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Faine's pov
I had given Lottie a sedative to help calm her but in fact all it had succeeded in doing was helping her jaw to relax. She was catatonic. She’d had that same look when she’d lost Ruby. I understood that feeling when I lost Sean and Mary’s son Seamus, I felt as if someone had ripped out my heart and stomped on all the pieces till my heart was no more. I knew that I could never have children from my body, but seeing Lottie with Vera and Jordan with Sophia made me wish madly I could have a child too. I was afraid to broach the subject to Alec as I wasn’t sure if he would ever want a child. I know that Edward and Bella had Nessie, but she was a miracle.
Alec and Bastien had gone off searching for Vera who has apparently been kidnapped. Poor little scrap must be terrified. Her dream coming true in such a horrible way. She had seemed fearful for a while of a dark haired girl who was going to bite her. We all assumed it was Opal. Who’d have thought it would be this unknown kid. I looked out the window and was spooked at the sudden appearance of Mary coming through Lottie’s front door. Mary, who had been dead about 10 years at this stage. She smiled at me and beckoned me to follow her. I stood and saw that she was floating upstairs. We went to a room at the top of the stairs that had taken on the appearance of our spare room back in Paddy’s cottage. In the room were two single beds with two little blonde haired boys tucked up fast asleep in them. I turned to look at her and she made the look of a pregnant tummy and then pointed to me. I blinked and when I looked again she was gone. On the now empty bed which was now in Lottie’s house was a piece of paper. I picked it up and it was a photo of me holding hands with two little blonde boys. All of us smiling happily looking up at Alec who was jumping down from a tree nearby. I dropped to the bed shocked….i looked around me in case Mary was going to reappear somewhere else but she was gone. I heard a far off cry and new it was Lottie so I shoved the photo into my pocket and went down to her. Lacey I noticed had gone away and Lottie was sitting on the couch with her legs open, head in hands, moaning and rocking herself slightly. I felt the sudden rush of her feelings; hopelessness and finality fill my body. I dropped to the ground in front of her and grabbed her face gently in my hands.
“Lottie, she’s not dead.” I said firmly. She looked up at me with heavy eyes as if filled with tears.
“Ya, she is, he takes all my babies.” She said.
“Lottie look at me. Did you give chase? Did you follow Vera’s scent? Did you even try or did you just assume she was gone and just gave up?” she continued looking at me and then burst into tears, sobbing bursting out of her chest. I held her in my arms and rubbed her back soothingly. I could see her thoughts were of her burying a casket. An empty one, standing there looking like death as we lowered the little casket into the ground.
“Lottie, she’s not dead!” I said again even more firmly. “I feel it.!” My phone buzzed in my pocket, I pulled it out and it was Alec.
“Yes love any luck?” I asked hopefully.
“No, not yet, but we have found Nate and Ortho. They are now vampires, changed by a little girl who apparently is Ortho’s sister. There is no smell of Vera from her but something isn’t right. She seems guilty. Not sure yet of what. They are on their way home to the main house. Just wanted to let you know.”
“Ok thanks lovey I’ll let Lottie know!”
“Oh has she come round?”
“Ya, but she’s burying Vera in her mind!” I said knowing that would elicit a response from her. She looked at me glaring and was getting ready to pounce on me when she stopped mid step.
“Listen to that” she said, landing just in front of me.
“Can you hear it?” She said to me in her head again. I stopped, listening carefully. We could hear muffled childish voices coming from close by. She stared at me and bolted out of the house and I followed her headlong into the forest, ears cocked to hear the sounds again.
“Alec, Lottie is onto something, I’ll call you when I know more love,” I said cryptically. We kept running, but it seemed to be around in circles until Lottie caught me by the back of my shirt in mid step, the voices appeared to be just around the next bush. We crept along as silent as death until the voices got louder. At the mouth of a little cave was a big boulder and from behind it came the most glorious smell. Lottie gripped my hand tightly and I nodded squeezing back. Vera was in there. As much as we wanted to burst in and save her we had to wait to see what we were rushing into. I grabbed Lottie’s arm and got her attention and pointed up to the tree above us. And then for her to put her shield up to mask our scent. This we did and made ourselves comfortable. We turned our phones to silent in case our men would be trying to reach us. We must have waited for about an hour before the boulder was pushed back and out came Vera, 2 little blonde boys, a dark haired girl and a man. Well a young man about our age. He was tall, lean, very good looking and his eyes glowed green…..strange I thought. Much like Tristan’s did, but these were strangely appealing. The children, other than the dark haired girl seemed to follow him like the rats did with the pied piper, woodenly, as if under a spell. He spoke quickly to them in a language I didn’t understand
“Kom, følg meg, vil jeg gjøre deg veldig glad, mine barn av månen og solen.” But the children seemed to understand and they walked into what looked like empty space and one by one disappeared…..
“No,” Lottie screamed as she jumped out of the tree and tried to grab Vera’s arm, but she turned to look at Lottie with no recognition in her red eyes. RED since when were they red? On hearing the man call again she pushed Lottie’s hand off her arm and followed the little group into thin air and disappeared. Even though we tried to follow there was nothing there. We just ran into the tree that was right in front of us. We tried pushing all parts of the tree in case there was a secret button to push so we could chase after them, but there was literally nothing. Lottie turned and ran off and raced as fast as she could in the direction of the cliffs. I charged after her knowing that she would try to kill herself now that her life was over. Vera was her everything, even Bastien didn’t have the same hold over her as Vera did. I could hear her jumbled thoughts even though her shield was up. I could sense her anguish. The further we got away from the coven and Jordan the less clear her thoughts became to me.
