Adnai

(Based on a romance novel series my sister got me into.)

I was in Doc E's house, with his wife, Taylyn. She was heavily pregnant and we were just talking about the baby and her life with E. I was their sister, except without the full-blown Seminus status. I grinned as Taylyn told me something hilarious, and then I was cocking my head because I heard something. Like a door splintering. I slipped out of the kitchen and into the living room, where a woman was looking at me, a wickedly creepy smile on her face.

"Tell me where they are." She said, right before she pulled out a knife and went for me. I managed to fight back, and ended up with only a couple scrapes, but as if that triggered something, all the sudden the house was just filled with people that were like ninjas.

I fight through a few more, to Taylyn, and manage to convince her to hide. She's pregnant - regardless of whether or not she can fight, the baby might be hurt. As soon as I get her hidden, I sneak back into the house and find that the ninjas discovered three odd-looking artifiacts - a key, a box, and a necklace. All of them were sharp lines and curves and black. Demonic-looking. I manage to steal the key and the box back, and I shove them into Taylyn's hiding place.

As I go back into the house, I find a man there. He's looking at me stoicly, and he pulls out a long knife. It looks really sharp.

"Tell me where they are." He says tonelessly, and I spit, "Go to hell!"

We go at it, but I know I've already lost. I attack, but he raises the knife and I catch it in my hand. I scream - it hurts, it stings, worse than anything I've already felt. Regardless, he tries to get me again, and I catch the blade once more. Angry at me, he sends me down onto the floor and leans over me, chuckling in my ear.

"I want you to deliver a message to your brothers. . . I will find it." And with every word, he slices me open, leaving me a bloody mess on the kitchen floor.

I black out then, the pain too much to take. When I do wake up, it's because somebody is in the house, but I can't warn Taylyn. My breathing is so choppy. It's like I'm hyperventilating. I try to get up, but only crash back onto the floor and groan. Then somebody is calling my name - it's E and Shade, I assume Wraith must be somewhere else in the house, searching for other intruders.

They're afraid to touch me, and I can barely see them. I can't focus on them, my head feels foggy and I'm too tired. E and Shade start cursing at me and tell me not to go back to sleep, to stay with them. I try to tell them what happened, but my odd breathing make it difficult.

But I manage to spit it out, and E thanks me wholeheartedly for keeping Taylyn safe. Then there's an ambulance, and they lift me up onto a gurney so get me to Underworld General. I'm fading fast, but I try to tell E that Taylyn has the key and the box he'd had hidden.

As I fall asleep again, the last thing I remember are the hospital lights flashing overhead as I'm wheeled into the OR, people desperately shouting orders and the loud squeal of the gurney wheels ringing in my ears.