Walking out of that house Drake watched her closely. She was opening up. Even though he couldn't read her thoughts all he could read were the random ones shoved at him and vice versa. He had no idea who she was. She tilted her head back and looked up at the picturesque sky. She smiled and almost laughed and then let her head fall gracefully back into place, continuing to follow in Amon's shadow.

"Come up here, both of you, where I can see you," Amon spat, not bothering to turn and look at them.

Shooting Drake another smile, Jade quickened her pace so that soon she was walking right along Amon's side. He took the time to give her a sideways glance almost as if he expected her to do something and then shook his head in a deciding manner.

"So," she began. This was the most Drake had heard her voice the entire time he had known her. "Damien's the sly, clever strong one, Dane's the kind intelligent guardian, who are you?"

"Why the sudden interest, Jade?" Amon growled. Not daring to look at her, he stared straight on intently.

"I'm just trying to sort all of you out in my head. I feel as if I know Dane to understand where his opinions lie on me and Damien's couldn't be more clear, but your's I'm clueless to. You just seem to be there," she seemed to be rattling off whatever was flying through her head without even considering what the words would bring up.

He stopped walking and glared down at her with the boiling sun light. He frowned as if confused, "You think that you understand how Damien feels about you?"

She nodded with a deeper frown than his. Drake was also confused. Even he knew how Damien felt about Jade. How could anyone not? "He hates her," Drake growled at Amon. "Where have you been the past few days?"

Amon glanced off in the distance for a moment, "Right, I understand that but," he paused, "whatever. You're right, but I still don't think you should go around acting like you know everything about a person you've only known for a couple of days."

"All right," Jade shrugged as they continued to wind their way through the thick crowd, "but again who are you in this weird story?"

"Who am I?" He mused through a wide crooked smile. He gave a short contemptuous laugh, "Hell, I don't know. You go first and then I'll try."

The front of her lip lifted into a kind of shocked snarl. Drake raised his eyebrows, she hadn't expected her own question to be turned on her. "I'm," she smiled to herself, "I'm the main character, but I don't want to be. I'm the plot of this story and I want out. I want to go about with my life free of this, but apparently I cannot."

Amon, rubbing his lips together in thought, stared at her through wide eyes, "Then I'm the troubled one, the jester. I'm here for your personal entertainment-"

"As if," Drake smiled, "you my dear uncle are the useless one, the forgotten one. You serve no purpose, kinda like her."

Amon stared at him with a blank expression, but eyes burning with venomous rage. "If you say so," he spoke stiffly, "but then what about you, when you are a carbon copy of Damien? It seems to me you're the most lost."

Drake shrugged off the words and ideas as easily as he could and threw on a smile, because when things hurt what else was there to do? "Yes, I know that," he said lightheartedly, "but it's obvious that we are very different. I would never make someone break their arm. I would never kidnap someone. I would-"

"I get it," Amon growled, "whatever, who are you Drake White?"

Drake looked up at the sky with a sigh, "Hmm," he mulled over the many responses swimming through his head, "I wouldn't say that I am the hero, but maybe I am. I have a feeling she can save herself on her own, but maybe I save someone else, who knows."

"You," Amon scoffed, "the hero!"

Jade laughed brightly, "I don't know I can almost see it, but just because you're a hero doesn't mean that you are good by any means."

"I'd have it no other way," he smiled cruelly.

"We're here," Amon sighed in what seemed half relief and half irritation.

In front of them stood a simple building made from stones. Ivy was crawling up every corner and the strange thing was about this apparently normal home was that there was no door, just a window boarded up by two forest green shutters. At the bottom of the sealed shuttered was a slot just big enough for a hand to fit through.

Amon ratted on the shutters with a loosely closed fist. "Hello," his voice rang out in that singsongy way.

Drake glanced at Jade. She was looking the little building up and down as if trying to decide whether she liked it or not.

Stop staring at me, she thought to him coldly.

He beamed down at her just as Amon grabbed Drake's good arm and shoved it into the hole in the shudders, sending Drake straight into the window sill. He would have turned around to snap at Amon if a cold, bony ghost like hand that he couldn't see behind those wooden shutters grabbed his with a delicate tight clutch. It sent shivers down his spine, but when he tried to retreat his hand the small hand pulled him back harder until his face was against the green wood of the shudders. He could hear the leaden, wheezing breathing behind that thin barrier. A terrible icy pain rushed through his veins and nerves stemming from his hand. Everything in his vision was turning a chilling bone white, pulsating red with his heartbeat, which had become the only sound. Then the hand released him and he fell to the ground panting, looking around, completely dazed.

Amon gave an uncomfortable cough and then shoved Jade towards the hole in the shudders. Drake looked up at him, but could only see his silhouette against the burning white sun. Amon held out an outstretched hand and once Drake had taken it, he helped him up onto his wobbling sticks for legs. He almost fell back down, but Amon caught him with an irritated hiss.

"A-are," Amon began hesitantly glancing away as if he were ashamed of what he was about to say, "are you all right?"

Drake smiled shakily at his uncle's discomfort. "It would seem so," he held up his once broken arm and turned it about. Suddenly Jade gave out a scream and both he and his uncle looked her way to find her thrown to the ground as Drake had just been, trembling.

Then to Drake's horror a thin, decaying old hand stuck out from the hole. Amon sighed and dropped ten gold coins into its palm and then muttered, "Come on you two."

Drake glanced at Jade who was still on the dusty, stoned ground and the hurried after Amon. Hurry up he thought to her.

"Where to now?" Jade grumbled after them. Drake also raised his eyebrows at his uncle.

"Well," he mumbled, "I don't know about you two, but I don't want to be anywhere near that house when Damien wakes up." He sighed and looked up at the clear blue sky, "God, it's hot. Let's just go to the damn beach, all right."

