It's been ages, I'm so sorry. I went through some things in the past couple months; but long story short... I'm done with men and I'll probably be single for the rest of my life.

***
'I'm hanging on strings held by fickle hands
My life determined by uncertain clasped fingertips
One second secure one minute free'

***

Whenever I get a feeling in my gut I follow it. It's something that comes in a subtle way and builds the longer I don't make a decision. The more important it is the more intense the feeling becomes. It starts as a warm sensation in my heart then it spreads through my entire body.

The feeling I'm getting now is terrible. Like I just trampled my own heart. He looks at me as if I just insulted the thing he holds most precious. Did I? Was I wrong to assume that the key was worth more than just a special heirloom from his mother? Maybe, I was a little abrupt - this was a special moment between us and I just ruined it. Valentine holds the key between his fingers but his eyes never leave my face.

"I told you," Valentine says through his teeth. "My mother gave it to me. It unlocks one of her greatest treasures."

"It does?" I ask again, trying to find a logical reason for asking him in the first place.

He narrows his eyes at me. "Of course, what do you think it's for?"

"I don't know, I was just curious." I let my shoulders slump down as he picks his shirt from off the floor and puts it back on. I sigh internally and frown. 

"It's not for what you think it is." He says with a cold and dead tone before handing me my own clothes. I groan and let my shoulders drop. I watch him turn around and face the door. Everything I do is a big heaping mess, I can't get anything right.

The longer we go at this the more I become desperate. I know that it would be difficult but I didn't know it would end like this. I'm running out of time but Valentine doesn't know that. He doesn't know that I made a deal with the Demon King to stay alive. In return, I had to help him figure out what truly happened to Scarlett and why she's still wandering. At first, I was told that she killed herself, then I was told that Valentine was the one who killed her.

Was he so heartbroken that he killed her? Or did Scarlett do something else to get herself in that position? Rath said there hasn't been a disembodied spirit in over three thousand years. What could have been powerful enough for something like that to happen?

I'm starting to think Scarlett is but a shadow of a girl who was hiding something a lot deeper than just heartbreak. Why couldn't there be more to know about her? We're simply not digging deep enough. 

The cogs in my mind turn with much energy that I don't realize where my feet have taken me. Valentine leans against the window and looks out as he holds a glass of blood in his hand, it's mixed with alcohol, I can tell - he's made himself a Bloody Mary.

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"Nothing to be sorry about, I just have tender memories of my mother that make up so much of who I am. This key is what I have left of her," he says in a low, calm tone.

"You're a momma's boy aren't you?" I tease.

He chuckles. "Proud of it."

I smile because I can feel the genuine emotion that he was expressing regarding his mother and I relax my shoulders. Why do I  always worry when it comes to him? I guess it's hard to trust when you don't want to get hurt. Heartache is something very real and something I have felt time and time again.

He inhales a deep breath and I wait. "I wish I hadn't rebelled against my parents, maybe she'd still be alive."

I wonder what it would have been like to know Valentine before everything crashed. Would he have been different? Do people really change when something monumental occurs in their life? Life is too full of maybes and uncertainty is what changes people. It either makes you hopeful or hopeless. 

I make it to the bed and close my eyes to slowly fall into darkness. I've become acquainted with the thought of nothing. What I originally thought as an enemy has become a friend. I welcome it and embrace it, even if it brings me further into the ground.

Fear. I can feel it. Like it's latching onto every brain cell. It's so strong that I can even taste it on my tongue. 

I'm in a dream, that much I know.

No, not a dream, a nightmare. Dreams are far more beautiful than this dark fantasy.

The darkness swallows me whole as I go further into the dreary thought.

A cold drop of water hits my cheek and I look up to see the sky turn red like a canopy of blood over the earth.

It takes me less than five seconds to realize I'm in a grove of trees filled with dark, black sorrow. It feels as if many people had died in this forest, and their spirits are lingering in the branches, waiting for the end of it all.

I hear a soft but crucial whimper beside me and I turn my head only to see my own eyes staring back at me. Only, they are not really mine, hers are dark empty orbs.

Scarlett?

It must be her. Her hair has become damp from the rain and her dress is soiled with dirt, which is evidence of a trudge through the muddy forest. She exhales an agonizingly deep breath and collapses to her knees. Her simple dress, with plain cloth, falls around her and she starts to fiddle with something in her hands. I position myself to get a better view and I can't do anything but observe this memory-like vision.

In her hand has a leather-bound book, identical to the one I now possess. She flips through the pages until she stops with shaking hands. I try to look at the page but it's blank, I don't see anything written on it. Her breath becomes heavy and I can hear a sob break from her mouth. A tear drops from her eye and lands on the clean leaf of paper, spreading out like ink.

I step closer and a twig snaps under my foot. She turns her head suddenly and looks directly at me. Scarlett retracts the book into her body to embrace it; as if she's protecting it. "Who are you?" she asks in a small, fearful voice. 

I wake in a terribly warm sweat and I pull the covers off of me. I look over at Valentine who is sound asleep, even after me tugging the blanket off his upper body. I get up to stand and run my fingers through my hair. What was that dream about? Was it a memory? I know close to nothing about Scarlett and Valentine won't tell me anything else about her, I have to find out who she is myself. 

There's one way to find out. 

I bite my lip at the thought and stay standing with Valentine just a foot away from me. I eye the diary, which is sitting on my nightstand and for some reason, it seems to be floating, like it's wanting me to pick it up.

Valentine's necklace glistens around his neck and my entire body flares. I need that key.

I take the book from the nightstand and take a moment to think of what to do. I'm never this conscious of my decisions so why am I hesitating. I have both things I need, I just need to get over my nerves and borrow the key for a few seconds. I don't even need to take it from him, it can stay around his neck.

It's the longest five seconds of my life let me tell you; having to even be this close to Valentine with the intention of opening all of Scarlett's secrets. I go through all of the worst probabilities of the future in my head and that should have stopped me but it doesn't.

Intense heat flares all over my body and my heart starts to beat extremely hard and fast. I try to turn the key in the lock and bite down on my lip.

What the actual fuck.

I look at Valentine's face and all of my emotions culminate around my nerve endings as he looks at me with the darkest eyes I've ever seen on a vampire. I drop the key and the book and pull away from him.

"I trusted you and you couldn't do the same," he says in a low tone.

"I'm sorry," I try to whisper. I don't know if he even understood what I said. It was so broken and so full of guilt and regret that it was hard to say. There is a chain of bad events that keeps happening because of me and I don't know what I could do more to mess it up. I just went ten steps backward and I don't have much time.

"I want this over as much as you, Saphira," he says in the calmest voice. Somehow that frightens me more than anything else right now. "But we can't solve anything like this."

He sits up from the bed and swings his legs over to stand. I wanted to speak but my mouth was glued shut by my own conscience. He looks down at me with an expression that I can only identify as disappointment and my emotions shoot through my chest and violently strikes my heart. 

"If you want the key you have to look elsewhere," he stands and walks toward the door.

"Where are you going?" My voice trembles. 

He shakes his head and looks back at me with a side glance. "I just need some time alone. I'll see you in the morning."

I don't deserve him. I don't think I ever will. 

*** 

I'm so sorry. This chapter was hella short, but it has been so difficult to write. I feel like I've lost myself.