Series 13/Chapter 6: A TALE OF FIRE & PASSION

Noelle finds Evangeline with Justin in the Basement 

The night of Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard's birthday was not over. A mix of wild wind and concern still filled the air around the compound of Collinwood. The main mansion had fallen silent for now, but the ruffle of chaos still filled the halls of The Old House where Noelle had just burst through the door in search of the vampire Justin Patterson whom she suspected of having been responsible for the disappearance of Evangeline, Caleb Collins' governess.

As the door of Barnabas' beloved home swung open Noelle could see a dim light coming from underneath a door at the end of a dark back hallway just beyond the freshly painted foyer. This door led down to the basement of the Old House where Justin lived.

"What have you done?" Noelle whispered to herself as she flung her coat around the staircase banister. 

She quickly made her way though the hall and carefully turned the door knob that lead to stone stairwell into the basement where she would slowly make her way down. Her nerves were on edge. What would she find when she finally entered the bowls of the Old House? What would Justin, his dark spirit fully on display be doing to this innocent governess.

Innocent to Noelle, who had no idea Evangeline was herself a powerful witch in disguise. 

As Noelle carefully made her way into the basement she could smell the aroma of rosewater and candle wax. She could feel the warmth of the room that was usually damp and cold and had so much history of darkness but in this instant felt comforting and welcoming. 

At the bottom of the stone stairwell she could see into the whole room. There, laying on a beautiful bed was Evangeline, completely unconscious and Justin was far in the corner hidden by shadows from the archway of the entrance. 

"What have you done?" Noelle asked as she cautiously entered the main room. 

She did not look at Justin only in the direction of the beautiful sleeping woman. 

"I sense her. I sense her whole soul. She's....she reminds me of India." Justin said from his shadowy corner.

"What are you talking about? This isn't India! This is Caleb Collins' governess Justin! What have you done to her?" Noelle asked now facing him.

"You won't understand even if I explained it you. She and I met, she and I have a connection and I can't figure out what it is. But I want to. I think I want to know her more." Justin replied.

Noelle stepped closer to Evangeline who's body was still. Motionless. She could tell that the woman was not dead. Her face and skin still had color of a living person and her breath raised her chest slowly ...but there was breath; proof of life. 

"Are you going to kill her?" Noelle asked in a slow and cautious tone.

"I wouldn't do that. Not to her. Not to someone who has India's energy." Justin said suddenly. 

"India’s energy??? What are you talking about? Listen to yourself Justin! You have to gain control of yourself. You’ve become obsessed!" Noelle replied. 

"Had you kept your word I would have been done with you by now... you’re a disgrace to your coven." Justin snarled. "Nevertheless I can feel India’s life force Noelle. She must have somehow connected with India when she arrived here. This woman .... She's like me. She's ..." He paused.

"Justin stop it. STOP IT! She is not like you. She is nothing like you. She's just a nanny. Do you know what you've done? Caleb saw you or...or ...or he thinks he did. He saw what happened to Evangeline and now the family is suspicious. You have to get this woman back to the house unharmed. We have to do this now." Noelle exclaimed.

From the shadowy corner Justin was sitting in, Noelle couldn't see his reaction to her demands. She could feel him staring however, a deep cold stare that felt like she was standing in the middle of a glacier. 

He stood up and made his way out of the dark corner or the basement and into the light of the room. His eyes glistened as if he had been crying. Noelle looked over at him and could feel that something in him was sad but the sadness was masked by a deep rage that he felt towards her. For she was the woman who promised him India --- and she failed. She woke him from his grave in 1966 when he was hiding in Barnabas' coffin and promised him India. 

She never delivered. A betrayal. 

"You would deny my happiness again? She isn't just a nanny. This woman is a sorceress. She showed me herself. She showed me that side of her and I could feel energy within her heart that tells me she had contact with India. And now...you're trying again to take that away from me." Justin said as she stood closer to Noelle that she felt comfortable with. "'Just take her back', you say, 'she's not what you think', you keep telling me. This is just another one of your tricks to get what you want out of me without delivering what I need to stay alive. Well I'm not doing it this time Noelle, I believe this woman and I are destined to be together. I'm beginning to see that perhaps she was the one that I was meant to be with." 

Noelle began to fear Justin was losing his mind. Perhaps all the years locked away in secret since she found him were getting to him. Perhaps all these  years feeding him the idea that she would use the weakening magical powers that she too held inside to bring him India were now starting to catch up to her and all of this madness and fear were climbing to a new height of his brain and destroying any kind of reality she could muster for him. 

