Short chapter you guys, but enjoy. It wasn't proofread so forgive me for any errors. I hope you enjoy and don't forget to vote an comment. Thanks you guys☺️

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I cannot believe he just kissed me, and while Austin is standing right beside me?! I watched as Michael walked out of the house. He winked at me when he closed the door. I was frowning the whole time.

My heart is beating fast, pulse is convulsing, stomach is filled with butterflies. Stomach is also filled with fear. Things are racing through my brain as I try to keep my vision straight. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I'm speechless. I feel guilty. I feel guilty because I enjoyed the kiss. I melted into him. I've never been kissed that way before. Never have I felt the need to be in his hold again. It was spontaneous. I was happy.

That all changed when I got pushed roughly into the front door.

~~~3rd person~~~

Yes, he has chosen his victim well. She was weak in the flesh and mind. He tells, and she obeys. He withholds, and she wonders and asks. He tells her she is insecure, and she thinks it must be true, because why then would she feel this way, this empty, this lonely, this unfulfilled, this unloved. The claws sink in. Words thoughts like venom start to spread.

She is angry, and can't take stress because she is already at her emotional breaking point. So her relationships with others are also destroyed, she eventually has no one to tell her different. To tell her she is sleeping with a monster. She believes and takes on his image of her. She is what he says, and she feels horrible. All the time now.
The venom starts to infect, and the virus to consume.

Oh but he is skillful at what he does. He would never outwardly stop her from doing something. No, that would give her control. Allow her to SEE what he is doing, and not just FEEL it. She is smart and two senses would alert her to too much. But she does see the destruction of her happiness, her friends, her walls, her life. She is falling down, down, down. So she tried to break away. To steal away in the night like a slave to freedom. You can't out run the Devil. She is not that strong yet, and oh, God how she has angered the beast.

The claws ATTACK, RIP and DRAG down her body. She is left in a bloody mess. She must deserve it though. She is beaten and soaked in bloody, gushing, pain. But she is strong. She gets up. There is a fork in the road. She could walk away. But she follows the beast. She has learned you can't out run the Devil.

And he will punish, he will withhold, he will demean, he will destroy her. Her happiness, her love for herself, her pride, her emotions. She will doubt herself. She will wonder what is wrong with her. She will stay low and broken because he only loves her that way. And she needs his approval, and love so bad. He says he loves her, yet not enough to take her back. Oh no, not to be her "boyfriend" again. No, not after that defiance. Not until he feels in control again. He never will, because now he has her just where he wants her.

She though has seen a glimpse of light. Maybe there is a way out? The fleeting thought glances through her mind, only to be shut out by darkness.

She had been beaten and has learned her lesson well. She is not stupid. But she needs to be reminded who is in control sometimes. Needs to be beaten. She is both weak and strong. She can get up after a beaten, but like a child she loyally, weakly follows him, the beast. She thinks he will see her loyalty and stop, and reconsider. Hold her in his arms and lover her.
Like a child. Like a baby.

The claws once again settle in their place. Deeper now more hooked, more sturdy. Longer plunging deep into her soft white flesh. Breaking skin, ripping skin. Gushing arteries pumping blood with every pulse of her broken heart. But it is better than being attacked by those same claws. She dares not defy again. She settles for the constant loss of blood, becoming weaker with every beat. Reality contorted. She doesn't remember what it is like to feel good anymore. Those memories have been driven out by constant pain. Her brain is infected by venom, by the virus. She can't think straight there is too much pain. Happiness is only a half remembered thought. Something others deserve. But not her. Not anymore. Wa she even happy before? I don't remember.

Good thing God made her stubborn. She builds up again.
When she is strong she will try to break away again.
Deep down she knows he is wrong. Deep down she knows she is brave, and strong, and beautiful, and FREE.
She is FREE.
Deep down she is flying, flying on her bike down the hill, she is beautiful and blind and golden and FREE.

Then she hits the bars of her cage. His arms are the bars of her cage. She is trapped in her mind, the mind he has infected, controlled. The image he has created for her. He is the fog on the mirror distorting her perception of what is real. She settles back into his reality, which has now solidly become hers.

When others tell her different, she is angered. They must be liars because their actions make no sense in her reality. He tries to follow their advice, but tells her they are wrong and she believes. He is of course the center of her world, and his words are her commandments.

"You deserve to be second. You are unworthy, you are trashy, and you are not to be trusted." Is what he'd say.

When others treat her differently she is angered because she is confused. She becomes frustrated because they don't react. She has mistaken intensity for intimacy.

She thinks she is crazy because she is so confused by what is now her reality and she FEELS is right she no longer trust herself. He has stolen that from her. She now has only him to trust. He has crept into her mind in the black of night and violated her in the most fundamental and evil way possible. He has stolen herself.

He passively strikes by ignoring.
She dyes her hair to feel good, and he doesn't notice. She wonders why? Is it ugly? Am I ugly? She knows he notices because she is not stupid, but in her reality she IS. She is insecure, so she MUST be a wrong fucking piece of shit. Asking too much. Pushing his buttons. Again. Why can't she stop? Oh, she believes she is so fucked up. No wonder he will never love her again.

She tries to fix herself. She takes herself to a councilor. A blow to her self esteem. She is confused by this woman and how she acts. Why is this lady nice and doesn't hurt her? Doesn't yell at her for missing appointments and not calling. She sometimes thinks what people will do if she hits them. What would this lady do? What should she do? How should she react?

