Blaze POV.
I sighed and set the sheet of equations neatly to one side. My mother would kill me if it wasn’t left neatly. Sometimes having a mom with obsessive compulsive disorder could be a challenge. Pushing back away from my desk I stood, making sure that everything was left perfectly in case Mom came into the study in the morning. Home-schooling was pretty much all of my life. Mom was strict when it came to school. She was of the generation where schooling was everything. If you had no education, you had nothing in her mind. When it was obvious that I wasn’t fitting in at High School, she pulled me out and set about home-schooling me in order to make sure that I got the grades she wanted. Yeah she was a pushy parent but she only wanted what was best for me, so I didn’t hold it against her. I tucked the chair back under the desk and checked the study once more before heading for the kitchen. Mom was sat at the kitchen table reading the paper, a classical music station playing quietly in the background. She looked up as I entered the room, looking over the top of her glasses at me.
“Are you alright dear?” I nodded.
“I’m just about to turn in for the night.” I replied, opening the fridge and pulling out the milk. “I came down to say goodnight and get a hot chocolate.” She nodded and turned back to her paper while I made myself a hot chocolate. “Goodnight Mom.” I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek before picking up my hot chocolate and starting to head for my room.
“Goodnight sweetheart, I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll get started on some of those advanced equations.” I forced myself not to roll my eyes as I walked out of the room. Just what every nineteen year old wanted to spend her Saturday doing; advanced quadratic equations.
“See you in the morning Mom.” I replied, as I left the room.

I moved through the house quietly, the only lights on were in the kitchen and on the front porch. Mom liked to save electricity. Carefully, I climbed the stairs, the dark not bothering me, I was used to it by now and only things from fairy tales came out of the darkness. My room lay at the top of the stairs, I pushed the door open, feeling for the light switch. There. Light illuminated my spotless room, decorated by Mom a few years ago it was painted light beige with gold accents. The only things on the walls were a landscape sketch of sand dunes that I did when I was still in High School, a mirror and a couple of paintings that Mom had put up when she decorated. I set my hot chocolate on the coaster on my bedside table, pulling my pyjamas out from under my pillow and quickly changed. After cleaning my teeth I climbed into bed and set about reading a couple of chapters of my current book; Wuthering Heights. Mom had set out a list of over 300 books that she expected me to read to assist with my studies. I was on number 127. Three chapters later I set my empty mug down and put the book next to it carefully before switching my reading lamp off and rolling over to go to sleep.

~*~

The dream came to me again that night, as it had for the past few weeks.

I stood alone, surrounded on all sides by thick, dense trees. Dappled light fell through the canopy, providing the clearing in which I stood with some light. Behind me, I heard twigs snap. I spun around, eyes trying to break through into the darkness of the trees and see who was there.
“Hello?” No reply came from the gloom. “Who’s there?” Again no reply, but twigs snapped from a different place behind me. I swung in that direction. “Who’s there?” I repeated, fear starting to creep into my voice.
“No one that you need fear child.” The voice was a woman’s, full of melody and harmony. I turned to face her, already knowing what I would see. She was tall, slender and ethereally beautiful. Her angular features were flawless and framed by long platinum blonde hair that hung down to her waist in beautiful rippling waves. Her hair parted around her slender, pointed ears. A circlet of gold and platinum circled her head, a diamond inset with an amethyst hung from the centre, resting just above the bridge of her nose, between her bright violet eyes. Her perfect form was clothed in a dress of thin, light purple and silver silk that fell to the floor. It accented every curve perfectly. With every movement she radiated power and grace. Two huge wolves stood on either side of her, her hands resting lightly on their backs. She simultaneously fascinated and terrified me. She began to walk towards me. I tried to step back, but couldn’t move my feet. It was like I was rooted to the forest floor. She stopped about a metre away from me.
“Peace child, I mean you no harm.”
“Who – who are you?”
“My name is unimportant.” I started to speak again, but she raised a hand stopping me. There was more grace and fluidity in that one movement than I had ever achieved in my life. “Trust them Blair Carmichael, they are the key to your survival. Trust them, they will save you.” There was movement on the edges of the forest, indistinct shapes that I could hardly see in my peripheral vision. But I couldn’t take my focus off the woman in front of me. “Trust them Blair.” The dream began to fade into blackness with two words echoing around my head in that hauntingly beautiful voice. “Trust them.”

I jolted back into consciousness, a cold sweat covering my whole body. I rubbed my face, trying to rid myself of the image of that forest and froze. There was a noise right outside my door. I glanced at my alarm clock. 3:53AM. No way would it be Mom outside that door. I couldn’t move. Where would I go? My wardrobe was too small to hide in properly. And whoever was outside that door was between me and the bathroom, so I couldn’t run for there. Then the handle pushed down and I did the only thing that I could think of. I lay back down and pretended to be asleep. I could feel my heartbeat racing as I tried to level my breathing. Quiet footsteps padded across the carpet to the edge of my bed.
“Christ, check the rest of the room.” Ordered a voice in a whisper. I listened as the footsteps moved around my room.
“It’s all clear.”
“Jesus, I’ve never seen a kids room this tidy before.” Commented a new voice from what sounded like the doorway. They weren’t even attempting to be quiet.
“Gates! Shut up! Do you want to wake her up?! What are you even doing here anyway? I thought that you were meant to be helping Shadows.” Hissed the voice next to her bed.
“He sent me up here, thought that you two might need a bit more muscle to deal with the kid.” He still wasn’t bothering to lower his voice. “I wouldn’t worry about waking her up anyway.” He added, his footsteps moving into the room. “She’s already awake.” The footsteps stopped right next to my bed as I tried not to jump in surprise. I didn’t physically move, but I couldn’t stop my small inhalation of shock. “There ya go.” The voice sounded cocky. “Little kid fooled the pair of ya. Sit up kid, slowly.” I forced myself to open my eyes and sit up slowly, like he told me to. All I wanted to do was hide under the duvet until this all went away. Surely this was just another dream. But as my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, I knew that it wasn’t. Three heavily muscled men were stood in my room, one by the window, the other two by my bed. I was terrified. One of the guys snorted.
“Christ, grab as much as will fit.” The guy that had spoken first threw a hold-all to the guy stood by the window. “And do it quickly.” The other guy, Christ, nodded and began to rummage through my drawers.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” I tried to get out of bed and stop him but the tallest, meanest of the guys grabbed hold of one of my arms, stopping me.
“Sit. Down. Kid. You listening to me? Sit. Back. Down.” I sat, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest with terror. He didn’t release his grip on my arm, leaning down so that his face was inches away from mine. “Right. You listen to me. You’re coming with us. If you argue, if you fight, if you scream, if you try to run or if you try to get help, your Mom dies. Understand me?”