Prisoner of War

First topic message reminder :

Ramona Von Trapp stared at her younger sister as their father spoke, almost wishing she could read her thoughts. Victor Von Trapp had been going on for over an hour about the importance of keeping up their studies and remaining studious above all else. At least he was no longer mentioning her part about keeping the house clean or turning away gentlemen callers. And of course the part about staying far away from their enormous home's basement. She was so lost in her thoughts she didn't even hear the servants coming in with the food or notice that she'd began to drift off. Her long red curls were beginning to slide over her shoulders and into her soup but her mind was on the strange roars she and her sister could hear late at night when they ignored their aging father and sneaked down to the dungeon stairs anyway.

"I owe you. After all, you did the same for me." Shane said gently. "After all, I know how much your sister means to you. If you hurt her, it would destroy you."

Ramona met his eyes, her own dark with uncertainty. "I'm glad." She whispered finally.

Those words calmed Ophelia somewhat and she nodded her head slightly. "I wish I could make her forget me... She deserves to be happy."

"See, you can feel for yourself, not just your sister." Justin replied with a warm smile, the pad of his thumb lightly brushing Ramona's lower lip as he continued to watch her.

"I could do that...if you wish." Shane surprised himself with the offer. Aside from his brother, he'd never cared to give anyone anything. Least of all the gift of his powers. "My brother might never forgive me but for you...I am willing to risk it."

Butterflies took wing in Ramona's stomach and she found herself blushing deeply. "I can but...I shouldn't. It's dangerous." She whispered.

"Why?" Ophelia found herself breathing. With the exception of Ramona, no one had ever given her anything, simply for the desire to make her happy. What troubled Ophelia the most, was that every time she looked at Shane her blood boiled, and not in the bad sense.

"Then be... Dangerous." Justin breathed, leaning down and replacing his thumb with his cool lips in a gentle kiss.

"Because...I can..." Shane said simply, not quite sure why he was so willing to admit such a thing. "I would do anything for you, child. You were with me through hell. I owe you the world on a string."

Ramona couldn't breathe. This was what she had dreamed of. But it only took a moment for her brain to remind her that this was the handsome stranger who had stolen her mother away. He wanted nothing to do with her.

"I did nothing." Ophelia breathed, thinking her girlish daydreams no more than fantasies, she hadn't known Shane had been a part of each and every one that whole time.

"Will you please let me show you a place I know you'll love?" Justin breathed. Though he lingered close to Ramona, he was worried he had offended her by daring to steal a kiss.

Shane put his hands on either side of her facell, forcing her to look at him. "You have no idea what you did. Even though I didn't want you to. I needed you more than you will ever know." He leaned in and kissed her. The moment she closed her eyes, she would feel her stomach tingle. When she opened them again she would fine herself in an ornate stone room. They were far away from her sister and his brother.

"No. I am not my mother. You must realize that. I can't make you happy like she did." Ramona shook her head.

Whatever had just happened made Ophelia somewhat dizzy and she fell forward against Shane as she tried to catch her balance. "Where are we?" She breathed, glancing around, though seeming to make little effort to truly peel herself away from him.

"Did I look happy to you?" Justin asked sadly. "Ramona, please stop comparing yourself to your mother. She was no more than a beautiful, but hollow husk of a woman. You are so much more."

Shane didn't try to push her away either. he lifted her up into his arms before she could protest, his lips covering  hers for a long minute. "This is my family's crypt...or was until is tore it out to make a room for myself."

"I don't understand...why did you come to take me from my father? If not to replace me for my mother?"

"You like to hide from people?" Ophelia asked with a quirked lip. She understood that, only she hid herself in her books.

"He was keeping you prisoner, Ramona." Justin breathed. "A prisoner, and at the same time warden to your sister. Her condition was both his fault, and in some small part my own family. It just wasn't fair."

"It's a long story. What was done to me...my brother will never understand..." Shane stepped away from her and lowered himself onto a chair, stretching out his long legs. "I will bring you something to eat, child. I can hear your stomach."

Before Ramona could say anything there was a loud bang on the floor below. Several shouts of anger followed. "Justin! Bring me my daughter!" Annabell's roar shook the walls.

"I'm sorry." Ophelia didn't know what else to say, knowing her own father was the reason for Shane's misery. "My father... he... he was a troubled man. Ramona says he was kind and loving before our mother left, but I was too young to remember."

Justin sighed heavily and rubbed at the throbbing spot between his eyes. "You don't have to see her, if you don't want to." He assured Ramona gently. "Your mother can screech all night long, but I wont let her near you, unless you wish it."

"To whom? Your sister?" Shane asked. He seemed lost in thought as if he were somewhere else. "Perhaps. But not you...he experimented on you. Even as an infant."

"I...I don't know..." Again Ramona chewed on her bottom lip. "How would she even know I was her. .why would she care now?"
"Justin! I demand you hand her over!" Annabelle roared.

"No... That isn't possible." Ophelia breathed, shaking her head. She was so certain her memory was clear on this, that she had found her father's lab merely be stumbling upon it one night by accident. There was never even the notion that she had been there all along. Though she had denied it, the seed of doubt had been planted.

"She feared your father." Justin replied. "Feared what he would do to her children if she tried to take them from his home by force." He added. "But Ramona..." Again he tipped her chin up to look down into her face. "Annabelle is not the woman you remember so fondly."

"Once you have fed.I shall show you." Shane didn't say more as a slender woman came into the crypt and knelt before him, shivering.  "She is yours." 

The butterflies once again moved through her insides as Ramona looked into Justin's eyes. "I will...I should wait till she has calmed down."

