The dress was so tight on her torso that she felt like she couldn't breath, but seemed to leave her legs enough room move somehow. Dane and Amon said she looked great, but she felt like she was naked with all the skin she was exposing. Drake and Damien merely sat back and eyed her from head to toe. She knew what Drake was thinking, but Damien's expression was so blank that she couldn't decide until he growled, "Take it off and try the other. I don't like it in the slightest."

"Why is it up to you?" She asked angrily, daring to meet his eyes.

"So you know what dresses of the twenty-first century look good on you then because right now you look like a tramp and I don't want any child under my care to look how you do at any important event of mine. So take it off, my dear," he replied with his hand on his chin and his pale eyes deep in hers. "Not to mention I'm the one paying for it."

"Under his care, he says," Jade scoffed to herself as she walked up to him to take the second dress.

His hand flew from his chin to grab her wrist as she did so, "What was that?" He barked at her from his chair.

"Nothing," she hissed, "let me go."

She felt the heat from his skin rushing against her skin. That night was coming back just with the touch of his hand. She began to panic. The room was closing in on her, lights dimming. She couldn't breathe. She had thought that she had gotten over this, but apparently not if he was touching her. Sinking back into the depths of that night as the she stared at Damien in horror as her mind forced his face to begin to melt away, blood oozing out of the many wounds forming all over his body.

"Jade?" She thought he heard his voice as the creature before her reached out another hand this one dripping with blood. She began to scream and tried to get away, but he was still holding her hand and not being able to use enough of his limbs for support he was thrown from the chair as she fell to the floor. Smack, the back of her head hit the hard floor as well as one of Damien's hands beside her head. He stared down at her in shock from where he laid just barely above her with their noses touching, unable to get up on his own. However, there were no eyes in his head, just two empty sockets, two terrifyingly deep black holes glaring at her.

She covered her eyes with her hands, but the images didn't vanish at all. The blood was turning a thicker black and it was sticking to the insides of her eyes lids.

When she opened them she saw the real Damien staring down at her in shock, his lips slightly parted as he breathed hard and his hair dangling down pointing at her right before it all turned into a gruesome monster drooling with blood again.

It wasn't long before Dane had helped Damien off of Jade and into a chair again and Drake had her in his arms, but it felt like years. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and in her nightmare it seemed that Damien was struggling to get out of Dane's reach to grab at her with his long, black sharpened nails.

"It isn't real Jade," Drake muttered into her ear as he tried to calm her down. He stroked his hand through her hair and kissed her neck and if Jade hadn't been too lost to think she would have been angry with him for practicing for that night, barely giving her a second thought.

"What the hell is matter with her?" Damien shouted through his heavy breathing, clearly distraught. Obviously he hadn't realized the degree of trauma that night had put Jade through. Drake sighed heavily, letting Jade cry onto his shoulder as the memories stormed through her head and his.

"That night," Drake growled at Damien, angry at his ignorance. "You should be more considerate of her."

"Oh, like you are! So what then?" He threw on a disgusting smirk, "She's just having a small mental crisis. It's nothing big."

Dane glared at his brother with unspeakable hatred, but didn't speak out against him, simply pursing his lips. "Come over here," Damien laughed at the trembling Jade.

Once she had, unwillingly, he stared into her eyes, his mouth twitching in and out of its smile. Drake could have sworn he saw a speck of pity deep in his eye as Damien commanded everyone else to leave the room.

After the last step foot fell silent leaving the two of them completely and helplessly alone, Damien set Jade in his lap, even though her trembling increased. "What exactly do you see?" He asked her gently.

She took in a deep shaky breath, trying to suck in the air that seemed so thick with the hot smell of blood, but her voice turned into sobbing before any words could come out.

"Calm down," he said forcefully through his teeth as that wound re-opened, "look it's just me," he paused and then muttered to himself through a roll of his eyes, "just terrible me."

Slowly like the shift from focusing out a window and then onto the window glass, Damien's real body came into view as everything seemed to cool down. She frowned, embarrassed. So he was the only one who could force her out of it with his power? She couldn't even do a thing.

"Hey," Damien, said reaching for her chin, but then thinking twice about it took it back and growled, "are you all right now?"

She nodded and slipped out of his lap with his help, wiping at the tear stains on her face. Why was he being nice all of a sudden? Why not in front of his brothers and Drake?

"Are you sure?" He asked again, leaning forwards. It was at that moment she realized how handsome he actually was. She was taken aback. 

"Yes," she snapped at him, rolling her eyes, half angry with herself for looking at him in that way. She hated all of the games. She couldn't keep up with when they were playing or when they were being genuine.