Perhaps the world she built for him in hopes of using his strength and eternal life when the time was right to get back at the Collins family for their involvement in her brothers mysterious death was now falling apart. And now, Evangeline was a new victim in this web of treachery. 

"Justin listen to me...ok, just listen: we have an opportunity right now to set things right. I am very close to finally getting to the truth of what happen to Beau. I've been waiting for years to start this and now, now the time is right. I have to do this the right way. The safest way. Nothing can come between the truth and myself. I'm doing this for Cameron. I'm doing this so that I can finally have peace and....so that Beau can have peace. But this..." Noelle said pointing to the sleeping Evangeline "this could destroy everything. All my work. All the time that I have been working in that house for that family. Do you understand?" 

Justin thought for a second and realized that now he was in a way the one in control. He could finally see that everything Noelle was plotting was contingent on what he could do for her and that was a powerful spot to be in. If he wasn't in on what she was going to do, then, perhaps she could not do it. It was now time for Noelle to bring in some of her promises and stop using him. 

"I don't trust you anymore Noelle. You promised me too much and have brought me nothing. But I’m not an unreasonable man.  I'll give you two days to come up with a new idea that will be advantageous for the both of us. For you, you'll get to the truth of how and who killed your brother. And for me, I get the person I've been waiting for for so many years. India.....or Evangeline." Justin said posing the new proposition.

Noelle didn't know what to say. She only could hope that he would return Evangeline unharmed. She took a second looked at the sleeping witch and turned back to Justin. 

"Fine....in two days I'll come up with something that will serve us both and in the end you'll get what you want and I will too but this girl must be unharmed. " 

Justin smiled and looked down at Evangeline. He knew that now India was gone, he knew now that there would be no way of bringing her back. 

 

 Evangeline was now the focus of his affections. And She was lovely. She was beautiful and he knew in his body and soul that she was like him. Different. Special. Supernatural. 

"Take her back." Noelle said again in a quiet tone.

But just as she spoke, she heard the footsteps on the ceiling coming from upstairs. Someone was home.

Startled, Noelle put her finger up to her lips to hush Justin and rushed up the stone steps and back into the main chamber of the Old House where she found her nephew Cameron Frame and his boyfriend Lucas Grainger hanging their coats up in the side closet near the front door.

Cameron had left two days before after a contentious argument with his aunt Noelle about all the things she was keeping from him. His return home was a surprise. 

"Honey! It's so good to see you. I've been worried about you." Noelle said walking up to her nephew hoping he'd accept her with open arms. "Lucas, its good to see you." she added after receiving a cold reception from Cameron.

"You too, Noelle." Lucas replied.

"I just came home to pick up a few things. I'm going to be staying with Lucas for awhile." Cameron replied.

"Can we talk? Please." Noelle said softly hoping for a chance at redemption for all her secret keeping.

"Talk. Whatever you have to say you can say it in front of Lucas. He knows everything." Cameron said bluntly surprising Noelle. 

"It's ok I can go into another room if you need me to." Lucas said, hoping for some time alone to snoop around the old house.

"No, if she has something to say she can say it. What is it?" Cameron said, his hurt burning in his words.

"Cam, I wish you'd allow me to at least explain things further to you. I wish you'd allow me to show you why I did what I did and why I kept everything from you for so long. There was a reason, there's always been a reason and I can't tell you how sorry I am for it all. I really am. But my whole motive was to finally get to the point where I could finally figure out what happen to your dad. The truth." Noelle explained taking advantage of the opportunity.

"You should have been honest with me years ago. Years ago! I could have helped you figure out the truth and now we're in this mess because I don't know what to believe or what to trust. You've always been my only family Aunt Noelle, you've been the person I looked to the most; the person who I could trust the most and now...." Cameron began before being interrupted 

"And now?" 

"And now I don't know. I want to trust you. I want to believe you. But how can I?" He answered.

"Can I say something?" Lucas added. Noelle and Cameron both looked at him giving him the green light to speak. "Maybe now is the best time to align as one to fianlly get to the bottom of everything. You’re both stronger together than apart and now that the truth is fianlly out in the open you can join and finally, once and for all, put this horrible side of your family’s history go rest . I think that starting fresh with the truth was the best thing that could have happened." 

Cameron was confused. He knew that Lucas was on his side but at the same time he didn't feel like Noelle deserved to be left off the hook so quickly. 