Drake shrugged, "Sure why not?"

"The beach," Jade muttered behind them to herself. She sounded like she had never used the word before or at least never given it much thought.

"Yeah, that big blue puddle of water over there," Amon joked in the sarcastic sort of way he always did. "Happen to see it?"

Jade gave him a dirty look as they began to descend those same stairs that only yesterday had they failed to reach the bottom of. They were made of old, dry cracked clay stones, dusted with sand particles and broken shells, bordered with a three and a half foot banister of solid stone. The sun seemed to reflect off the stone somehow and cook them as they sweated in the heat. Only on occasion when the salty fresh wind blew their way did they get a small satisfaction of relief. Then once they finally reached the bottom of those seemingly endless steps, they were all disappointed to find the beach of the port to be soaked with black sticky oil and trash and dirty sailers drinking and dancing around in circles to the playing of fiddles. Amon rolled his eyes and muttered, "Come on."

He walked past the sailers who were practically bathing in beer and whisky and Drake knew that it was all that his young uncle could do to not grab a bottle for himself. However, the matter of the fact was that Amon knew if he were to get drunk there was a very likely chance that Jade could escape once more.

"Where are we going now?" Jade twisted the question into a long moaning complaint. "You realize that I am in a floor length dress, right?"

There was no reply from Amon as he continued towards the docks, but Drake turned around to see her, walking backwards in the process, "I'll carry you dear," he smiled cruelly.

"I'd sooner die," she gave him a smug look.

"Mmm," he hummed, "wouldn't we all be better?"

"Both of you," Amon snapped, "stop bickering."

"Again," Jade spoke irritably. The hem of her dress was drenched with the sticky ground and almost stuck to the wood of the dock, "Where are we going to, Amon?"

"I've said it once. Now I'll say it twice," Amon grumbled, "we are going to the beach!"

Jade rolled her eyes and looked of the dock into the deep, shifting seaweed filled water. It was like watching a tank teeming with a hundred thousand slimy green snakes, all worming about. She cringed slightly, listening to the sound of their shoes hitting the hollowness of the wooden dock, imagining what it would be like to fall straight through into the writhing water. The smell wasn't that much better. It was mucky like mold and rancid with urine. Again she was forced shudder. She had noticed long ago that she was the only girl on that beach. She was astutely aware of the many eyes following her every step and was even more conscious of the men who were inching closer to her. None were speaking, just goggling at her through grimy soot and salt covered faces and smiling through toothless maws.

Amon must have noticed it too because just as one of the sailors, a man with a piercing in his left eyebrow, a golden hoop, grew exceptionally close, he took a step backwards towards her and wrapped an arm around her, drawing her close to his side. While she was thankful, she uncomfortable at the same time partly due to who Amon was and partly because their wet sweaty bodies now seemed glued to one another in an inseparable bond.

"Here," he motioned for her to take a step into a small sail boat that must have belonged to him, but ended up rather pushing her into it as he whipped around to find himself face to face with the pierced man. Their noses almost touching.

"Them three of you, don't belong here," he grunted, not tearing his eyes from Jade.

"Is that a threat?" The hotheaded and maybe naive Drake butted in, stepping right in front of his uncle and facing the sailor.

"Depends," he hissed through his few teeth.

"On what?" Amon seemed a little worried and Jade wondered what his power was and if it was worth any use in their situation.

"On what you's got for me," he peered at them through those sea blue eyes framed with lashes crusted with salt.

Amon bit his lip and then with both arms reached behind his neck and unfastened a golden necklace and then slipped of two golden rings from his right hand and then with a dark look handed them over to the sailor. Jade wondered why though. The man wasn't threatening them with any weapon, but that question was soon answered as her eyes fell open the dozens of other men watching in on the confrontation, all silently supporting the pierced sailor.

"Good enough?" Amon sighed.

The sailor also sighed and then leaned over to look past Amon and into the rocking boat, "What about her?"

"If she wasn't so precious to my dear older brother I'd hand her over in a heart beat," he spoke honestly and with no regrets.

"Oh and who might this brother of yours be?" The sailor simpered.

"Damien White," Amon muttered, raising an eyebrow as if wondering himself if the name would have any affect.

The sailor's smile sunk and he immediately shoved the jewelry back into Amon's sweaty hand, "Go. This didn't happen, all right."

Amon studied the man and then smiled, "Does no one not know the name then?"

"I don't want any trouble. I didn't know," the sailor was almost pleading now and even more sweat seemed to be spilling from his pores.

"What if I was lying?" He laughed. Jade grit her teeth. Why couldn't Amon just let it go? He was jeopardizing their escape.

"You're his brother all right and even if you's weren't. Why take the risk?" The sailor was now walking backwards away from them, his hands out in front of himself in surrender, "We've alls heard about that girlie and you's," he pointed at Drake who raised his eyebrows. He then turned and full blown ran away from them and almost immediately all of the other sailors slowly turned and went back to drinking and singing.

"Amon," Drake growled, "I don't know why-"

"I know," Amon interrupted him, "I haven't been here in a while and I forgot about the crowd here, but that's over with and we're all good. So there isn't any need to mention this to Dane, understood? Just get in the boat, we've come this far."

Once they had sailed along the coast far enough from the port, the sand turned a fluffy white and the sea a transparent turquoise blue. Jade leaned over the edge and let her hand dip into the water, allowing the fast moving ocean to stream between her fingers. The beaches were far from deserted, with men and women all lounging in the sun or splashing in the waves, stripped down to their undergarments. Amon steered the boat into a small cove, pulling on the rope hard to turn the sail and leapt out of the boat and tied the rope to a post. Then all three waded out into the waist deep water and made their way to shore.