The thought of Harper stalking my home had sent me into free fall and yet I didn't even know why I was so surprised. The apparent animal intruder in the garden. The open bedroom window. The signs had all been there and I had put it down to nothing more than my own paranoid, guilt-stricken mind. Looking at him now, knowing him the way I now did, I wondered how I could have been so blind not to put two and two together.

Still, he said angels were blind and if that is how he had seen me, then he was right. I had been blind. Completely, utterly blind to what had been creeping into my life and into my home.

A splinter sharp shard of fear pierced my heart when I thought about Brandon. Was he safe? If Harper had been able to gain access so easily, would he be tempted to go back and kill Brandon? Maybe he had done it already. I couldn't bear the thought of that. It was one thing to cause my downfall, but Brandon's? He was innocent and didn't deserve Harper's hate or malice.

"Have you been back to the house since?" I probed tentatively, trying to keep my voice from trembling.

Harper, who was still glowering furiously after his outburst, looked at me, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. "Why would I want to go back there? I got what I wanted."

"I know...I was just thinking. Loose ends and all that."

"If you mean did I go back and kill your husband, then no. It's a damn tempting idea, I've got to admit, but no, he's perfectly safe." His face wrinkled up in disgust.

I frowned. "But he must be looking for me? What if he asks too many questions? Gets too close to finding out what happened?"

"Do you want me to kill him or something?" he asked with a cruel smile.

"Of course not," I replied quickly. "I'm just trying to think logically. There's no body and if there's no body he probably thinks I'm still alive."

He laughed softly, calmly examining his fingernails before biting at one of them. "Oh trust me, he thinks you're very much dead. There might have been no body, but I'm afraid your pretty designer dress, fancy shoes and bag were found covered in your blood. The results were conclusive. You were abducted, probably murdered in the most violent, horrific way and by now you are just another unsolved case file festering in the drawers of some detective inspector's dusty filing cabinet."

I hated him. I hated how cruelly flippant he was about all this. Everything about him, from the way he casually sat there picking at his nails, to the way he spoke, made me just want to scream in sheer rage and frustration. Here he was, making jokes about what had happened to me and Brandon was at home, grieving, mourning the wife who had betrayed him. My chest hurt thinking about him.

"I want to go back. I want to see him."

I didn't even know I was thinking it until I heard myself say the words out loud.

Harper's head shot up and he stared at me, wide-eyed in alarm, his mouth falling open slightly. "Didn't you hear me? You're dead, Megan, or at least that's what he thinks. That's what everyone thinks. You can't go back. You can't see him."

"Please. I won't contact him. I just want to see if he's okay," I said imploringly.

"Are you fucking mental? I said no! You need to forget about him. Forget about your old life because it's as dead as you are. What do you think would happen if you rocked up there and he saw you?"

"He won't see me, I promise I'll be careful," I insisted, feeling the desperation engulfing me like an itch I couldn't scratch.

"No you won't. You're a newborn vampire, Megan. You think you're okay now because you've fed once? Forget it. Give it a few hours and the thirst will be killing you again. That's the way it is. I can't let you out until you're ready. You go now and you won't be able to help yourself and hubby will be lying on your kitchen tiles with his throat ripped to pieces. You've already destroyed his life; do you really want to destroy him too?"

"I won't. I would never hurt him. I just wouldn't."

He laughed coldly. "Megan you already did. Don't you think he would have been asking questions? Why was his wife out, dressed up to the nines when she got herself killed? Who was she with and why didn't she tell him where she was going? Whatever you think, your last movements on this earth were highly suspicious and you want to go back there and twist the knife a bit more? I got to hand it to you, that's pretty fucking cruel. You might just make a half-decent vampire after all."

"And be like you? I'd rather fucking die," I spat back.

He leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head and chuckling.

"Is everything a joke to you?" I raised my voice and I saw dark sparks flash across his eyes but that didn't stop me. "You talk about how I was the one who destroyed my life but if you hadn't come along, it would never have happened. Before you came along I was happy, I had a husband, a great house and a job. I had friends."

"Yeah, you had it all, didn't you angel?" he sniped, without a trace of a smile now.

"Stop calling me that!" I growled. "You know, if I didn't know you better Harper, I'd say you were jealous of my life."

He sat up suddenly, his eyes fixed upon me and spitting out a wave of hate that almost made me flinch, it seemed so dark and feral.