This lady is confusing reality. When the lady goes too far, pushes too much, she leaves for a little while because this lady must be full of shit. This lady doesn't know how bad she is. How undeserving she is of love. STOP, STOP, STOP faking it. She will tell this lady something one day, something that will so shock and sicken. This lady will tell her "never to come back." That she "cannot help her because she is too much."

The lady never does and Sofia is SO uncomfortable.
The lady talks and listens, this lady is STRANGE, and Sofia is scared of her.
But she feels good when she is with her. She is different from the beast, but this lady does not love her like he does. So this cannot be real.
Something, however, is happening. The room is cooler; the mirror is becoming less fogged. Little by little a new reality is showing.
Now she must REALLY be crazy. She likes this new place, but both cannot exist. A mirror cannot both be fogged and un-fogged. One cannot live in two alternate realities, and own two polar perceptions of themselves. She finds she cannot comfortably switch back and forth between two realities.
It takes time for a mirror to become fogged and time for it to be un-fogged. And now this lady is wiping the mirror with steady unceasing strokes. This lady she barely trusts. This is too fast. She leaves, but she will return. Too much has been wiped off, and now she must let reality become fogged again. Become comfortable again. But not completely. Not as much as before. She will try to pull him out too. Show him what she has learned. She doesn't know that he IS the fog, he is the beast. She is unknowingly telling the Devil her secrets, and how he knows what she is up to behind his back.
But she also knows this lady is safe. She goes back, every time it is easier, and she trusts her more and more.

The claws stay in place, but she is healing around them. Scar tissue is pushing them slowly out. The bleeding is less. But the venom is still flowing, now only able to lap at her brain instead of drowning it. She is thinking now, for the first time that maybe it is not JUST her. Forming her OWN reality, somewhere between the lady's and the beast. So she can keep them both. She does not want to leave him lost in the fog like she was, running from the beast alone.
She thought they were lost together.
Now she knows she was NOT lost but IMPRISONED. Searching for what he stole. Searching for herself inside the fog. While he pushed her and shoved her, creating walls and boundaries only he could see, so it seemed he was leading her through, holding her hand. Having her "best interests at heart." And when she believes he has shown her the light, he will desert her in the fog when she needs him the most. He will lead her off the edge of a cliff to fall in a bloody, broken mess at the bottom. And then when she is withering in pain reaching out for him, he will reject her and leave her twisted in the middle of a maze he had created, and which she has no way out. She tries to be strong to not be "insecure"...then she breaks he knows she will.
He knows now the only way to control her is by rejecting her...She will come back for his approval then. For direction on how to get out of his painful maze. Oh yes she will, and he will ignore accordingly until he feels she is weak enough again for him so solidify his reality in her mind. That SHE must have MENT and DESERVED to jump off the cliff. That she is BAD.
He senses an outside force taking her away from him. His prisoner. He knows not yet to do about it. He is not a very smart Devil.

The Ultimate Defiance.
And she broke and God took hold and PUSHED her to the edge. SHE SAW FOR THE FIRST TIME.
She ran so fast she beat the Devil. She wiped the mirror clean with the silk given to her by the lady.

She ripped the claws out and is bleeding to death. She cannot heal, and is scared and wants to go back. But the beast won't let her, and oh God he is ANGRY.

She was too strong to resilient. She didn't break. She defied him. She protected herself. He knows she is dangerous for him now. She WILL put him away. And he is scared now. He knows he can NEVER break her down like he had before. He liked her how she was when he first met her.

Oh you FUCKING BASTARD. OF COURSE you like to remember me like that. Weak, needing you.
You fucking piece of shit, you sick fuck. You miserable bastard. That's ALL you are, all you were, and all you'll EVER be. You are the Devil in flesh, who knows my weaknesses and is ready to exploit them all to twist me, addictive suffering.

His claws are so hooked, so deep inside. So evil, he is SO evil.
If she remove those claws, the poison will stop flowing through her body. she sees now the beast is a snake, the beast himself.

I AM NOT a baby anymore.
I AM NOT YOUR BABY ANYMORE.
I see you now. For what you REALLY are. Pathetic. And that scared you, because now I am in control you slimy bastard. Go back down your hole to Hell with the morlocks.
Your jealous of me and what will NEVER be.

And she RAN so fast, she beat the Devil.

She finally beat the Devil.

She ran and ran until she finally found a phone. She dialed Nikki's number and told her what she has been going through the past few days. Nikki knew she had to call Michael.

Sofia begged her not to, but Nikki didn't listen. She knew Michael could help her. She knew Michael would be there for her and understand her. So she called him.

Sofia didn't have a choice when his car pulled up at a pay phone on Sunset Boulevard. She watched as he got out of the car, unnoticed, and walked up to her.

"Are you alright?" Was the first question he asked. Not being able to speak, she just looked at him. Scared of his reaction at the sound of her voice.

He reached his hand out to touch her face and she jumped, scared he might hit her. She took a step back as he frowned understanding, at her reaction.

"I'm not going to hurt you like Austin did. I'll protect you. Only if you let me. Will you let me protect you?" He asked genuinely caring as he took two steps closer to her, making sure there was no space in between them.

She looked into his deep chocolate eyes as she saw her own reflection.

Her face had scratches and dried blood on it everywhere.

A tear slid down her cheek and he kissed it away. Her eyes closed as she felt his soft lips in contact with her skin again for the third time. When he pulled back she opened her eyes and watched as he caressed her cheek.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Let me protect you? Stay with me?" Hesitantly, but surely, she nodded her head slowly, still not talking.

"I won't hurt you. I promise." He opened the door to his car and she got in slowly. He closed the door and got into the passenger side, starting the ignition to drive back to his home in Encino: Los Angeles, California: Havenhurst.