed."

The voices were distant, but definitely in the same room. I knew I was inside because I wasn't shivering harshly. Instead, my skin felt flushed with warm. 

I couldn't open my eyes. My subconscious mind screamed at me that I was vulnerable, and I didn't quite know what I'd be opening my eyes to. Maybe he was going to kill me when I woke. If that was the case then I needed to prolong that.

So, instead, I let my senses wander over my surroundings. It was silent, save for the odd movement in the direction of the voices. They felt somewhat familiar, but my panicked mind couldn't quite put a finger on it. It was too quick, brushing over my senses. 

My mouth was muffled. I couldn't breathe through it, and moving my lips revealed that they were stuck, maybe with duct tape. Immediately, my pulse quickened.

"Her breathing has changed."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. We should get him. He told us to get her the second she woke up."

"Oh, and you want to risk it? What if it was just a twitch? You don't want him to... you know."

Him. It had to be him.

I focussed on where I was. I was sitting up, my head hanging low, my neck stretched and painful from the load. My body was supported by my hands, which were behind my back. Bound. To a chair. The rope was chafing my wrists.

No no no no—

"You hear that?"

"Yeah. She's definitely awake."

I tried to say something, to tell them to wait, but all that came out was a muffled cry. I opened my eyes, blinded for a moment by the light. But then I saw them.

Evan. And the boy who had broken his arms when he fell from the ladder.

They stared at me, the three of us completely mute as we took in each other's expressions. But then, almost instantly, they closed their gaping mouths and looked away.

"Don't look her in the eye," Evan said. "He told us not to look her in the eye."

My eyes trailed down to his arm which was bandaged with black–gauze which I assumed to have once been white. The other boy's arms were both wrapped in slings tight to his chest.

"Get him."

My lips struggled against the tape, my protests translating into a muffled plea as I pulled at my wrists. My ankles were bound too, and they held out as I tried to rip them free. This was it. He was going to finish the job, a knife to my throat.

The injury was raw, but I could feel pressure against it, maybe a bandage. It seemed more painful than before, stinging as I thrust myself forward and backward, trying to gain some leeway with my constraints.

"Don't struggle," Evan said. His companion had ventured up a set of stairs. The room, which I suspected to be a basement from the lack of windows, was almost completely empty, save for a few wooden chairs, likely identical to the one I was tied to.

Rebelling against his words, I kicked my feet viciously.

"I'm serious," Evan said. His eyes–which refused to look at me–carried haunted grey rings beneath them, identical to the ones harboured by the others in the nook by the stairs. "It won't get you anywhere. You're safest in this room."

I couldn't breathe. The air rasping through my nostrils wasn't coming fast enough, and I was sure I was going to pass out. But then there were footsteps, slow and leisurely down the stairs.

"Thank you, Peter."

It was him. His voice alone was enough to render chills over my forearms, looping through my thoughts and pulling at the fear which seemed to constantly exist at the forefront of my mind, planted there ever since I met him.

"Let us know if there's anything we can do, Professor," the voice of Peter responded, just as the two rounded the threshold and entered the basement. 

"Oh, you know I will," he said, the fragments of a grin clinging to his words. "But you and Evan can go now. Aspen and I need to... talk."

This was it. My death. Or worse. It could only be worse.

When Conrad Blackwood's eyes found me they almost softened. The black beads of his pupils, which were empty yet hauntingly entrancing, found mine, and it was as if they almost softened.

"Oh, Aspen."

As Evan and Peter travelled back up the stairs, neither sparing me a glance, Conrad dragged one of the chairs in my direction, the wooden legs scraping the floor. He was dressed in all black, a contrast to the stereotypical professor get-up he usually wore. Maybe it was a reflection of what he was about to commit. Murder.

"I didn't think you would survive," he murmured, his brows knitting together. He placed the seat in front of me before sitting down. My chest was falling and rising fast now, oxygen not reaching my brain.

When I didn't try to respond he looked almost amused, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

"It's down to two options," he said, his eyes searching me, my eyes, my neck, the duct tape forced over my lips.

I flinched as his hand moved forward, his thumb grazing my jaw slightly before finding my neck.

"You've left me with only two," he said quietly. Then, he raised my chin, using his other hand to pull at what I was now sure was a bandage.

I felt it rip from the skin of my throat, a hoarse and muffled cry leaving me at the pain.

"Thirty stitches," he said. "You managed to cut quite deep. It really is a wonder you woke up in time."

He sighed, his finger tracing the laceration. I winced, pulling roughly at my wrists, hoping they would somehow give way.

"Calm down," he said, almost soothingly. 

I stiffened beneath his touch as he smoothed the bandage back over the wound, the pain enough to make me bite hard on my tongue.

"You need to understand the position I am in," he said between gritted teeth. His breath fanned lightly against my cheeks, his eyes flitting away briefly as he licked his lips. "When I was younger, it took me a long time to recognise what I could do, Aspen."

