Find your happy place.

Isn't that what they always say whenever you're trapped in the dark, alone, frightened and desperate for some small chink of light to help guide you out?

Well I used to have a happy place. Not anymore. 

Thoughts of our home, our marriage, our life together were all swept away in the flood, as if some great tsunami of blood came and destroyed everything I had ever cherished. Now that was gone and in its place was nothing but a lie. Now, in its place was nothing but pain.

And that is how I awoke. In pain. In fear of pain. And I don't know what was greater, the pain itself or the certainty that I was about to experience more than I could ever imagine. More pain than when I was writhing in a vampire's basement, saying farewell to my human life and feeling my organs fail one by one, feeling my own heart stop beating, feeling nothing but death as it triumphed over my broken body.

It was the music that roused me from my enforced slumber. It was loud, too loud; the volume vibrated the speakers and the noise hammered at my skull as soon as I began to regain consciousness. It was fast, violent and angry and in the dim recesses of my mind I recognised it.

"You like this kind of music?" I had asked Brandon, when he turned up outside the college gates in his brand new Golf, all sleek black chrome and pounding bass.

"You don't like The Prodigy?" Brandon had grinned, brushing the curls off his forehead. He'd hated the curls back then and used to cut it short at the back, trying to tame what I had loved about him from the first moment I had laid eyes upon him. "You'll grow to love them, trust me."

I hadn't, but had always pretended otherwise. Hearing them again now was like a kick to the stomach, another slashing blow to the memories I had once held dear. But the music seemed fitting somehow, with its relentless aggression and skull-splitting beats. Waking to that noise, to that song in particular, threw me violently backwards in time.

Of course, the stark reality was quite sobering. This wasn't college days. This wasn't back-seat teenage kicks on silky smooth leather upholstery. It was the alarming realisation that I was strapped to a chair, my wrists bound tightly behind me, my thighs wide and my ankles tied to the wooden legs. It was the shame of knowing I'd been stripped to my underwear. It was the blow to my skull that made my head throb, the blood that had seeped from the wound congealing in my hair. It was the all-encompassing fear that a blow to the skull was now the very least of my worries and probably the very lower end of the scale of what I was about to endure. And finally, when I pried open my lids and even the dim light from the one naked bulb hurt my eyes, I realised immediately that I was not alone and prayed for a quick end to it all, yet all the while knowing that I had run out of luck the moment I had foolishly decided to run towards my own fate.

The room was small and dark and I blinked once, then again when I thought I saw the walls pulsating, ripples appearing across the surface, the paint cracking and peeling onto the floor. Disorientated and dizzy, I looked again but this time the walls did not move. I clearly saw the smears of blood though, great splashes of red and swirls of brown like some nightmarish work of modern art. Closing my eyes and inhaling, I sucked in air that was fetid with their stench, an overpowering sickly odour that seemed to clog my airways and make me want to retch.

It was like a furnace, so suffocating and claustrophobic as if the heat was emanating from the brickwork and as my eyes grew quickly accustomed to my surroundings, I saw a number of shirtless figures, their muscular torsos already glistening with perspiration and I was reminded of Garrick's underground gym, the boxers weaving in and out, dancing around inside the ring. I watched through heavy lids as they flexed and stretched, cracking knuckles and rolling their heads about on their shoulders, as if warming up for a work-out. My own head drooped onto my chest, darkness trying to pull me back under, but a sharp slap to my cheek brought me quickly and painfully to my senses. My eyes popped open and my head snapped to one side, my skin stinging with shock.

Daniel's face filled my vision, his grin wide and his eyes edged with malevolent amber.

"Wakey, wakey, princess," he said, slicking a tongue across his top lip. "I'd hate for you to miss all the fun."

Laughter echoed close to my ear, the sound distorting as if someone was fiddling with the volume button, knocking it from mute up to full and back down again. I tried to turn my head in the direction of the other voices, desperately trying to work out how many were here with me and whether I recognised their faces. Four, five, six. I wasn't sure. The room was spinning, bodies whirling around me, features dipping in and out of focus. Daniel. Paul, definitely. Felix, maybe. The others, I wasn't sure about.

Daniel's fingers gripped my chin, roughly dragging my gaze back to him.

"How's the head?" he smirked, turning my face to one side so he could get a closer look. "You have no idea how fucking good that felt. I've been hoping for a chance like that since your little escapade up at Gainsborough and bam, there you were. It was like it was just meant to be, you know? Seriously though, I have to thank you for coming back at the wrong time. Just when I thought I'd never get a taste and in you walk. I couldn't help myself, I really couldn't. And as soon as I did it, I knew just how beautiful all this was going to be."

"Brandon won't let you do this," I said, slurring my words as if I'd downed half a bottle of vodka. "He wouldn't let you have me at Gainsborough and he won't let you have me now."