"Jealous?" he snarled. "I wouldn't have your life for all the fucking money in the world. You know why? Because it's fake. You say you were happy? Bullshit. Happy with a husband who made you dress how he wanted you to dress? Happy with a husband who left you on your own all the time? Happy with your putrid friend who dumped you and betrayed you whenever it suited her? Happy in a shitty job being ordered about? Maybe if you stopped being such an arrogant stuck-up bitch, you would see it for what it was: nothing but one big fat lie. Do you not understand what I've given you? I've given you the chance to escape, before it was too late. Before you got sucked down into their world."

"Fuck you, I was happy. I was safe."

"Safe? Oh Megan, you have no fucking idea do you? How could you live so long like that and not ever realise you were never safe? They were circling you every day and pulling you deeper and deeper in until they had you where they wanted you."

"Stop with your metaphorical bullshit, Harper. It doesn't impress me. The fact is that I had everything and you can't stand that can you? So you took me and now I have nothing but you and this fucking hovel."

Jumping up with a growl of frustration and unrelenting fury, Harper was upon me before I could move, gripping me by my wrists and hauling me to my feet. He began dragging me across the room towards the door and I twisted and kicked out, desperate to fight him off.

"Stop it, get off me," I screamed.

Grabbing hold of me, he whirled me round and slammed my back up against the doorframe. I yelped as the wood cut into my spine. With one hand on my throat, his fingers digging into my flesh, Harper moved his face dangerously close to mine and for a moment I was petrified that he was going to bite me again.

He hissed into my face, lips curling back to reveal sharp incisors. "You, my girl, are going to learn how to be grateful for what you now have, even if it kills you."

I shrank back, weighed down by the power of his hate and fury and cursed myself for goading him. I knew this could only mean one thing.

I was about to find myself imprisoned in the basement pit once again.

As it turned out, it seemed the pit was not my destination. Instead, Harper dragged me along the landing corridor and threw open the door to a small box room, launching me across the floor so I landed hard on my ankle and I stumbled, hitting the floorboards with a painful judder.

Before I could jump up and charge at him, he slammed the door shut behind him and I heard a key turn in the lock and then the sound of his footsteps as he stomped away. I did try to get up, but my ankle gave way beneath me and I crashed back down to the floor, howling in agony. Massaging it gingerly, I wondered if I had broken the bone in the fall and cursed Harper out loud for chucking me in here.

From my position on the floor, I glanced up, surveying the room which seemed destined to become my new prison and I couldn't understand why he hadn't thrown me back into the pit of horrors. Not that I was complaining mind you, but if he had imprisoned me in here, there must have been a reason for it.

The only light came from a narrow gap under the door yet I was able to see sufficiently, possibly a bittersweet bonus to my transformation. On the surface it seemed like a very normal room. Small and barely enough room to swing a cat in, but it was clearly just an empty box room. There was no furniture, no carpets or rugs and just bare floorboards, pretty much like the rest of what I had seen of the house so far. Fortunately there was no hole in the floor so my fate wasn't destined to involve being dragged down into the darkness by some unspeakable beast from the abyss.

But I was about to descend into darkness of another kind and when it did happen, I prayed that the beast would come and take me. I prayed the gates to Hell would open and swallow me whole. I prayed for anything that would end my life and stop the pain.

********

When the thirst ripped through me, it came on suddenly and without warning.

One minute I was sitting there, with my back to the wall and trying to ignore the dull throb of my injured ankle and the next I was doubled over in agony, struggling to breathe as the hunger tore at my insides and twisted my body up in knots.

The first wave of pain was over pretty quickly and I was just about to raise myself up again, when it took me under once more; more intense and powerful than it had ever been. I couldn't help but scream out loud. I knew Harper could probably hear me and as much as I hated for him to hear my torturous cries, I just couldn't suppress them. I tried gritting my teeth to prevent the sound escaping, but the pressure was so much that I thought I might gnash my teeth together and force my gums to split open. So I gave in and released the screams, hearing them echo around the small room.

With the pains stabbing into my gut and burning up my veins, I dragged myself towards the door, unable to stand and pulling my half-lame foot behind me. It seemed to take forever to cross the couple of metres to the door and by the time I reached it, my chest was hurting and even my lungs were screaming for help.

I hammered on the door, screaming for Harper to come back. He didn't come. And if he was out there, listening as I begged for him to help me, then I couldn't hear him. All I could hear was the sound of my screams rebounding off the walls and disappearing into a silent void, forever destined to go unanswered. I don't even know how long I lay there, beating the door with my fists until I felt the skin go raw.

