Opal stirred and moaned slightly in her restless, tortured sleep. A tendril of her chocolate hair, come loose from the messy ponytail tied back with a red ribbon, swept across her face and tickled her deathly white skin…someone was watching. She forced her bleary eyes open to behold Darkling sitting before her in the dim, dank slum with an amused look in his black eyes. How long had he been there?”

“Guess you took a little more’n was good for ya, huh Dagger?” he questioned tauntingly. “Ya been out for almost two days now.”
She couldn’t deny it any longer. This man---no, this monster---had her completely and totally under his control. He had to be a monster, with the way he’d treated that poor kid the other night. The sheer brutality and mercilessness of the beating inflicted upon him by the Bloody Angels made her want to vomit. She very nearly did as she pushed herself off the ripped, dirty couch and noticed the spattered blood-red stains on her creamed-coffee-colored tank top. What had she become?

Darkling laughed cruelly at the horrified expression on her face. “Yer too sort, kid,” he said. “We should git’cha to cut people up more often.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “Ya better change. Wouldn’t go over too well with yer family if they cawt’cha wearin’ that.”