Daniel stared at me for a moment in mock-sympathy, before chuckling as he shook his head. "Damn, you really believe that, don't you? Sorry Megs, darling, but I think you'll find your husband's patience has worn incredibly thin when it comes to you. If it's any consolation though, we're not going to kill you but we are going to dangle you over the edge just for the sheer hell of it. That way, we get our fun and Brandon can then decide what to do with the left-overs."

I remembered Brandon's words in the catacombs only too well and knew Daniel was telling the truth. My breath became wheezy and pained as panic took over. This was going to happen. They were going to do whatever the hell they wanted and Brandon himself had sanctioned it.

"Okay," Daniel grinned. "This is the way it's going to go, just in case you were wondering. We're going to work you over for a while, and then when we think you might want to pass out from the pain, we'll give you a little breather. Time to recuperate. And then, we're going to start all over again. And we're going to keep on doing that until I've decided it's time to stop. Or until I get bored of hearing you scream." His fingers dug in cruelly and I gasped. I didn't want to but the traitorous sound escaped my lips and his eyes lit up wickedly. "Only, the thing is, I'm not sure I could ever tire of hearing you scream."

Crouching down in front of me, his eyes raked over my body and I shivered as he scratched one finger very lightly up the inside of my thigh.

"You know, it's funny. There was a time I would have enjoyed you like this, maybe I could have made you scream for a different reason." I tensed as his hand drifted closer and he raised an eyebrow in response. "Oh don't worry, princess. I wouldn't defile myself in such a way. You vampires are only good for one thing and one thing only."

A hand curled into my hair from behind and yanked back my head, making me yelp. Paul's face hovered above mine and I saw how his grin was a little too wide and how the skin bubbled across his cheekbones. "And you're so fucking good at it too." He spat and I managed to twist my head just in time for it to hit the side of my face and run down my neck. I did gag then, I couldn't help it, the sensation of his thick saliva running in globules down my skin and the smell of it made my stomach lurch. The bile exploded inside me, forcing the vomit up into my throat.

Quickly, Daniel clamped my mouth shut. "Swallow it," he grimaced, eyeing me with disgust. "You don't get to do that yet. Vomit now and maybe I won't be so much of a gentleman about this. You throw up when I say you can throw up and then I'll hose you down and we can start the fun all over again."

I pinched my eyes shut and focused on swallowing the acrid liquid in my throat, feeling my chest heave as I did so and the nausea making my head spin again. Opening my eyes, I glared at him, the angry tears stinging.

"Well, at least we've established you can follow orders," he mused.

"I want to see Brandon," I whimpered.

Their laughter bit into me again, tearing and ripping the thin membrane of my eardrums.

Daniel just smiled and stood up, his six foot frame towering over me. I watched, horrified as the venom filled his eyes and the flesh began to shift across his broad chest.

"And you will. But not yet."

Casually undoing the button on his jeans, he removed them and his underwear and tossed them both to one side and it was then that I heard the distinct crack of bones. I could do nothing but watch, terrified and yet strangely mesmerised by the transformation as the beast emerged, ripping forth from human flesh, stretching skin tightly over muscle and sinew, patchy fur sprouting all over its huge body. Its chest and shoulders widened. Its arms lengthened, snapping as they did so, and ending in hands that were gnarled and knotted, fingers tipped with ragged sharp claws. I watched as Daniel's face shifted, that elongated snout protruding, cheekbones stretching upwards, tongue lolling from a mouth full of yellowing teeth and yet underneath the Varúlfur visage, it was still his eyes I saw, still that same sickening smile. It loomed over me, growing quickly until I was engulfed in its shadow and when it reached its full height, its gait slightly hunched, it spoke again, only now its voice was thick and forced.

"Shall we begin?" it said and a long string of saliva snaked from its mouth and landed on my thigh.

I did exactly what Daniel had demanded I do. I screamed.

I screamed with everything I had and when I felt the first blow, when I felt the first touch of its razored claws as they ravaged my shoulder blade, slicing open flesh like it was nothing but butter, I screamed some more. I screamed until I thought I would never stop. I screamed until I felt as if I had spent my whole life screaming in the dark. I screamed until the sound merged with the laughter and the grunting of the beasts and the incessant maddening beat of the music. The sounds mixed together so perfectly that it was as if the song had always been like this and I had just never realised it before.

The second blow came and the song continued to play.

Scratch, scream, repeat. Scratch, scream, repeat.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE - I don't often write A/N's but just a little note to say, please do check out the song and picture uploaded with this chapter. The song is Breathe by The Prodigy and is what Megan is being forced to listen to during her ordeal. The picture is some wonderful fan art created by the amazing @ayesha96