"What is it now?" He sighed. "What have I done now?"

"Stop it," she hissed, "stop acting like you're so innocent, like you haven't done a thing!"

"Oh, I'm sorry Jade that I can't read your mind!" He nearly shouted, all concern drained from his features.

She frowned at him, "Read my mind."

"Yes," he said, eyes flashing at her, "I can't tell why you're mad with me half the time and then you only grow angrier!"

She stared at him. It wasn't until he had said that that she realized how angry she actually was, but didn't she have the right to be? But, there he was staring back at her waiting for her to tell him how to not make her angry.

"I'll always be angry with you and hate you," she admitted.

"Why Jade!" He said, suddenly becoming furious again.

He rarely ever used her name. Taking a step back, afraid that he might lunge out at her like before, she shook her head, "I've said it a million times Damien! I don't want to be here! I don't want to be around you or any of your damn family and you won't let me go! I love Erik and I'm not even aloud to do that. Everything that I want or have ever had I can't because of you!"

Damien glared at her for sometime, shaking from his anger until his eyes slowly drifted down to her dress. She felt uncomfortable as she could feel his eyes running along her envy curve, taking her in. "We have to leave in five hours. Take the damn dress off and tell Drake that he and the rest can come back."

And so she did, as he quietly watched her exit into the other room to dress, but it wasn't too long after that that she sulked back into the room with the dress still clinging desperately to her frame.

"What?" Damien snapped from his chair, nearly screaming. His face was a bright red. Everyone else was filing back in.

She gave him one of her looks and then muttered, completely defeated, "I can't get out of it."

Amon burst into a fit of laughter, basically doubling over and rolling on the floor. Dane sighed as he glowered at his younger brother and Drake came over to her side taking her hand, "Come on, I'll help you."

As he led her back to the room, she glanced back to catch the humor in Damien's eye. It tried at least five more dresses before Damien found one that he said he could put up with for the night. It was a small strapless black dress that came just above her knees, but wasn't nearly as low cut or tight as the others.

Sighing deeply, he had shrugged, "Whatever I'm tired of this. They're all starting to look the same so just wear that one."

She rolled her eyes and was about to say something sarcastic, but Drake caught her hand, giving it a small squeeze. It took what felt like an hour for the fitting lady to perfect the dress. Pulling it up here and letting it down there, but by the time that she finished it was almost time for them all to leave. So while all of them went to put suits on Jade was shoved into another lady's arms for makeup and hair, taking another painful thirty minutes. After which, Jade wondered if she was missing large sections of her hair from all of the tugging and excessive amount of teasing. When she finally was finally set free and had walked into the room where everyone was waiting for her, she felt like a doll and was fit to be tied.

Drake gave her a sympathetic smile and walked over to take her hand. "For what it's worth you look lovely."

She rolled her eyes, but returned the compliment, "As do you."

She needed to be practicing for this ball, which was in fifteen minutes. She had tried in the cafe when she was with Erik, but she wasn't sure if it was quite up to Damien's standards and even if she had told herself over and over that there was nothing to fear from him, she still expected that he might have something terrible just up his sleeve, waiting to spring out at her.

Drake gave a heavy sigh beside her as everyone began to head through the door, "And here I thought we were being genuine."

"Genuine?" She asked, walking on the toothpicks for heels that were attached to her shoes.

Another sigh as he caught her from falling and set her back up, "Forget it love. We need to be at our best tonight. Understand? Damien, he-"

"I get it," she snapped at him, cursing herself simultaneously, "sorry."

"It'll be fine," he smiled, leading her into the elevator, which was very cramped with the six of them plus three strangers.

"Are you all right now?" Dane came up to her as they were all walking out of the elevator.

She nodded, "Yes. I'm just worried about tonight."

"Me too," he smiled, looking out at nothing, "Damien is planning on doing something stupid, but," he sighed heavily, "when is he ever not?"

Jade opened her mouth to respond, but just then Amon rolled Damien up to Dane. "Here, I need to get Blair," he said hastily as he ran off towards her.

Jade watched him, letting her eyes fall ahead of him and onto his target. Blair had her long, flowing dress stuck in the door of the elevator and was about to loose her head which was turning redder than a cherry. Jade stifled a laugh.

"So what exactly is the plan for tonight, Damien?" Dane asked as he pushed him through the revolving doors.

He gave a short laugh from where he sat, "It'll be complicated."

"Yes," Dane kept his patience, "but what'll Jade and Drake be doing?"