"I think that would be great too." Noelle said. 

"Well of Course you do. That would be just so easy for you to take things and make them all good again when we both know that you literally had me live next door to my maternal family all this time ...you kept me secret from them. Don’t they deserve to know me? Half of who I am is in that other house over there and all my life I didn't even know. It’s selfish. It’s...beyond selfish actually. I mean my god, my grandmother is YOUR boss!!" Cameron pointed out. 

Noelle took his berating like a woman at a firing squad she knew she deserved it but she also knew her motives for keeping the secrets to his maternal connection to the Collins family were warranted.

"So what does that mean kid?" Lucas asked Cameron. "Does that mean you just want to throw in the towel with the woman who raised you because she felt  the woman who gave you up didn't deserve to know you yet?" 

Again, Cameron wasn't sure why his boyfriend was taking Noelle side so quickly. It was a strange reaction. A reaction he didn't expect. And in reality a bit off putting. But Lucas had his own ulterior  motives for trying to get Cameron and Noelle back in line---if they were close again, that would mean Lucas could get closer to the real Collins family, and hopefully begin whatever paranormal investigations he had always wanted to. He was only steps away from the mansion. Noelle and Cameron reconciling was the key to his scientific glory. 

"What would it take for you to understand my side of it?" Noelle wondered. 

"I don't know. I guess proof. Some kind of proof that the Collins family are as dangerous as you keep trying to convince me. So aperently dangerous that you kept me s secret." Cameron said with a sarcastic tone. 

"Yes! Proof, I want that too. And I think I can do that for you with your help. See, all these years that I've been working with Mrs Stoddard I've tried to find that proof and show it to you so that when I finally did tell you who your mother was you would understand why I kept the secret. Because I truly believe they had something to do with your dad's death in 1966. But I never had enough time while I was working to do the right kind of searching in the house but....but now you do know and maybe you can help me. Maybe you can do the searching while I tend to Mrs. Stoddard." Noelle said to Lucas' happy grin. 

Lucas felt like he was getting closer to his prey. He could feel it. 

Noelle grabbed her nephew's hand "Honey, I did this all wrong. I should have been honest with you from the start but I can't change that now. I want to, but I can't. But I hope we can move forward now together as a team and get to the bottom of everything. Now that you know  I feel like we can do this. We can finally find the truth of how the Collins family killed Beau and hid it from all of us. As a team." 

"A team of three." Lucas interjected. 

Cameron felt like he was being gained up on. Noelle only wanted to find the truth to everything that revolved around Beau's death and Lucas wanted something too. Cameron could tell there was something he wanted but was unsure of what exactly.  It was odd seeing his boyfriend being so upfront and on his aunt's side. 

Lucas could taste Collinwood. He saw the mansion on his way up to the Old House and it was like a dream. All his studies. All his investigations and readings on the family history and he was literally one door step away. Cameron only had to agree to finally be  involved and help Noelle. 

"A team of three." Noelle repeated in a cautious whisper.

Cameron wasn't sure what to do. Did he really want to do this? Was this really the way he wanted to get to know his mother's family, by infiltrating their home and pretending to being Noelle's nephew and NOT Carolyn's son? It was just lie upon lie upon lie and now he was on the verge of agreeing to help in the scam. 

At what cost? 

The truth? The truth that his mother Carolyn’s family was somehow directly responsible for his father's death...that this strange and long winded excuse  of Noelle’s was real and not some bizarre and random conspiracy theory of a woman he loved slowly going mad?  

Was Cameron willing to find that out and not only have the reality that his mother's family killed his father in cold blood?

"Well?" Lucas said nudging his boyfriend Cameron into a decision.

"Fine. Fine! I'll help. But I'm only giving it one week and if we don't find anything that's it. Its over. And you'll have to quit." Cameron demanded.

"Quit?" Noelle asked.

"Quit. Yes. You'll resign as Mrs Stoddard's caretaker and we'll leave this place forever. That's my part of the bargain. No more lying to anyone." 

Noelle thought about it for a second but she knew that now that she had more help, she would definitely find the truth and  when she did the Collins family would be held accountable for all their sins, all of that would come to pass before she'd ever be forced to resign.

"Deal." Noelle said with a gleam in her eye while still holding Cameron's hands. She pulled him close and hugged him tight. Her love. The boy she raised. The boy she adored. They were finally going to solve the mystery of Beau's death together like they should have always done. As a family.