Ophelia continued to shake her head. "I can't..." She breathed, still not entirely accustomed to what was now her only source of nourishment. "I wont be able to stop."

"See, wise and beautiful." Justin murmured against Ramona's lips. "Let the harlot stew some before even gracing her with a glance. Now... will you finally agree to eat something?"

Shane's laugh echoed in the tiny stone room. For a moment even the young girl looked up, snapped out of her spell. "That's that point, child. Drink until it is nothing but a husk. This is called a meal. Nothing more. Enjoy." The young woman's eyes went wide at this and she stood up to run but for some reason here body wouldn't let her.

Ramona shook her head, everything inside her telling her to use this moment to flee. All she would need was to find her sister again and they would be on their way back home while their mother and her lover had their spat.

Ophelia was also not moving. "Is that all we were to you, food?" She asked, genuinely horrified to think this. "Oh god... What have you cursed me with?!"

Justin didn't need to ask, he could see the mistrust there in Ramona's eyes, and it twisted painfully at his chest. "Everyone is so convinced I am in love with that damned woman." He growled, his mood clearly soured.

"What?" Shane turned his head to look at Ophelia unsure of what she'd just said. "What is did you just say?" His eyes were crimson now as he glared at her. 

"You kissed her when you took her from my house! What was I supposed to think?" Ramona demanded, refusing to let him pull away from her. They were still close enough that their lips were touching.

"You just told me I basically have to become a murderer, or die!" Ophelia shot back, not backing down from her statement.

"That was ten years ago, child!" Justin growled, struggling to resist the temptation that Ramona caused him.

Shane dropped himself into the chair again, the woman falling to her knees before him. "Have you ever even meat, Ophelia?" He asked her, trying to control his temper. "It's the same thing. These...beings are nothing more than cattle. You are above them. You always have been. A queen in your own right. Don't ever compare yourself to them. Not even that human sister of yours."

Ramona offered him relief by stepping away. She paced the hallway for several minutes then turned to the first door, her fingers on the handle. It wasn't hard to see the slight shake in the movement. "Can I...stay here while you are talking to her?" She asked softly.

"If I am to believe what you tell me, I am no more than my father's experiment... If he is even my father at all." Ophelia breathed, finding her thoughts hard to focus with so much new information. "Ramona is the Queen. She is beautiful, and regal, and everything that is good in this world."

Justin nodded his head, resting a cool hand over Ramona's to try and steady it. "As long as you like, I wont let her hurt you... Not again, child."

"Your sister is cattle. Little more than a beast raised for the slaughter. When my brother is done with her he will drain her and toss her aside like the fodder she is." Shane snarled bitterly.

"I'm alright. I can't remember the last time I let someone hurt me." Ramona whispered, again looking into his eyes.

Ophelia couldn't give up her old life so easily, not when Ramona had cared for her so lovingly. "I have to help her..." She suddenly insisted, the woman at Shane's feet forgotten as she started looking for a way out. "I wont let her end up like our mother!"

"I can." Justin murmured, touching a hand to Ramona's forehead that would send her into a deep sleep, catching her in his arms before she could fall to the ground. "Forgive me, but it's easier this way." He added, carrying her to the bedroom he had given orders to have prepared for her.

"What do you know of her?" Shane asked, appearing in front of her. "You know nothing of Annabelle. The woman is a monster. She was born a monster. She will die one."

Annabelle was waiting for Justin at the bottom of the stairs. She was wearing a light pink dress, a sparkling tiara pinned into her crimson hair. "Darling. It's been so long. How have you been?" She asked, holding out a regal hand.

"What do you really know of me?" Ophelia countered, refusing to be intimidated by Shane's sudden move. "You think seeing my dreams let's you know me? Perhaps my father treated me the way he did because I am just like her, a monster, as you say."

Justin looked Annabelle over, shaking his head sadly. "Were my words on your last visit not warning enough, Annabelle?" He asked, paying no attention to the hand offered to him.

"Your father created you. When he and Annabelle created Ramona, he believed that he had failed. She was human and therefore worthless to him. Why do you think she was never anything but your caretaker?
"He created you in his lab from the blood anD tissue from thwhat both of them. Under the right conditions and a fail proof system....you get the idea." 

"That's been so long ago I can't even remember." Annabelle said, waving him off.

"Failproof system..." Ophelia repeated the phrase in no more than a whisper. "You mean... you." It wasn't a question. "The treatments he gave me everyday... They came from you, didn't they?" She was grasping at thoughts now, flashes of things she had seen written on papers in her father's lab, yet somehow forgotten until now. "It had to be a gradual process..."

"Funny, you forget an awful lot of important things." Justin snorted. "Your children, for one. Don't pretend like you came here as a concerned mother, we both know that was never you."

"Yes, almost hourly when you were very small." Shane confirmed. "I used to sing to you when you would cry. It's not your mother's voice you remember in the darkness. Hell, I can't imagine you even know what she looks like much less what she sounds like. 
"And then there was the night you came down into the labs...for curiousty....we've already discussed this..." Shane reminded her, his crimson eyes glittering. "I made a meal of you...to take back what your father was giving you."

"Oh fine. I just don't want her here. With either of you. If anyone is going to make a meal out of the most perfect human even created...it's going to be me." Annabelle snorted, bouncing past him like a spoiled child in her taffeta pink gown. She sat on his ornate couch and kicked her legs, playing her part well. "Give her back."

Ophelia seemed to take quite some time to process all this, then took a step away from Shane. "I'm not special." She confirmed again. "You treated me the same as any other cattle, and that says a lot." The dark haired girl breathed.

"Give who back?" Justin asked calmly, simply to irritate Annabelle. "I'm afraid I never took anyone from you, woman."