"Drake and you will go with me and Jade will go with Amon and Blair," he said stiffly.

"Why" Dane asked, making Jade bite the inside of her lip. She wouldn't have kept pushing and prodding Damien's temper if she were in Dane's shoes.

"Jade," Damien said just that one word and dragged out into its own conversation, "do you want to stay with me or Amon?"

"Damien, don't," Dane sighed as he came to a stop in front of their limo.

"I am waiting," Damien reminded Jade.

Jade frowned and after quickly glancing back to see how long they'd be waiting on Amon, replied, "I'll do whatever you want me to Damien."

A little ways in front of her Drake turned his head to give her an approving smile, thinking Good, try to keep him in the best mood possible.

"Thank you!" Damien exasperated, "Finally, I guess I can only hope this lasts all night and lifts half the load off my back. I have enough to deal with without you trying to rebel against me."

Dane gave her a reproachful look, probably because he was the one always in Damien's favor and he wasn't used to being shoved aside like trash. However, he did notice the deep slit on Damien's right wrist and like a snake lashes out he grabbed Damien's wrist faster than the blink of an eye. "You need to be careful."

"It's inevitable," Damien yawned, "besides the healer will fix it all up tonight."

Dane let his brother's wrist slide out of his grip, "A healer? I thought you said black magic."

"Now that would be risky!" Damien laughed, "Besides healers work better."

"Risky? You'll have a dead man's body to deal with if you use a healer," he hissed. The color seemed to be draining quickly from his face, but there was no more time for extending the conversation because just then they were all ushered into the car. Dane helped his brother in and unfortunately Jade was made to sit right next to him, where she tried to shrivel up so that they weren't touching quite so much.

The last door of the car was closed and they zoomed off. Apparently they had a good thirty minute drive ahead of them and it was just getting dark so they'd be early. With Drake provoking her from the left and Damien sulking on her right, Jade felt overwhelmed.

She finally thought to him, What is it?

He raised his eyebrows at her, indicating to her that she needed to remember her attitude.

Sighing she nearly rolled her eyes, but his voice shouted out in her head, Ah ah. Biting on her lip, she turned towards him with wide eyes. Whereupon he looked back shrugging and then moving his head and glancing at Damien. He then reached over into her lap and took her hand lacing his fingers with hers and then finally taking his time he leaned towards her and kissed her. She hated being on display in front of Damien so that he could judge the two of them. However, it never had seemed to bother Drake all that much.

"Oh, please spare me," Amon growled over where he sat across from them. "We aren't even half way there."

Damien looked up from whatever he had been fiddling with and glanced between Amon and Drake murderously. "You don't agree with me?" Amon half giggled and laughed.

Is he never completely sober? Jade sneered.

I've never seen him sober. Drake thought back. Honestly he drinks so much that it's hard to tell if he's drunk sometimes. I mean he really has to drink a lot to seem actually drunk.

Damien rolled his eyes and picked up the glowing metal thing again and began to fool with it.

It's called a phone dear, Drake reminded her.

She nodded that she remembered and continued to stare at it as Damien prodded and poked it with his finger making the light and colors change. "Yes?" He asked her without even so much as glancing up.

She cursed herself silently, knowing she had to answer, "Nothing."

Don't provoke him! Drake hissed.

Now Damien looked up, blinking at her. "You were staring."

"Yes," Jade responded cooly.

He half smiled to himself with a small laugh and then looked back down shaking his head.

Good, Drake thought to her, just try to keep him in a good mood.

Don't you think he knows what we're doing?

Certainly, Drake smiled at her, but if he's in a good mood he's in a good mood. It doesn't matter if he knows we're trying to keep him happy because he'll be happy no matter which way.

She tried not to sigh as she leaned towards Damien, "Actually what are you doing with that?"

The smile crawled around his face once more, "You have no idea what this is? Do you?"

"It's a phone," she responded bluntly.

"No duh," Amon laughed from across the car, until Dane shut him up.

"Well, if Drake would let me into his damn head. I'd be able to know," she sighed with a shrug.

He dropped the phone into his lap and reached over with his one good hand, about to pinch her chin between his thumb and pointer finger, but probably remembered the last time he had touched her because he stopped it right before her face, muttering, "The two of you don't need to be going out of your way to please me. Just do as I've said and I won't . . ."

His smile broke into a full grin as he turned away from her with a small laugh, "Won't what?" Drake snapped, clearly tired with the games.

But Damien remained silent, continuing to fiddle with the phone. Jade watched him, knowing exactly what he was doing with it. How had he known that she knew how to operate a phone?