“Alec, go to the cliffs, stop Lottie!” I screamed into my phone at him. Hoping they’d be able to stop her from jumping. Not that it would kill her but we’d have to find all her body parts to put her back together again and that would prove tricky if they got eaten by sharks that swam at the bottom of those cliffs. I could see Lottie running ahead of me and suddenly she jumped.
“Nooooo” I shrieked, but next I heard angry growls and shrieks of rage as Alec came back over the top of the cliff holding tightly onto her. Oh thank God, I thought. just in the nick of time.
“Let me go,” she screamed and bit Alec, who hung onto her for dear life and forced her and himself back away from the edge of the cliff, leaving drag marks left by her feet in the earth. Bastien came rushing over and grabbed Lottie into his arms and wrapped her in them, just holding her tightly, but saying nothing. The look of utter grief and horror reflected in his eyes. Alec came to hug me and asked me what happened. I repeated it to them all and when I said that Vera had disappeared into thin air in front of our eyes. Lottie howled out her anguish. Bastien had a hard time holding onto her and keeping her away from getting to the edge of the cliff.
“Lottie, darling, please, stay with me. Don’t let me lose you too. Please” he begged her and my heart broke at the sound of raw agony in his voice. He kept this up until she sagged in his arms, all fight gone out of her and she once again shut down. Picking her up and cradling her in his arms Bastien turned to head home with Alec and me holding onto each other drawing strength from each other.
For the next few weeks Lottie remained mute and still and Bastien had to force her to drink blood just to keep her alive. She didn’t react to him, not his touches, not his attempts to keep her alive. Carlisle had come with Esme to help out keeping an eye on Lottie in case she’d try to kill herself again, even though it was impossible, but more that she’d maim herself beyond the repair of even venom. Carlisle hooked up an IV drip of sorts to keep her body full of blood. We each took it in turns to watch over our dear sister and all of us were devastated, aware of the gap and silence that Vera’s loss had left in our lives. Ortho and Nate and Abbie had decided with Lacey’s permission to turn Lacey in the middle of all of this and so she burned for three days and had become a vampire too. The 4 of them hunted relentlessly for Vera, searched under every rock, in every cave, under every cliff, in every hole, and tree but turned up with nothing. Nobody had seen hide nor hair of her.
Weeks turned into months and Bastien tried everything he could to help Lottie return from her comatose state, but failed miserably. He never worked in the bar anymore, but stayed religiously by her side in case any news came about Vera or in case Lottie needed him when she woke up.
++**++
It was Christmas Eve, the wind howled outside and the rain was pelting against the windows, angry black clouds hung over us causing it to be black as night, we were all sitting down here in Bastien and Lottie’s home reminiscing of Christmas’s gone by when there was a sharp knock at the door. Bastien got up and opened the door letting the rain come in and stain the carpet with water. A dark haired man with broad shoulders was standing there, his collar pulled up close to his neck and his cap pulled down firmly over his eyebrows. He cleared his throat and demanded to know if this was the residence of the Bastien and Lottie O’Connor.’
“Yes, I’m Bastien, what can I do for you?” he asked, his shoulders tense and his eyebrows pulled together frowning. None of knew this human.
“Your daughter went missing a while back didn’t she?” Bastien nodded dumbly.
“Well, there’s been sightings of a young girl that fits her description and she’s been seen with two little boys, but they appear to be wandering around like they don’t know where they are. When we’ve tried to approach them, they run away.” Bastien caught the man by his lapels and said fiercely,
“Show me!” the man looked frightened and tried to step back. Alec reached over and eased the man away from Bastien, apologising to him saying that his brother was distraught over the loss of his child. Bastien pushed Alec away roughly, growling at him and then turned his glare on the man and said
“Show me where you saw her please!” Desperation threaded in his voice as he raked his hand through his hair. I looked over at Lottie, she was sitting up on the couch and suddenly there was light in her eyes that had been void for so long now. She jumped up and went to Bastien and said
“Come, we must find her.” Bastien was so thrilled to hear her voice; if he could have he would have cried. We all followed the man out to his car and made as if to get in our own car to follow him but only Lacey remained in the car and followed him, the rest of us ran. Following the man down the road, we ran through the forest, shielding ourselves and hopped into the car as the trees gave way We followed the man who we found out was named Seamus O’Donal, down the windy road that let from our home to civilisation and as he indicated to turn left we saw that it was up to the graveyard, the Annagh graveyard; that was about 1 mile away from where we all lived.
1 freaking mile away.
“Vera!” shouted Bastien and Lottie as they pretend jumped out of the car and raced off looking for her.
“Vera darling where are you? Please come back to us, please!” they shouted. We all ran off in different directions and after about 10 tense minutes we heard Ortho and Nate shout
“She’s here, come quick!” we all made a beeline to where they had called from following their scents. I stopped short when I saw a girl of about 16 lying on the ground curled up around two little blonde boys, huddled up to her.
