"Do you think that it's over by now?" Drake smiled, watching Emerson rush down the stairs looking behind him once he reached the bottom as if to make sure Damien wasn't coming after him.

Dane watched Emerson cooly, "No, Damien's up there telling her now."

"Emerson told her," Petra shook her head as she sipped away at her coffee, "believe me."

"I need to see her," Erik growled through the crisp morning air, beginning to walk towards Emerson, who was fiddling his glasses, making them straight on his nose.

Emerson walked casually into the room, but the look of fear was clearly written on his face. He had tried to stop him so that he could tell her himself that much was obvious, but Drake wondered why Damien hadn't simply given up the burden. Emerson immediately walked over to where Petra was and sat down beside her carefully. Then he dropped his head into his hands, defeated.

"So you didn't tell her?" Pera muttered half angrily.

He shook his head. Drake smiled, realizing that Damien had commanded him to be silent. Emerson wouldn't utter a word for a while.

"Well, then what did happen?" She snapped. Drake glanced at her. As difficult as this was for himself and Erik, this all had must have been horrendously hard for Emerson.

He just shook his head, making Dane growl "He's just here to torment Damien. He feels nothing for that girl because he can see easily that she is not Lyra. He is just putting up another act. Aren't you?"

Emerson lifted his head, anger burning in his eyes as he began to mouth words with his mouth. It was hard to understand him, but Dane seemed to get the gist of it as he began to laugh hard.

"I see," he laughed at long last, "he's finally beaten you down. Admit it. You have looked down your nose at the rest of us for over twenty years, but now your in submission to him as well. You're finally trapped like the rest of us, a leaf in Damien's wind."

Emerson lost the rest of what remained of his cool manner and leapt up and tackled Dane to the floor and the two began to fight, throwing punches and kicking, rolling across the floor in a tornado like fashion, tearing everything down in their path.

Petra rolled her eyes and began to fiddle with the loose strands on her sheets, while Drake sat down beside her with a sigh. "This is all spinning into chaos."

"Yes," she replied tartly, refusing to look up, "how else should it? Damien has set all of us up to spin in his smile."

"You're just angry," Drake sighed. Alastair was to blame not Damien. "You know that he's suffering more than all of us put together."

Just then there was the loud bang of footsteps rushing down the staircase. Emerson and Dane stopped fighting to look up to see Jade rushing down the stairs crying, Damien hot on her heels, trying to reach her.

Drake watched her closely waiting for her to run to Erik's open arms, but she didn't she ran straight out of the house into the cold, slamming the door behind her, right in Damien's face. The man stood stone still for a moment staring at the door inches from his nose furiously, before laying a hand on the knob and swinging it open letting a small bit of the snowy storm inside until he slammed it behind him.