And Lucas, hungry for fame and fortune by discovering that the dead were among us; that the vail between the world of the living and those that had gone before us was a reality and that the Collins family were some how conduits to it all would finally get what he wanted all along: Riches. Fame. Notoriety. 

Lucas would use his boyfriend's connection to the Collins family for his own greedy advantage.

As Lucas and Cameron went upstairs to gather some of his things, Noelle took a second to think about her new alliance now that she was left to alone. It was her best bet to finally, once and for all, getting the truth she had been waiting to discover all these years about Beau's demise. To her, Justin's decaying mental state and his kidnapping of Evangeline was now a liability. 

Her promise to him was empty. Fake. He had to be destroyed before it was too late. 

****

David & Carolyn in the drawing room 

As the fog rolled over the land that comprised the cliff-side of Widow’s Hill, Carolyn walked into the drawing room where David was going over Cannery paperwork. She looked at him and grinned. She was proud of him. He was last of their direct family that worked at the family business. The burden of the entire Collins enterprise was on his shoulders as she lived in London. She could sense his deep obligation to the job. She also felt guilty for leaving him all these years. 

David never complained. 

"You know, your father would be very proud of you." Carolyn said.

David looked up at his older cousin and grinned. 

"Would he? I tend to think he’d just go off on tangents and tell me how much more I could do, you know? How much more I should do. Nothing was ever good enough." David said. 

"David he loved you." Carolyn replied. 

David took a deep breath and stacked the papers on the desk and placed them inside a file. He smiled and turned to his cousin who he felt was avoiding the subject of Evangeline. 

"Go, on …you can tell me. I know you want to." David said.

"What do you mean? Tell you what?" Carolyn wondered.

"Deep inside you want to say 'I told you so'. You knew coming back here something crazy would happen. So...go on. Don't be shy." David joked

"Listen, I can feel a certain way about being here. That's true, but....I think Evangeline leaving is not connected to anything ...well..." She paused, "anything like before. At least that's what I'm going to believe. I don't want to entertain any other idea." Carolyn said, her mind shifting between her impulse of fight or flight. The fear engrained her in deep dark paranoia was many times exhausting. 

But there was also her uneasy feeling about David's wife Kimberly and her skittish nature. Especially the cryptic nature of the phone call she overheard the night of the birthday party. 

"I can tell you’re uncomfortable, so go in lay it on me. We’re going to find her. Ok? We are." David pressed..

"Oh god, FINE!" Carolyn relented. "I am worried and I don’t want to know what any of this could mean. I mean, the girl probably had had enough of everything in this drafty house and abandoned her job. She not  the first governess to do it." Carolyn said.

"Vicky was the first." David said in a low voice remembering his own governess' trials and tribulations at Collinwood. 

Carolyn scoffed. 

"And my mother.... she’s been going on and on about ...HIM." Carolyn mentioned. "Do you think? You don’t think..."

"I don’t even want to fathom that. Barnabas ..." David began before Carolyn interrupted.

"I don’t want to hear his name. Don’t say his name!" 

"Carolyn listen to me. Evangeline is going to be found, she’s going to be fine and everything will get back to normal. Everything has been normal here-- whatever normal is. Aunt Elizabeth has a way of retreating to what she feels is the old ways. I promise. We’re safe." David said confidently. So confident even he believed it.

"She does go on and on about the old days in her letters." Carolyn digressed.

"See." David said with a smile.

Carolyn smiled back and took a deep breath. She patted David on the shoulder and teased him about his penmanship on the paperwork. 

The two were falling back into old routines of friendly and silly teasing. So much so they didn’t even notice the eyes in a large painting above them, a painting of Joshua Collins, were real. 

As the two cousins talked the eyes shifted back to their painted versions. Just behind Joshua’s cold pale painted face with its removable eyes stood Elizabeth. 

Her face stone cold. They didn’t believe her. While she secretly spied on her favorite nephew and daughter she could tell that they didn’t believe her when she told them something wicked was afoot and that that was the reason for Evangeline’s suddenly and ghostly vanishing. 

Little did Elizabeth know, Justin was the true culprit. 

Elizabeth adjusted the black shawl around her shoulders that perfectly framed her porcelain face adorned with pearl droplet earrings on her ears and lifted a brow in disgust.

She’d show them. She’d show them she wasn’t crazy. 

****

Bathlem at the Old House

Back in the depths of the Old House, Evangeline was left powerless by the strength of the Justin's hold over her. He knew this was the only way he could control her and see deep into her soul. This is how he could feel the subtle link that lay within Evangeline's body to India's life-force left behind when India was inside Evangeline before the witch sent her back to her own time line. It was a like a plume of smoke floating about a chimney so potent of life he could smell it.

