Halone laid peacefully in Nikolai's warm embrace, snoring quietly and perfectly contented.

He slowly slid out from under the blankets and began to pick up his clothes that had been strewn across the floor, roughly getting dressed in the low light that filtered in through the cave entrance.

From behind him Halone asked in a small whisper, her voice childish and eyes wide as they were innocent, "we had sex?".

"Twice, it was incredible," he gushed as he slid into his baggy tank top, unfazed by the uncertainty rife in her words. He glanced over his shoulder, shooting her a sly wink, "you're seriously twisted-I loved every second of it."

"I-I don't remember," she stammered out, tears brimmed in her eyes and threatened to spill out, "did you give me sleepy pills?" she asked, her voice growing frightened and demanding.

He paused for a moment. "Sleepy pills?" he asked, quirking a confused brow at her.

He turned to fully take in her presence, and he noticed all the subtle differences in her mannerisms to how she had been last night. Her eyes were like saucers, penetrating him deep in his soul, the ways only a child's could. Massive, heartfelt and utterly defenceless. Inside them tears pooled like a bottomless abyss and flowed like the bejewelled adornment of a chandelier. Her trembling hands clutched at the blanket, her fingers slowly stroked the scratchy fabric as a futile attempt to calm her nerves-the way children bonded with their favourite soft toy. She was slowly curling her body, an ancient instinct to protect her vital organs, and she was beginning to rock back and forth-like a baby trying to imitate the rocking of their mother's arms.

This was not Halone. It was her body, but it was not her.

He knew he had to tread lightly.

"Nanny used to give me sleepy pills because it hurt too much when she put her fingers inside me," she explained, her words slow and plodding like most children, "I cried too much when she done that, and she put me to sleep with sleepy pills so I wouldn't cry."

"I'm not your nanny, I'm not going to make you cry," he explained, his words soft and soothing. Reassurance rang in his words, allowing Halone to relinquish her grip on the blanket slightly as her rocking slowed.

"You're safe with me."

Her rocking came to a stop and suddenly Halone went mute, a pressure building inside of her skull-digging her nails into her scalp, she began violently rocking back and forth as she grew more and more hysterical, crying loudly. Except it was more than crying, it was the devastated and desolate scream into the void that came from someone drained of absolutely all the hope they had left. Her gasping, tortured screams filled the air and the pain that flowed from her was palpable, severe and sharp.

"My head!" she cried out, Nikolai grabbed her shoulders to stop her rocking with one hand and used the other to stroke her hair, trying to massage the pain away. He didn't know what else to do.

Slowly her screams and rocking subdued, her vision was a blur of tears as swear dripped down her brow, "whe-where am I?" she asked in a timid, confused voice. There was a strength behind it that wasn't there before, this was Halone. It was raw but it was her, no doubt about that.

Nikolai was still struggling to process what had just happened, he failed to find any words.

"Oh," she uttered as she took in the surrounding grey walls and ceiling of Nikolai's cave, "I was here last night, with you," she said as she looked to him, she flicked the sweat from her face and rubbed away at her tears, "I guess I never left," her voice was rejuvenated with a sense of worldliness and her typical, cutting sarcasm.

"Halone...what just happened?" he asked.

"What just happened?" she asked, "my last memory is falling asleep cuddled up to you and then just now waking up," she said, her voice was so unaffected he couldn't imagine those two sides of her, the child and the nympho sadist, shared a body.

Scared to provoke another incident he decided to leave it, "yeah, sorry, I just got a bit confused," he said.

"I know what happened," she purred seductively, "we made sweet, passionate luuuuurve," she cooed, Nikolai chuckled lowly, Halone slithered over to him, gently pulling him to the floor as a smouldering look overcame her eyes.

"Wanna do it again?" she asked, a devious smirk curled his lips.

"Read my mind," he said, pushing away the weirdness that had just possessed her. Sex was sex.

Nikolai positioned himself flat against the ground, his fingers caressed and lips grazed her all the way from her toes up to the warm centre between her thighs. His tongue flickered around her clitoris as his fingers slowly pumped inside of her vagina, teasing her.

Her hands flowed through his closely shaved head of black hair, fingers pulling at the strands when he hit the sweet spot, her legs began to twitch and back arched, moans filled the air and charged it with electric, sensual and sexual energy.