What he could do. How he could kill people with just a question. How his words could create an army.

"I'd always thought it was charisma. An easy charm that could win people over with just a smile. It took me a long time to realise I was alone in my abilities."

He looked away, and I took another chance to scout the room. No windows. No items of weakness. Nothing.

"It was when my brother killed himself after an argument. After I told him to. Strong emotion paired with angry words can be lethal."

There was a deadly pause, as if he was daring me to react.

"And then I became even more powerful. Because it was my fault. I killed him. And then it was another death. And then I was losing my mind. It's an endless cycle."

My pulse was racing beneath my skin as he knelt closer. His own brother. He killed his own brother.

He let out a long breath before meeting his gaze to mine again. Then he raised his arm, his thumb brushing against the tape over my mouth.

"The horrendous power that could come from such soft lips."

I shut my eyes, unable to bear the intensity rushing through the tape and into the heat of my body, the terrifying connection I couldn't escape.

And then, slowly, he peeled it off.

"I tried to kill you, Aspen."

Stubbornly, I clasped my newly freed lips closed, my wrists rigid as they pushed against the rope. My entire body was stiff in his proximity.

"I used every ounce of the energy I could generate to control your mind. And you broke free."

"A test?" I asked, my bravery surprising even me as my voice cracked through the pain in my throat.

His lips pulled upwards. "Yes. A test."

He didn't know about Isaac. Isaac was safe. He didn't have control over Isaac.

As unrealistic as it was, I needed to hold onto that. I needed to hold onto the hope that I could still get out of here.

"You failed the test," he murmured.

My heart dropped, the gravity of his words sinking my chest.

"As I said, you've left me with a very hard choice," he said. He gave me a sad smile, before plunging a hand into his pocket. 

I watched, frozen in fear, as he retrieved a small silver knife, its blade glinting in the fluorescent light. 

"Kill you or keep you."

My breath caught in my throat, and instinctually I shifted as far as possible to put distance between us. But, it was useless. I was trapped before him, my fate completely in his hands.

"You're dangerous. A threat that is uncontrollable."

He pressed the cool metal to my cheek as I squirmed away, the blade cold against my hot cheek.

"Relax."

This was it. My death. I didn't want his face to be the last thing I saw, I didn't want my fear to be the last thing I thought about. I pictured my parents, my brother, Gia, Isobel. I pictured Isaac. A tear overflowed from the corner of my eye, slipping down and meeting his blade.

In one motion he dropped his hand, looking away again. I didn't realise I'd been holding my breath, and it flooded out of me in a quiet sob.

Why couldn't he just get it over with? Why couldn't he stop playing with me, and kill me now?

As if answering my thoughts, he brought a gentle hand to my cheek, the place where the blade had been, and turned my face towards him. "But I don't want to kill you."

The electricity flooding my body from his touch was enough to jolt me from my wish for death. His expression was almost caring, full of sympathy and affection.

"So long, Aspen. I've been alone in this my entire life, almost thirty years with no companion, nobody who equalled me. And now I'm forced to destroy the one person who could grant me power from being alive."

He wanted me. He wanted a cure to his loneliness. I could play on that, convince him I would behave while somehow setting the others free.

"Don't kill me," I said. I didn't expect the words to come out as a plea, but the way my voice cracked into a sob only strengthened my facade.

"I don't want to," he said. He gave me what was almost a meek smile. "But I can't trust you. I can't control you. That leaves me open. That's why you're here."

He nodded to the bounds around me, holding me captive before him.

"This way I can trust you. This way I can control you physically, until you're not a risk," he explained.

How long would that take? How long would it take to prove to him that he could trust me?

"Are you going to torture me?" I asked, knowing how this generally worked. The evil villain would capture his victim, hide them away, and torture them until they got what they wanted. I didn't know if I could handle his torture, mental or physical.

I was already so exhausted.

"No, Aspen," he said. "I don't want to hurt you. I want to get to know you. Properly."

I pulled at my ankles, my strength already dwindling. I had to find a way out of here. I had to get out.

"I know Isobel means a lot to you. And that can't happen anymore, not if your allegiance is with me," he said. 

And then my blood ran cold.

Gia. He didn't mention Gia. It was clear he had more of a hold on her than he had with Isobel, and for him not to mention her too had me frozen in fear.

"What?" he asked, clearly confused by my reaction.

I couldn't say her name, nor did I want him to know what I was thinking. But, as if sensing it, his lips curled knowingly.

"And I'm so sorry about Gianna. I know you were close with her too, but it won't matter for much longer."

Slowly, sobs broke through my chest despite how hard I tried to stifle them, my thoughts clouding as I processed his words.

"I know you didn't mean to kill her, Aspen," he said sympathetically. "It was just a test."