It was an alluring feeling, an alluring pull. He was attracted and Evangeline was burning into his soul. She was now all he could think about and all that he wanted in the entire world. 

Justin sat back in the corner of the basement of the Old House. His heart was pounding with the voice of Noelle telling him to return Evangeline, unharmed, to the Mansion on Widow's Hill. 

But He couldn't. Not yet. 

As Evangeline lay there, her mind was in another place. Locked away in a dream like state. Trapped like a bear in a trap, unyielding and filled with powers that were not working. 

She could hear what was happening around her. But she could not speak. She could sense what was going on and how locked in place she was--it was as if she were in a vegetative coma like state. Frozen. Her powers paralyzed by Justin's overwhelming strength over her. 

In the fog of the of her subconscious Evangeline was not alone. There, standing in the world of her mind was Bathlem, the powerful witch and mentor of her past from decades ago who posed as Mother Superior Magdalena Patrice. The woman who raised Evangeline as the orphan Claudia, the woman who also knew Angelique Bouchard centiries ago on the island of Martinique. 

"This is not how I raised you Evangeline Claudia." Bathlem's voice rang out. "This, weak despicable woman lying here worthless....this is not you. This is not the daughter of Angelique I raised." 

"Mother Bathlem?" Evangeline asked, searching the darkness for the face to the voice in the misty void in her mind. 

And suddenly, out of a mist like cloud the mystical nun appeared.  

"This is not how you were taught. Fight for yourself and for your legacy. The coven holds you on high and wishes to grant you all the powers of the universe to free yourself of this binding. But if you do not fight we cannot grant you such powers. Its incumbent on you my child. Prove yourself to your coven...prove it to yourself." 

"What do I do? His control is so strong over me!" Evangeline answered.

"It is only strong because you are allowing it to be. Nothing is more powerful than the strength we have bestowed on you, the powers of all your ancestors and of your mother flow through your Veins Evangeline Claudia. Open your eyes. Open them and see your future in front of you and take hold of it by the throat ..... now!" Bathem commanded.

Bathlem was in her own way a power immortal witch queen who lived her lived hidden away in the same convent in Bangor. She had never died. She lived. Lived to keep this child, this golden-daughter of the coven safe and powerful. 

To Bathlem, Evangeline was the future of all witches, yet still a novice in her eyes.

Evangeline, was unsure of what to do. She couldn't understand what she needed to do to thwart Justin's hold over her. She attempted to open her eyes but she couldn't. She couldn't move. Not even a finger. Not even a toe. 

How could she wake? How could she break this binding control this vampire had over her. This vampire who called himself Leopold. He stared at her. Obsessed. Infatuated. In love. 

"I....I can't. I can't do it. He's too strong." Evangeline said again in her mind to Bathlem. 

Suddenly, like a storm raging over mountains and sea, like a volcano irrupting in a wave of fire and smoke Bathlem screamed. Her rage echoed a roar inside of Evangeline's ears that actually shook the stone walls of the basement. 

"I COMMAND YOU TO WAKE!!!! WAKE!!!" Bathlem screamed. 

Justin, locked in a gaze at the sleeping witch felt the electricity in his body and the power suddenly fill his blood too.

And as the witch Bathlem's voice continued echoed in her mind, Evangeline gasped for breath in the bowls of the Old House like drowned person coming  back to life. She opened her eyes, breathing hard, her chest lifting up and down with every drink of air and then....she came face to face with the man holding her captive. 

Justin stood up and quickly took his place in front of Evangeline who was also already on her feet. He smirked at her. He could feel her strength. It was alluring to him. 

Her eyes were seething with anger. She was fuming. All she wanted to do was kill this man in front of her for what he had done, taking her from Caleb, locking her mind and trapping her in the Old House where no one would find her. As she lifted her hands, ready to snap the vampire into the dustpan with all the others that she had to kill over the years to keep her survival but she noticed that something was stopping her. It was as if a wall was in front of her and she could not see through it. 

It was something she had never felt. She could not bring herself to destroy him as she knew she could, with just a flick of her wrist, she could kill him. But....something was holding her back. 

Something that linked them. Something connected them and brought them together.
It was something in their blood. Something in their hearts. 

She couldn't do it. She couldn't kill him. 

In a breathy voice she asked: "What do you want from me?" 