"Get inside me right now!" Halone burst out through her moans after a few minutes, Nikolai kissed his way past her stomach and scarred breasts to nibble on her collarbone and then just behind her ear, driving her wild with desire as she wrapped her long, silky thighs around his waist and drew their bodies so they were pressed together. In this instance of sweet release his penis finally entered her.

After half an hour their bodies collapsed as they came together, sweating and shaking, onto his bed.

"That was the sickest, most wrong minded sex I've ever had," Nikolai hugged in exhaustion, he curled a strand of her hair around her finger while she stared up at the ceiling, laughing to herself.

"I wanna have your abortion," she said bluntly.

Nikolai laughed out of shock, "damn girl! You're fucking twisted!" he exclaimed as the pair turned to look one another deeply into one another's eyes, the heavy purple bags under her bags reflected in the icy blue pools of his own, "and I fucking love it," he sneered.

She lit herself a cigarette as she sat up in bed, "well, it's been real," she began as she looked down to Nikolai and extended her pack of cigarettes to him, "want one?" she asked, he shook his head and she stashed the pack away in the pocket of her shorts, "but I've gotta go pick up my son."

She pulled and rugged her clothes back onto her body, taking her fingers through her hair to comb them before she quickly rushed out of Nikolai's den, finding her son sleeping where she had left him.

But something felt off. What Nikolai had asked her, what just happened, she suspected something was amiss. This wasn't the first time she'd lost time, or suffered amnesia, Nikolai meant something by that question. She didn't remember waking up the further back she thought over the situation-she only remembered becoming conscious.

This wasn't the first time. She didn't remember the second time they had sex either. And she would never of called herself particularly kinky when it came to sex. It was as if some other entity had possessed her-this wouldn't be the first time; back when she was held prisoner by the demons she didn't remember killing them all as she fought to escape. Was there a hidden dark to her, so dark it was hidden to even herself?

This wasn't the first time someone told her they saw a side to her they never saw before. It's not the first time someone told her she had acted differently and done things she didn't remember.

Was she possessed? Too scarred, too disturbed?

Too broken?

And she started cry as the wound reopened all over again, leaving her feeling lost and confused. But she tried to remember what Nikolai had told her: if you are broken and led astray, follow your heart and it will show you the way. She found her thoughts leading back to Cloud and his orphaned daughter.

And then she cried herself to sleep in the darkness, only the wet warmth of her tears to comfort her.

The next morning she sent Shadow off to Mother and headed over to Leiden, asking to adopt Cloud's daughter. When he granted his approval she searched for her amongst the other children, soon zeroing in on a white pup that was no older than seven with red markings that had a black tentacle like wings, tipped with red claws, their eyes were frosty blue, the unmistakable shade of Cloud's own eyes.

"I was a friend of your daddy," Halone began, clearing her throat, "and I'd like it if you came and lived with me and my son, I think you'd find our place very nice," she explained, Cloud's daughter looked to her with wide eyes glistening with hope and excitement.

"Will you be my new mummy?" they asked.

Halone nodded warmly, "yes."

A grin as wide as only a pure child could make spread across her lips, "I'd love that!" they exclaimed before they transformed into their human form to crush, as much as their tiny hands and arms would let them, Halone in a massive, warm embrace.

Meanwhile as Nikolai left his cave he was approached by a rebel scout, a heavily scarred man donning rainbow coloured liberty spikes, who reported to him of finding bodies of a previously thought to be missing scouting party in a nearby 'coward' (natives who refused to join the rebellion and chose to uphold the peace treaty) territory.

"Shows what the locals think of us," Nikolai huffed sardonically.

"These locals know better than to try and turn us in to the demons, they can't afford to make an enemy of us-but they certainly aren't friends either," the rebel scout explained as he looked Nikolai in the eye, certain and unwavering, "the scouting party must've done something to provoke them, maybe just their presence was enough."

"They wandered into the wrong territory and paid the price," Nikolai stated dryly.

A.N.

I figured since I've made it quite obvious with this chapter I thought I'd spell it out in black and white. Halone has dissociative identity disorder, or DID for short, which is a mental illness that involves having multiple personalities (DID used to be called multiple personality disorder) and is caused by trauma. With this book I don't want to stigmatise the illness, I just want to explore it respectfully which I hope I'm doing as I have a trauma based disorder as well and a couple of times DID has been subject to speculation in my life. I think I have it, so I'm basing Halone's experiences off of my own.