Wish that I could just hide away,
Far away from the thoughts that are chasing me.

L E T A

After convincing Clary I was fine (a feat that took nearly an hour) I returned home, ready with the lie that I had slept over at Clary's.

Surprisingly, my parents swallowed the story with little fuss and let me go up to my room almost instantly. There, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

'What do I do now?' I breathed. 'Oh, God, what do I do now? What can I do now?'

I gritted my teeth and thought hard. Okay, Leta, think. What has Raphael ever done that could make you trust him?

I lay for a minute, thinking. After a few seconds of this, my cat, Humphrey, padded silently into my room, purred, then curled up on the foot of my bed. Seeing him reminded me of Lily, and of the way she'd struck at me in the Hotel Dumort, quickly and silently.

Then I remembered what she'd said to me right before she'd attacked me. Call me a bitch one more time and I'll tear your throat out with my teeth, Raphael's protection or no.

Raphael's protection. What did that mean, exactly? And why would he try and protect me?

I was just a human, even if I was on my way to being a vampire. I sighed, remembering yet another problem to add to my steadily growing list.

Raphael had fed me his blood. I shuddered at the memory of him kissing me. Wasn't there any other way to feed a human a vampire's blood anymore? What was wrong with just putting vampire blood in a drink?

A picture came, unbidden, into my mind, of Raphael pouring blood into a glass of lemonade, and I quickly banished all thoughts of how vampires fed blood to victims. It didn't matter, anyway. Vampire blood was already in my system, and there wasn't a lot I could do to change it.

How long would the transformation take? I wondered. A few months? A few days? A few years? Maybe I'd have to be buried first. I vaguely remembered reading a book where a boy was buried in a steel coffin, and then rose from the dead.

I shivered, then remembered the book had been about zombies.

Still, though, how would I become a vampire? Was there a process, or some kind of ritual, like I was auditioning for a club of some sort?

You're changing. You're turning into a vampire. That was what Raphael had told me in my weird dream-not-a-dream. That led me to more problems; just how the hell Raphael had gotten into my head, why had he done it, and could he could manage to do it again?

I imagined a life full of Raphael climbing into every single one of my dreams, and gulped.

Also, why had he chosen a ballroom for our meeting? Couldn't he have chosen somewhere a little less... Romantic?

Although I had to admit Raphael did look good in a suit and tie.

I scowled at Humphrey, who was asleep. I was starting to sense a pattern to my list of problems. They all started and ended with one name: Raphael.

****

'You know,' I told Humphrey, 'I should just forget about Raphael and his stupid little hints, right? I mean, it's not healthy to think about someone this much. It's just so many of my problems are to do with him, you know? It's hard not to think about him.'

Humphrey looked about as sympathetic as an asleep cat could look. I took this as encouragement, however, and kept talking.

'So he says to me you'll know where to
find me, like I'd know shit like that. Okay, he lives in the Hotel Dumort, fantastic. The first time I was taken there I was being kidnapped, so I didn't care about how to get there, I just wanted to get away. And when I left I was unconscious after one of Raphael's little creepy friends,' I made vigorous hand gestures at this point, and the entire bed shook.

Humphrey opened one eye, regarded me with confusion, then decided I wasn't worth bothering with and closed his eye again. 'So of course I didn't have a clue where it was. And I could ask Clary, you see, but I don't want to get involved in her supernatural shit, because hey, I have enough of that stuff for myself and I've already been kidnapped once,' I told Humprey. 'Does that make me a bitch? If she needed my help I'd help her, but what good can I do? I mean, I'm human and she's already got Simon, a human, so she should be okay, right? I'm not a bitch. Besides, I wasn't even that good friends with Clary anyone. I'm more a Simon girl.'

It was possible my head injury was worse than it had originally appeared, but I couldn't exactly ask my mom if she could please take me to the doctor because I'd been attacked by a vampire- of course, whilst still at Clary's house. Because I'd been there all the time I'd been gone.

'And then there's Raphael again,' I sighed. 'He also took Simon. Like, why? How many newbie vamps does one guy need?'

Then I bolted upright. 'Wait, Humphrey... Do you think I should talk to Simon?'

Humprey hissed in his sleep.

'Okay,' I said, lying back on my bed. 'I don't think so either. I think I should go to sleep.'

With that last sentence, I rolled over and closed my eyes, expecting a dreamless and peaceful sleep. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

What a filler. I'm sorry. But double update... Kind of, not really. Next chapter stuff will happen though! Yay.

Okay, so I've watched suicide squad. Hmm... It was better than I expected, and was very good, but some parts were just cringey and made no sense. Anyone else seen it?

Also, I've got a few new books out and unpublished a few. Yay. So I have more time for this book now! And I know where I want this to go. Hopefully no writer's block now.

See you soon!

xxx Jade