"I.... I don't know. I am drawn to you. From the moment we met I felt that you were like me. You and I are of the same cloth. Of the same .....everything." Justin said as he stepped closer and closer. "Can't you see it?" He added reaching for her. 

"DON'T YOU DARE come any closer." Evangeline said, her voice screeching him to a halt.

"I don't want to hurt you. I don't. I just...I need to understand what I am and something tells me you can help me. I've been waiting to find someone for so long that understands what I am. And...I can feel that you're it. Tell me, am I wrong?" Justin asked, his heart beating so hard he could hear it in his ears.

This was love that came to him, that transferred from India to Evangeline. It was otherworldly. He could not understand it and could not make sense of it. And in a way this is what made him give Evangeline a fake name, the name of Leopold. Although he could tell he was falling for her and that she could be what he was looking for to save him from himself, he still lived in fear. 

She would only know him by this name. Until he could feel safe. Until he knew she would not kill him. He still needed to keep his real self hidden. Justin Patterson should have been an old man in 1990, and he was young and handsome frozen in his 1966 face. His truth was always a world of lies, even to a woman he had so suddenly fallen in love with.

Their destinies were interlinked and this was a truth neither of them could deny. 

In reality only Evangeline could understand this and there was no point to hide who he was. There was no point to pretend and live through a veil of mis-truths and lies. But it was almost like he had no choice. 

He walked up to her, the same witch that almost killed him, the same witch he kidnapped and trapped. She, in turn, stared him deep in the eyes. She was unafraid. She was unflinching. He walked over to her and saw her aura that was glowing like a raging fire. 

They were connected. Neither of them could or would deny this.

He stood in front of her. A man to a woman.

A vampire to a witch. 

Their pulses racing.

The blood overflowing with this mysterious and raging hate and passion and love and lust. Like a volcano spewing lava from the depths of the core of the earth, hot magma pouring over onto them both.

He reached over, pulled her close and kissed her on the lips. It was like an explosion so fierce neither of them knew what was happening. 

It happened so fast. Their connection. Their immense powerful meant to be connection.

The she slapped him across the face. He turned back to her and she reached for him and kissed him again.

More magma. More fire. More passion. 

Fire from a witch and vampire. None of it supernatural. All of it natural and carnal. 

****

Kimberly secretly meets with Victor on the foggy docs 

Late that night. Kimberly snuck out of the mansion and drove down to the docks. The fog covered every inch of her. She could feel the mist all over her skin. Wet and sticky. 

She caressed the stomach, full and round with the baby inside and waited as the car coming down in the distance finally made it to the docks to meet her.

It was the baby's father: Victor Reed.

He got out of this car but left the headlights on glowing over the sea below the wooden dock. The water reflected back up at them like flashes of lights from a light house or glass.

Victor smiled at  her and kissed on the lips. He could taste the salty moist air from the sea on them. She smirked and kissed him again.

"Chancellor Devlin is happy you're finally on board with the plan." Victor said as the water splashed wildly up against the docks. 

"I promised that I would complete the task and ....and Im going to do this. For our child. For the future." Kimberly said as the lighthouse from the harbor swung it's glass shine across her beautiful blue eyes.

"And have you decided on the fate of your first son?" Victor asked, his cold question searing Kimberly's heart. 

She wasn't sure how to answer. The Chancellor of The Organization of the True Hearted wanted every last Collins dead---this meant Caleb, Kimberly's son with David too. She didn't want to kill the boy. The other family members, would be easy, but the boy, her own flesh and blood she wasn't sure. She didn't know what to do. How could she kill her own?

But the brain-washing was more powerful that her own mind. Kimberly took a deep breath of sea air and nodded her head in agreement. 

"Very good. Very good." Victor coldly said as he kissed the mother of his unborn child. 

He then reached down and pulled up a briefcase from the ground and placed it on the hood of his car. He snapped the locks opened to reveal 6 vials of serum encased in foam. He then reached for Kimberly's hand and pulled her close.

"These are for you. Devlin sent these to me to use on David, Carolyn, Caleb and Elizabeth. And if any other Collins shows their vial, monstrous, devil faces at the grounds of that mansion you are to inject them with this serum as well. This will be their undoing. Do you understand the job?" Victor asked.

Kimberly, who was studying for her own medical license, knew her way around a syringe. 

"I understand." Kimberly said as she grabbed the briefcase, closed it and kissed Victor one last time.

She knew her job. She was ready to complete it. 

No Collins was safe.