Looking down at my hands, I saw small spots of blood grazing the sides and I plunged one of my fists into my mouth, sucking desperately on the torn skin but immediately I knew it wasn't what I wanted; it wasn't what I craved. Nightmarish visions of Brandon lying on our kitchen floorflashed across my mind, delicious blood pouring from his succulent flesh, and I howled both with want and disgust that I could even imagine such a thing. I thought about Clara, tossing her hair and shaking her hips in time to the music and then me, wrapping myself around her in the same way I had wrapped myself around Margaret, sinking my teeth into her throat. I could smell her perfume and somewhere in my head, I knew it was the same perfume that I wore. Had it been the same? I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember anything anymore. All I could think about was my husband and my best friend and how much I wanted them both; how much I wanted to feed from them and lap up every last drop of blood that spilled from their throats.

Slamming my useless fists against the side of my head, I pulled at my hair, almost tearing it from the scalp as another wave crashed into me, knocking the breath from my body completely. I fell to one side, my face pressed against the floorboards, feeling the roughness of the unvarnished wood on my skin and staring into nothingness. I wanted the darkness to take me but I knew that it wouldn't.

This is what Harper had meant about being grateful. He wanted me to acknowledge that the only person who could help me right now was him and him alone. No Brandon. No Clara. Just him. And I had begged for him, pleaded for him to come and help me, but he had ignored me. I was alone with my thirst until he decided to forgive me and save me from this torture.

When the pain passed once more, I steeled myself for the probability that my torture was not over yet and just settled on taking deep breaths, trying to calm myself before I was ripped in two again. Leaning back against the door, I spotted something on the opposite wall, something I hadn't seen at first.

Halfway up the wall were pieces of cardboard plastered to the wall, much like I had seen in Harper's room. My breath caught in my throat as I spotted them, three strips of cardboard, secured to the wall with thick black tape. I knew what was behind them. And behind that, I knew there were people. People alive with blood that made my mouth water just thinking about them. Food. That's what they were. Forget faces. Forget personalities. Forget lives. Just food. I knew I had to get through that window. All I had to do was get out and taste just one, that's all I needed, just one person and I would be free from the agony and free from the thirst.

Using the door handle to steady myself, I rose to my feet, or foot, considering the fact that one was as good as dead and breathing hard, I started to hop across the room. It wasn't far. I could do this. Halfway across, I stopped, needing to rest before I continued, my eyes firmly fixed on those pieces of cardboard; my gateway to the outside world. I wiped away a thin line of drool that escaped from my mouth and gritted my teeth, determined to reach my goal.

Almost there. Almost there.

Then suddenly, inevitably, the hunger attacked me, pummelling my stomach with bone-crushing blows, again and again and again. I screamed, but now more in frustration and anger than anything else and kept on going. The pain in my ankle raged up my leg but I wasn't going to stop. Not now when I was so very close.

With a cry of triumph, I reached the wall and began to furiously, desperately, pick at the sides of the tape. My fingernails were torn to pieces after my time clawing at the floor of the pit, but I didn't care. I was going to tear at the tape until my fingers bled. Slowly, I managed to prise the tape off at the edges and grinning like a crazed person, I tugged at it, feeling the suction of the glue and laughing as I felt the cardboard give and begin to pull away from the wall.

Finally a gap appeared, sending a shard of bright daylight stinging across the left side of my face and I shrieked as I felt my skin crackle; as if the sun's searing touch was like acid. Letting go of the cardboard, I stumbled backwards, screaming as my flesh continued to burn and clutching my face, I fell to the floor writhing in agony. The cardboard hung off the window, allowing the light to cast its glare across half of the room and I was trapped in the corner, where the sun did not reach. I curled up into a ball, desperately trying to protect myself from the beam. The pain stretched down over my left eye, which was now firmly shut and swollen, down my cheek, ending just by the corner of my mouth. Turning my head, I closed in as tight as I could to the peeling wall and lay there trembling all over and whimpering helplessly.

I had thought that the thirst was the worst pain I could ever possible experience but I had been so very wrong.

This was it. This endless burning. Such a small area of skin in the great scheme of things and yet the agony was excruciating beyond all that my horrible imagination could ever conjure up. Scarred and terrified, I sobbed and wondered how I could ever have been frightened of the shadows. I wished they were here now to envelop me in their dark embrace. I craved their cool touch on my skin.

Behind me, the sun blazed through the gap, acting like some divine retribution for what I had done; some great heavenly torch that judged and burned, decimating all those who had dared to step into the darkness and welcome the shadows, turning their backs on the light.

I was burning and destined to suffer this for eternity. My final judgement was upon me.